Budhi Tantra on the epic battles of "Rising Warriors"
I have been a major fan of both real time and turn based strategy games for as long as I have been interested in gaming, and I have always craved a mobile strategy game I could sink my teeth into. There are many options on the market, and many are great games, BUT none of them have given me that felling of massive armies slamming into each other. I want to see those massive battles that are usually simulated via stats and numbers actually happen. I crave the feeling of being a general in command of a massive army, and I want to watch epic battles unfold. Rising Warriors offers 80 on 80 battles of a scale not seen on most mobile strategy games (hell most AAA strategy games). With a wide variety of races, heroes, and units at your disposal, Rising Warriors is shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated mobile strategy games. I had the chance to speak to Budhi Tantra from Play Play Fun to get more information on the game's development, and the story behind the game.
Who are you? How did you get into game development?
My name is Budhi Tantra. I am based in Singapore. Before going into general gaming industries, I spent my early years developing educational games for other companies.
After that, I decided to establish a company called Little Learning Tots which concentrates on developing mobile educational games. One game in particular, Alphabet Jumbled, found success. It was voted as one of the best alphabet apps in the market by iVillage.
After educational games I tried my hands on casual games and came up with Soccer Puzzle League. It didn't go viral, as it turns out that it is too hard for casual gamers.
So that's my background and how it all started.
How did Rising Warriors come about? How big is your team?
Rising Warriors is a collaborative effort between PlayPlayFun and Roti Studio (Vietnamese based development team). You can read about the background of Roti Studio team here. The total number of people working on this game is roughly 10 individuals combined from PlayPlayFun and Roti Studio.
Can you briefly describe Rising Warriors? How long has it been in development for?
Rising Warriors is an RPG strategy battle game. The battle is heavily inspired by Langrisser, Dragon Force and Ninja Village. Fans of those games should be able to see something familiar about the battle in Rising Warriors and give them some nostalgic feeling.
The game may seem simple and easy in the beginning, but players will slowly realize the importance of learning what each unit is good for. They will soon need to strategize the battles, and deploy the correct troops. Otherwise, they will get destroyed.
You can win a battle where you are outnumbered if you use the right mix of troops. Luckily, an in-game training ground is available for players to not only learn the battles, but also earn in-game currency, diamonds.
There is also a minor city building element in order to give players access to upgrading their troops. Finally, one of the best things about Rising Warriors is the Multiplayer Clan system where players can join a clan to fight together in a special clan map.
Here, players need to coordinate their attacks to multiple battles in a campaign. Once you lose this battle, you cannot join the battle again until the next campaign.
Rising Warriors has been in development for 2 years.
We spoke earlier and you mentioned that you are currently doing a soft launch. Why did you decided to do a soft launch?
We decided to do soft-launch because the game is huge and server requirement is high. We also would like more exposure to more players to spot bugs that we didn't manage to catch during beta testing. Lastly, the clan system can only be effectively tested when there are enough players to join and create a clan.
How did the mobile platform affect the games design and how did it affect the controls?
Since the beginning, Rising Warriors has always been designed for mobile, therefore, we have been designing the game with mobile platform in mind. Consequently, the game control is totally simplified. My 5 year old son can navigate and play the game without any trouble.
Whats the future for Rising Warriors? What kind of content can we expect to see after launch?
First and foremost, we are planning for an Android version. That's what I am really excited about. However, before that happens, we will need to make the iOS version stable. Other features that we are working on:
1. Battle Replay feature
2. Invite friends feature
3. More upgrades and units are always in our mind
4. Terrain bonus feature
