by Jeremie Wallis, Audio Engineer
While a great soundtrack and popping visuals can get a gamer drawn in, the mechanics of a game are what keep people playing day in and day out. Product owner Tyler Baker knew that, for the first console release, making a splash was important. “Before production started, the studio head wanted us to go big for our first console release,” Baker said. “We didn’t want to release just anything, so we decided to pick things up a notch and do things we hadn’t done before as a studio.” This led to We’re All Going To Die, the most ambitious game from Black Banshee Studios to date.
Marking such a milestone led to some big changes in the original game design. “The only thing that stayed from the initial design was the fact that it was a twin stick shooter. The original design was more of a tower defense game in which the players would have to pick classes and defend a base while also collecting resources they could spend to repair or level up,” said Baker. “Since we wanted to release for X-Box, we didn’t feel the original design was ambitious enough, so we decided to start from scratch with the twin stick concept.” Baker and his team striped the concept down and started rebuilding. “The biggest reason we changed it was due to assets. The assets we were looking at had a bad reputation so we shifted to another source,” he said.
Once the core mechanics were agreed on, it fell to lead developer Andres Diaz Gonzalez and the design team to make it happen. “A big issue was getting it to feel good using a mouse and keyboard, it’s been one of the biggest issues. We are still kinda dealing with that,” said Gonzalez. He and his team were responsible for making all 11 abilities and all seven grenade types function. “I am really looking forward to how abilities and grenades are going to work together,” Gonzalez said. “There’s hundreds of combinations for players to have, between the four abilities and the grenade styles, plus you have multiple players. I’m looking forward to see how it plays when people make cool combinations.”
All of these abilities, however, led to a lot of development to make it all work. Luckily, Gonzalez said there were some shortcuts to make it a little easier. “Mostly, for the grenades, they all go off the same class, so the base is the same. We didn’t have to start from scratch. We tried to use that with the abilities also. The tremor ability is even coded similar to a grenade. We didn’t want to start from scratch with each ability, but rather see what we can adapt and reuse,” he said.
Making a game in a pandemic challenged the team, but also helped shape the direction of the game. “(WAGTD) started as a couch co-op game, and we didn’t have plans for online multiplayer,” said Baker. “With the pandemic going on, couch co-op didn’t seem good enough. We figured, if they can’t hang out with their buddies, they should still be able to play with their buddies, so let’s add online multiplayer. It makes the game more accessible for people to play with their friends.
Gather your friends and see what combos you can find in We’re All Going To Die, releasing soon on Steam and XBox!
Learn more about We’re All Going to Die on the official Black Banshee Studios website at: https://blackbansheestudios.com