We’re back with another Indie Spotlight, and this week we’ve been catching up with RedBeak Games about their new game Mortal Glory 2, what they learned from their first game, and the challenges of being a solo dev in the industry right now!
RedBeak Games is based out of Kaarina, Finland and launched their first game Mortal Glory (a Turn Based, Strategy, Roguelite) in 2020.
Roguelites have been on the up and up over recent years, but the dev highlighted how their inherent randomness can really hit differently for different players and how that feedback from the first game helped them refine the sequel.
GSC – “Since this is a sequel, what did you learn from the first game?”
RBG – “A lot of things! I am constantly learning new things on every facet of game development. One thing that immediately pops to my mind is how randomness can take many forms and evoke different feelings in players. Back when I started, I didn’t really know anything about game design and I just added stuff and made choices that felt right (to be fair, that’s what I still do mostly, but now with just slightly more experience).
After releasing the game and getting feedback, I learned that people feel good when their choices can have random positive effects but they feel bad when their choices can have random negative effects. It’s a very simple concept now with hindsight, but it’s something I needed to learn through practice and now I pay more attention to how different types of randomness might make the player feel.”
I checked out Mortal Glory 2 as part of the spotlight, and could really see this learning in action. Sure, there was some negative outcomes from choices – but they were very grounded in a fun risk-reward system that made success feel great, and failure feel like it was due to my own lack of preparation or skill.
GSC – “How do you feel about the indie games industry?”
RBG – “It’s a tough industry as there are a lot of people who want to make games and every year there are more game releases to compete with. On the upside, that vast amount of games also holds a lot of new great innovative titles to draw inspiration from. I pretty much only play indie games nowadays because of the innovation and because they are also a lot more approachable in terms of price and time commitment.”
There’s some clear inspiration from some other indie games present (Slay the Spire, Monster Train) but the main gameplay loop of the battles feels fresh and stands out amongst the large number of indies that launch every month. If you’re a fan of more strategic Roguelites, definitely go and show RedBeak Games some love!
