Dungeons 4 devilishly dived onto the Nintendo Switch a few weeks back and What’s It Like rated it “Outstanding” saying “Dungeons 4 has shown me that it’s good to be bad with its devilishly wicked humour, fantastic gameplay, and light-hearted chaos” and giving it high praise for its tower defence and real-time strategy hybrid gameplay. I was so impressed by the game, I had to know more about how it came to be. Thankfully, Christian Wolfertstetter, the Creative Director of Realmforge Studios intercepted my message before the Electronic Mail Hating Ultimate Evil did, and took the time to talk about Dungeons 4, hardware challenges, and sometimes just letting voice actors go off script…
It’s been almost 11 months since Dungeons 4 released on other consoles, how does the team feel now that the Switch Edition is here?
It’s great to finally be bringing Dungeons 4 to the Switch! We’ve worked hard on the Switch Edition, and it has been an enjoyable journey for us despite all the challenges, and we hope that Switch players will enjoy what we have created for them!
Was Dungeons 4 always initially planned for the Switch, or did that decision come in later in the development cycle?
It was always our plan to make a Switch version, but considering the significant difference in requirements between Nintendo Switch and other current platforms it was necessary to work on it after release, to have the time to get it right.
What were the challenges you had to overcome to make the jump to the handheld console, especially considering the differences in new-gen consoles?
Dungeons 4 is the second game that we ported ourselves to the Switch. One challenge was that the game is rather resource-hungry, in particular due to the two different maps and game types (outdoor world and dungeon) with a completely distinct set of assets that the player can jump into with the click of a button. It was important for us to bring the same content and experience to the Switch edition, without reducing the levels, so managing all that with the more limited memory budget and computation power was what we spent the most time on. We also really wanted to bring co-op to the Switch, which was also new territory for us.
With Dungeons 3 being revered by the fans, how did you approach developing Dungeons 4 to bring in new fans, but also cater to the existing fanbase?
The most important thing for us was to make Dungeons 4 even better than its predecessor.
Through community feedback and our own research, we collected several things that we thought would improve the game, and then implemented them in Dungeons 4. At the same time, there were a lot of things that worked well in Dungeons 3 that we didn’t want to change.
In this respect, we naturally appealed to the Dungeons 3 fanbase, who were very supportive of our approach.
Dungeons 4 now features 2-player co-op on Switch, was this a user-requested feature? or something the team always wanted to add?
Both. Coop was a feature that users wanted, but the team was also very committed to getting multiplayer into the Switch version.
The new Dwarves faction is set to cause some trouble with the Ultimate Evil, what sort of dynamics were considered when adding them to the game?
Base building in Dungeons 3 was pretty easy. Sure, we had spiders that had their lairs underground, but there was not a lot of dynamism in how they built and expanded.
Our goal was to add a more dynamic faction to the dungeon that would also collect gold and be more than just a nuisance. Other dungeon management games just add more “dungeon lords” to the game, but that was not what we wanted to do. In Dungeons, you are the villain, fighting these annoying heroes! So dwarves, known for digging tunnels and loving gold, seemed like a fitting addition.
The humour and 4th wall breaking have become the series’ signature feature, was the story and script locked in, or were there adlibs that ended up making it into the final game?
The humour and breaking of the 4th wall is definitely the signature feature of the show and people either love it or hate it. The story and script changes a lot during production as we tend to go for every joke we can get rather than the big picture. Also, our very talented and awesome voice actors often have some last-minute ideas that we just throw in for a cheap laugh.
With all the humour and shenanigans involved in the game, would it be fair to say that the team had a lot of fun making Dungeons 4?
Definitely! The Dungeons series is a great way to add crazy stuff and still get away with it. It’s just part of the lore now, because there’s no lore! Steampunk? Why not? Western dwarves? Great idea! Enemies with laser swords?!? Well, not yet…
I know Dungeons 4 has just launched on Switch, but can you spill any secrets on what the future holds for the series? Or does the Ultimate Evil demand silence on that subject?
Unfortunately, the Ultimate Evil is in a business meeting to increase its torture and Snot slap rates, so I can’t ask it about the future of the series!
I think it’s best to end the interview there before I end up in the torture chamber! Thank you to Christian for taking the time to chat about Dungeons 4, and thank you to David and Amy at Kalypso Media for helping make this interview happen.
For those interested in Dungeons 4, you can see my review here – Dungeons 4 Switch Review | What’s It Like?
Or take a look at the Eshop listing and buy here – Dungeons 4 – Nintendo Switch™ Edition/Nintendo Switch/eShop Download
