RPS: Why are you making Space Hulk: Ascension?
Thomas Lund: The primary reason is that, we did the boardgame, and we tried to stick as close to the boadgame as possible, with all the implications of that. We’re really proud of what the product is now, and it pleased a group of gamers who usually do not get games, at all, in the digital space.
At the same time, also during the development of Space Hulk, we knew that there was a videogame in there as well, that could still be a turn-based strategy game, but a lot of the rules in the boardgame are there for the physical interaction and the mechanics are there to have fun with rolling dice.
It’s hard to recreate, and also some of the mechanics are there because there’s a tension going on outside of the boardgame, between the two human players who sit there. Essentially, we knew that, but we stuck with wanting to make the digital conversion. Now Ascension is basically the product out of that, where we take the core of Space Hulk and now we twist it into the game that I think a lot of people expected us to make. With a more videogame approach. That is to cater to that side of the audience. We don’t see this as a replacement game, but we see it as there are now [both] offerings. If you want to play the boardgame because you’re a fan of that kind of style, you can pick the old Space Hulk. But if you are a videogamer and want a more videogame approach, but with the same style and theme, then Ascension is the game that you want.
RPS: Just to clarify, they exist as completely separate products – you’re not getting any access to the other if you buy just one?
Thomas Lund: Two complete different audiences, two complete different products, as such. So it is what we would call a standalone expansion. Content from one doesn’t go over into the other one. We didn’t just take the DLC we had from the old Space Hulk and re-wrap it and make like an Ultimate Pack with a new label. We redid a lot. Almost all of the missions are completely new – we have 103 at this point in time.
Obviously we took some of the models from the game that we already did, so we didn’t have to do new Terminators, for example. We did add Ultra Marines and Cyclone missile launchers. We have taken out the dice mechanics and put in percentage rolls for things. We’ve taken a look at some of the rules and said ‘why is there a draw in the close combat?’ It’s because there is a tension between two people rolling dice, and if it’s equal then they have another go. But in a videogame, you don’t have tension in that kind of way when you’re rolling against the computer, so the draw doesn’t add anything. So we removed that – either you win or you lose.
Another example of that is the jamming of the Bolter. In the boardgame, that’s a pure random roll: if you have the wrong dice, your gun jams. In Ascension we kept the core idea of the Storm Bolter being able to jam, but we reworked it into an overheating situation, so if you continuously fire it overheats and you cannot fire for one turn. So you have to do some heat management. It’s turning it into a game mechanic that the player can control, instead of a random dice roll.
Which is why it's an interesting system / build, since it's high risk // high reward, but it would suck and not work if it was deterministic or had diminishing returns.
