South African born and developed indie game Desktop Dungeons did the SA gaming community proud when it picked up the Excellence in Design Award at the 2011 Independent Games Festival.
MyGaming caught up with QCF Design’s Rodain Joubert, the mastermind behind the original Desktop Dungeons concept, to find out what the future holds for the project.
Joubert confirmed that QCF intends to bring a retail version of Desktop Dungeons to Windows, Mac OS, Android and iOS. “It’s always been a plan to throw it onto as many devices as possible, what’s been in dispute is the release schedule,” said Joubert. “That’s why we took issue with what Ferraro was doing, since iOS was a target market of ours,” he said, referring to the quashed Desktop Dungeons clone.
We also queried the possibility of XBLA, PSN or WiiWare versions. “If it eventually turns out to be an option, then sure! We’re really not focusing on that sort of thing, but if we manage to strike the right deals with the right people then we will go for it further down the line,” said Joubert.
Joubert explained that the release schedule for the various platforms has been a challenging decision, and at this point QCF hasn’t decided which platform to focus on for the launch of Desktop Dungeons. “We hope to have that figured out in the next week or so. We’ll pretty much have to make a more concrete plan by this stage,” said Joubert. “We’ve recently been debating whether or not we want to focus on Apple’s platforms before, say, chatting with Steam any further about the PC/Mac release.”
When queried on the stage of negotiation with digital distributors such as Steam, Joubert said “It’s still early days, but a fantastic part of going to an event like the GDC / IGF has been our ability to do awesome things like network with some of those big names in the industry. I can’t really say much yet, though Steam has been pretty friendly and helpful.”
QCF Design (left to right): Marc Luck; Danny Day; Rodain Joubert
We asked Joubert if QCF has considered the product rating requirement of the Film and Publications Board (FPB) of South Africa. This would enable QCF to distribute the game through local variants of services such as the iTunes store and the Android marketplace. “I think that if we do go along any ratings channels (depending on the requirements of our distribution platforms more than anything else), we’ll probably be looking at it from a more global perspective. Although the game will be available to South Africans, they won’t constitute the majority of our audience. Looking for FPB approval is a bit narrow in the long run,” said Joubert.
When asked to elaborate on this decision, Joubert said “A big part of it is about tracking stats from our website. Though it’s also just an established idea that the international community tends to yield a way bigger audience than anything we could muster locally.”
We moved on to the question of price and release windows for the eventual retail version of Desktop Dungeons. “A price point that we’re bandying about, at least for the PC version, is about US$15,” said Joubert.
“As for release windows and on what platforms; that’s become a bit hazy and we’re still deliberating a few options. Basically, budget constraints are becoming something of a big deal right now, and at earliest we may have some version of something out in two months. Or it all takes another half year. Still got to figure that out,” he continued.
Desktop Dungeons IGF build screenshot
“Releasing the game as freeware to start with has been our most valuable marketing tool to date. Among the options we’re considering to relieve the budget situation are concepts such as pre-releases which would draw a once-off charge and be updated as development progresses,” said Joubert.
As for content to feature in the retail version of the game, Joubert said “The features we tout at every opportunity include the new Kingdom system, which allows players to enjoy a broader and more sophisticated meta-game. They’ll be able to upgrade buildings, purchase items and dungeon tweaks for individual runs, and unlock new dungeon types which, unlike the current freeware [version’s] additional dungeons, feature far more radical changes than just a new tile-set and one or two new enemies.”
Desktop Dungeons overworld concept art
“Also shown at the IGF was our first build with the fully-functional inventory system that affords players an entirely new element of depth in their dungeon runs. Also (although this is still at the “wistful thinking stage”) we want to see if it’s possible to keep player data persistent between platforms; thus, if you own DD on your iDevice as well as the PC, opening it up in either location will bring up your current Kingdom and unlock progress and allow you to continue your game session,” Joubert concluded.
The freeware version Desktop Dungeons can be downloaded from the QCF Design website.
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