Interview: Cataclismo Is A “Castle Story” Meets “They Are Billions” Done Right

I’m Javi Giménez, CEO of Digital Sun, a Spanish indie game studio mostly known for Moonlighter and the League of Legends game The Mageseeker. Our third game, Cataclismo, is special for us since it’s quite different from our previous titles and because it’s the first game we are going to self-publish. We are scared 😀

Javi: Cataclismo is a strategy game about building fortified cities with a piece by piece construction mechanic inspired by LEGO. Then, manage your troops and defend them every night against the attack of hordes of monsters that crawl out of a strange mist.
Centuries ago, the world of Cataclismo experienced a global disaster that left the planet covered with mist, horrors, and glowing orbs. Through the campaign of the game, we follow Iris as the Overseer of an expedition in her quest through the lost reign to understand the source of the cataclysm.
Some inspirations for the gameplay are They Are Billions, Castle Story and Stronghold. Also, there are classical RTSs and, of course, LEGO. We wanted to build a game that fulfilled the fantasy of building the perfect castle when we were kids.

Javi: Probably the main difference is the extremely detailed piece-by-piece building of structures. There are a few games that do this in the RTS space (Castle Story is the most similar one). Also, the game is not a traditional RTS like Starcraft or Age of Empires, instead, the loop is closer to a Tower Defense (we are huge fans of They Are Billions). You gather resources, build your structures piece by piece, keeping all the mechanics in mind, position your troops, and, when the night comes, try to survive the wave of incoming horrors. I would say Castle Story meets They Are Billions but done by a pathologically perfectionist studio is a good way of explaining the game.

Javi: We have spent around 5 years since we started working on the idea. A lot of it has been about polishing the core loop of building and defending. Also, we spent a lot of time creating the world and polishing the art direction. 3D was new for us, so that was a challenge, and we are super proud of the result. We tried many different things until we settled for something that worked for us. The team has been an average of 10 people or so during the development, with peaks of around 15.

Javi: Yes, you are absolutely right. This one is very very different from Moonlighter and The Mageseeker. Those games shared being an ARPG with pixel art, so there was a lot of know-how we could move from one to the other. For this one, we had to learn a lot of new stuff. It’s hard to find things they have in common, but I would say that there are three things worth mentioning. The art director of Moonlighter and Cataclismo is the same person, David Aguado. And, even if the game looks very very different I think it’s possible for the trained eye to find some common elements in the stylization and the level of perfectionism David always strives for. Second, technically, this game has been a challenge; it’s more complex than our other two titles, and the experience we had with them has allowed us to push the engine (Unity) to its limits and achieve everything we wanted to do, like having hundreds of enemies on screen or having complex structures behave as we wanted to. We couldn’t have done that if this was our first game. Finally, the lesson we learned from previous titles is that players can see the love that you put into a game, the little details. We like to think that we are not too fast when developing games, but we are patient when it comes to polishing everything about them. We are still learning and developing as a studio, but that’s something we would like to do on all of our games. We just love quality, even when our abilities won’t allow us to deliver as much as we wanted yet.

Javi: As the CEO, I have always looked up to the way Klei and Supergiant do things. I admire those studios both as a player and as a studio head. I love the way they can produce their own games with extremely high standards and deliver them directly to the player. All while maintaining direct conversations with them. I think it’s a great model because it allows you to be more independent in things like planning the development and deciding when and how to address players. We also enjoy working with publishers and will probably continue doing that for several titles. I think it’s going to depend on what is better for each game, but it’s great to have the option to self-publish.
In terms of challenges. Well, everything is a challenge, but I would say our main concern is getting visibility for Cataclismo. The market is crowded with very high-quality titles, and it’s hard to find the attention we feel our game needs. We are doing quite well, but from now until the release, we hope many more people have heard about Cataclismo; we are super proud of it.

Javi: The feedback has been really positive, we have seen many players as excited about the game as we are. There has been feedback on several aspects (many related to UX) that we have been able to address. Although the game is pretty much finished, there are things that we are still working on, and that are always tricky, like balancing difficulty. It’s a tricky game to balance, and we would like everyone to have the right experience with the game. From those interested in the story and the world to those interested in extremely difficult challenges.

Javi: No, we have no plans for consoles currently.

Javi: Yes, we think Cataclismo is the kind that might find its own community interested in seeing the game evolve. We expect some players will love the game and invest many hours into it, and we would like to make sure they can do that. The game is already going to be released with a lot of content and 4 game modes (Campaign, Skirmish, Survival and Creative). What else we do and for how long is going to depend on how large and interested that community is, but we already have some plans to add some extra content and features post-release. Self-publishing makes this kind of thing easier.

Javi: Hmmm, many things… One thing that people might not expect is how immersive and beautiful the game is. Usually, RTSs are not too interested in art, but for us, atmosphere and beauty are always important. Some might be surprised to see that they are actually going to use the photo mode more than they expected 🙂 
Also, reversing the question, I would say I’m excited to see what the fans build because I’m sure there will be some crazy stuff we hadn’t expected. People always surprise you in how they use the systems of a game like Cataclismo.

Javi: Yes, an unashamed petition: If you are reading this, go and wishlist the game please! Steam cares about such things, and we are a humble indie studio self-publishing; we need you.