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Knights in Tight Spaces

A Party in Tight Spaces - Knights in Tight Spaces Gamescom Interview

We spoke with James Parker, game director of Knights in Tight Spaces at Gamescom to dive deep into how the party and class mechanics change the game from Ground Shatter's previous title.

Audio transcription

"Hi, Gamereactor friends. I'm David Knight.
I'm here in this not-so-tiny space to talk about knights in tiny spaces.
Thank you so much for joining us."

"I've been playing for a little while. It looks complex to me.
It looks very interesting to me. I love the graphics.
There's so much to talk about here.
But first and foremost, you told me that the main new thing here is the party and how characters help each other."

"Yeah, so the first game, Fights in Tight Spaces, you only played as a single character.
Whereas this time around, we've brought in a party system so you can have multiple characters."

"They all share the same resources, same momentum, same combo, and the same deck of cards, so you have a choice between whether you want to add cards that any characters can use or get more specialized ones that only one or two characters can use."

"That way, you've got a lot of choice in how you play the game.
And then on top of that, the characters work together in various different and interesting ways.
As I've seen during the tutorial, there's also combo moves, right?
You have to think strategically, and you have to think ahead, right?
So if you do it right, give us an example of something really cool that can happen, for example, with a hunter finishing off."

"Yeah, so we have what we call a support attack system, so that if you deal damage to an enemy, then any of your other characters who are in range of that enemy will also basically get a free attack."

"So the challenge becomes not just where to position your characters and where the enemies are, but also the order in which you play your cards and where your other characters are relative to you.
So, for example, you can push a character into the range of your hunter, and they will fire an arrow and finish off the enemy."

"Of course, a party doesn't make sense without the classes system that you just mentioned.
So tell us about the different classes that we can choose here and their abilities, if there is something very special about them."

"Yeah, so we have eight basic classes in the game, which will get unlocked as you play through the story mode.
And they range from classic brawlers who have most hand-to-hand moves and fighters who use weapons."

"And we have what we're calling attuned characters who can use magic abilities and some that can use bows.
So there's a range of different play styles available from the get-go, but also players can build their deck however they want and really tune the characters to their own particular play styles."

"I previously compared it to Fire Emblem because it's a franchise I love.
You have to position yourself, there is this chess-like system, but then the affinity between characters and classes doesn't work exactly like that.
No, I think what we're trying to do is give players the ability to mold the game in their own image."

"So as well as their main character, who they'll build up as they play through the story, they'll also bring other characters into their team with different abilities and different cards.
So they've really got a high degree of freedom on how they want to play the game."

"Tell me more about the graphics.
I love the style, it looks like a storybook to me.
And I don't know, who's your main artist?
How did you approach the visuals here?
Yeah, we're really lucky to have a really amazing art team at Ground Shatter."

"Yeah, and I think when we started working on the game, we wanted something that maintained that striking, instantly obvious appeal of the first game that could be really recognizable if you just saw a clip of it.
But also we wanted something that was thematically appropriate to the new setting."

"So yeah, we settled on this kind of interactive concept art look, which has got nice sketchy outlines and nice lighting, and just generally really pops off.
You just mentioned your previous game, your previous Tiny Spaces game."

"What sort of lessons learned from that game are you bringing into this project?
Yeah, I mean, we were really lucky with that game because we had the opportunity to build it with a nice community of people through doing close beaters and through early access."

"So we had a great Discord crew who we could push new changes to and say, what do you think about these?
And they really helped mold the game.
So moving into this follow-up, we had the basis of the game already nailed down, and now we have the opportunity to really build on that foundation, that really strong foundation that we created together to add in the new features, the weapons and equipment, the party system, all those new exciting things kind of layered on top of this really solid core."

"What about the lore and the narrative? What sort of story are you telling here?
Yeah, we kind of lean quite heavily into the kind of tropes of the genre.
You start out as this tavern hustler, a bit kind of directionless as a character, and then you're brought into this whole world of kind of intrigue and suspicious characters, and you're gradually brought into a kind of wild situation in the world."

"So yes, the story goes in interesting directions.
And also, it is a roguelike game, so you will replay it several times.
So we're making sure that the story stands up to multiple playthroughs by unlocking new avenues and new branches as you play it multiple times."

"I like that building. Very nicely looking.
So when can we get our hands on Knights in Tiny Spaces?
We haven't announced a release date yet. That will come quite soon.
But it will be hopefully in stores very soon."

"Anything else that you would like to tell your specific fans about this project compared to the previous game?
I'm really hoping that existing fans of the game will kind of come with us on this journey because we're doing very exciting things with it, but also we want to open up to a whole new audience of people who've not necessarily played the first game."

"You don't need to have played Knights in Tiny Spaces to enjoy Knights.
It's got something for everyone, and we onboard everyone equally, and we're hoping to really kind of grow the crowd.
Even though it's complex, you guys have worked in the accessibility, and it's welcoming, and I could see that."

"So that's a specific point you've worked on, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think sometimes tactical strategy games quite push people away a little bit, and with the art style and the animation and all those things, we want it to be visually interesting and just generally appealing to anyone, and they'll take a look at the game and go, what's this?
And then we'll introduce them gently to how deck building works, and they'll kind of come to love the genre too."

"Like with the project, thank you so much for your time, and enjoy the show.
Thank you very much."

Gamescom

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