Did you develop the card mechanics completely digitally or did you make physical decks and test them out that way? And have there been any discussions to make a physical card game?
Thanks for asking! We actually tried playing with "physical cards" - pieces of paper with lots of numbers on them - to try out at an early stage. It became difficult after a while as the number of cards grew, but by that time we could already test everything digitally. We've talked about a physical card game, we'll see how we'd have to do that. My colleagues are all brilliant people so I'm sure they'd design something fiercely clever - but right now we want to catch our breath and think about new (video) games. :) /Brjann
Another question: While the games and universe have evolved over the past decade, is there a philosophy I&G have held on to since the first game that helps you keep the feeling of SteamWorld? Or maybe what makes you keep deciding to make games, in different genres, take place in this universe?
Great questions! One thing we want to make sure of is that the games are consistently good, preferably great. Another thing is that we must be able to somehow place the game on the same timeline as the others. For example, SteamWorld Heist wasn't conceived as a SteamWorld game from the beginning. But it was quite practical that it starred robots since (a) it entailed a lot of shooting: you can't kill robots, just damage them (they can always be put back together again), and (b) we got to expand this strange universe. Now that we have robots in what looks like medieval times in SW Quest, it seems they can be anywhere. But it's all on the same timeline. If you look closely in all the games, there are quite a few references (both graphical and story-wise) among the games. I'm sure we'll also make non-SteamWorld games as well some day.
So excited to dig into this this weekend. I had no idea it was out this week! Such a wonderful surprise. Image & Form are quickly becoming one of my favorite indies, constantly reinventing themselves with the SteamWorld series.
Sorry to butt in without you asking for it, but you're on point - our game director Peter Johansson mentions Fate/Grand Order as an inspiration. He also talks about Baten Kaitos and Mega Man Battle Network... although none of the three are exactly #SWQuest. /Brjann, Image & Form
Sorry to butt in without you asking for it, but you're on point - our game director Peter Johansson mentions Fate/Grand Order as an inspiration. He also talks about Baten Kaitos and Mega Man Battle Network... although none of the three are exactly #SWQuest. /Brjann, Image & Form
This is good advice. Started on Legend after hearing this and it feels perfect. Difficulty can be adjusted on the fly so you will never work yourself into a corner.
You can also grind on manually respawned enemies too.
I'm in the middle of chapter 4 and absolutely loving it. The characters are all great and the music is outstanding.
I've never really been a card game fan, but this is feeling great. The combat mechanics are fantastic and I'm already having arguments with myself about which cards to keep in my deck and such, and that's really fun to manage.
Do you eventually get to expand to more than 8 per character, or is that locked down?
Can I ask a stupid question that might come off as insulting but is definitely not my intention? I hate turn-based RPGs and card battlers. They're just not for me and never have been, and I've tried dozens of times. Will I find anything to like here? I bought the game at launch as a gesture of support but I just finished Steam World Dig 2 (yesterday!) so I'm somewhat jonesing for more Image & Form.
Theres a difference between looking for a challenge (i play all my games on normal actually) and wanting to use the game's mechanics.
On normal you can literally brute force your way through the game ignoring pretty much any defensive ability, let alone items or proper deck building, and just spam attacks, it was a complaint in many of the reviews and it was quickly apparent when I started the game.
SteamWorld for I&F is about the same as Mushroom Kingdom is for Nintendo. It's just a backdrop universe where the gameplay takes place. You can play the SteamWorld games in any order.
The SteamWorld universe is a rather humorous game world with steam-driven robots. Since things are steam-driven, Dig 1&2 and Heist used water as a game resource. I've only played through chapter 1 of Quest yet, so I don't know if water/steam will be used in this game as well.
SteamWorld for I&F is about the same as Mushroom Kingdom is for Nintendo. It's just a backdrop universe where the gameplay takes place. You can play the SteamWorld games in any order.
The SteamWorld universe is a rather humorous game world with steam-driven robots. Since things are steam-driven, Dig 1&2 and Heist used water as a game resource. I've only played through chapter 1 of Quest yet, so I don't know if water/steam will be used in this game as well.
Water/steam is less important in SteamWorld Quest. We're working on an official presentation of the SteamWorld lore that helps explain why. There are other things that are "off" as well: the Quest robots know magic and such, but the ones from the other games don't. Hmmm...... ;) /Brjann
Sorry to butt in without you asking for it, but you're on point - our game director Peter Johansson mentions Fate/Grand Order as an inspiration. He also talks about Baten Kaitos and Mega Man Battle Network... although none of the three are exactly #SWQuest. /Brjann, Image & Form
Water/steam is less important in SteamWorld Quest. We're working on an official presentation of the SteamWorld lore that helps explain why. There are other things that are "off" as well: the Quest robots know magic and such, but the ones from the other games don't. Hmmm...... ;) /Brjann
Ugh, yes, so much this. Even though I mostly liked Color Splash, it could turn into pure tedium. SW Quest on the other hand feels snappy, intuitive and sufficiently deep. I'm really impressed by the combat system.
Glad to see it's reviewing well. I have only played Heist so far, but absolutely love that game. I was super excited when I learned this was going to be a rpg. The fact they make so many high quality games in different genres is damn impressive.
Glad to see it's reviewing well. I have only played Heist so far, but absolutely love that game. I was super excited when I learned this was going to be a rpg. The fact they make so many high quality games in different genres is damn impressive.
Ugh, yes, so much this. Even though I mostly liked Color Splash, it could turn into pure tedium. SW Quest on the other hand feels snappy, intuitive and sufficiently deep. I'm really impressed by the combat system.
Seriously, has all the fun customization and card limitation/strategy but none of it bogs down the battle system as all since any customization is handled beforehand and thus the battles are a snap, refreshingly fast actually as essentially the menu system for battles is all visual. A real treat.
Other card battlers could take notes from it. In fact lets go ahead and get Steamworld Mario in the works.
or just turn on speed up in the options so you dont have to press the button during battle OR during the overworld :)
couple more tid bits 6 hours in / on ch6
even hard (Legend) feels easy now, at least on anything outside of bosses. Not to beat that horse anymore but, well...yeah. Also you cant grind past chapters a lot, I'm redoing chapter 5 because I missed a chest, and at level 17 my dudes are barely getting xp, which is good!
Speaking of, you cant exit a chapter at will, so if you want to go back because you missed something, you need to do the whole chapter again which is not so good :p
This game kinda came out of nowhere for me! I'm hankering real bad for the Switch launch of Slay the Spire, so this is a welcome game to play while I wait. It also helps that I'm a big SteamWorld fan. Very excited to get into this.
huh, ch6 boss (ch7? some dont have bosses, its the
first boss returning + the dragon
) seems completely impossible on hard, welp, that's what I get for preaching hard mode on you guys lol, dat karma.
Im level 17 and previous chapters give fuck all xp to grind to a higher lvl (I replayed ch 6 to get a chest I missed and got like 10% of a level if that), Ive tried all sorts of character or deck combinations, I've crafted all the cards and bought all the available weapons too. -the whole "bosses get 2 actions per turn" is pretty bullshit (already was in previous bosses) and the lack of difficulty balance as a whole is dragging the game down a few notches for me (sorry imageform ), which is a shame because I love everything about the game otherwise. Normal seems completely undertuned and you can ignore mechanics and just brute force your way without thinking, and hard makes bosses way too hard (the normal battles seem fine).
Oh well guess ill drop it to normal, cba with this boss any more.
edit: yup, on normal it was stupid easy, barely had to even heal they couldnt even pass my barriers. This is a bummer :(
I'm not too far in to the game but overall
I'm enjoying it a pretty good amount. I'm excited to get further in the game Where I can really play with some decks.
