Serpent in the Staglands New Q&A

I had another chance to talk with Joe & Hannah from Whalenought Studios who were gracious enough to answer a few more of my questions this month.

Couchpotato: Welcome back to RPGWatch I believe it has almost a year since we last talked. So how have you been since our last interview?

Joe & Hannah: I believe the last time we interviewed we were just starting the Kickstarter! We hit the ground running since after that, and it’s gone by quite quickly for the two of us. Happy to be emerging from the rock we’ve been under since development began full time and to be finally be releasing soon.

Couchpotato: So lets get right to the the point and let me ask how is development of Serpent in the Staglands coming along?

Joe & Hannah: Terrific! We're finishing a few things up and working on some balancing, as well as adding in fun extras like more portraits and head customization for characters. We have the beginning and ending FMVs yet to shoot, with the addition of some voice talent which we’re thrilled to have. We're really proud of how it's come together and what we were able to accomplish in a year.

Couchpotato:  Has their been any delays of major changes made to the game since last year?

Joe & Hannah: We've closely stuck to the systems and story that we mapped out before the Kickstarter, but there have been minor improvements to the infrastructure and UI, as well as some augmentations to the art style. With the extra money we got from the Kickstarter we were able to extend the release date a few months to add polish and refine systems.

Couchpotato: Judging by the riddle of you're preview video, and thanks to one of our members for solving it your game should be nearing release in May? Is that correct?

Joe & Hannah: That's correct, it didn't take long for our backers to decode the puzzle! Good prep work for the critical thinking required for the game. We'll have an official release date announcement (not in code) in our next Kickstarter update.

Couchpotato:  The game has been available in a Beta version for certain backers for awhile now. Has their feedback been good, or negative?

Joe & Hannah: The feedback overall has been positive, with good constructive suggestions and criticisms, especially in regards to making interfaces more intuitive and catching some tricky bugs.

Couchpotato: In the video interviews with Matt Chat you talked about puzzles being a large part of your game. Are you worried some gamers might find them to hard? 

Joe & Hannah: he more mechanical puzzles are fairly challenging and require some critical thinking. They are meant to be very practical in the world, and a player has to dissect and solve them through notes and other clues. It's handy to bring a notebook for some of them, and the game's manual is definitely part of the game, rather than a supplement. We've set up some of the monsters to be a puzzle of sorts, requiring certain tactics, items or spells being able to damage them. How do you kill a wolf made of mist? These are the challenges we like and wanted to make, and we think it's more rewarding to solve a challenging puzzle than one spelled out for you.

So, yes, we think players used to a more modern experience will get thrown right into a deep learning curve, but it's all presented in a very familiar format. 

Along these lines, we think the biggest challenge for those used to modern games will be rewiring expectations. Games have become extremely accessible to appeal to a broader audience, especially RPGs. You're usually quest-hopping, knowing exactly where to go, and "story driven" games are usually sitting you down to heavy handed exposition to move things along. They are becoming more like television in how easy they are to digest. Our RPG design is a gameplay-driven story. When there's no quest log or cutscenes guiding you and telling you what's important. You have a journal, talk to people, make connections, and collect clues and notes in your inventory to piece together the story as you're exploring. 

Serpent in the Staglands is a game that players definitely have to 'win' to complete and critically think to piece together the story, not just play through. 

Couchpotato:  Recently we hear talk about how kickstarter has started another Golden age for RPGs, Do you agree with them, and whats your opinion?

Joe & Hannah: Indeed, it's been an excellent time for CRPGs with the help of Kickstarter, and we hope more challenging and experimental table-top inspired games that don't need to target a mainstream audience will be possible.

In the early 90s, the original Golden Age, games were unapologetically tough as nails and rewarding to complete. The industry has been driven to create mass-market appealing games with so much accessibility that they lose the fun of discovery. When RPGs were first adapting PnP into a digital experience, experimental systems, inbalances, and riskier designs defined the genre.

With Kickstarter there's definitely the opportunity to revive those aspects of the genre, which we're starting to see in many games released in the last few years, and has been really refreshing.

Couchpotato: One question I'm always curious in asking is what about you learned from using crowd funding to fund you game? So go ahead and share anything you can.

We're finishing up on our handmade leather journals and realized half of them will be going international. 

Most of our systems and art were in an alpha stage when we set up the Kickstarter, and if we were to do another campaign, we would definitely have these farther along and more marketable. Having a successful Kickstarter game is largely due to quality of visuals and a polished, professional trailer. Even a few months after the Kickstarter our game looked and felt so much better that it seemed like a missed opportunity to not just wait a little longer and present a flashier product. There's been so much rapid art polish even in the last few months that it makes google image searches for the game increasingly misleading.

That said, we had an amazing amount of support for what we pitched, and having an excited community on board with us for the last year, with all their suggestions and ideas, has definitely improved the game.

Couchpotato:  Do you have any plans for more RPG games after Serpent in the Staglands, and will you be using crowd-funding again?

Joe & Hannah: We do! After the free expansion which finishes the story, we'll be continuing to refine and polish the infrastructure we've created, as well as adapting it to utilize an interesting combat system that we don't see a lot of, one that we think will bring something new to party-based tactical combat. There'll be a very different setting and we’re excited to talk about that more later this year. We certainly intend on continuing modules in the Vol campaign (where Serpent in the Staglands takes place) as well, as we have books worth of notes of ideas and lore to explore. 

Couchpotato: Thank you for your time Joe and Hannah, and I wish you success on the release of your game. Do you have anything you would like to add before we finish?

Joe & Hannah: Thanks for being an awesome community that discusses CRPGs!