Broken Empire wanted "that look of toy figures being moved in a tabletop game" for Traces of Gods

For a while, the idea of serving as a celestial overseer guiding troops and units to war, was quite a popular premise in the video game space. We can somewhat thank Peter Molyneux for that for his efforts bringing to life projects such as Black & White. It's a very different space these days and titles like this are fewer and far between, but there are upcoming projects that fit the bill.

One such example is Broken Empire's Traces of Gods, a strategic action game where players take a godly view of the action and help lead a batch of units in attacking and defending scenarios. This is quite an interesting project as it's framed like a tabletop game, a design choice that we recently spoke with Broken Empire's 2D artist Ana Andres about at BCN Game Fest.

"At first it was a more simplistic game, because the focus was to be able to fit a lot of units inside of the game, and to be able to perform really big battles, and to be able to draw the formations and be really specific about where you place your units," began Andres. "But then a really good artist, the lead artist, started in the project, and everything changed, because the art became one of the main focuses. And we want to achieve a really stylistic game. In a way it's very simplistic, but it's also really, you could say, cute, because we are based on toys. Hence the name of the last game, which was Toy Tactics. And we wanted to really achieve that look of toy figures being moved in a tabletop game, inside of a scenario, I think."

Andres then went on to talk about the humour of the game and how it will paint a lighter version of warfare.

"This game and its predecessor are really based on chaos, on being unable to have fun in the middle of a brutal war. So there's blood, but it's pain. But there's brutality, and you can place your hand and smash your enemies, but also they can fly away, and you can do it to your own units if you're not careful. So I think the humor is really important in this game."

Lastly, on the topic of Peter Molyneux, we also inquired about how Traces of Gods might benefit from the recent announcement of the famous developer's Masters of Albion title.

"I think we can benefit from each other, because the announcement was really big, so now fans are going to look for it again, and they are going to find us. So that is really good, and we are going to mention them, and of course the game is so relatable to Black & White. I think we are going to attract more emotion and more interest in them, and then they are going to send us more fans, because when they do it, they are going to lift us."

You can check out the full interview with Broken Empire below.