PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:
Hi! My name is Sergey, I am the head of Magnum Scriptum studio. Before that I worked as a UI/UX designer for almost 15 years in different studios large and small.
TELL US ABOUT QUASIMORPH
This game was originally intended to be a classic roguelike. We looked at the DoomRL game as our main reference most of all. But in the process of iterating the gameplay, it turned out to be something very different in my opinion from both classic roguelikes and current popular approaches to the roguelite genre.
Quasimorph is a sandbox game on the scale of the Solar System, where the player takes on the role of PMC boss, they have their own ship-base, mercenaries who after death will be cloned and returned to their duties, interplanetary corporations, the world of wild anarcho-capitalism, the collective consciousness of space Marxists and endless terrible evil from a parallel dimension (which through our fault is now in our dimension and is very interested in the complete absorption of all of humanity).
HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN
At the beginning we met Alexander, our programmer and technical director of the studio. We worked with him together in the same company. He had a successful mobile project Dead Shell and plans to develop the ideas of this project under a new brand and for personal computers.
We started the development with a clear condition - to spend minimum time to release a demo version of the game to the public to test our theory.
We attracted a lot of good specialists to the team and gradually went through one stage after another. We released the prologue - Quasimorphosis: Exordium, then found a publisher and an investor in the form of Hype Train, released another demo and finally went into early access.
Now we are actively developing the game and bringing all the necessary elements to the final quality. We plan to release version 1.0 in 2025.
WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?
We had a lot of experience with Unity and chose it. Despite many problems with this tool it is still quite convenient and workable. But we are seriously thinking about changing the engine for our next projects.
WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?
Almost no matter how well you do your job (or think you do), the result of your efforts depends very much on luck and randomness. If you throw out the first five sixes on a d6 die, then you probably have a certain reputation and the right to be unlucky (but not very unlucky).
It's a very difficult feeling when your hobby turns into your full-time job. Game development has a lot of boring routine activities that you don't think about when you first start development. And now it seems that you're bored with your current game, but you don't have the right to give it up, abandon development, and go live in the forest with animals (even if you really want to). There is a responsibility to your team, your employees, your investors, and of course your users, who you don’t want to disappoint.
ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?
I don't consider games to be art (the term itself is kind of outdated, and they use it where it is appropriate and where it is inappropriate), but it is a certain product of creativity, behind which there is an author or authors, and what is most important in a game there should be some idea. You can't just wake up one morning, decide to make a platformer, scroller or 4x strategy, spend 2-5-10 years on it and be satisfied with the result. The author, as it seems to me, can be satisfied only when in such a complex way as a computer game he makes a statement, brings an idea to the player. That's why you have to strike a balance between satisfying the audience's demands and the original idea that you, as a developer, wanted to put into the game at the very beginning of your journey.
ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?
When I was a kid, I was in love with the magic of computer games and I dreamed of creating all these fantastic worlds myself. I would find and think of ways I could improve a game, change the setting, change the genre, introduce awesome characters or cool new mechanics. I was sure that when I became a developer I would make such an awesome game that I would only play it.
The truth is bitter. A developer only plays their game until it's finished :)
-Sergey
❤️
