Red Heath Interview

Red Heat is a new turn-based RPG that launched on Indiegogo this week , and I had the chance to interview the developer, and ask them a few questions.

Couchpotato: Welcome to RPGWatch can you give everyone a brief introduction about yourself, and your gaming studio?

Red Heath Team: Hello, everyone.  First of all I’d like to say thank you to RPGWatch.com for possibility to describe the game that we are developing.

My name is Eduard Sidoruk, I am the head of Epic Star Graphics and also I am a game designer and an art director of our projects. I’ve been doing it for 5 years already, before that I spent 8 years making animation.

Our studio is situated in Minsk, Belarus. Till the middle of 2014 we were creating casual computer games (HOPA), in 4 years 4 games were created. But in comparison with “Red Heath” previous projects were created with a publisher. To the moment of making the fourth game the production felt like a copy paste conveyor. And of course our interest in developing of casual games went down.

Couchpotato: How did you start developing your own indie games? Was it something you always want to do?

Red Heath Team: In June, 2014 we came up to an idea of creating an indie project, and because I was the one who picked the genre J of course it became one of my favorite – turn-based tactical RPG. I really like to play games where there is a time for a player to think, variations of chess, you know.

And for the second question I would like to say: of course, every developer wants to make projects the way he sees them. Unfortunately not always there are financial possibilities. We decided to use well know methods of indie developers, and we hope that gamer’s society will support us and we won’t need to go to a publisher on this phase of development. Also I’d like to admit that we’d be ready to work with investors, with conditions of limited influence on a process of productions.

Couchpotato: What are your top five RPG games that you have played over the years?

Red Heath Team: It’s funny, but when you create games you play less games. My favorite RPGs are:

- Fallout 1,2

- Incubation (1997). This game is not a pure RPG, but it has a great combat model.

- Heroes of Might and Magic III. Mostly strategy, but with elements of RPG.

- X-com: Enemy Unknown (2012).  Though in my opinion, if the combat system would be based on points of actions, this game would be much better.

 - World of Warcraft. It is out of list of turn-based RPG, but I liked a lot the way the world of the game was made, I can not to admit it.

Couchpotato: Now lets talk about your new game called Red Heath. So what is Red Heath can you share a few details about the game?

Red Heath Team: Yes, let’s describe the project. Unfortunately, we’ve lost too much time for a pre production phase, and that’s why we don’t have at the moment a demo of the game. From the other side we worked out with details the whole concept of the game. Because of that I’ll try as clearer as it possible to describe the point of the game in words.

I won’t tell about the story, it can be read at the web site of the project and on the page of company at Indiegogo, I will describe a gameplay mechanics.

So, a player has to characters to command, each character has different skills and features. Skills are balanced the way that without a support of the squad each of the characters has a serious vulnerability. However with cooperation of the squad and wise tactical model, a player gains a chance to pass missions.

There are 60 locations to pass in a turn based mode. Each character has a definite number of action points, which a player spends on movement, attack, actions with objects etc.

During the game the squad will face 17 types of enemies, which are mutants and fighters of «Marshtower’s dogs”. Besides, the squad will fight 6 unique bosses.

Besides main properties, each character can develop individual skills in a skill tree.

Also, in the game a player can find thirty items to improve properties of characters and their weapons. And because of the limited ammunition, a player has to collect it on locations.

Couchpotato: What platforms are you targeting for release besides the PC?

Red Heath Team: We developed the game for Windows, but we’re planning to port it on Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.

Couchpotato: One interesting concept of your game is the five main characters or as your webpage says five destinies one purpose. Will each of them have ther own plot line?

Red Heath Team: According to a story characters got together to save their own life and to self humankind race. Their common purpose is to deliver antidote to the base “Red Heath”.

The squad gathers completely on the fourth location, almost in the very beginning of the game. There won’t be a special story line for every character. Though, for each character there will be individual missions. For example, only the Kid can control electronic devices, and the dron of Specialist can fix broken mechanisms.

Couchpotato: The game just launched on Indiegogo this week asking for $45,000. Was their a reason why you used Indiegogo instead of Kickstarter?

Red Heath Team: The reason is simple: Kickstarter doesn’t allow posting projects from our country. I’ll remind you, that our studio is situated in Belarus.

Couchpotato: If your campaign fails do you have a backup plan to continue development?

Red Heath Team: Of course we’re keeping this variant in our mind. In case of fail of crowdfunding campaign we expect to find an investor that doesn’t have a connection to gamedev business, whose influence on the project would be minimal. If we won’t have this variant, we will go to a publisher.

Couchpotato: Last question why should gamers be interested in Red Heath, and back your game on Indiegogo?

Red Heath Team: Because of fact that games of this genre appear not that often, we hope that gamers will support us. Anyway, we’ve done our best to make the world of “Red Heath” attractive for gamer’s society.