Vortex Gaming

After the Commandos series, the real-time stealth strategy game genre was almost cut off, but a German developer with the unfamiliar name Mimimi Games continued the lineage. Starting with 'Shadow Tactics' in 2016 and 'Desperados 3', both games showed excellent completion as stealth strategy games, recording overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam.

Mimimi Games' stealth strategy games retain the fun of stealth, which can be said to be the core of the genre, while enhancing convenience to make it easier and more fun to approach. The genre itself is very maniacal and has a high barrier to entry, but they improved this to allow even those who are new to this genre to quickly become familiar with it.

Mimimi Games, which has successfully released two works, now wants to move on to the next step. That is to create their own games with self-publishing and original IP. 'Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew', which is scheduled to be released this year, is the main character.

What does Mimimi Games want to show through this work, which deals with the fight between cursed pirate ships and religious inquisitors? We took the time to talk with Moritz Wagner, Design Lead at Mimimi Games, gathering questions about the new game, such as the reason for planning self-publishing and the reason for choosing a fantasy world instead of history as the original IP.

Mimimi Games challenges itself to self-service and original IP development

Q. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is meaningful as Mimimi Games' first self-service game and original IP game. What was the reason for showing a different move from before?

= After finishing the development of Desperados 3, we decided to self-publish our next game. We felt a strong desire to make our own choices (and mistakes) for once.

So we decided to forge our own path with the next game. It was a very big and difficult decision, but it was a decision made together by the entire team and a decision that opened up new opportunities as a studio.

For this, we wanted to create a completely fresh and original IP. We were very excited about the possibility of experimenting with completely new settings, characters, etc. Working with a new IP not only gives us more freedom than ever before when deciding on game design, story, and settings, but it also means that the new IP is ours to explore more in the future.

Q. What has changed since switching to self-service?

= A lot has changed. We have complete control over all creative aspects as well as the business side of game development and publishing. We can choose how to allocate resources and assets and decide for ourselves what stories we want to tell about the game.

In short, these changes have allowed us to create a game that is 100% made by Mimimi Games. At the same time, we have faced new challenges and many new tasks that we have never done before.

Self-publishing on the one hand means more freedom in every way, but on the other hand, it means that we have to invest much more time in communication, finance/budget, etc. than before.

It's a really exciting adventure for us. We are really happy and grateful to be starting with friends, fans and the community that believes in and supports us!

Q. I'm curious if there are any movies or games that you referred to while developing the game.

= It's really hard to say because the art and design team is much bigger now than when we developed the previous game, and of course, every employee has been influenced by each other. For example, Creative Director Dominik Abe loves and is inspired by the game 'The Secret of Monkey Island', and lead writer Martin 'Hambo' Hamburger is usually a huge fan of pirates. The game 'Sea of Thieves' and the movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean' also inspired us, of course.

Q. What was the best thing about making this work and what content are you looking forward to?

= We really enjoyed the process of creating the characters. The characters have very interesting skills, and when you start combining them, true 'magic' happens.

For example, Teresa (marksman) has to retrieve the arrow after firing it. But instead of walking with Teresa and picking up the arrow, you can use Quentin's (treasure hunter) fishing rod to retrieve the arrow from a distance.

There are so many cool things to experiment with between the characters, and players will slowly learn the possible combinations and add them to their toolkit. I'm very excited to see how people discover these combinations, find their favorite character among the characters, and do cool things with that character.

Open the chapter of fantasy stealth strategy game 'Shadow Gambit'

Q. Mimimi Games has made both works based on the real world in history. I'm curious about the planning intention of making a game with fantasy, especially a ghost ship, as the background in the third work.

= First, the fantasy world is a great way that has never been tried before in the stealth strategy genre.

Second, we liked the pirate atmosphere because it fit well with our studio's style when looking at the player's freedom and the game's open game structure, as well as the cornerstone of the narrative. The setting of a fantastic pirate allows us to create a light and fun atmosphere while at the same time creating a serious atmosphere with deep characters.

Finally, thanks to the fantasy world with magic, we have more freedom to design meaningful and quirky new mechanics and skills for characters and the world, or to change existing mechanics. Cursed pirates with magical abilities perfectly matched our vision.

The talking ghost ship Red Marley, which serves as a hub between the player's missions, plays a very important role in the overall vision of the game in Shadow Gambit. On Red Marley, you can hang out with the crew, get to know each other better, and plan your next adventure.

Also, thanks to the game's fantasy setting, we were able to insert the classic mechanism of this genre, the 'quick save/quick load' mechanism, into the world and narration of Shadow Gambit. Red Marley gives you the power to manipulate time.

You can pause time to consider strategic choices, queue the actions of multiple characters, or capture the memory of every passing moment and return immediately if things go wrong. With this feature, characters may react to the player. And most importantly, Red Marley's power plays a big role in the main plot and overall narration.

Q. It was really cool that you use unrealistic abilities like cursed pirates. What criteria did you use to design the characters' abilities?

= For the characters, I wanted to have supernatural abilities from the beginning. Knowing that I could use magic and experiment with anything I wanted without having to think, 'Is this possible in the real world?', I started thinking a little crazier.

Many of the things we came up with are related to the movement and repositioning of characters. Most of the new 'powers' that characters have came from here. It was a somewhat unexplored area in previous games, but we worked hard on this area and created a lot of cool abilities around it.

Also, we researched how to give a fresh feel by changing 'classic' skills. There are still blinds and stones/coins, and whistles. But if we felt it was good and had potential, we tried to give it a cooler feel and strengthen it.

For example, Apia's Time Freeze. It's similar to a blind. But it can be very powerful by making the guards unable to hear anymore. So it was just about finding cool and flashy abilities that were fun and had gameplay value, and then building the character around them.

It was a very difficult process, but it was really fun, and as a result, the characters came out great and I think it's one of the biggest strengths of this game.

Whenever I hear play testers or people in the studio talk about characters, their favorite characters vary greatly. Whenever you play a character that you didn't like for some reason, you'll discover cool things you can do with that character and you'll come to like that character over time.

Q. I feel that the utilization of abilities has improved a lot compared to the previous work. So it's fun, but at the same time, I felt that it was easier than the previous work. I'm curious about how you tried to balance the overall difficulty.

= It depends on what difficulty you play on. This time, we focused more on increasing the accessibility of the game for new players than in previous games. We created four difficulty levels depending on the player type and experience with the genre.

Because the game structure is more open and offers much more freedom than previous games, players can define their play style with their own unique solutions and forge their own path through the game.

Thanks to the non-linear approach to missions in hand-crafted sandbox-like locations, we found a way to make it more accessible without losing the depth and complexity of the missions. So veteran players are free to challenge themselves to complete missions perfectly, and beginners can immerse themselves in the game more fun than in previous titles.

In general, the stealth strategy genre is always challenging, and our game is no exception. Of course, players can switch to a more difficult difficulty or go back to an easier difficulty at any time.

Balancing (especially 8 characters that can be freely selected for each mission) is one of the most difficult tasks in game development. Over time, we were able to get a sense of which skills and combinations worked and which didn't. But in the end, the principle was to repeat trial and error until we were satisfied with the results.

Q. Mimimi Games has always presented more advanced systems based on previous works. What new system will be introduced in this work?

= Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew gives players more freedom than ever before. The game features more non-linear game progression and an open game structure. Red Marley, a talking ghost ship, serves as a hub between missions, where you can plan your next adventure or hang out with your crew.

You are free to choose which missions to perform and which island to discover before heading to the next island. Each island is a unique sandbox made by hand, so you can choose various entrance and exit points before going ashore. You are also free to choose which of the cursed sailors to join before starting each mission.

Q. How many hours do you think the total play time of Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew will take?

= You can explore a total of 10 different sized locations/islands. It may take 25 hours or more to complete all story-related missions in the game. It will take much longer to do everything, including badges, additional challenges, and character side quests. It's generally hard to say because it depends on how experienced the player is in our genre.

Q. If you are planning to release DLC for this work, I'm curious about what theme you are planning to present.

= Currently, we are dedicated to finishing Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. Our main goal is to release the most ambitious stealth strategy game we have ever prepared, while at the same time ensuring that players have a smooth and sophisticated experience from day one.

Q. It seems that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find new stealth strategy games due to the high development difficulty and the high entry difficulty of game play. As a pioneer in this genre, what do you think about this?

= With Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, we have created a stealth strategy version that is easily accessible to new players while providing a challenging experience for veteran players.

This was one of our main goals, and we put a lot of effort into the design aspect to lower the barrier to entry so that people can "find fun" faster in these types of games.

For example, we made various efforts such as adjusting the length of the view cone and setting the difficulty so that even beginners can easily start. It was one of the "great" discoveries I made during the development process. The fact that even if you make some parts of the game easier, it's still fun.

So I became confident that I could make it easier for new players to enjoy the game compared to the previous game. But I want to say one important thing. Even if you set it to a higher difficulty, it's still the challenging type of game that veteran players expect. Of course, I'll have to wait and see what happens in the future.

Q. Finally, please say a word to Mimimi Games' Korean fans.

= Hello, Korean gamers. We sincerely appreciate your support and feedback, and we hope that this work will meet your expectations. We have worked hard to create a game that is as complex and fun as you would expect from a Mimimi title. We look forward to seeing what results you will create as you combine characters and experience the game's story and locations!

웹진 인벤정수형 기자
2023-06-12