Himeko Sutori Interview

Nathaniel Ayer: Let's see here.  The most recent one I got into was Shadowrun Dragonfall because I loved Shadowrun years ago and I had heard that it was much truer to the original than previous Shadowrun games had been.  Prior to that, Skyrim because I always loved TES' immersive settings.  And D&D 4e, played over the internet with my college buddies via kind of a play-by-email.  Now that we all have kids and live in different time zones, we found that asynchronous play was really the only way for us all to be involved.  Mount and Blade, which I picked up for something like $5 on a recommendation from a friend, and it turned out to be the best entertainment per dollar I've ever spent.  And Fallout Tactics, even though I know it's a violation of Fallout canon, I still loved customizing my individual soldiers.  And who doesn't love rolling over one's enemies in an armored car full of heavy machine guns?

Couchpotato:  Now lets talk about Himeko Sutori can you share more details about the setting? 

Nathaniel Ayer: Sure!  Actually, the plot and setting are a kind of fantasization (which as I define it, is like fictionalization, but instead of changing truth to fiction, you change it to a medieval setting with wizards in it) of the things I've experienced working in the DC area.  It has been very cathartic for me to write out all of my frustrations with the dysfunction, backstabbing, and turf wars I've witnessed here.  It's also somehow therapeutic to write out my own doubts and attribute them to someone else.  The story revolves around three young women with very different personalities who are suddenly torn from their idyllic and peaceful lives, pushed into a war they had no hand in starting.  They'll form a new side in a civil war, amid shifting alliances, as they fight perhaps for justice or revenge, maybe fighting for brighter future or maybe for what they know is a vain struggle to replace what was lost.  But the main campaign is only my story, and I hope that Himeko Sutori will be the page on which many other people will write their own stories.

          

Couchpotato:  How did you create the game, and did any other game inspire you in the beginning?

In most tactical or 4X games you have more or less evenly matched units on both sides.  This gives you a sense of fairness about the game, and you think that you're winning because of your superior strategy and not because of built-in unit imbalances.  There's fun to be had in winning through strategy, and in knowing that your units are mortal, and you're going to miss them if they don't survive.

But in most role-playing games you don't have evenly matched units.  You have PCs who deal tons of damage and have low hit points fighting against huge monsters who have tons of HP but do relatively little damage.  In those games your characters are mostly immortal.  And in those games you find joy in raising your little avatars from level 1 and watching them grow up to one day defeat Jenova or whomever.

I want my players to feel sincere loss when their characters die.  I want them to get used to seeing a certain tank standing in front of a certain caster, and feeling a little pang when they're not together anymore.  That's going to be tough to do with a large army, especially if every battle forces a large turnover in your ranks.  So in Himeko Sutori, I want the army to grow slowly, and the battles to not be too deadly, so that you have enough time to become acquainted with the characters, so that it's all the more gut-wrenching when I eventually do kill them.

And yes, maybe I did spend too much time with a Song of Ice and Fire. But I actually do want a sense of loss and doubt to be an essential part of even the player's most certain victories in Himeko Sutori.

              

Nathaniel Ayer: The exploration mode is going to be immediately familiar to anyone who has played console role-playing games in the last 20 years, or who has gotten into the rash of RPG Maker games more recently.  In exploration mode, you lead just the main character through various settings, where you can interact with people and the world, talking, snooping, buying and selling equipment, and moving the story along.  At certain points in the game, the setting will change to the battle grid you've seen in the videos.  There you will control your whole army, giving orders at the squad level to move, attack, launch a ranged attack, or to hold position (and heal up or get a defensive bonus).  In the simplest battle type, you'll be fighting to defeat all of the enemy squads, but there will be other goals as well.

Nathaniel Ayer: Because this is a game that someone needs to make, and nobody else is making it.  Your readers have heard too many times the tired Kickstarter pitch "they don't make games like this anymore," when the creator just intends to make an RPG Maker game.  Himeko Sutori is a lot more than just a game that "they don't make" anymore and it's certainly a lot more than a color-by-numbers RPG.  Himeko Sutori takes elements from beloved games, and makes something new, using modern technology.  And the finished game is going to hit that sweet spot that no one has quite found yet--that place where you find a game of both epic-scale battles and intimate character development.

Nathaniel Ayer: Frankly no, it won't fund full-time development through release.  The Kickstarter is to get me over that initial hurdle of getting the several professional software licenses I'll need, and the rest I'm going to split between buying more assets and feeding my family while I take unpaid leave to work on the game for as long as the money lasts, or for as long as I can be out of the office and still be welcomed back.  I've put in countless hours of unpaid labor on Himeko Sutori so far, and I'm willing to put in a lot more to see the project to completion.  But more money allows me to get more assets, and gives me the chance to produce a fuller game faster.

Nathaniel Ayer: I've been focusing primarily reaching the funding goal for now.  But yes, I have lots of ideas for stretch goals.  I would love to have a professional map made of the world of Himeko Sutori.  I've also spoken with some composers and I would love to have a new soundtrack for the game.  And also, I could keep drawing all of the sprites myself, but if I had all the funds I could want, then I would get someone else to produce volumes of interesting sprite characters to put in the game while I focus on coding.

Nathaniel Ayer: If Himeko Sutori doesn't get funded this time, then I'm going to try again, probably in a year.  I calculated that I can work on Himeko Sutori for about an hour a day every day (and in my schedule, that means sleep, wake, commute, work, commute, dinner, bedtime stories, work on Himeko Sutori, sleep) so it would probably take me a year to get to where potential backers could see a lot more clearly what Himeko Sutori can be.

              

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You can help fund the game , and vote for it on Steam with the following links.

Kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1682757416/himeko-sutori

Steam Greenlight -  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil…/?id=385717966