Wolves Vs. Pigs Vs. Monkeys?  Mother Nature Battles it Out in Creature Conflict: The Clan Wars

by Louis Bedigian

“All the graphics are done by human hands. There isn't any digitalized texture or motion-captured movement in the game.”

Can’t we all just get along?  Do I even need to answer that question?  Humans are, in our most basic form, another type of animal.  And what do animals do?  They pick up rocket launchers and blast each other to pieces.

In Creature Conflict: The Clan Wars there is no peace.  Technically there is piece, or pieces, but that has more to do with dislocated organs than the safety of the world.

Developed by Mithis Entertainment, Creature Conflict is in the hands of the top Hungarian development studio.  “The company is regarded to be one of the biggest within the Hungarian game development scene,” said Tibor Pongrácz, Lead Designer of the game.  “It has four running projects, each with a publisher, a few demo projects, and also a division focusing on mobile development.”

Tibor was kind enough step away from the development chair and sit in our electrocution…(ahem)…comfortable interview chair and answer our questions about his upcoming turn-based strategy game.

Could you describe the gameplay for us?  Creature Conflict is being called turn-based strategy game, but the screenshots are reminiscent of a third-person shooter...

Tibor Pongrácz: A Creature Conflict is rather a turn-based TPS (the basic camera view classic TPS) in which we've hidden lots of extra functions so that serious strategy players could also find all possibilities for enjoyable gameplay. These extras are mainly targeted for the hardliner strategists, those who're more temperamental can and will surely enjoy the game without these, I'm pretty sure about this. From these hidden strategic elements and the Worms' console-like elements the game significantly got more dense, I feel like having created a new genre. As for the console characteristics: we can find platforms to jump on, interactive objects (e.g. moving platforms, catapults, geysers that make movement easier), switches and lots of other objects.

Go deeper into detail about the gameplay experience.  You start a game, you begin a mission...then what?  What sort of things will players have to accomplish?

TP: We have multiple types of missions, from simple "kill 'em alls” through harder "dominate" runs to "free the prisoners,” object or building destruction runs, switch manipulations or punishing bosses… these can be achieved by using weapons, moving characters to a certain point or using special equipment. One example would be a utility of the monkey clan, namely the camera. Whatever you do a snapshot on, it gets into the photo album, so much that it disappears from where it originally stood :) Monkeys are tourists, mind you, they wouldn't miss their camera when walking around – they are the parodies of the drone tourist going amok, wherever they go, they collect everything.

This guy came here by mistake.

He should be at Cedar Point right now.

The game appears to have a lot of planets to do battle on.  Ease our anticipation -- tell us more about this!

TP: Each and every mission takes place on a separate planet within different worlds. Planets of a world comprise objects, buildings, [and] terrains of a certain style, showing an unmistakably unique facade to those adventuring upon them. Worlds are also homeworlds of certain factions, e.g. swamp worlds mean home to the FRETS, PACK members originally come from desert planets, etc. These differences and world-dependent unique characteristics also show up in the weaponry of the factions.

Is the multiplayer mode going to be a big part of the overall experience?

TP: Absolutely :) Following your buddy's character around, praying that he wouldn't notice our invisible trigger mines or laughing out loud when with a badly calculated ballistic shot orbits the planet and crashbangs him from behind :)

Who's in charge in this game?  Who are the leading or dominating characters, and what is their reason for fighting?

TP: The story runs on different threads, obviously dependent on which faction are we actually playing. These threads naturally are interwoven as it is the same animal universe whose inhabitants are fighting each other, for the same worlds. For example, the first step of the FRETS world conquer is to stand out among other hungry horde members and to reach the ancient floating teleport first so that we could  teleport to other planets where we can get weapons, acquire teammates and lo, the conquista can start!

As for the PACK, their prime enemies, well they send a one-man commando fighter to the first swamp planet to counter that conquer. His task is to destroy that ancient gate, grab ammos from other places and then smack the FRETS boss to take them down and make them forget these world-conquering moves once and for all.

Creature Conflict has an eerie, outer-space feel.

What can you tell us about the unique designs of the characters?

TP: Oh, our little favorites… :) Well, the range from which we can assemble our team is pretty diverse. I hope everyone's gonna find a personal favorite or even more than one! Even choosing a faction is significant: if you like sneaky little rodent bastards with insidious, poisonous weaponry, go for the FRETS.

I love the Shrew's cool flopping ears and the hidden legionary character's very chilly, jazzy moves - but the sullen-looking, mighty grim Beaver or the Guinea Pig who's fighting with a rolled up newspaper is as much an individual as the others.

If I assemble a troop from the fussy, high tech sages of the monkeys, the Orangutan whose head is beyond any description and the household idiot Gibbon is the way to go. Well, the Gorilla with his baseball bat with a custom-made paintjob has a huge chance to be in the start-up team as well.

PACK fighters are for hardliner players who prefer bullet-type weapons and rockets. And grenades. And mines. :) The Hyena is a permanent member, his face resembles one of my previous bosses. The Coyote is an old-time favorite from the cartoons of my childhood.  As for the Wolf, he's my totem animal. :)

All factions have a hidden character who can be activated on a certain level, after that you can depend on him in multiplayer as well. Another complete faction called the COMEDIANS will become available after unlocking so when someone plays with them, he sends out an obvious message: hey, I've already completed the scenarios!

As for the graphics, we have to mention that our graphic effects people are cartoon junkies. This is apparent from the character design and – what I find very important to say – all the graphics are done by human hands. There isn't any digitalized texture or motion-captured movement in the game. All the textures are done by painters and all the characters were animated frame-by-frame by the animators.

How many different species are being planned for the game?

TP: 16 with the hidden characters and of course there are the bosses – they could be pretty hard to forget after all the hard battles you've fought with them. They are not playable, though.

How is the element of humor presented in Creature Conflict?

TP: As you can guess from what I've said above, all elements contain fun, character animations, weapons with their cool effects, the levels themselves or the texts of the info tables scattered throughout the levels. This is not a depressive game, even if you've got a sh*tty day, it will cheer you up!

:

I see green.

When a person goes to see a movie he or she often knows something about and is interested in the potentially humorous story.  But Creature Conflict is primarily a game.  Have you found it difficult to implement humor because of this?

TP: Okay, it's hard to write a serious story for a shoot-'em-up as the player doesn't see the story all in one, as in a movie but he has to assemble it from little pieces that he can read in the briefings or what he can find scattered throughout the levels. Please don't even think about reading as much as in a hardcore text-based RPG. The animal history we've created is actively narrated through objects and levels. Example: on a level you can find a certain zone with a teleport, in front of it there is a huge rock with a Coyote imprint on it or there's this field called Brainstorming, I guess you know by now what you're about to find on it, yes? :)

Thanks Tibor for your entertaining responses.  I’ll be sure to resolve all real-life conflicts and take the time to play Creature Conflict when it’s released.

TP: Thanks for the possibility to share this with you.