Book Of Travels Creative Director Talks About Deliberately Making Combat And Progression Slow
Book of Travels developer Might and Delight has been teasing bits and pieces of Book of Travels months before the game launched into early access back in August. The team primarily focused on selling the “tiny” multiplayer online RPG’s unique gameplay mechanics and quest system. Three months later and it looks like not everyone is a fan of its slow paced combat and progression.
The Swedish indie developer addresses these concerns in a recent interview with GameDeveloper.com.
“We always liked the idea of the moment before combat being equally, if not more, important than the actual battle,” said Creative Director Jakob Tuchten. “Judging your opponents prowess, weighing the odds, and preparing are parts of that.”
“To be honest, we are not fully there yet. The feature needs more love and polish, but it shows promise,” he added. “The timing part is especially intriguing to us -- having various players express their character through how willing they are to play with the odds. A young adventurer might strike fast, swarming with low probability strikes, while a methodical warrior might wait until they have a 80 percent chance. That's roleplaying through combat.”
As for the slow progression, Tuchten says that it was exactly how they envisioned the game right from the start.
“We deliberately made this a ‘slow’ game loop because we want to signal that the journey and the preparation is more important than the end or usage,” he explained. “You are not granted skills upon leveling up and cannot use them with a mana pool that regenerates automatically. When it comes to engagement we are asking a lot from players in this regard. They are asked to go through many, many steps in order to get boosts like this compared to other games. We just have to stand by our vision and hope that players will see the charm in the struggle and the journey, as we do.”
He also touched on other aspects of gameplay and combat, including the risks vs rewards, how it’s better to prepare teas and other items in advance before doing any actual fighting, and the game’s unique combat interface. You can check out the short but highly-informative interview here.
"We deliberately made this a "slow" game loop because we want to signal that the journey and the preparation is more important than the end or usage."
Creative Director Jakob Tuchten talked to https://t.co/27VIC4VAl5 about combat in Book of Travels: https://t.co/iVZPrIblSC— MightAndDelight (@MightAndDelight) December 2, 2021
