PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:
Hi, we're Jana and Friedrich from Rat King in Germany! We're making games independently since 2011, but haven't released something relevant for quite some time now. Which we want to change soon-ish.
TELL US ABOUT MOPS & MOBS.
Our current game project Mops & Mobs is a mix of Dungeon Crawler and Visual Novel, at least that's the plan for it. The idea mostly came from Friedrich; he wanted to make a so-called gridder for quite some time now. But the game design and the story are from both of us. As our last project became much too big for us and was therefore put on ice, we wanted to do something with a more limited scope, and after developing a few different prototypes, Mops & Mobs was the one that we liked the most.
The main idea is that the player takes the role of a janitor in a dungeon, having to talk to and take care of all the various monsters inside. And in order to make it a bit more interesting there's also a decoration mode, so players can put furniture into the dungeon themselves, which might be needed for missions sometimes. The graphics are inspired by old dungeon crawlers from the 80s and 90s, and the story has a lot of "Donjon"-vibes, a series of comics by Lewis Trondheim, which we both love.
HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN
So far the development was about creating a polished demo that we can use as a vertical slice, for pitching it to publishers and investors. We also released the demo on http://itch.io and now Steam, to get the feedback of real players.
WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?
Even though we use the Godot engine the first time for a real project, we're quite happy we did the switch from Unity, because a lightweight engine with more (or different) limitations is a boon for developers who tend to overscope.
WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?
As we're still in the progress of securing funding, the biggest hurdle is doing the next big step from the small demo level to the full game. We're developing the game's full story already of course, but we're still unsure about some aspects and the specific direction of some parts of the game design.
ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?
Do good and talk about it. If you want to make a game that people play, talk to the people and get their opinions. Of course, your own vision is always king, but how your potential players see the game should never be neglected: it could tell you new and exiciting things about your own game! Always try to learn where testers get stuck and where they're not having fun, and most importantly what they expected.
ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?
-Thanks for having us! If you, dear reader, want to have chat with us, about our game Mops & Mobs (https://ratking.itch.io/mops-and-mobs), or Godot, or game development, or games, you can find us in our Discord (https://discord.gg/3PndMV2)!
- Jana
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2851050/Mops__Mobs_A_Sweeping_Dungeon_Novel/
❤️
