Meet the people who have brought Pyrene to life in these short interviews!
Finally, let’s meet Christophe, head of Two Tiny Dice, who has operated Pyrene’s development.
Are you satisfied with the balance between all the game's mechanics?
Yes!
I'm happy about the deckbuilding mechanics that create a path through the zones. This is a refreshing feature that works very well in my opinion. Combined with the greedy aspect of the Votive Altars that increase in value, it creates a good balance between risk and reward.
I like easy-access games, with few actions possible at the same time. For a while, I was scared that deck management, relics, powers and talismans would be too difficult to handle and make the game stodgy.
I've worked hard to ensure that these systems are easy to learn and non-invasive to the game's basic gameplay. You only have to deal with one thing at a time. For example, talismans are only managed when facing an Erge Altar. So, it's a game mechanic you don't need to think about the rest of the time. The same goes for relics in chests.
The number of choices at any given moment is always limited. But the total number of choices throughout a whole game is considerable. That's what makes the game so interesting and replayable, in my opinion.
Pyrene is similar to your previous game Forward: Escape the Fold, yet so different. Which elements make them stand out from each other?
I'd say that Pyrene takes Forward's basic features but pushes them further while adding new ones, such as:
- A deck of cards to manage and improve
- More possibilities for movement and cards on the board
- Varied situations thanks to different biomes, weather effects, boss mechanics, etc.
- Meta-progression with a village to rebuild and upgrade to unlock content
- A "Luck" and "Affinities" system to guide the building of your deck
- Wider range of status effects with greater synergies
- Narration and the NPCs you meet
- Other secrets to discover 👀
How convenient is working with your own game engine? Did you find it smoother to work with the rest of the team?
It's very convenient to work with my own engine. What I particularly appreciate is working on interfaces, and traditional engines make this part very unsatisfactory in my opinion. With my own engine, I'm not afraid to add tooltips, tutorials, UI opening/closing animations, etc.
This has also allowed us to be quite free in combining tools used outside the engine. For the narration, for example, Marion could use the writing tool that suited her best, and I developed a system to import that into the game automatically.
I think our work process is reliable from that point of view.
What makes you proud about Pyrene? What is the most important thing you've learned from the development?
What makes me proud? The innovative side of the game.
When we think of a roguelike deckbuilding game, we immediately think of Slay the Spire or any other game with a side view and a hand of cards at the bottom of the screen. Pyrene is a far cry from that, which was our intention from the start. I'm happy to have succeeded in keeping to this line throughout development. As for the gameplay, the concept I created 2 years ago is actually pretty close to the final game.
The most important thing I've learned? To work in a team—and ours worked out pretty well, which is amazing—and not to go into the red by working too much—that's the deal with this kind of job. That's two things, oops.
Pyrene will launch on September 13th, be ready to spread the word on our socials! Feel free to wishlist the game and join our Discord to share your excitement with us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2468100/Pyrene/