Serpent in the Staglands Interview

RPGWatch has published a new, short interview with the developers of Whalenought Studios in which they check the progress on their title Serpents in the Staglands and ask them a few questions on the game’s design and Kickstarter campaign. A couple of excerpts:

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.

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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.