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We chose a cloudy, seaside background for this interview about a tactical game set in the skies, where flying ships battle each other while you customise and manage your “decks”, in both senses of the word.
"Hi Gamereactor friends, we are in beautiful, but very windy, Madeira, for the Madeira Games Fest, as you can see by the background.
This is a beautiful island, we have the sea, we have the palm trees around us, and it's really, really, really windy.
And you know, in this sort of events, normally we don't get to see many games, proper, because it's all about the insight, the knowledge, what you guys share in the panels, and in the workshops, and in the talks."
"But this time, I'm happy to have met you, Andrzej, because you are presenting a game right now, that really looks very interesting to us, which is a strategic game, which is in the clouds. It's called Cloudsphere.
So, we can talk Madeira after, and what you guys are learning inside, but tell me, what's the elevator pitch for this strategic game?
Hi, so, I'm Andrzej, the CEO of the Lucky Studios, and the Cloudsphere is a roguelike deckbuilder, where your ship is your deck."
"It's actually the only deckbuilder, because you actually build your deck. That's a pun in the name.
Yeah, you sail upon this fantastic Cloudsphere, which is in the name, and there's a ruin scattered across the world, by a destroyed city of a giant leviathan called Altul, and you scavenge for parts, for modules, and you build your own ship, and you battle pirates and the leviathans, and try to lure this giant beast into the maelstrom at the edge of the world."
"And I love the art. It struck me when I saw it, it's really eye-catching.
Which would you say are the inspirations for this project, art-wise, and sort of the tone you want to convey with it?
Well, it's whimsical. We want the tone to be light, to be, you know, there's a drastic catastrophe happening, but we are playing this drifter robot bunch of misfits, and it's inspired by Treasure Planet, which I grew up watching, and Atlantis movie, and Moebius, the comic book artist, and I think we have a lot of art inspiration, because my background is concept art, actually. I started the company six years ago to create my own creative games, but all of the teams are highly skilled artists, and we want our games to be very high quality, and draw inspiration from our childhood, and the most inspiring games we have seen, like Final Fantasy IX, beautiful airships, and all this fantasy of world-building, it's what we are here for."
"I'm very passionate about just doing a lot of hidden stories and gems inside the world.
And you revealed a few days ago, it was an IGN trailer, what was the feedback from the community the moment you released this?
What sort of comment are you getting from the fans?
Amazing, I'm so stoked, because, you know, I just created a new YouTube channel and dropped, like, no marketing, and our personal trailer even kind of blew up as a new video on YouTube, so this seems like organic growth, you know."
"Players seem to really dig the art style, they dig the ship mechanics, and they are anticipating the game, which is lovely.
They say the clouds are one of the best they've seen in games, and yeah, we put a lot of effort into those clouds, you know.
The clouds are in the name title, they have to be very good.
And the ships, you know, we designed them for months, and all the modules, it's all handcrafted."
"There's no, like, AI-made stuff, actually, it's all handcrafted, it's very unique.
All the modules are designed by Monika, our artist, and we have the great comic book artist Igor Volsky, who is a published comic book artist.
We have Ian Fontova, who is a fantastic Spanish composer.
He did music also for Oaken, our previous title, and it has a fan base of its own, like the soundtrack."
"And, you know, gathering so creative people who love doing this is the most fantastic thing I can, like, achieve.
So I'm already, yeah, and IGN, like, reposted the trailer, it got, like, even more views, like, ours is doing pretty good, but IGN has much, much more reach, and it's, like, over 70,000 right now after one week.
So it's doing good, yeah, wishlists are going in, I'm happy."
"Wishlists are going good.
Okay, and you just mentioned your previous project, so this is a deck builder.
We see a lot of deck builders as of late.
Of course, your setting, your approach to it might make it stand out from other deck builders, but mechanically, what can you tell me you changed from your previous game to this one in terms of tactical mechanics?
Well, less of getting into curve."
"Like, it was hard to get into Oaken, and people who got into it stayed for a long time.
Like, the record player played for 1,400 hours.
Wow.
Which is crazy."
"He's our best tester, like, I really appreciate the guy.
Hi, the guy.
Yeah, yeah, he's, like, doing the work of three QA testers on our Discord.
Shout out to you if you're watching."
"And, yes, we learned a lot while doing this game.
It was our first, like, standalone title, so we want this to be easier to get into, but even more depth when you get to know the game.
So we are inspired by games like the Bazaar, for example."
"Yeah.
The Dice Monster, which shows you a little at the beginning, but they unlock each mechanic with each new run.
There's a whole new mechanic you unlock.
So the depth of, like, juicing, we call it the juicing system."
"It sounds kind of weird, but the point of it is that each beacon, each stop, you can modify and enhance or exchange the encounters you meet.
So there's not a classic road map which you see on deck builders, like a map, but you sail from encounter to encounter, but you can modify them."
"So it's very deterministic.
I think it's going to be great for strategy-based players who love to know what they are getting themselves into.
If you want to master the game, you have to be very strategic and plan your route ahead.
Also, overclocks, like, you can gamble a little bit, so you can really power up your modules, but at the price of overheating your ship, so you have to manage the resource."
"It's dangerous, but you can really go crazy with the builds, which I also love in Bazaar.
I'm addicted to the game recently.
Hopefully it won't impact the production too much.
I don't know if that's good or bad."
"Okay, finally, what's the status of the project? When can we get our hands on it?
Are you guys releasing a demo soon?
Yeah, actually Steam Next Fest, like in two months, there's going to be a demo available.
Right now we're testing with a small group of Discord players, and we are at late alpha."
"I think 60% of the game is done, and the base layer is intact.
Now we're just adding the content and polishing it.
Fantastic. Looking forward to traveling to the clouds and battling my way through your game.
Thank you so much for your time, André. Enjoy the rest of the Materia Games Summit."
