PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:

Hey there, I’m Fabian Fischer, also known under my dev name Ludokultur. I’ve been working as a game designer and developer full-time since 2015, and have also had my own side projects ever since. For example I ran a small board game company to release the card game Crimson Company for a while, but recently changed my focus back to video games. The most notable result so far was the release of my billiards roguelike Rack and Slay.

TELL US ABOUT RACK AND SLAY.

Rack and Slay brings together the classic tropes of a roguelike dungeon crawler (randomly generated levels, enemies to defeat, loot to collect, builds to created) with the core gameplay of billiards, i.e. hitting balls into other balls to push them into holes and the likes. I’m always looking for unique ways to break out of the typical gameplay loops, so I didn’t want to create another grid-based tactics game, or another twin-stick shooter. On top of that I often find spatial and positional gameplay more interesting than a strong focus on stats and numbers, so basing the game around a physics-driven core just made a lot of sense.

Some concrete inspirations I’d like to mention are Auro which was indeed grid-based but revolved very much around “bumping” monsters around instead of the old “hitting them to deal damage”; then Brotato introduced the “shop - level - shop - level” loop in a very efficient way where you get to make strategic choices before the level starts and then get to test them out immediately; and finally Pocket-run Pool which was mostly a “normal” billiards game but had a fun “high stakes” mode that would for example randomly place bumpers on the table, kind of similar to the obstacles in my game.

HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN

The journey kind of consisted of two halves. During the first half the game was a pure solo project where I did everything myself and put together a prototype that already had most of the gameplay in place but the art mostly consisted of asset packs findings.

When Graeme (2 Left Thumbs) came on board to take over the publishing side of things and we brought on Victor (Estivador) as an artist, things became more serious and I started to feel that this game could appeal to quite a few players. So one of the major parts of the second half of development was integrating all the new art and animations with the existing gameplay.

WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?

In terms of engine, I got quite comfortable using Unity throughout the years, so I stuck with it for this game. Now, that was before all the big monetization model drama of course, so we’ll see what the future brings.

WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?

I don’t know if I would call them “hurdles” as much as they are just learnings. I learned so much making this game, for example about handling save files (and putting file corruption protection measures in place), proper controller support, developing for the Nintendo Switch, and maybe most importantly how to write code in ways so that you can keep your head wrapped around what the game is doing in every situation to efficiently find bugs and work on improvements months after implemented something. None of my previous solo projects had grown anywhere this large.

ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?

As much as I’m an advocate for learning about game design theory and reading a bunch of great books on the topics (such as Keith Burgun’s “Clockwork Game Design”, Richard Garfield’s “Characteristics of Games”, or Tynan Sylvester’s “Designing Games”), nothing can replace just making games yourself. I started as a “pure” game designer with only basic programming knowledge, but today I would adviseadvice anyone to just jump into an engine of your choice and getting things to happen.

It’s its own kind of magic and helps so much to have a grasp on that even when it comes to the “design-only” aspects of making games. Start by making insanely small things, projects you can get done within a couple days at most, and then start growing from there. For example just clone a super simple hyper-casual game. Write your dream game ideas down somewhere in a document, but don’t start working on them as the first thing.

ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?

- Thank you for having me! And to anyone reading this who isn’t totally into indie games yet, play more indie games. They’re where the magic happens these days! :)

- Fabian

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2311990/Rack_and_Slay/

❤️