Darfall developers Lukas Tomondy and Martin Krajc have been working on their first own independent game project for years. A game that started as a simple tower defense concept has grown to take influences from a myriad of sources. The game has a hero-based gameplay that was inspired by MOBA games and Diablo, a day-night cycle that is all-important to the gameplay, and the core of a city builder.

Game Rant spoke to Tomondy and Krajc about the inception of the game studio SquareNite, their journey into game development, the "mixed bag of genres" included in Darfall, the importance of the day and night cycle, hero gameplay with loot and levels, the crafting system with different materials, and much more. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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Q: To start off, can you introduce yourselves and explain what your roles are in SquareNite?

Tomondy: Martin, you can go first. You're older.

Krajc: I'm older but much worse at English. But I will try my best, so I am Martin. I met Lukas about 7 years ago. We were working in the same company. I left the company two years ago, and I was working there as a 2D artist and on some animation stuff. We were always working on some small projects together, but Darfall is a little different. I am a co-founder of SquareNite with Lukas. I am the art guy and the game designer guy, and also I like to do things like analysis and marketing stuff. There's just the two of us, so we need to wear a lot of hats.

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Tomondy: Thank you for having us, it's a great opportunity. As Martin said, we were at the same company. I'm still at the company, so I am not working currently full-time on the project. I still have a full-time job, but I try to squeeze every bit of free time and put it into the project because it's growing quite big. I'm the programmer. I think I started the project like 3 years ago when it was something completely different. And it slowly transformed into this idea after I played games like They Are Billions. I took some inspiration and completely transformed the project I had been working on. I asked Martin if he wanted to join and work on this, and he said yes. That's basically where we are.

Q: How did you get into game development?

Krajc: I am 36 years old. I started working in a company, creating some web games. It was a community job, like testing the new features. I was doing it for free as a community member. This was probably my first experience, and it was 15 or maybe 16 years ago. I was a student at the time and after that, while working, I had no time to deliver or release any big projects. I've only released one small project before Darfall. It was a mobile game and was released maybe 10 years ago, but I've been part of the game development community for more than 15 years. I left my job two years ago and have spent since all my money on this. I am burning my savings now working on Darfall.

Tomondy: Yeah, from my side I'm currently 28. I think I started around when I was 15, I started to do some light 3D modeling, but I sucked at it quite a bit. And I decided, you know what, how would it be to create games by yourself? So, then I started too long to program, it started with this old engine, GameMaker. Then I transitioned to Unity and fell in love with it. It basically changed my life, because I could do anything I ever wanted. I then released a few small games for Android. It was a good learning experience. After that, I joined this company that Martin was at, and that's where I'm currently working.

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Q: You are currently working on a game called Darfall. Can you describe what type of game is it?

Tomondy: Basically it's a mixed bag of different genres, I would say. The game is basically a city-builder, where you defend yourself against invading undead during the night. And you also have a hero, and the hero has certain mechanics. The player can control the hero and level him up, upgrading spells, and collecting loot of various qualities.

We haven't really seen a game like this, maybe Warcraft 3 comes the closest. And one of the aspects of our game is the fact that the nights are quite dark, which we haven't like seen in strategy games. Even games like They Are Billions and Age of Empires all have day and night cycles, but the night is quite bright. In our game, the darkness is quite profound, and you have to use lights to survive.

Krajc: Loot is important in our game. If you know Don't Starve, it's a completely different game, but sometimes we describe Darfall as Don't Starve but in city builder format. Because in Don't Starve, there are a lot of items you need to find and craft.

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Q: Darfall seems to be a mixture of four different genres. How did that come to be?

Tomondy: At the start of the project, it was more of a tower defense game, and we decided that we should have this procedurally generated map where you basically build a city, but you have to defend against invasions. At some point, we decided to try and incorporate a hero with spells and abilities. You would control it like in MOBA games like Dota 2 or League of Legends.

This already stood out from the crowd. You are building a city, but you also have a hero, and you go out and explore with the hero. This is where we also added loot into the game. It started to be more like a combination of Diablo and a city-building game. At its core, it's still a little bit like a tower defense game, where you can have ballista, traps, and exploding barrels.

Q: The gameplay has elements of MOBA in it. Were there any specific games you thought of when creating the combat system?

Tomondy: I would say it's probably Diablo and MOBA from the control standpoint. The camera is not always centered on the character, you can move the camera around the map. You control your hero via RTS-like mouse clicks. So, I think that it was a good approach and players are digging it.

Krajc: It is quite hard to balance all these features and genres together. We always wonder whether changing things in one genre will affect other aspects. We don't want to overwhelm people with just one of these genres. We like a little bit of each genre, a good mix.

Q: The game involves building a settlement and defending the land against the undead. What is the story behind this?

Krajc: There will be a story. Currently, there's just a background story.

Tomondy: Basically the story is that you have this continent that you enter that is covered in the undead. Only the capital city is standing. The idea is that this mysterious land of Darfall has been taken over by the undead, capturing human and elf lands. And as a player, when you start the game in survival mode, you are already in the stage where only the capital is standing, and you have to conquer all your cities and regions back.

We don't have a story, per se, in the game yet. But we do want to add some cinematics, a story, and a bit of lore into the game because the players are really asking why they are doing it, and they want to know more. Why is the undead attacking the world in this manner?

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Q: Survival and builder games have become increasingly popular in recent years. What got you into these genres?

Krajc: Personally, I like to play these types of games like Diplomacy is Not an Option and Age of Darkness. I never played They Are Billions, but I guess Age of Darkness is a sort of a clone of They Are Billions. Also, Lukas came to me with this idea, so I had no choice. He's a big fan of the Blizzard games.

Tomondy: I don't think they have survival genre games. One of the main survival aspects in our game is the food and the fact that you have to take care of the units. Other similar games, like the ones mentioned before, don't really have any units. You just build buildings out of thin air and they just magically work. But with us, you have these workers that basically get hungry, you have to feed them, right? Because if you don't, they will be starving.

And also we have a happiness system in the game. Your workers have a happiness level and when you produce better food, like bread with the bakery, it increases their happiness, increasing their production speed. This is something that is really like you can boost your economy. And you can invest in food and better food, to drive your economy.

There will be other maps, obviously. This demo map has plenty of food. Everything is pretty nice there, but there'll be deserts and swamp biomes where it will be a bit harder. And you will have to find other sources of food from the map. This probably requires using the hero much more, exploring and scavenging the land. This is another survival aspect of the game that we want to focus on.

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Q: Darfall features a crafting system. What can you tell about it?

Tomondy: One other unique aspect of the game is that when you want to produce your units, you have to first craft some armor or weapons for them. You can't just have gold and buy the unit for the gold. You have to go through this process of first mining the iron, then you have to process the iron into the ingots at the smelter. Then you have to build a blacksmith that will take the ingots and create the armor, and then you can have your knight or paladin. There's a chain of resources and a chain of crafting, that you have to go through before you get to the good units.

We want to expand on this. From the player's standpoint, when he gets back to the city with all the loot from the wilderness, he would like to convert these raw materials into better items. So, yes, we want to add where you can craft items even for your hero. Maybe some potions and also additional equipment for your units.

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Q: Can you expand on having a singular hero in Darfall? What does that entail and how important is that to the survival of the camp?

Tomondy: It's like this basic idea that you as a hero were sent from the capital to investigate what has happened to the rest of the continent and your task is to rebuild the cities, the villages, and the forts throughout the entire land.

The player is the hero similar to World of Warcraft, but it's a strategy game, so you can also control other units. However, I think the player has the sense that they are the hero. In terms of gameplay, if you wouldn't have the hero, you wouldn't be able to survive even the first night. At the start, your hero is the only unit in the game, and it will take some time to build the barracks and build other units. It's not as fast as in other games. Even later, the hero gets so powerful with gained levels, equipment, and abilities. The hero is a super unit that is very important.

Krajc: One important thing is that the hero can also gather resources by cutting trees and mining ores to help the economy, too. We are also planning other heroes later on that are more economy-focused. It will depend on how to play your heroes depending on things like the difficulty and the biome. This is still a work in progress, though.

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Q: The day and night cycle is reminiscent of zombie survival games. Is that what you were going for?

Tomondy: Yes. I think it's pretty close to Minecraft where zombies spawn at night. Here, it's much darker. During the day, the player is basically safe from attacks, and he can focus on the economy and exploration. You know, it's chill. But the player really needs to prepare for the night because when the night comes, the undead is arriving. It really builds this level of terror. I know that the graphics aren't super realistic but a sense of what the darkness will entail. The music and ambiance build that too.

Krajc: The light is important for survival.

Tomondy: One thing to add is that the light is not only for visibility and visual aspect. Your workers and other units will be rebuffed. The light affects both the economy and the combat aspect, so you can't be in the darkness.

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Q: It seems like Minecraft might have been a big influence in the graphics department with blocky pixel graphics. Is this the case and did Minecraft influence other aspects of the game?

Krajc: That's a funny story because I am the graphics guy here, but almost every model in the game was created by Lukas. The art style was also set by Lukas. When he came to me with the prototype, everything was already set. All I had to say is I like the art style, and I'll be doing this type of style with you. I'm also a much more technically oriented graphics person and I like analysis and that kind of stuff.

But yeah, I had no choice in the graphics style, and I was happy to work with the simpler graphics. We could change the graphics to low poly graphics and animations, but it would be really hard to finish the game because there are just two of us. We don't have unlimited time. One low poly character could take one to three days to implement, just that one simple unit. These voxel-looking characters take maybe just a few hours.

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Q: What is it like to develop a game with a two-man team, and what are some of the pros and cons of your arrangement?

Krajc: One of the pros is that we can just call each other and ask if we're going to change this and that. We either agree to do it or not and that is it. That's a decision. We are really flexible.

Tomondy: But, if we don't agree on something, it's a bit worse. There's just the two of us, we cannot break a tie!

I think the biggest advantage of this is that we know the project from a technical standpoint very well. I know all the code because I wrote it and designed the system architecture. And when we decide to implement a feature, I know exactly where to go and what to do. We can really pump out features and implement stuff quite well because we know the project. Whereas if there would be like 10 of us and somebody would say, "hey let's, let's do another hero", and I say, "okay, but Joe there implemented the hero system, I don't know how to work with it."

Right now, I can just go straight to it and do it, and I assume from Martin's standpoint the UI and the graphics are the same. Not everyone understands that adding people doesn't correlate directly. Adding two people wouldn't make us two times more productive.

Krajc: Sharing the information is some of the hardest parts of this, and it's easier with fewer people. On the other hand, we have to wear a lot of hats. We need to do a lot of different things. However, Lukas' sister is helping us with analysis and marketing.

Tomondy: Oh yes. Let's not forget her, she's also helping us. She's been helping with marketing for a few months now. It's taking a load off Martin's shoulders, when before Martin had to focus on marketing and didn't have as much time for graphics. Marketing is a huge part of today's game industry. There are hundreds of gamers released every day, and you have to be there to stand out.

Q: You have a demo available for the game. What has the reception been like?

Krajc: I think I've seen every Darfall stream there has been. It has taken a lot of time to watch the community play the game, but it is helping a lot. I would say it is crucial. The demo was important for us from a marketing standpoint. Everything really started to pick up when we released the demo and shared it with Splattercat. We sent just an email to him, and we were surprised that he chose our game to play. We were very happy, so thanks to Splattercat. That changed everything.

When you have a demo to show, it's completely different from screenshots and trailers. People can play the demo and feel the mechanics. We're planning on letting the demo be there for weeks or maybe even months. We'll also be releasing a prologue to increase visibility, and it will also be free. It will be a substitution for the demo.

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Q: How far are you in development? Can you reveal any plans for early access or launch?

Krajc: We have, but it's changing every month. We hope to release the Prologue during the summer. And the full game, hopefully, the third or fourth quarter. It depends on a lot of things, like a possible publisher.

Tomondy: Yeah, we don't have any date. We just don't know when. We are working as we go as a two-man team. The date isn't that important for us at this point, since we just aim for summer for the Prologue. A lot of players are asking, though, when they can play the full game. The biggest problem they had with the demo was that it was too short, which is also positive for us.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add or give shout-outs before I let you go?

Krajc: I want to mention that we were supported by Slovak Arts Council. We have to mention this! Because that is money from all the people who are here in Slovakia. And we really thank all of you for that! It was just a little bit of money when you compare it to the cost of this kind of project, but it also helped us. All the readers, come and play our game! We are happy to see all the feedback. Join our Discord, and make bug reports for Lukas, not for me.

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Tomondy: The main thing is that everyone who is interested plays the demo, it's free. You have nothing to lose. There is also a feedback system in the game where you can send feedback easily about the game. We read every single feedback sent through the system, so nothing goes unseen. Big thanks and shout-outs to Splattercat because he really helped us, and he's helping other indie developers.

Krajc: And for Game Rant, it is our first live interview! We had a podcast in Slovakia, but this is the first international interview. Everyone, be good people and love each other!

Tomondy: Thank you very much!

[END]

Darfall is currently in development for PC with a demo available on Steam.

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