Vestiges: Fallen Tribes’ pre-alpha build is available on Steam. Creative Director and Game Designer, Pierre Heinisch, talks about his inspirations, climate change and what the Studio would love to see in the game.
Can you tell the players a little bit about yourself?
My name is Pierre Heinisch and I’ve been working in the video games industry for about 6 years now. I was first a level artist at WanadevStudio, I worked on our rhythm game Ragnarock and the horror series Propagation. It’s only been recently that I became Creative Director. I had ideas that I wanted to pitch to the team and one of them was what became Vestiges. It’s been a very good experience so far in the industry and I’m very excited for what’s to come.
If you had to pitch Vestiges: Fallen Tribes in a few words what would you say?
Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is a collectible card game mixed with an autobattler in a tribal science fiction universe. As water disappears from the surface of the Earth, people fight for their survival. Each player creates a deck affiliated with a faction from their card collection. Turn by turn they can play their cards, put their units on the battlefield and analyze what the other player does to be the last one standing. It’s a card game with action and great replayability !
This is a pretty dystopian future that you are painting in Vestiges. How are ecology and environmental issues impacting the making of the game?
Ecology arrived quite early in the design of the game. Climate change is a reality we cannot escape, Vestiges is just a hyperbole of our situation. We thought about what could possibly happen in the near future. We’re already living in a world where water is becoming scarce and people are fighting over it. We then pushed it to the extreme and created this dynamic where populations and tribes have to fight for what’s left of that resource in order to survive. Although we are a small Studio and we’re not pretending we can change the world, I think it is important to raise awareness about those global issues. If our game can help talking about those issues a bit more then it’s a first step we are willing to take!
How did you come up with the idea of Vestiges: Fallen Tribes?
I’ve been thinking about making a strategy game for a while because I’ve always been a very big fan of card games such as Magic and Hearthstone. The Studio is known for its VR games, but we want to diversify ourselves and offer a PC game compatible with VR. This is how using figurines and mixing the card game with an autobattler came up. Being able to move around the battlefield and be close to your figurines after you’ve played them was an exciting idea.
Why choose figurines to personify the cards?
When creating a VR game, we have to think about elements that would make the immersive experience even more interesting and figurines are one of those elements. I used to have Warhammer miniatures when I was a kid and always loved spending time collecting and painting them. I think players will enjoy collecting (and perhaps customizing in the future) the cards in the same way. Building their own decks and showcase the figurines on the battlefield will definitely create a sense of pride to the players.
The Studio has never done this type of game before, what would be the biggest challenge according to you?
I think the biggest challenge is to get your game the audience it deserves. It’s always a risk for a small video games studio to develop multiplayer games. Your game exclusively depends on the number of players and we definitely want to create a community of passionate players. “Strategy” is a difficult genre to master. There are serious competitors, but I think it will be much fun to play for VR and non VR players.
Once you choose your artistic direction and the main gameplay elements, how do you get to a public build?
I took the first prototype that was made out of fake cards and from which the map was just a giant chessboard, then adapted it to our theme. We had to create the first two factions, determine their strengths and weaknesses and 5 main units that would compose those decks. The two factions needed to have very different gameplay styles in order for the game to be enjoyable to play. After all the models were integrated into the game, we did lots of testing to balance everything. And we finally got the first phase ready!
You have both Creative Director and Game Designer roles in this project. Does that mean that you control all aspects of the game?
Although we are a small team, we still are 10 people working together on this project. I share my vision to the production and communication teams, and I help in the developing part but most of the time decisions are made together. It is my idea, yes, but it’s a team effort!
Is it complicated to develop the VR version of the game?
It is not that difficult because we’ve been doing it for a while. But it’s the first time we are developing both VR and non VR versions at the same time. It is a lot of work. VR requires you to focus on specific parts of the game itself such as the user interface, the players hands or the environment. The gameplay mechanics are mostly the same. What changes is the way the player interacts with the game. It’s almost like working on 2 different games at the same time.
What is included in this first build and what is expected from the players?
The players have access to a tutorial to learn about the game mechanics, a practice mode, and the random match making! They have the opportunity to enjoy the whole gameplay experience but limited to just 2 pre-built decks of cards for now. We want the players to have a taste of what Vestiges: Fallen Tribes will look like and how much fun it is going to be. We are looking forward to hearing back from you guys. The Studio wants to know what you like and don’t like and what you would like to see in the game.
What other feature could possibly be added to the game in the future?
Deck Building is the biggest feature we will add to the game soon. It implies that we have enough content to offer so the decks are worth being “built”. Adding action cards (spell, action, buff…) will also diversify the gameplay and offer more strategic decisions. Being able to win skins for our units and customize them is something that we’re thinking about. We largely focused on balancing and calibrating the game as a PvP but we would love to make it 2v2.
Don’t hesitate to wishlist the game, give us your feedback, and chat with the team on discord!
Thanks for reading this first Crealog, read more news from Vestiges here!
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