Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Fort Triumph’

Review Fix chats with Shay Zeldis, who lets us know all about the creative process and development cycle for “Fort Triumph,” letting us know how its love of the XCom series made for an entirely different, but cool game.

Review Fix: How was this game born?

Shay Zeldis: It was late in 2012, the new XCom just came out and was fantastic. Adam, our founder, was inspired by it but wanted to bring that core gameplay into more fantasy-heavy settings, with epic quests and humor that were nowhere to be found in the modern grimdark-prone genre.

It started as his passion project with a couple of close friends, working on prototypes at home and making very slow progress. With time, more people flocked to the concept, and we’ve been developing heavily in the last two years or so. Obviously, both the concept and the game changed, but the core vision remains stable – to build a great, challenging turn-based tactics game, seasoned with humor and presenting a vibrant new fantasy world to explore.

Review Fix: What has development been like so far?

Zeldis: Hectic, exciting, elating, terrifying, pretty much name your list of known emotions and you have it. After we made it through Kickstarter and the closer we moved to Early Access launch, development has gotten harder, but also much more focused as now we have a community giving us feedback and keeping our proverbial ship steered in just the right direction.


Review Fix: What makes this game special?

Zeldis: Well, every game that has been seriously worked on is special, for one :) No indie developer releases a game they are not proud of, and we love it to bits. It still has a long way to go in Early Access, but we feel like the mix of light-hearted tones and visuals with very challenging tactical combat will give our players a new experience, and hopefully, our growing community will keep showing care for our game.

Review Fix: What games influenced this one the most?

Zeldis: Hard to say, we are a team of ten with very different tastes. Obviously, XCom deserves praise and credit, our tactical layer is heavily inspired by it, though we twisted the formula in some interesting ways using environmental interactions and physics. Our world map reminds players of Heroes of Might and Magic, with the exploration, resource gathering and free-roam encounters that are a part of what made that game so great.

However the full list is much longer – Final Fantasy Tactics is a strong influence, Blizzard games inspire some of our art, and we keep getting inspired by fellow devs and their amazing projects. The last few years have seen a resurgence of outstanding tactical games and we are loving it, both as devs and as players.

Review Fix: How important is the music in this game?

Zeldis: Music is a crucial part of any game, or any piece of media honestly. It sets the tone and changes the mood, underlines dramatic moments or alerts players to new events. We are working with an outstanding independent composer, Marco Valerio Antonini, and we love every track he sent so far.

Review Fix: Any fun stories or wild moments during development?

Zeldis: More than one can count. However, I’d say the most exciting moment so far was our Kickstarter campaign – during the last day we all sat around the counter, live streaming our responses and once we hit the funding goal there were tears, let me tell you. That entire month was fantastic, we were showered with kindness and assistance from unexpected sources, and our backers supported us through it as well.

Review Fix: Do you think preserving older gameplay mechanics in new games is important?

Zeldis: Tricky question. I don’t think anything is worth preserving inherently, old or new, however, if an old mechanic still delivers the best result for a specific game, there is no reason to replace it for its age either. Since turn-based tactics has been stale for so many years up until 2012, there’s still a lot of room for growth and new ideas – and tons of amazing games both released and in development across the globe are exploring these new avenues constantly.

Review Fix: What’s your favorite memory as a gamer?

Zeldis: Personally, as a gamer? I think it would probably have to be that one WoW raid I led and got a EU first kill on a boss, since that required the absolute best in planning, guild politics and personal performance – and unsurprisingly once life got more demanding I never happened to invest that deeply into a game again.

Review Fix: Who will enjoy this game the most?

Zeldis: Old school tactics players with a silly streak, ironman players who love bad puns, roleplayers seeking more environmental combat, and anyone who thinks challenging gameplay does not have to be packed in grimdark urban greyness.

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

Zeldis: Hehe, ideally, with no regard to what’s realistic? How about ‘Cookiebyte Entertainment’s first and smallest game to date, still loved for its quirky presentation and then-innovative physics usage, which has since become a staple of the genre.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Zeldis: We have long months left in development during Early Access, which is for PC, Linux and Mac. Once we approach full release we’ll develop the console versions, and hopefully, have time to translate our game for the benefit of non-English speaking players. After release? Who knows, depends on many factors, but we’d love to be able to continue working on extra content for the game, or get to work on the next one if we have the resources to do so.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

We know indie developers, especially in Early Access, are hard to trust, and the burden of proof is ours – so if you’re interested but uncertain, look for the free public demo on our Steam page (right-hand side of the page, ‘download demo’ button) and you can give a tactical combat or three a try.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXojhaPQ07Y[/embedyt]

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14263 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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