Welcome to another edition of Developer Diaries. This week we spoke to Darya Noghani, the brains behind the upcoming game Small Saga.
WHY NOT START OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF
Hello! I'm Darya. I'm an indie game developer from London who has been in the industry for about a decade. I'm currently putting the final polish on my second commercial videogame, Small Saga.
CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT SMALL SAGA?
Small Saga is a turn-based RPG that follows a particularly angry mouse called Verm. He's armed with an enormous knife and on a quest for revenge against a human, but his rebellious nature sparks a wave of disruption across rodent society.
The game is influenced by classic RPGs such as Final Fantasy 9 and Golden Sun, but also a variety of works from Kentaro Miura's Berserk to Brian Jacques's Redwall.
I aimed to make a game that was tightly scripted and had minimal grinding but dealt with big emotions, themes, and spectacle.
HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN AND WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE CONSTRUCT?
It's been a long journey! I knew RPGs were a lot of work due to the high number of assets required, but 6 years of development went beyond my expectations.
Having used Construct for my previous game (Aviary Attorney), I was already very familiar with the engine, so it was an easy decision to use it again. I love how fast the engine is for prototyping. I was concerned that it might struggle with all of the assets needed for a full RPG, but this proved to be a non-issue.
There was the question of whether to use Construct 2 or 3. When I started development, Construct 3 was still in its early days, so I stuck with 2 for stability. But if I were to start development today, Construct 3 would be the obvious choice.
YOUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN WAS HUGELY SUCCESSFUL – WHAT WERE SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS AND CHALLENGES FROM IT?
One challenge I didn't expect was finding appropriate rewards for higher-tier backers.
I ended up promising to make about twenty backer-funded NPCs, which then meant I had to find a way to fit them all in the game. I was worried this would interfere with the game’s world-building, but thankfully the backers were very understanding. By the end, their characters fit seamlessly into the narrative. Some of their characters ended up becoming my favourites.
ANY MEMORABLE STORIES FROM WORKING ON THIS PROJECT?
The game's 3D visuals in battles and pivotal scenes are down to "Mode 7" style effects (big thanks to r0j0hound for their plug-in). So it's more like working with spicy 2D than "real" 3D.
Part of the development was figuring out how to utilise the effect in a way that creates the desired mood while also maintaining the illusion of a 3D space.
A good example of this is the supermarket scene towards the start of the game. The sides of supermarket shelves and mouse traps are just stretched sprites, but that's enough to create a sense of scale and depth.
There's also a scene towards the end of the game where I use sprite stacking to create 3D benches. Sprite stacking – using layers of sprites to build a 3D object – wasn't something I had attempted before, so it took some trial and error to get right, but the result is an effect that cannot be easily replicated in traditional 2D or 3D.
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR PEOPLE DOING THEIR OWN GAME PROJECTS OR ANYONE LOOKING AT CROWDFUNDING THEIR GAME?
If you're trying to make a game that succeeds on Kickstarter, or more broadly one that's commercially viable, then you probably ought to think about what your game's core appeal is, and how to immediately communicate that appeal.
Making a good game isn’t enough – you have to give the audience a unique reason to play it, or preferably multiple unique reasons. Small Saga’s appeal comes down to the sense of scale, the feeling of seeing a small mole with a lighter take on a huge cat, so the battles are framed to highlight that size discrepancy.
In other words, you have to bake the marketing into the design.
If we take a step back, there is a conversation to be had about why so many indie game developers consider commercial viability to be the only meaningful end goal. Should you be running a Kickstarter in the first place? Wouldn’t it be more fulfilling to just make a game out of a pure love of making games?
But of course, that’s not always possible due to the realities of paying bills.
WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SMALL SAGA?
You can check out SmallSaga.com for information, or follow the Steam page for updates.
It’s coming out to PCs and Macs on November 16th!
ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?
I would just like to say thank you to everyone who supported the Kickstarter campaign, thank you to everyone who is looking forward to the release, and thank you to Scirra for making a rad games engine and hosting this interview!