Review Fix chats with Paul Baker, project manager at Three Phase Interactive, who discusses the fun behind the customization-heavy strategy game, “Defect.†Detailing its creation, development and goals, Baker lets us know why it’s one of the coolest indie games of the summer.
Review Fix: For those who haven’t played “Defect,” what is it?
Paul Baker: In Defect, you take your spaceship out to complete a mission and once you are successful, your crew realises they have a really good ship, so they mutiny. They defect. You then have to go back to the shipyard and build yourself a new ship to complete the next mission as well as to take on your old crew in your old ship. And of course it happens again, so it’s a cycle of shipbuilding, fighting and mutiny.
Review Fix: Why is it special?
Baker: The two main things that make Defect special are the defection cycle and the limitless ship customisation. Defect has over 180 ship pieces you can use to build your ship and three distinct ship styles. The scale ranges from small fighters, to large battle cruisers, to huge space stations the size of a small moon.
Review Fix: What was development like?
Baker: Development of Defect went through a number of phases as we prototyped, applied for and obtained state and national funding, successfully ran a Kickstarter, and then launched on Steam in Early Access. During the whole of development though, once we got the core shipbuilding and fighting working, we concentrated on playtesting and iterating on everything, adding new features and new ship pieces as we went.
Review Fix: What did you learn from the whole process?
Baker: Indie game development is hard! You have limited resources, so you have to pick your battles. Use existing proven tools where you can. Having a solid core to your game that you can iteratively build onto helps a lot.
Review Fix: What other games have influenced it?
Baker: We’ve snuck in some references to games and sci-fi pop culture we love into Defect. It’s always fun releasing a trailer or screenshots and seeing what people notice. Games wise, Gratuitous Space Battles, Captain Forever, Kerbal Space Program, FTL and Star Command have all influenced Defect.
Review Fix: What are your goals for the game?
Baker: We want people to have fun making any spaceship they can dream of!
Review Fix: How do you see it changing the genre?
Baker: I think the genre will continue to push the number of customisation options available and story will become more important. I think Defect also sets a bar in regards to the range of ship scales. The defection cycle is pretty new, and I think we’ll see more of that to pushing the player to experiment with their ship building.
Review Fix: How do you want it to be remembered?
Baker: The Achilles conundrum. How do I design a ship good enough to win the next battle but leave in a week point so that when my crew inevitably defect I can take advantage of it next time?
Review Fix: What’s next?
Baker: More content and features! We’ve still got lots of ideas for ship pieces and styles, as well as missions and challenge modes. We’ll continue to engage the community as we have been doing during Early Access to get ideas and help prioritise what comes next.
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