Tags: Eador: Masters of the Broken World; Snowbird Game Studios; Tacticular Cancer Interview
We've had a chance to talk to Vladimir Tortsov of Snowbird Game Studios about their upcoming Eador: Masters of the Broken World. A game that has taken inspiration from such genre staples as Master of Magic, Civilisation and Heroes of Might and Magic III. Naturally that piqued our interest so we set out to get as much out of Vladimir as we could. Here are a few snippets to wet your appetite.
Could you tell us a little bit about Eador: Masters of the Broken World, its back story, inspirations and gameplay elements?
Eador. Masters of the Broken World is a 3D-remake of an earlier 2D-game, originally released in Russia in 2010. The game looked nice and the press ratings were great, but, of course, these days you can’t expect too much in terms of sales from a 2D turn-based strategy not even featuring any animations. Development of the 3D Eador was started in 2011 by newly established Snowbird Game Studios.
The original 2D prototype of Eador was developed by one person (with a little help of his friends) – Alexey Bokulev. Alexey has worked on that game for 3 years; it was his ‘dream game’ combining many cool features from his favorite strategy titles – Sid Meier’s Civilization, HoMM III and Master of Magic.
Alexey has joined Snowbird to work on the international release of Eador. Masters of the Broken World as lead game designer. Our goal with this game is to preserve the best features of the original while improving the gameplay experience by introducing new elements and adjusting game mechanics.
There seem to be quite some rpg aspects to Eador, could you elaborate on these? Will there be apart from leveling up for instance also quests? Shall we be able to send our heroes into dungeons for loot and experience?
Role-playing element lies in almost everything you do in the game - the way you conduct politics, economics, how you approach to dealing with other Masters. Your individual strategy will personalize your presence in the world of Eador, and will eventually lead you to an ending that befits your behavior.
That being said, nothing is fully predictable and each play can be unique.
There are no specific quests for you as a Master, but you are always able to order your heroes to explore the provinces you control. Eventually they’ll discover different places of interest, such as ancient crypts, forgotten temples and monster lairs. By commanding your heroes to enter these locations, you trigger a battle between their armies and the guardians of the place. If your heroes triumph, they’ll gain some experience and often find some hidden treasure.
Then there are monasteries of the Lord of Light, always hell-bent on mass genocide of those poor zombies or imps, magic shop owners ever looking for rare and grisly ingredients for their craft, non-human races demanding some kind of service before they consider joining you in your struggle - your heroes will have little rest between all these tasks.
The original Eador had a huge campaign. Is the campaign for this sequel comparable to that one? How long should the campaign take for new players? Will you be able to play random games or skirmish ones as well?
One of the goals we originally had when we started this project was to condense the campaign, making it shorter but more interesting and involving. We didn’t want to see the players getting burned out barely midway through the campaign. So, comparing to the first game, Masters of the Broken World proceeds faster but still feels epic in scope. Our rough estimation is that it would take about 60 hours for a new player to complete the campaign successfully. To fail it though, he would need significantly less time
And sure, you’ll be able to play skirmish games too. The random map generator is able to build shards of immense size unheard of in the campaign, pitting all 16 Masters against one another.
Read the full interview for more about the gameplay, a possible release of the original game on GOG and more!
Read the full article: Tacticular Cancer Interview: Eador: Masters of the Broken World
