Star Admiral is a multiplayer trading-card game for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. It sees players assemble a vast fleet of stylish but also threatening 3D spaceships, and lead them into fast-paced action-packed strategic space battles against online opponents.
The team at Hardscore Games are a passionate group of developers who believe that the mobile game industry has gotten stale over the past few years. They believe it’s time for a change, and this is hard to argue seeing as the whole scene is dominated by flying birds, waiting for crops to grow or crushing candy for hours on end. It’s a relief to see a title directed at dedicated hardcore gamers.
Some of the 1001-Up.com team have never played a trading-card game before so we’re very interested in seeing how Star Admiral works and if it will make us converts to the genre. Guy Atkinson, the Communications Guy for Hardscore Games, has generously taken time out of his schedule to answer a few questions for us.
How did the Hardscore Games team meet and what made you decide to make Star Admiral?
“Felix Buchwald founded Hardscore Games with the intention of bringing together a team of talented people who all enjoy playing video games and creating something that changes the way the traditional or hardcore gamers see mobile games.”
Your goal is to ‘reach passionate gamers who are disappointed with the current mobile gaming landscape’. Why do you think this dissatisfaction has arisen and how is Hardscore Games hoping to change it?
“We have to put it in the context of strategy games, but we know there are a lot of gamers who don’t enjoy playing mobile games as much as PC or console games. We think this is due to the lack of strategic depth and challenging gameplay you see in many ‘strategy’ games on mobile, where often the main gaming mechanic is to spend lots of money in the shop and then press attack. Our aim is to take the depth you’d find in a PC based trading card game and bring it to mobile, so carefully planning your fleet and being fully involved in the gameplay.”
Are there any particular trading card games you’ve taken inspiration from?
“Magic the Gathering and Shadow Era.”
Hardscore Games want to change the way gamers see mobile titles.
Could you talk us through how a typical battle will work?
“When each player starts their turn, you must choose to sacrifice a unit which increases your overall energy by one (this can be cancelled if you think you have enough energy), you can then spend this bringing a unit into play. Each unit has an energy cost which typically means you can only use more powerful units at a later stage in the match when you’ve stored more energy. When you play crafts you can’t attack with them immediately unless they have haste or another special ability. Traps will lay waiting for your opponent to attack and strikes apply immediately. Once your opponent has taken their turn then you can sacrifice, play and then attack. You can choose to either attack enemy ships or directly attack the enemy home base. Most ships can only attack once a turn but there are a huge range of special abilities that apply different effects to your ships or to the enemy. Ships have attack and health values as well as the energy cost, but your home base just has hit points. At some point you can choose to spend energy upgrading to Tier 2 and unlocking your more powerful units. The aim is to keep playing until one player’s home base has zero hit points and is destroyed.”
The ship types revealed so far are badass! How many will there be in total and can you tell us a little about your favourites?
“Thank you. There are 102 Units, 58 of these are Ships. Some of my favourite ships are the Shadow Strike Ultimate Dagger, and the Order of Anarchy Strike Craft. We also have a new race called the Heavily Armed Drunkards whose ships look like beer barrels.”
The screenshots we’ve seen so far look amazing, superior to a lot of mobile games out there. Has it been difficult to create an ‘epic space battle’ feel for a small screen?
“Thank you, we’ve worked hard on making it look as good as possible. It’s a very good question. It’s certainly been difficult, we had about twenty different iterations before we decided on the layout as it is. Now we can get about 6 ships on each side of the screen.”
You’ve mentioned that there’s a strong community focus with Star Admiral and we’ve noticed that some incentives are being offered on your website to encourage this. This is great for getting players involved early; what plans do you have to entice future gamers and keep existing ones?
“We’re hoping to get players making gameplay videos, recording the duels so other people can watch. We want players to get involved in the forums on our website to discuss the game and form guilds for taking part in tournaments. In the long run it’s likely that we’ll keep expanding the array of ships and races that are available so we’ll definitely ask for fan feedback when we’re looking for new ideas.”
Powerful units can be used at a later stage in a match once you’ve stored more energy.
The perception of mobile games tends to be that they’re for more ‘casual’ gamers. Do you think Star Admiral will inspire other mobile developers to think about creating deeper titles?
“Yes we certainly hope so, we’re starting to see more exciting mobile games coming out all the time but some of them are for tablet and not smartphone. The key is keeping the controls simple, if you can do that then there’s still so much you can add to a mobile game.”
Is there any advice you’d give someone who’s thinking of making a mobile or indie game?
“I think having a strong concept is important. Borrowing good ideas but making them your own also helps, if something works then don’t mess with it too much. Planning before you actually start developing is also a very good idea, you need to keep track of where you are and where you want to be in a week or a months time otherwise it’s likely you’ll get stuck somewhere along the way.”
Can you tell us which component of Star Admiral you’re currently working on? How are you feeling about its upcoming release?
“We’re currently working on a tutorial and getting the beta up and running properly. We’re feeling very positive about the game and things are coming along nicely.”
Hardscore Games are hoping to inspire other mobile developers to create deeper titles.
Star Admiral is due to be released in late 2013, and Hardscore Games have promised us a beta copy of the game so we’ll aim bring you a gameplay video as soon as possible. Thanks once again to Guy and the rest of the team for answering our questions.
