Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Dungeon of Zaar’

Review Fix chats with “Dungeon of Zaar” developer Noé Lecombre, the creative director of KURB studio, who discusses the game and its eventual release next year.

About The Game:

Dungeon of Zaar is an online strategy game developed for PC/MAC. It’s a turn-based strategy game focused on PvP battles taking place in an ancient and magical Castle where Explorers fight for treasures.

Review Fix: What games inspired this one?

Noé Lecombre: Of course there is Final Fantasy Tactics, I played this game a lot especially the Game boy advance version. But our game is really different from FF Tactics. There is no big adventure to follow, right now it’s only player vs player in a magical dungeon. The game is also inspired by games such as Pokemon and Magic the gathering.

Review Fix: Lets talk about the in-game art. What inspired that?

Lecombre: The art is inspired by classic heroic fantasy tropes that I like. We have well-known characters, such as a good knight, a bad magician, and a delicate priest girl in a robe. But I wanted to put a fresh look to them all, making this at the same time vintage, and brand new. But the Dungeon of Zaar is a place where warriors from around the world fight for treasures, so there should be some weird and unexpected foes too. I really wanted to make the game fell not too serious, far from occidental RPG/realistic game. I really like the art style of The legend of Zelda, and Megaman, in those games every character is really expressive and have strong physical features, we wanted something like that for our game.

Review Fix: What has development been like?

Lecombre: At the moment we are still working on the game! We plan on releasing Dungeon of Zaar early next year. But as it is our first game, and we don’t have much budget yet, we have faced a few issues. For example, our game is online, and it takes a bit of time to make things run without any problem.

Review Fix: With all the competition on the mobile market and in the indies now, how difficult was it for you guys to try and make something that stood out?

Lecombre: I think one of the most important things is to make your game either pretty, or having easy to understand and original mechanics. If you have both it’s even better. For Dungeon of Zaar, it’s hard to understand the mechanics just by seeing a few GIFs, so we have to make our best to have nice graphics. And also at the moment there is not a lot of PvP focused Tactical games so maybe we have a chance!

Review Fix: Bottom line, why must someone play this game?

Lecombre: Our game is a turn-based strategy game, but unlike most of those, we hope that everyone can try it and have some fun, we wish to make Dungeon of Zaar appealing to strategy game fans and new players alike. We think that our game really puts the creative spirit to work, as you can put together different mercenaries the way you like and see what fits your playstyle, it also requires a good sense of decision-making, our matches can end up quickly because every move you make can have a huge impact and during the battle. And at the end we hope that our game is a good way to have fun in multiplayer, either online or around one device in local mode, playing a calm game and yet exciting.

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?

Lecombre: I think the best reward would be players remembering having good times on the game!

Review Fix: What are your goals for this game?

Lecombre: Of course we want Dungeon of Zaar to be played by numerous players! We really want to see players embrace the rules of the game and have fun creating groups of mercenaries and experimenting strategies.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Lecombre: The next step for us is finding money to finish the game! Currently, it is 50% completed, but we are pretty confident that the game will come out next year no matter what.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13872 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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