Mordheim - Interview @ Game Watcher

GameWatcher interviewed Rogue Factor General Manager Yves Bordeleau about the challenges, development, and success of faithfully creating Mordheim: City of the Damned. Mordheim will be launched on November 20.

GameWatcher: The game you’re making is an adaptation of the tabletop game. What led you to pick Mordheim as the basis for an adaptation from tabletop to video game?

Yves Bordeleau: Well, first of all, we were huge fans of the tabletop game. So we had a good knowledge of the actual tabletop game’s lore and rules. When we decided to move forward with the idea of creating a video game for it, we were concerned with creating a game that would translate well.

GameWatcher: What kind of steps did you make to ensure a good seamless adaptation?

Yves Bordeleau: We were aware that sometimes one to one adaptations from tabletop games to video games doesn’t translate well because of the absence of physical human interaction and dice rolls or mechanics that are just clunky on computer. When we decided to work on Mordheim, we went out of our way to spot things that would be problematic in adaptation. One instance was the pace. The tabletop game has specific rules when it comes to things like order of player actions. By those rules, you play all of your units in your warband for a turn, and then your opponent plays all of their units. On a 10 unit vs. 10 unit map, you’d be waiting forever between turns.

In order to break this up, we introduced an initiative ladder, which factors in an initiative stat value given to all of your units and your opponent’s units. The higher a unit’s initiative, the sooner that unit will have their turn. It made the game much more dynamic. It opens the opportunity for players who want to act first and fast to construct their warband with units that have high initiative, sacrificing statistics like armor that other players might favor more.

We also decided to implement a system inspired by the Warhammer Fantasy RPG from Fantasy Flight which used maneuver points and skill points. Our version is blue points and red points. Blue points are strategy points and red points are offense points. There are moves that use points from one category or a mix of both. For instance, reloading a weapon with ammo costs a few blue points and a red point where casting an offensive spell will require red points alone. This helped to add variety to the game. Outside of changes like that, we tried to remain extremely faithful to the original tabletop game with hardcore elements like permadeath and limb loss; you can literally have a leg chopped off. These were fan favorites. [...]

GameWatcher: The game you’re making is an adaptation of the tabletop game. What led you to pick Mordheim as the basis for an adaptation from tabletop to video game?

Yves Bordeleau: Well, first of all, we were huge fans of the tabletop game. So we had a good knowledge of the actual tabletop game’s lore and rules. When we decided to move forward with the idea of creating a video game for it, we were concerned with creating a game that would translate well.

GameWatcher: What kind of steps did you make to ensure a good seamless adaptation?

Yves Bordeleau: We were aware that sometimes one to one adaptations from tabletop games to video games doesn’t translate well because of the absence of physical human interaction and dice rolls or mechanics that are just clunky on computer. When we decided to work on Mordheim, we went out of our way to spot things that would be problematic in adaptation. One instance was the pace. The tabletop game has specific rules when it comes to things like order of player actions. By those rules, you play all of your units in your warband for a turn, and then your opponent plays all of their units. On a 10 unit vs. 10 unit map, you’d be waiting forever between turns.

In order to break this up, we introduced an initiative ladder, which factors in an initiative stat value given to all of your units and your opponent’s units. The higher a unit’s initiative, the sooner that unit will have their turn. It made the game much more dynamic. It opens the opportunity for players who want to act first and fast to construct their warband with units that have high initiative, sacrificing statistics like armor that other players might favor more.

We also decided to implement a system inspired by the Warhammer Fantasy RPG from Fantasy Flight which used maneuver points and skill points. Our version is blue points and red points. Blue points are strategy points and red points are offense points. There are moves that use points from one category or a mix of both. For instance, reloading a weapon with ammo costs a few blue points and a red point where casting an offensive spell will require red points alone. This helped to add variety to the game. Outside of changes like that, we tried to remain extremely faithful to the original tabletop game with hardcore elements like permadeath and limb loss; you can literally have a leg chopped off. These were fan favorites.

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