The Croatian gaming industry has been creating titles that exceed expectations for years, and the Zagreb studio Overseer Games is one of the best examples of this creative force. After the success of games like Aquatica and Patron, they are now ready to intrigue a global audience with their latest project – Kaiserpunk.
But what happens behind the closed doors of this innovative studio? What motivates the team to embark on such ambitious projects and what does a day in the life look like in the development of a game that combines alternative history, grand strategy, and complex logistics?
Kaiserpunk will be available for the second version of playtesting starting this Friday, November 29, 2024, and applications are already open via the following link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2012190/KAISERPUNK/
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With the upcoming playtest, we decided to go "behind the scenes" and explore how the idea for Kaiserpunk came about, how the game has developed, what has influenced its development so far, and in which direction further development could go. We received answers to all these questions and more directly from the Overseer team, and below you have the opportunity to find out how this process unfolded behind the closed doors of the artists behind Kaiserpunk, Aquatica, and Patron.
1. When did you first conceive the concept for Kaiserpunk? Is there a specific event, book, or game that inspired you? For Aquatica and Patron, you mentioned that they are city builder games, but for Kaiserpunk, you said it is the ULTIMATE city builder. What is the difference?
The original idea of what we would do in the city builder genre actually came even before Patron was made. The difference is that Kaiserpunk will be the first game of its kind, as far as we know, that will have two genres. These are Grand strategy and City builder in the same game. These are two completely huge genres combined into one game. The idea is to be like a City builder with a very large addition in gameplay from the other genre. We didn't want to start with something so big and ambitious right from the beginning, so the first to come was Patron from the City builder genre as we decided to approach it step-by-step. After two City builder games, we decided: Now is the time. Now we are coming back to the forefront. Patron and Aquatica were gaining experience in this genre.
2. How did you come up with the idea for an alternative history where World War I never ended? How much did such a concept influence the design of the game and gameplay? Did you plan for Kaiserpunk to continue like a series or to focus more on expansions?
Kaiserpunk is designed to expand significantly. We plan to work on Kaiserpunk for a long time. We have a lot of ideas for content for Kaiserpunk, but we don't plan to stick to just one genre of games. We would like to expand Kaiserpunk and focus more on expansions rather than going down the path of Kaiserpunk 2, Kaiserpunk 3, etc. As for alternative history, the original game will cover approximately from 1918 to 1945. It doesn't have to look perfect, as it doesn't follow our history perfectly, but only up to 1918 where it starts to differ significantly. The idea is that depending on everyone's gameplay, history can vary greatly, or players can choose to stick closely to history. The idea is to give players the freedom and options to determine how the period from 1918 onwards would unfold, allowing them to manage territories from that period. One of the reasons for the direction of expansions would be that they would allow history to continue. Of course, as those expansions are conceived and created, they could reach all the way to the present day and perhaps even into the future.
3. Aquatico and Patron have achieved great success, how did you react to that success in the development of Kaiserpunk? Did you consider using a similar template due to previous success or did you decide to start fresh with a completely new concept?
There were several very good things we wanted to introduce from previous games into Kaiserpunk, and we would lean more towards Patron than Aquatico. Aquatico is the last game that was released, but Patron is simply a far more successful game. Because of that, we were able to receive much more feedback from a much larger number of users, and then we could learn a lot more from Patron. Patron and Kaiserpunk are not exactly the same genre, and we couldn't directly transfer some things, but we could transfer a lot of well-received elements of the city builder from Patron to Kaiserpunk. Also, one of the obstacles in transferring those good elements is that we developed Patron on our own game engine, while Kaiserpunk was made in Unity. That's a very different story, and we had to first get used to and learn the new engine. Despite that, we transferred quite a few good ideas and templates from Patron because players reacted very positively to them.
4. How much attention do you pay to player feedback at this early stage, and can you highlight any advice or criticism that has changed your plans?
We had the first version of the Playtest at the Demo Fest, where we presented only about 30% of the entire game. At the Demo Fest, we had over 40,000 players, which is a very large pool for feedback. The first impressions were very good considering it was a very unfinished version of the game, but still, the feedback was very positive. The most positive reactions from both players and journalists were about the merging of those two big genres: City builder and Grand strategy. The game was talked about in terms of Kaiserpunk potentially being a genre-defining game, at least we hope it will be. What changed was that we expected to receive much more feedback from players in the City builder genre than from Grand strategy games. In the end, it turned out that we received much more criticism from Grand strategy players, perhaps because there are currently many fewer of them, so even though only part of the game is Grand strategy, we received much more feedback. Because of that feedback, there was a direct change in the development of the game towards making the Grand strategy part much more emphasized and expanded than originally intended. Grand strategy was supposed to be much lighter, and now it is almost the goal of the game. Initially, it was intended to be 80% City builder and 20% Grand strategy, and now it's close to 50-50.
5. If you wanted players to pay attention to one part of Kaiserpunk, what would you want it to be? Openness, mechanics, graphics, story, or some detail that means a lot to you but players could easily predict.
Actually, we have two things we would like players to pay a little more attention to because they were very important to us. The first thing is the details in the graphics; when you zoom into the cities, we wanted to create a city that feels as alive as possible. So it's not just a presentation of the city, but when you zoom into the city, the amount of detail like cars from that era, the level of technology that fits the time period, and how technology changes over time, how buildings are constructed, what people are doing on the streets... So, details that represent life of that time which we tried to convey as faithfully as possible, to really get the feeling of that era. The second thing we would really love players to notice is how difficult it was to create that link between those two genres, City builder and Grand strategy. The game does not function in a way that you play City builder and then go to the map to do something. Everything happening in all parts of the world, and in your local area, all the politics and progress you determine, all of that happens simultaneously and you constantly have to switch from the local map to the global one and solve quests on all levels simultaneously. It really wasn't easy to do, and we truly hope that players will notice that as they play.
6. Was there any idea that was "too crazy" for Kaiserpunk that you ultimately did not implement? Or even something you initially thought to implement but then changed your mind, or even left for another game?
Yes, we had one very crazy idea that we decided not to implement because it would simply be too much even for Kaiserpunk. That idea was to not stop at 2 genres but to add a third one, which would be RTS (Real-Time Strategy). This means that when battles occur, for example between 2 territories, you could directly engage in the battle and manage that aspect of the game. Although it sounds too good, and we would love to be able to implement it, it would simply be too much for one game and if we started with that, the game would only be released in maybe 5-10 years. The idea was presented, and we would have liked to incorporate it alongside the existing 2 genres, but the current version was already a pretty big project and we are very satisfied with it. Maybe someday in another game we could combine, for example, Grand strategy and RTS, but for Kaiserpunk, it will remain just an idea.
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The Overseer Games studio has given us a very clear and detailed insight into their process, their ideas, their procedures, as well as the possible future of Kaiserpunk. They are now ready to bring those plans and ideas to the small screens starting Friday, November 29, 2024, and regarding the release of the full version, it is planned for February 27, 2025.
Follow Virus.hr for a full review of Kaiserpunk when it becomes available, where you will have the opportunity to hear the first impressions of the full release.
