Interviews

Interviews

Index: 2018, 2018, 2019, 2019, 2019, 2020 Translated Čeština ve videohrách Interview on January 18, 2018 [source] Interview with Attu Games We managed to reach the creators from the Znojmo studio Attu Games, working on an interesting indie game called Feudal Alloy, which will be placed alongside Czech localized games on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch consoles. So let's get to it. Are you a two-person studio? Do you have any external collaborators, or do you do everything yourself? When did the idea that you wanted to make games come to your mind? Answer: We have an external musician who has been working with us since the previous game. Otherwise, we do everything else ourselves. Sometimes it's quite challenging, but we're managing it so far. We've both been playing games since we were little, and the idea of ​​trying to make our own came about 5 years ago. At first glance, it seemed quite simple. However, the reality is, as it often happens, completely different. Even though Feudal Alloy is a small game, there's a lot of work behind it. In whose head did the idea for the game come from? After all, it is not usual for a player to play as a robot controlled by a live fish in his head. Answer: The idea came from Lukáš' head when he was drawing just for fun. Now he can't say what exactly led him to it, but we liked it. I think it is something that can set us apart from other games. After all, more and more of them are coming out, and it is difficult to interest players. The game has a unique system of conversation bubbles. Where did the idea for this conversation scheme come from? If necessary, can you elaborate on this system a little? Answer: I admit that we don't really like a lot of dialogue in games, and we often skip them. Conversation bubbles will replace the text in all conversations in the game. Technically, it is much more challenging to make a system of animated bubbles, but I hope that players will enjoy it. Will Feudal Alloy have Czech localization in the form of subtitles or even dubbing? For which consoles will Czech localization (subtitles/dubbing) be available? Answer: We are planning English dubbing with Czech subtitles for cutscenes. We want to do it this way for all platforms. There will be no dubbing anywhere else. What led you to the Czech localization? After all, this is your second game, and novice developers focus more on foreign markets. Moreover, we constantly hear that the Czech market is small and Czech localization is not worth it, especially for console platforms. Answer: As already mentioned, the dialogues will be done using animated bubbles. The text is only in the menu, inventory, in the description of achievements, etc. Therefore, we have no problem translating the game ourselves. We counted on Czech from the beginning. We are currently working on a demo version (you can find a link to register for future demo downloads at the end of the article), where Czech is not yet available, because we want to write and translate all the texts at once. But I believe that simple English will not be a problem for the players of the demo. Moreover, I was pleasantly surprised that we received offers from volunteers to localize into other languages. I am really grateful that they are helping us. The game will have a rich skill system, inventory, and other elements from RPG games. So should we expect a classic RPG game, or will the game be more of an adventure game with RPG elements, as is more common today? Answer: Feudal Alloy will be a classic RPG game. The player will be able to upgrade their sword and equipment. This upgrade will affect not only their appearance but also their abilities. RPG mechanics are one of the main reasons why we are making a demo version. I hope that players will help us with their tuning. This is one of the many things that players can do better than developers. 🙂 You can find the registration for the closed demo at the end of this interview. The game is scheduled to be released in the third quarter of this year. Will it be available only in digital distribution, or are you also planning a physical version? For which platforms? Answer: For now, I can only confirm a digital version. We would also like a boxed version for consoles, but for such a small team as us, it is very expensive. Anyway, we will try and hope that it will work out. Thank you for the interview, and we wish you success with your interesting game! For the FB page Čeština in video games, the following people asked: Václav Vymětalík and Gabriel Nowe For Attu Games, the following people answered: Eva Balíková

Interview: Feudal Alloy’s Eva Navratilova on May 23, 2018 [source] Erik Meyer from indiegraze.com For lovers of quirky animation with an organic feel, look no further than Feudal Alloy, a sidescrolling metroidvania RPG that sports a fish as the protagonist. But a fish piloting a suit of robotic armor. With a medieval landscape in a curiously low-tech setting (if you ignore the lasers, rotating knives, bombs, etc). Also, note that conversations happen by way of animated speech bubbles. As such, I chatted up dev Eva Balikova, noting the unique art elements of the game’s huge, interconnected world. Erik Meyer: Feudal Alloy drops players into the role of Attu in a world populated by fish-controlled medieval robots, and I’m curious about this combination of elements; how did you arrive at this quirky combination of low tech meets high tech, and how did the fish come into play? In following, why does it make perfect aesthetic sense? Eva Balikova: I’m not sure of it, entirely. After we finished our first game, my partner Lukas was just sketching some characters and we really liked this one with a robot controlled by a fish in its head. We had our fish-robot characters and we thought: what environment we could put them in? We wanted something uncommon, so we came up with this crazy medieval world. I hope it makes Feudal Alloy stand out a bit. EM: The animation style, the menus, and the different equippable options remind me of old cartoons, retaining playful visual jokes (skill trees are actual trees) while communicating key information, so when it comes to the visual elements, what design philosophies do you maintain, and from a developer vantage point, what unifies the artwork? EV: Yes, we’ve always liked the style of old cartoons and children’s comic books, and for no good reason, there aren’t many games in that style, because people seem to like it. And actually, we don’t really maintain any design philosophy or art style. We are beginners and are learning everything by creating this game. We’re just trying to make what we like. EM: I enjoy the animated dialogues and the concept therein; when it comes down to visual simplicity, what ideas do you find easiest to convey in pictures, and what concepts do you find irksome? As you’ve implemented this aspect of the game, what hurdles have presented themselves? EV: The reason why we use the animated bubbles is simple. We don’t like a huge amount of text in the game (except the item attributes and descriptions, of course), and there are not many games that have this kind of animated bubbles out there. We thought it would be easier, as we wouldn’t have to translate all the dialogue text, but it turned out the animations are way more difficult to make. I don’t think there are easier ideas to convey in pictures – they are all complicated. 🙂 EM: The meshing of time period technologies fascinates me, in terms of what works and what doesn’t, and it seems like there’s something very raw and simple in medieval/feudal methods of war/farming/life that carries over into the steampunk-esque robot style you’re using (exposed gears, tubes, switches, pulleys, etc). Similarly, the renaissance might correlate to ornate clocks, micro-circuitry, and digital displays. As you choose what to include/leave out and implement everything from house designs to buzzsaw arms, what guides you? EV: Feudal Alloy is set in an odd world in the far future where the fish built mechanical bodies from the relics of lost civilizations. It means there’s a lot of human technology (teleporters, electric power), but they had to build a lot of things from scratch. I like steampunk; the combination of wood and metal looks great to me. So we try to connect the medieval style with new technology. And to be honest, we didn’t think about it very much. We’re just adding stuff we like and that we think would fit the theme best. 🙂 EM: Your devlog illustrates the wide variety of things you’re adding to the project, including fast travel (the animation is beautiful), bombs that freeze enemies, combat options like parry, and a variety of foes, so as you weigh different features (which take a fair amount of time, no doubt), what criteria helps you decide what to add and what to leave out? And as a studio, what does this decision-making process look like? EV: Well, we wanted Feudal Alloy to be a much smaller game, to be honest, but we kept adding cool new mechanics as the project went. At first, we try to prototype something we think will be great, play it for a while, tweak it, and if it’s good, hand it off to some players to try. We posted on Reddit and asked for feedback. People responded, sharing how they enjoyed playing the game, along with some interesting notes. Now we’re glad we did that. I would recommended Reddit for everyone who needs help with his/her project. But we can’t add everything we want, of course. Many features take too much time to implement, and we want to release the game in Q3. As we are just two people, me and my boyfriend, it’s not difficult to make decisions. Mostly, we like the same kinds of things. EM: You’ve shown some behind-the-scenes of level design, so from a player interactions and flow of information perspective, how do you approach level design? What makes for solid replay value, and what makes things hard (but not too hard)? You have a wide variety of elements (platforms to jump across, ladders to climb, ground enemies, flying enemies, loot, etc), so as developers, when do things feel *right*? EV: We love games like Hollow Knight, Ori and The Blind Forest, Salt and Sanctuary, and Guacamelee, so we are trying to achieve a similar feel to those titles. As we are new to game development, we are just looking for stuff we like in similar games and trying to use and adjust those ideas for our project. We don’t have enough experience yet, so we’re sticking with classic structures from metroidvania games, in term of level design. Nothing fancy. EM: Prior work includes Toby: The Secret Mine, which has a very different visual look and play feel, aside from being a sidescroller, so what carries over from past projects and into your current work? What techniques, code elements, or style choices do you find sticking around? EV: Toby was our first game, and we knew literally nothing about game development and marketing. When we started working on it, we didn’t have anything prepared, and that was a problem. The game looks quite good but has really horrible design and execution aspects. We wanted our next game to be better implemented and more complex. EM: As you add polish, what kinds of careful design details (backgrounds, customization options, Easter eggs, play style variety, for example) do you feel have the biggest impact on making lasting impressions with players and give games the kind of depth that moves the needle from good game to great game? EV: Not sure, to be honest. We are still learning by trying. I think the biggest impact involves whether the game is “fun” or not. Standout art can bring attention, but if the core game elements aren’t fun, nobody will like playing it. I hope our little game will be entertaining. We’ve been having fun creating it.🙂

Translated Zing.cz interview on February 2, 2019 [source] Interview about Feudal Alloy and the future of the two-person Czech studio Lukáš Navrátil and Eva Balíková answered the game's sales, future plans, and other questions. Last week, I met with the creators of the metroidvania Feudal Alloy in a cozy Prague cafe to interview them about the success or failure of their game and to ask about the future direction of the game and also about the future of this two-person Znojmo studio, which consists of Lukáš Navrátil and his girlfriend Eva Balíková. That day, Lukáš and Eva were signing art books in the Xzone edition of their game, which we rated 8/10 on Zing. Feudal Alloy was released on January 17, 2019, on PC and Nintendo Switch. Versions for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will follow later. Now for the interview: Feudal Alloy is shortly after its release on PC and Switch. Has it managed to pay for development, and what is the share of platforms, if any? Lukáš Navrátil: “The development has not paid off yet; it is still early days. Currently, less has been sold than we expected, but it looks like it will be enough for the next project, which we will focus on for three to four years. Fortunately, we have minimal costs; we created Feudal Alloy in three years from home. But it depends on how the game does during the year. On Steam, everything is sold mainly at discounts, basically only at discounts. The first week of sales looks pretty good; it is worse than we expected, but it could be enough for us if the game sells well at discounts. What is worse is that we got a pretty bad review on Steam, so we don’t know what it will do to further sales. It looks like players expected more from the game than Feudal Alloy offers. That is why we have around 60 percent on Steam, so the review is mixed. That is not exactly ideal. The sales of our game on PC and Switch are very similar. It is roughly half and half; Switch is slightly better.” What did you do well with the game, and what would you do better in hindsight? “I think the graphics of Feudal Alloy are pretty nice. I didn’t do it, so I can admit that objectively. I was pleasantly surprised that we managed to promote it quite well abroad. We can be proud of that. And what didn’t we do well? Everything else (laughs). I’m sorry that we have almost no story in the game; we didn’t have time to do it. And generally, such beginner’s mistakes,” revealed Eva Balíková, who mainly takes care of PR at Attu Games. Lukáš Navrátil added to my question: “We wanted more things, some dialogues, NPCs, and stuff, but we didn’t have time for that. We had to cut a lot of things. We came up with a lot of crap, and we didn’t have a chance to do it. We were inexperienced, and we didn’t have an estimate of how much time it would take because we had never done it, and when we found out that we didn’t have a chance, we had to cut it out.” “I’m also proud that in Feudal Alloy we have 18 languages ​​thanks to the community. I think that also helped us. We only have these translations thanks to the community; students or novice translators who wanted to expand their portfolio contacted us. So we really have them for free. There were a lot of those players, which I think is really nice,” Eva Balíková recalled. “It’s true that there are a lot of players from China, Russia, etc. on Steam, and they wouldn’t buy the game if it didn’t have their language in it. I think they don’t speak much English, or don’t want to. If the game didn’t have Chinese or Japanese, they wouldn’t play it at all,” Lukáš confirmed Eva’s words. How did the idea for the unconventional main character, Attu with an aquarium with a fish instead of a head, come about? Lukáš Navrátil: “When we were thinking about what to do next, I drew various figures, some characters, and so on. And this was one of them. We liked the idea; we grabbed it and invented a whole world around it.” Feudal Alloy has Czech subtitles. Can you guess how much they contributed to sales? Lukáš Navrátil: “The Czech translation helped us a lot. The Czech Republic was the fourth best-selling country for Feudal Alloy. The artbook edition in collaboration with Xzone helped us a lot, and people like our game just because it’s a Czech game. Even if they don’t play smaller games like that, they’ll try it just because it’s in Czech. They want to support local developers.” “Our sales ranking is as follows: Russia, China, America, and then the Czech Republic. Then Germany, Canada, France, Spain… Which is quite surprising,” Eva Balíková added to my question. Are you considering offering the game elsewhere than Steam? What about the Epic Games Store with lower commissions? Lukáš Navrátil: “In addition to Steam, we are on GOG.com, where we are grateful for it. This platform evaluates games very strictly; we came through with our ears rubbed, and we are grateful that we can be on GOG. Although the sales are not interesting at all, they liked our game. Then we are on the Humble Store. We thought about the Epic Games Store; we know about their lower commissions, but the problem is that they are probably not interested in such small developers right now. We sent them a request; we sent them the game, but they basically said that they are very busy with something else. They are now focusing on big games; Feudal Alloy is probably completely out of the question for them for now.” So they basically ignored you? Lukáš Navrátil: “Basically yes. There have been over a hundred of them launched now, and it’s the same everywhere. I still think that the 30 percent is the standard everywhere. It’s the same on consoles, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same on Epic in a while. They’re just trying to take a piece of the pie from that market, and then maybe things will straighten out. It’s hard to say.” How long did the development of Feudal Alloy take? Eva Balíková: “The development of Feudal Alloy took about three years. We spent about a year learning from it. We were basically big beginners. So we always did something, and as we improved and improved, the game looked terrible. So we threw it out and basically did it again. Based on the feedback from the alpha, people wrote to us a lot about what was good and what was bad. So we added something and removed something. The development itself took a maximum of two years. If we had previous experience, it would have been faster.” Can you estimate how much time you spent on development each day? Eva Balíková: “We worked from Monday to Friday, the classic eight hours. We had a set work schedule as if we were going to work normally. In the summer we found out that we couldn’t keep up, so we worked from Monday to Saturday from nine in the morning to about ten in the evening. It was quite fun, but we got a lot done.” You live together, you work together; is the relationship not an obstacle for you at work? Have you ever had a fight over an idea? And who is in charge? “We have a democratic household. We don’t think that one of us is in charge. We always somehow agree on ideas. There was no argument about the game,” they both agree. What are your next plans? Will you enrich Feudal Alloy in some way, or will you move on to another project? Lukáš Navrátil: “We are currently solving all the bugs in the game. We are trying to solve everything that we can fix and that players don't like. Plus, we will be releasing the game on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, where we want Feudal Alloy to be complete, fixed, and tuned. So we will be working on the game for some time, in the order of months. We have thought about additional content. If we were to do something like that, we definitely want free content; we want to improve the game a little and add something extra for the players. But it is difficult to estimate whether we will be able to afford it in time. It all depends on whether the sales will support us. We have another project partially thought out for the future, but it is nothing concrete yet. We want to use what we learned from Feudal Alloy. We spent most of our time learning from it almost from scratch. We worked on something for a year and a half, which we then threw away or redid several times. Now we want to start it from scratch, use the experience we learned, everything we did wrong, and do it right. We want to stick to something a little similar, a similar genre. We certainly don't want to do something completely different; that would require learning everything from scratch. But we don't have any specific ideas yet about what it will be.” Can you tell us whether the new game will take place in the Middle Ages, or will you go somewhere completely different, like sci-fi? Lukáš Navrátil: “That's one of the things we're going to address. We have a pretty unique world now; it's interesting; people like it, so we were considering whether to continue with this or not. We'll address that later.” Can you say when Feudal Alloy will be released on PS4 and Xbox One? Lukáš Navrátil: “We can’t say exactly when the game will be released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We were developing Feudal Alloy for all platforms at the same time, but we didn’t have time for these two due to technical issues. The paperwork and approvals are complicated on consoles (ratings, etc.), which slowed us down. It will take months to get through this.” Are you considering other platforms for Feudal Alloy, such as mobile/tablets? Lukáš Navrátil: “We didn’t consider other platforms. Feudal Alloy is not suitable for mobile phones. Although the game looks cartoonish and nice, it is quite difficult, which I don’t think would be possible to play on a touch screen. We actually didn’t try it; we just rejected it from the start. We mainly play on consoles; we are mainly used to a gamepad. Feudal Alloy uses all the buttons, and we can’t imagine how it could be comfortably controlled on a screen. In my opinion, the feeling of good control of the main character would completely disappear.” Thank you for the interview with Zing.cz. Good luck to you both, and I look forward to your next game.

Specifics of indie game development on the example of Feudal Alloy by Martin Virt (26. 4. 2019) [source] Translated interview with Attu Games, Eva Navratilova and Lukas Navratil. How did you get into developing video games? Lukas Navratil: “I started by learning how to develop apps. It wasn’t like I was going to do it for a long time. I basically bought textbooks on iOS app development. At that time, I had my first iPhone, and I liked how it all worked, and I found it easy. I gradually started to find out information about it, and it seemed to me that there was nothing wrong with it. Evča gradually joined me with simpler programming, and we are both gradually improving. When was that? Lukas Navratil: “We developed this game (Feudal Alloy—author’s note) for about three years, and the last one (Toby: The Secret Mine—author’s note) took about a year and a half. So about a year before we started Toby, I was able to focus on it. So about five years ago (2014—author’s note). How did the process of learning how to develop a game go? Lukas Navratil: “At first, I really only learned to develop simple phone apps. So I started with the classic calculator, tic-tac-toe, and basic tutorial apps and games. And that's how I actually started making Toby, because I thought it would be a shame not to use that knowledge right away. During the development of Toby, I came across Unity (a video game development tool—author's note) and discovered that Unity is much more suitable for developing video games than writing it natively for the iPhone or another smartphone. And since I was teaching myself to program, Unity was much easier for me. I didn't have to write all of it in code; Unity is much easier and more intuitive to work with for someone who isn't a programmer. From that moment on, I switched completely to Unity and started making Toby there. How did the idea of making a platform game come about? Lukas Navratil: “It wasn’t so much a conscious decision as it was a coincidence. I learned from textbooks or YouTube tutorials. When you start from scratch, you naturally learn the simplest things first—controlling a character, basic level design, and the like. So I created a character based on the instructions to put my knowledge into practice straight away. I then improved it graphically by playing with Unity. That’s how Toby was actually created; the original intention probably wasn’t to release the game but to use as many of the mechanics I learned with Unity as possible. I tried most of the things in one project, so it wasn’t like I said to myself, I want to make a platform game. I just combined them, and Toby came out of it. Which we now know, of course, wasn’t the ideal approach. We also had problems with Feudal Alloy later, mainly because we didn’t think carefully about what the final game should look like in advance. Have you considered working full-time as a programmer? Lukas Navratil: "Actually, when the game (Toby: The Secret Mine—author's note) was coming out, I got an offer from Silicon Jelly (a Czech independent game studio, now Dreadlock Mobile—author's note) to work for them because they liked Toby. I started working there as a programmer for a while, but at the same time I was trying to release Toby on consoles, and that couldn't be combined with time. We saw that Toby was selling quite well on Steam, so we saw an opportunity in that if we released it on other platforms, it could somehow support us and at the same time finance the development of another game. So after about half a year, I left Silicon Jelly, and we devoted ourselves fully to Toby. We always say that we can always work as full-time programmers if it doesn't work out. How was Attu Games founded? Eva Navratilova: "From the beginning, we operated as a business, as self-employed people. But when we wanted to release the game on consoles and contacted companies like Microsoft, Sony, Steam, and the like, no one wanted to talk to us as self-employed people at all. So we had to establish a limited liability company, and that's how Attu Games was actually created. When you already have a company name, it sounds better to fans than if it were just our names. That was sometime in October 2017, but as we said, we had already been developing the game for about three years before that. Another reason why we established a limited liability company was the possibility of investment. An investor contacted us saying that he could help us financially, of course in exchange for a share in the company. We made a prototype, a demo version of Toby, which we presented to them. Their condition was that we had to have a limited liability company precisely because of the share in the company that they otherwise would not have had if we were not an s.r.o. In the end, we couldn't agree on the terms, and we backed out. So how were you financed? Eva Navratilova: "We both originally worked in a casino, where we met. When Lukáš started developing games and things started to look serious, he quit and learned to program at home. I, to put it bluntly, went to work to earn money so that Lukáš could learn. We reduced personal interpretations to the absolute minimum and worked like that for about a year. So Toby was financed from our own resources from the beginning. Then the release date of Toby had to be postponed by about half a year because the game wasn't finished yet. We borrowed a standard business loan from a bank for that. It was about 650,000 CZK. When Toby was released, we didn't really have much left; we ran out of money, so we had to release the game. Is there an employee structure in your company? Lukas Navratil: "I would say that it works exactly the same for us as it does for Silicon Jelly, for example. From the beginning, we said that we wanted to work the same way and have a certain regime. That's why we get up at seven every morning from Monday to Friday and stop working at four or five. Since we work from home, it was really necessary to set some rules from the beginning, because of course it tempts people to oversleep or something. We said that we want to make a living from it, and of course there's no other way than to be completely dedicated to it. As for the employee structure, it's more automatically determined by who knows what. No one is the boss; we both have the same decision-making powers, and so far we haven't come across a single thing that we disagree on significantly. We always talk about everything and then decide together. How are your roles divided in the team? Eva Navratilova: "Of course, it's more based on who knows what. Lukáš has more experience with programming, so he's in charge of all the programming and graphics, including animations. I put it all together in the engine and do the level design. Together we take care of the game design, how the game will look, the outline of the story, and what the game should actually be about. I also take care of marketing and PR and all communication with fans, journalists, etc. Just as Lukáš learned to program from textbooks, I learn some basic principles of marketing and PR from textbooks and YouTube videos. I follow the gaming community on Reddit, Steam, and YouTube and try to find out what the fans like and what they don't like, and then we try to get that into the game. What hardware or software was needed to develop the game? Lukáš Navrátil: “Today is a time for indie developers; using Unity is basically free, you just need to buy premium access to Adobe Photoshop so you can draw and develop. With Unity, we were actually lucky in that the build (basic version of the game—author's note) of our game was no more than 400 MB. If it had been more, Unity would have charged some fees, but we were lucky. We then spent about 200,000 CZK on hardware, namely a desktop computer and then the devices we were developing on and their dev kits (hardware development tools—author's note). As part of Unity, we also bought some software that cost hundreds of dollars, which was an advantage over the basic development tool. Was there a reason why you released Toby on so many platforms? Lukas Navratil: “We released Toby on PC, mobile phones, tablets, Apple TV, and then PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox. That was the plan from the beginning, precisely so that we could try out which platforms it would be worth it on and which ones it wouldn't. Toby is actually a three-button game, so it was a good idea to release it on mobile phones and tablets because it was user-friendly. But Feudal Alloy would be more of a pain to play on mobile, just because of the inventory and such. We gained valuable experience because now we know that there is no point in making a game on Apple TV in the future. It didn't bother us that much, because when we had the game ready for mobile, it was more or less the same, so it didn't take much extra work. It was similar with mobile platforms. You could say that nowadays there is no point in releasing premium games on mobile unless it's a big hit, because the market is overshadowed by mainstream games, so you can't even get to play such a game in the store. Let's talk about Feudal Alloy. How was the pre-game development phase? Eva Navratilova: “We learned from many mistakes while developing Toby, but we also made a lot of them while developing Feudal Alloy. After Toby, we were thinking about what to do next, and we wanted to have something really crazy. Lukáš drew various options on paper for what the main character could look like and came up with the idea that the robot would have a fish in an aquarium instead of a head. There really isn’t a funnier story behind it; we just chose one of the characters that Lukáš drew. We actually started designing the game world around it, and over time we got to the sharper features of the game. We knew in advance that it would be a Metroidvania-style game because we enjoy games of this type. Over time, we added a medieval theme, and that was actually the main skeleton of the game, to which we just added individual novelties and the like. As I said, at the beginning of the game’s development, I went through fan forums to find out what the players wanted. The indie community and the gaming community in general are great; you can find out everything you need on Reddit. Metroidvania has its own page there, where the fan community goes. Another source was the reviews on Steam for similar games. We tried to avoid things that other developers did. How did the design phase go? Lukas Navratil: "As I said, I drew designs on paper, which I gradually improved and transferred to Unity. I painted the main character, the items he can collect, the enemies, and the game world and then transferred it to Unity, where I created the animations. Eva then put it together and created the game world. The biggest inspiration for me was probably Hollow Knight, because it's the Metroidvania that I enjoy the most. Of course, there are other inspirations like Apotheon or Shovel Knight, but Hollow Knight is the most. Since Toby was visually quite similar to the game Limbo, we wanted to be graphically original here, which I think we succeeded in. The graphics are quite praised by players on Steam. Originally, Eva and I were putting together a story scenario, which is actually indicated at the beginning of the game. Over time, we started to focus on other things, and the story actually fell out of the game. How did the coding phase go? Lukas Navratil: “With the switch to Unity, coding has been completely eliminated. Unity actually converts visuals into code itself, which makes game development much easier.” How did the sound phase go? Eva Navratilova: "We outsourced the sound as the only component of the game. We consider this decision to be the right one, because if we tried to do the sound ourselves, it would have looked terribly unprofessional. We already collaborated with Matt Steed on the game, Toby. We came across him once on Reddit, where he said that he was a budding artist and wanted to create music for video games. Since he was also a beginner, he agreed to cooperate with us for a share of the profit. So we approached him and Feudal Alloy and agreed with him on a 10% share of the profit. A share of the profit was the only way to get someone because we didn't have the money to pay someone outright. Another outsourced component was the dubbing, which is at the beginning of the game. We approached an American agency that offers voiceovers for games. So they offered us an actress to give us the intro; she said it cost about $300. How was the quality assurance phase? Lukas Navratil: “Reddit helped us the most with this. About a year before the release, when the game still had a lot of bugs, we asked players on the forum to be our testers. Because they love the genre, they did it without any claim to a fee, which, of course, we shouldn’t have. We sent the key to Steam to about twenty people and followed their feedback. About two people were really incredible and helped us a lot. You could say that based on their feedback, we modified the game by about 40 to 50%. For Toby, Evča was actually the tester; for Feudal Alloy, it was the Reddit community. We offered the beta version of the game only to them; we didn’t officially release it, just like early access. How did you proceed in the sales segment? Eva Navratilova: “We published the game at our own expense, which was largely financed by the sales of Toby. We released the game on Steam, which takes 30% of every video game as standard. What We will be left with the tax in the Czech Republic, and the rest is ours and Matt's. Since we are our own leaders, there is no one above us who would criticize us for not meeting the conditions. In fact, we can say that the game's sales were roughly what we expected. What we regret is that we relatively quickly fell into the so-called mixed rating on Steam. There are games that have 70%, and so they simply do not appear in the feed for new players. This has brought our sales down quite a bit, so we plan to do some discount campaigns. As for licensing, of course we had to go through the hassle with PEGI, RARS, ACB, USK, and ESRB. Today, there are agencies that you hand over the game to, and they will sort it out for you, but we did it ourselves. Each license costs in the order of a few hundred dollars. In addition, we did not release the game in physical form, so the process was quite quick; it took about three weeks. Games that came out in physical copies had to send CDs directly to the studios, and that process sometimes takes months. We bought a font from the Internet, which was then used throughout the game, which was an item for several dozen dollars. Other licenses we paid for were the aforementioned Adobe and the tools in Unity. How did the game's promotion process go? Eva Navratilova: "We watched videos on YouTube that deal directly with the marketing of indie games. It's a bit different in that it advises developers to post as often as possible, practically everything. We tried to do that on our Twitter account, but it didn't have a significant effect. Facebook as a channel is actually useless for a game of our size. We paid several times to promote posts on Facebook, but it had no effect, and in the end it cost us about 8 thousand crowns. The best platform is Reddit; it probably resonated the most with fans there. It also helped us a lot that practically everyone who deals with games in the Czech Republic wrote about us, whether it was Re-play, Vortex, Hrej, or Level. That helped us to become known, but it didn't significantly increase our numbers. The Czech market is small, and our game is specific enough for any of our media output to have any effect on sales. Foreign media wrote about us more by chance, and they were really just mentions. As for cooperation with YouTubers, there was some, but again it didn't have any significant effect. The better-known ones who have an impact are now represented by agencies and have to be paid such amounts for streaming your game that we can't afford. That's why the Keymailer platform was excellent. It connects YouTubers and developers directly based on what the YouTuber wants to play. Participation in the fair was not an option for us from the beginning because stands at large fairs would have cost us tens of thousands. But we were lucky because Unity chose us as one of the representatives of indie games and paid for our participation in its Unite fair in Berlin. It was an experience for us; we got some feedback from players who liked it quite a bit, but otherwise it didn't have a big effect. Did Attu Games interfere in the production phase? Lukáš Navrátil: “Since we didn’t release physical copies of the game, we luckily didn’t have these worries. For a game like ours, it wouldn’t have been worth it at all. JRC had us print booklets that Eva and I put together. We added Steam keys to them, and these editions were then given away as part of various online competitions, such as Vortex. How was the post-release phase of the game? Lukas Navratil: “We released the game on January 17th, and on January 24th, I released the first and last patch, which fixed major bugs. Eva watched streams on YouTube, gameplays, etc., and tried to communicate with fans as much as possible. We were invited to game shows, which we both always attended. We also try to respond to reviews on Steam, both positive and negative. We usually have to prove people right even in things where they criticize us, saying that the game is not innovative at all, that it is outdated. monotonous, and so on. We are rather sorry that on Steam there are only thumbs-up and thumbs-down options; then it hurts more than when someone gives you 60-70%, because that is roughly the rating we were counting on. The game is currently out and selling quite well. During the year, we want it to be released on PlayStation and Xbox, for which it is more or less ready, but it will take a few more weeks or months to complete all the paperwork. We would like to have it finished by the end of the year, and then we will start thinking about what we will create next. What do you perceive as the most significant differences between your way of development and the mainstream development somewhere in the studio? Lukas Navratil: "Of course, the financial differences are the most visible. Also, the fact that there are only two of us and we don't want to grow in the future. We are comfortable with the fact that we can work from home, and if we are going to establish any cooperation in the near future, it will definitely be on an external basis. Of course, as an indie studio, we are much more susceptible to any fluctuations; it is enough for something to go wrong significantly, and we can wrap it up. But we always tell ourselves that we chose it ourselves and that this is how we want it. The possibility of going to work anywhere else will always be there. We are not as much as large companies oriented towards profit. Of course, we have to earn something to have food, but we have been paying ourselves the minimum possible wage for about three years now, and we simply enjoy it. Another thing that perhaps sets us apart, and that we want to pay attention to in the next game, is a clear plan. It is nice to follow the community and orient ourselves according to it, but, for example, we changed Feudal Alloy quite fundamentally based on the wishes of the fans. One of them was the creation of an inventory, which was not originally in the game at all. It complicated the whole game for us, and more or less all the negative feedback about the game is about it. Some pretty simple things couldn't be changed at once because of the inventory. That's why we want to have a clear plan and change it only in partial aspects but have a really clear vision on paper before we start developing. Is there any support from the state that would make your development easier? Eva Navratilova: “In this respect, we agree with Mr. Klíma (Warhorse Studio developer, who has long been critical of subsidies—author's note). We are glad that there is no state intervention here. In the end, it would end up like all subsidies. Those who are the loudest will get the money, and those who need it the most will not get it anyway. The only help we know about so far is Mediadesk. But they have conditions that most studios cannot meet. It is primarily focused on film, and the conditions for game studios do not make sense. For example, a studio must have a story-based and commercially successful game that has been released in the past, so new studios that need it the most have no chance. If a studio has a successful title, then it has no reason to apply for subsidies. Crowdfunding on Kickstarter or Indiegogo is much better. With Feudal Alloy, we were still afraid of these platforms, but the game was quite successful, and we will definitely think about crowdfunding for the next game. If we had a well-thought-out game concept with sufficient advance, it would be an ideal way to get money and, at the same time, testers.

databaze-her.cz: Translated Interview with Attu Games (14. 5. 2019) [source] Translated interview with Attu Games, Eva Navratilova and Lukas Navratil. It's been 3 years since our interview with Lukáš Navrátil, in which he presented his debut, Toby: The Secret Mine, and he certainly hasn't been idle. Together with his girlfriend Eva Balíková, they formed the Attu Games development studio based in Znojmo, under whose banner they released the stylized Metroidvania Feudal Alloy (official website) this January, which has received a very good response, at least in our part of the world. You will learn about the development and release of Feudal Alloy, which is currently being released on PS4 and Xbox One, but also about future plans, in our interview... At the time we start this interview (note: March 2019), exactly 2 months have passed since the release of Feudal Alloy—have you had time to relax after the rush associated with the release? How do you perceive the release of the game in hindsight? Eva: We are certainly very relieved. A week after the release, we didn't know if enough units would be sold to support us and we could continue developing games. Otherwise, we would have to look for work. So far, it looks promising. Lukáš: We rested a bit after the release. We were still working on fixing the worst bugs as quickly as possible, but then we were able to breathe a little and not work every day until the evening. But we can't say we'd have time to play all the games we had to put off for work. All our time is currently taken up by preparing the game for the promised PS4 and Xbox One. Unfortunately, this is a much more time-consuming process compared to releasing the game on Steam. The form of your studio, Attu Games, a "developer couple," is quite atypical and in many ways bold (you've already mentioned the financial aspect)— How did the transformation actually go after the release of Toby, when you decided to go at it together, with all the risks that entails? Eva: During the development of Toby, I tried to get involved and at least help with testing. Our goal from the beginning was for us to work together. We were lucky that Toby was selling quite well, and I was able to quit my "normal" job and stay home and devote myself to game development full-time. But of course it wasn't an easy decision. Even though I didn't enjoy my previous job, I had some security. On the other hand, I often hear that there is a shortage of people in the gaming industry, so if it were the worst, it probably wouldn't be a problem to get a job right away. Feudal Alloy inherited the 2D perspective from Toby, which was a linear platformer in the style of Limbo, but in terms of genre, it is a Metroidvania—a game with a much larger and more open world, the exploration of which is the main pillar of the gameplay. Why Metroidvania in particular—is it your favorite (sub)genre? What games inspired you in this regard? Eva: We tried to create a game that we would want to play ourselves, and since we both like games where you can mess around and not just keep moving forward, the choice fell on Metroidvania. But the fact is that from the beginning, FA was just an ordinary platformer. We added Metroidvania elements as we went along. Overall, the game changed quite often under our hands, which I definitely do not recommend doing. It is great to add or change something, but it usually breaks something else, and there is a lot of worry about it. Otherwise, our biggest inspiration was Hollow Knight. The game is absolutely great, and when they recently announced a sequel, we were overjoyed. You mention that you experimented quite a bit, which is undoubtedly part of development, but the ability to choose the final path and follow it is quite crucial to complete the game. Do you remember how long into the development process this moment came for you? Do you plan to approach the development of the next game differently, for example, in terms of the length of pre-production? Eva: About three-quarters of a year before the release. That was the time when we realized that we were not keeping up at all and had to move. We realized this by writing down in detail the tasks we still had to do, and there were a lot of them. It didn't occur to us at all until then. So we set a strict regime. We worked every day, including weekends, from morning to night. We lasted about a month and then had to take at least one Sunday off. It starts to get tiring. But it's true that we really did a lot, and now looking back I don't understand how we could have managed it. We'll plan it better next time. We have to prepare a proper game design document and have the prototype tested. It's clear that something will change, but we won't approach it as carelessly as we did with Feudal Alloy. I think we've learned quite a bit, and next time we'll be a little smarter. From what I've seen, the game has received mostly positive reviews—I noticed that it managed to captivate players at first glance with its pleasant styling and atypical main character—I personally thought that it was heard a lot about, at least in the Czech Republic. How do you perceive the response after such a short time? Did you expect anything different? Eva: That's true; in the Czech Republic, we've heard a lot about us for an indie. It was something new for us; we definitely didn't expect it like this. Abroad, we've repeatedly made it into PC Gamer and Game Informer, which is great. Feudal Alloy will also be looking at PS4 and Xbox One in the coming days—is it more complicated for a small indie studio to get a game on these "big" consoles than, say, Switch? Or was Switch your priority in terms of player base? Eva: We originally wanted the game to be released on all platforms at once, but that was absolutely impossible. We felt that Switch would be the best fit for Feudal Alloy, so we prioritized it. We were a little bothered by the longer loading times, but we did what we could. But it's not like it would be easier to develop for it. Moreover, there are still not that many games on Switch, and we wanted to take advantage of that opportunity. Is the feedback from players on Switch different in some way (perhaps due to less competition) than on PC? At least on the surface, the platform seems like a great haven for smaller independent games. Does the reality match that? Eva: That's exactly right. Switch is ideal for this type of game, and it is easy to play. We think that this has also helped players who would not have bought it on PC get access to Feudal Alloy. I would almost certainly not play such a game on PC. The big disadvantage is that the prices of digital games on Switch are often many times higher than on Steam, which seems like a scam to me. Has the aforementioned media attention had a positive impact on sales? At the beginning you mentioned that it looks promising, so you will be able to develop the next game more peacefully? Eva: Definitely yes. We tried to focus on marketing as much as we could. There are a lot of games released on Steam these days, and if you are not visible, no one will find you. We did some research and found that a pretty good indicator of whether a game will sell is the wishlist. We found out how much a smaller indie game should have, and we aimed for that number from the beginning. It was slow going, but the closer we got to the release, the faster we hired more people. Eventually we had more than we needed, which calmed us down. We'll need about 4 years to develop the next game, and things are looking good for us so far. 4 years? That sounds pretty specific. :) Is your next project starting to take shape? Eva: I think I have a better estimate. :) It's better to plan for a longer time from the start. We've been preparing Feudal Alloy for all platforms for over 3 years, so we already have a bit of an estimate. We're a lot more experienced now, and we work faster, but I'm sure we'll come up with something else and get stuck on it. But we haven't started anything yet. The PS4 and Xbox port is a full-time job. Do you plan to expand the team in any way (for example, in terms of external staff), or are you satisfied with the current size of the studio? In terms of the scope of the game, do you consider Feudal Alloy to be the ceiling of what can be done by two people, or is there still room for improvement? Eva: It's hard to say. If so, then at a later stage of development. We could probably use some help with marketing and PR. I've been doing it myself so far, and as we were getting closer to the release date, I had a lot to do to make it happen. Unfortunately, there was no time left for anything else, and instead of working on the game, I spent the whole day answering emails and dealing with social media. For us, Feudal Alloy was the ceiling of what we were able to do. We definitely want to focus on 2D platformers in the future. Developing an MMORPG probably wouldn't be ideal for us. :) You mentioned a long list of games that have been released that you want to play but haven't gotten around to yet. Which ones are you most looking forward to playing? Eva: For me it was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but I already finished it. Lukáš: I'm finishing Dark Souls now, and then I'll jump into Sekiro. Otherwise, even smaller indie games on Switch for both of us. Thank you very much; we wish you all the best in the future and look forward to another interview after the release of your next game.

finmag.cz: Translated Interview with Attu Games (18. 7. 2020) [source] The independent Czech studio Attu Games is based in Znojmo and consists of just two people—husband and wife Eva and Lukáš Navrátil. Lukáš created the platform game Toby: The Secret Mine under his own name in 2015. Feudal Alloy, which was released in 2019, was already created in an author's team with his girlfriend and later wife, Eva. The couple learned how to make and publish a game as they went along, but they don't want to change anything about their way of working in the future. "We don't have to answer to anyone, go to work in the morning, or work on something we don't enjoy. We do what we want," explains Lukáš Navrátil. How did you get into creating games? Lukáš Navrátil: In my free time, I started learning the basics of programming and graphics out of boredom. As I gradually tried out individual things, my first project—Toby—was born. Thanks to it, I was noticed by the now-defunct Prague studio Silicon Jelly, which made mobile games. They liked what I was doing and asked me if I wanted to work for them. So we moved to Prague, and I joined them as a programmer. Eva Navrátilová: At the same time, the console port of Toby for PlayStation and Xbox was being prepared. After work and in the evenings, it was very demanding. Lukáš: I went to work in the morning and continued working on Toby for consoles until night. It was unbearable. When Toby started earning some money, we decided to take a risk and switched to each other. And when the console Toby was finished, we started working on Feudal Alloy. How do you divide your work? Lukáš: I did most of the work on Toby and Feudal Alloy—programming, graphics, and animation. But now we are trying to reorganize it. I will focus on drawing and animation, and Eva will do programming. And design, story, and sounds together. Eva: On Feudal Alloy, we also had an external musician who made music for us. Now we decided to do everything ourselves. Are two people enough to create a game? Lukáš: Well, it depends. We work together from home and often work every day and all the time. It's different when you work on your own project than if you were employed or had your own employees. We can work much longer and more. Eva: We also work voluntarily on our days off. When we have nothing to do, we sit down to do it. During the coronavirus crisis, there was a lot of talk about home office. Do you work from home normally? How do you manage to stay productive during such a time? Lukáš: It's definitely important to have a plan and stick to a routine. Right from the beginning, we found out that it's impossible without it. If we don't have a strict daily routine or don't follow it, it slips into doing something else. But we're always fighting with it. Even at work, you don't work 100 percent from morning to night. The main thing is to set up a routine as if we were going to work and eliminate as many distractions as possible. What attracts you to working as an independent developer as opposed to working for a large game studio? Lukáš: Mainly the freedom. We don't have to answer to anyone, go to work in the morning, or work on something we don't enjoy. We do what we want. We don't do it strictly for the money; we probably earn less than we would if we were working in this industry as regular employees, but in exchange for that we have freedom. Eva: That's why we don't even have a publisher. We did everything ourselves, even though it took us longer than a publisher would have managed to do. We do it ourselves, and I think it's better. We don't have to ask anyone; we don't have any deadlines, when something has to be done, or contractual penalties. We do it the way we want. It's not always ideal; we make mistakes, and sometimes we get it wrong. But that's us. What new things did you have to learn while working on the game? Lukáš: Everything. We learn something new every day. We do absolutely everything in the game, so we have to learn an awful lot. And it seems to me that we are still terrible beginners in almost everything. Because we don't specialize in just one thing, we are amateurs in everything. Eva: We can do something about everything. Maybe we had to learn English because we didn't know how to do it at all, and it was necessary. All the tutorials and game events are in English, so we struggled with that. We've now participated in two game jams, which also helped us a lot. At least you had an external musician do the music for Feudal Alloy. Why not entrust part of the work to someone else again and not have to learn so much? Lukáš: We figured out that we enjoy learning. The result may be more amateurish, but it's more fun for us. I don't mind just giving it to someone and not taking care of it anymore. We don't see it that way, and it's not easy to reach an agreement. The musician who made us music for Feudal Alloy was totally fine, but even so—explaining what we want and finding common ground is not exactly easy, even if he's a person you can talk to well. And when we come across someone you can't talk to, it's worse. That's the main reason. Not that we don't want someone else, but we'd rather want to go through it ourselves. How did you come up with the character of a robot knight with a goldfish instead of a head? Lukáš: It was the result of sketching. I drew various designs, and one of them was this character, which we developed into the whole world. There was no deeper meaning. You ended up self-publishing the game. How did you promote it? Eva: We tried to find instructions on the Internet on how to promote an indie game. There are quite a few of them. Simply put, try to promote the game as often as possible and where possible. People release a lot of great-looking games and then do nothing at all. They think that suddenly everyone will write about them. But you need to push it as soon as possible. Upload information about the game on Steam, as much as possible, and start collecting a wishlist. At first, it increases by a few units to dozens a day, but then it takes off. The same goes for Twitter with likes. You need to gradually come up with something new all the time. And most importantly, don't focus only on the Czech audience, which I often see with Czech independent developers. You mentioned the wishlist, i.e., a game wishlist. What is so important about it? Lukáš: By adding a game to the wishlist, players on Steam show interest in it. The moment it is released or goes on sale, they will receive an email or notification and be reminded again. It's about getting sales started on the first day, because that's what will determine whether Steam's algorithms will move the game up the charts and whether it will sell or not. On Steam, Feudal Alloy is recommended by less than seventy percent of players, which the platform translates as a "mixed rating." What impact can user reactions and reviews have on the game's acceptance and sales? Lukáš: Huge. It bothered us because when a game's rating on Steam drops below seventy percent, it automatically switches to a mixed rating, and Steam stops recommending the game. It's assumed that it's not good. Our problem was that the game stood out with its visual style, and a lot of people added it to their wishlist. But overall, it's not that good, maybe slightly above average, so a lot of players were probably disappointed after the release and gave it a thumbs down. The very next day, our rating dropped to the mixed range, to about sixty-nine percent, and sales stopped completely. The game fell off all the charts, and we stopped at a few units sold per day. When Steam stops promoting the game, sales immediately stop, unless it's super popular. You also released the game on consoles—PlayStation, Xbox, and the portable Nintendo Switch. Is it harder to release an indie game on them than on PC? Lukáš: Definitely. Console publishers—Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft—are very careful. They review all projects manually and evaluate whether they fit there or not. It's quite difficult on PlayStation and Xbox; not many get through there. The game has to be at least average; it can't be complete crap. On Switch it's a little easier, but you still have to buy developer consoles with your own money, and there's a lot of paperwork involved. Consoles have their own development environment and hardware, so it's much more laborious. Especially for us, as we're self-taught. This filters out a lot of beginners because the process is ultimately not worth it. Sales of our game on PlayStation and Xbox were small. It took several months of full-time work, and the development consoles cost us money, but the sales were in the hundreds. So the time invested was not even returned. With Switch, it's exactly the opposite. This is because it is ideal for such small games and platformers. On standard consoles, people mainly play big titles. Switch paid off for us; it sold more than on all other platforms combined. We wouldn't have survived without it. How many copies did you sell in total? Lukáš: Around thirty thousand. But that's because after a year we tried to give a big eighty percent discount on Steam and Switch. The vast majority of copies sold are from that. Overall, most copies are sold at discounts. Over the course of the year, we tried giving thirty and forty percent, and it always sold the most. That's exactly the function of the wishlist. People like the game, but they don't want to buy it at full price, so they wait, for example, six months, until it's on sale. Sales there tend to be higher than at release. Is a discount policy where players don't buy games when they're released but wait for a bigger discount good for developers? Lukáš: It's definitely not good. And I think it's not good for anyone in the end. Today, it's taken into account automatically; games are more expensive at the beginning because it's assumed that they'll be 40 percent cheaper in a month or two. New ones aren't bought. That's how Steam has been set up for the last few years. This is happening to an even greater extent now on Switch, where publishers have figured out that if they give a big discount, sales skyrocket so much that it's more profitable than if they only gave a 30 percent discount. We noticed that too—when we gave an eighty percent discount, the game immediately shot up in the charts thanks to copies sold, because their algorithms probably only highlight it based on units sold. Then a lot of people see it, and everyone buys it, because the game only costs thirty to forty crowns. Everyone says, Yeah, I'll try that. And then most people don't even play it.