Fans of the roguelike and roguelite genre have had some real gems to enjoy in recent years, with excellent games such as Dead cells and last year’s destruction of awards Hades serving some incredibly satisfying crawlers based on running on the Switch.
The curse of the dead gods is another example that has been building its fan base in Early Access on Steam for some time, and the developer Passtech Games brings its crisp, powerful fight and the wonderful effects of particles in a Nintendo system next to you very soon – it launches on Switch eShop on February 23rd. The word on the street (well, at least on Steam) is “Very positive”, so you’ll want to be careful if you’re partially in a tough, crunchy fight and explosions.
We caught up with Margaux Saly of Passtech to learn more about the history and inspirations of the studio, how the team sees comparisons to the top-down action title of Supergiant Games and what to expect from the Switch version of this rugged multiplatform. ..
Nintendo Life: For anyone who might have missed it, can you give us a brief sketch of the Curse of the Dead Gods and what it’s all about?
Passtech Games: The curse of the dead gods is a rogue action that takes place in a cursed Temple. Seek eternal life, but get caught in your own trap. You will face a horde of enemies in the dark corridors of the Jaguar, Eagle and Snake temples; you will fight the deadly Champions and Chiefs in these places, only to die again and again. But you will rise and strengthen yourself as you find ways to escape death.
The temple is ruled by the God of death, Xbeltz’aloc, who has a wicked pleasure in using his greed against you. Pay with your own blood at the altars to get better equipment, but face the consequences of the Curses that define the course of each run through random modifiers. Defeat your enemies, but be prepared to fool the shady traps. Light is your best ally in the Temple!
Tell us a little about Passtech Games – how big is the team and how long are you together?
Passtech Games is a small French studio based in Lyon. It was founded in 2012 by Sylvain Passot as a unique studio, because he worked alone on the first game. It has grown over the years as projects have become more ambitious. All the core members of the team joined Passtech Games a few years ago and we already knew each other from previous projects in various game studios.
We launched four games together in total: a tower defense called Space Run, its continuation Space Run: Galaxy, a top-down adventure game called Masters of Animeand, of course, the Curse of the Dead Gods. Today we are about ten permanent team members and sometimes a few more during the production phases.
COTDG has been in Early Access for some time – how long have you been working on the game and how did the ideas behind it develop?
We started working on the concept of The Curse of the Dead Gods in 2018, just before the launch of our previous game, Masters of Anima. We knew we wanted to move to a much darker and tougher game, so we spent a lot of time creating the fighting system and artistic direction of the game. We were inspired by our favorite games – especially The darkest dungeon for comic book art style and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for 3D rendering of cell shading.
We liked the way the roguelite genre worked, we thought the camera from top to bottom fits, as well as the game mechanics we were testing at the time. It was also a genre that allowed us to offer a challenging, skill-based experience; while incorporating a large progression curve and a lot of content. Even over time, Early Access seemed the perfect fit for the Curse of the Dead Gods, as it involved the developing community!
How did the final product shape and modify the final period of the game?
The Early Access format contributed a lot to the development of the game. Of course, we had our own guidelines with all the main content we wanted to integrate into the game, such as the Snake and Eagle Temples. The community has helped us a lot, however, in expanding our list and testing the game mechanics on a large scale. In fact, some of the ideas have been changed due to direct feedback from players. Early access is really a great tool to balance a game and bring new ideas to concepts. Even if we had a very precise vision of our game, it was always interesting to take into account the suggestions of the community and try to integrate them into the existing mechanics.
The community has helped us a lot, however, in expanding our list and testing the game mechanics on a large scale. In fact, some of the ideas have been changed due to direct feedback from players.
On the other hand, we had to trust ourselves as developers, because the goal of Early Access is not just to blindly accept all player feedback. There was necessarily a certain amount of questions and meditations on ideas. For example, we would receive negative feedback about the Final Curse (which is pretty bad and understood that way), but it came from players who didn’t really understand the purpose of this Curse. On the other hand, the players told us when we made a bad decision on how to reward them with meta currencies, so we decided to listen to them and adapt the concept.
Anyway, it was great to see all these players getting involved in the Curse of the Dead Gods and knowing him so well that they knew what could and couldn’t be added.
Launching a game on multiple consoles is always a challenge – how smooth was the process of starting the game on the Switch?
A real challenge, for sure! But we are very proud of the way the game looks on Nintendo Switch and other consoles. It does not betray the PC version, even if, of course, we made some concessions in the playback and graphics performance of the game. Today we are pleased with the result on the Nintendo Switch with a resolution of 920p when the console is docked and 720p in handheld mode, as well as 30 stable frames per second, which is highly appreciated for a game where reflexes and fluidity are paramount. Of course, if we have the opportunity to further optimize the game on consoles, we will do it!
After the success of Supergiant with his colleagues with roguelite, Hades last year (another game that went through a long period of early access), the reaction – and the comparison from this game – affected in some way your approach to COTDG ?
First of all, we were very happy to see such an amazing reaction for Hades and Supergiant Games. It’s always nice to see that a game succeeds, especially when you can see that I clearly put a lot of passion into it.
As for the comparison, for us it stops being a top-down action. These are two radically different games in the way they present themselves. The Curse of the Dead Gods is almost a strategy game in which every move must be thought of to avoid falling on us, while in Hades you can let yourself be carried away by the superb frenzy of fighting. The success of Hades and his comparisons did not affect our approach to the Curse of the Dead Gods at all. Our game was already in development before the Supergiants announcement, and as I said before, they remain two fundamentally different games. However, it was very interesting to see what they managed to do with the genre, because it was really innovative and efficient. After all, just such a comparison cannot be flattered.
The Curse of the Dead Gods is almost a strategy game in which every move must be thought of to avoid falling on us, while in Hades you can let yourself be carried away by the superb frenzy of fighting.
How much impact has the game and team had on the last year or something of global turmoil?
Fortunately, we are in an industry that is not much affected by the frontal pandemic. Almost all of our services can be performed remotely and this is a real blessing, especially when we are in the middle of developing our game. The blockade in France began shortly after the launch of the Curse of the Dead Gods in early access and we had to adjust our working methods. Of course, this affected our productivity in the beginning, because we had to get used to a new rhythm and new ways of working together. At Passtech Games, we were already working remotely from time to time, so the whole team was ready to work from home. But it is true that when it came to the exchange of ideas, bug fixes, mechanics, etc. it was not very practical. Our early access suffered in a way, because we wished we could integrate even more content, but we had to make choices and get things off the list. We hope to be able to add them after the game launches if it is successful.
Once the game is out, do you have a concrete post-release plan?
We are currently working on the first post-release patch, which should be released in the first two to three months after the game’s release. It brings new content, such as new weapons, relics and curses, and even a pleasant surprise for roguelite fans! We won’t say more for now, but you’ll know all about it soon! After that, we’ll take a step back from developing the Curse of the Dead Gods to see what players and the community have to say about it, and hopefully they’ll enjoy the game as much as we do, so we can keep adding new things. !
Do you have anything else to mention that I didn’t touch?
We look forward to sharing the Curse of the Dead Gods with the Switch gaming community and hope you enjoy our Cursed Temple!
We thank Margaux and Passtech for taking the time to answer our questions. The Curse of the Dead Gods launches on Switch on February 23rd.