00:11There were a lot of ideas for modes and for features that we wanted to incorporate into the base game.
00:19However, due to time constraints and pretty tight deadlines, we were forced to make some kind of compromises there on
00:25the amount of content we released at launch.
00:27For the first expansion, we knew from the get-go that we wanted to include some kind of endless mode.
00:35The thing about survival is that you only have this one life and it's about surviving as long as possible.
00:42This is of course in stark contrast with the main game, which has five levels and once you finish them,
00:49that's it.
00:50There is an exception there with the master difficulty level in the arcade because once you complete that, if you
00:561cc the game, you can restart in hero mode.
00:59But once you complete hero, there's no extra looping.
01:02That was actually a really conscious decision because in Super Stardust HD, the game looped over infinitely.
01:07And a lot of the guys who were going for these world-class scores would be playing the game for
01:14four or five hours straight to reach those multi-billion high scores.
01:18And that's something we consciously wanted to avoid with WrestleGun.
01:21We wanted to keep the experience a little bit, well, a lot tighter.
01:25And that's why even in the survival mode, you can see that the difficulty curve is friendly enough for newcomers,
01:33but it is also fairly aggressive.
01:36So within 20 minutes, 25 minutes, you are really in trouble.
01:44Demon's Souls and subsequently Dark Souls and so on have been a huge inspiration for me.
01:51And that's primarily where the idea of this fallen hero mechanic came from.
01:56It's effectively kind of your bloodstain that you drop in the world.
02:00And if you manage to reach that point again, you're rewarded with a shield and bonus points and so on.
02:08In fact, the people that were above you on the leaderboards are actually shown on the playfield as these floating
02:14statues.
02:15Those are the fallen heroes.
02:18So I'm pretty happy with that mechanic and how it worked out.
02:25Originally, the demolition mode was supposed to be a bomber mode, where basically you just press the button, you trigger
02:33a bomb, and you just try to stay alive and destroy as much stuff as possible.
02:38But there was a real drop in intensity there.
02:41You didn't feel that dynamic.
02:43It kind of felt like a lot of the intensity of the core WrestleGun experience was not there.
02:49So we thought, why not add balls to the mix?
02:51And by introducing the wrecking ball concept, and having power-ups focused on those wrecking balls, we were able to
02:58create something that felt familiar, but fresh at the same time.
03:03It was fleshed out a little bit after our return from the New York trip, where we went to this
03:10arcade, and I spent a couple of hours there playing Arkanoid, and revisiting one of my favorite arcade games.
03:18And all of the balls bouncing around, the physicality there, the interaction that you have with the environment, I found
03:25that really interesting.
03:25So we integrated a bit of that gameplay into demolition mode.
03:35So we had already begun development on the ship editor way before the base game was shipped, but it did
03:44take us a fairly long time to actually flesh out the interface and get all the features we wanted in
03:51that.
03:51One interesting side effect from the editor was that it forced us to revisit the balancing of the game, because
03:59in the released game, there were three ship types, and they were each balanced according to their stats, and the
04:07strength of their weapons.
04:09And for example, Phobos, which was the slower ship, but with a massive overdrive, also had this supremely overpowered weapon.
04:19And in the context of the original game, that made perfect sense, because you could not use that weapon anywhere
04:24else.
04:25Once you introduced the ship editor, you could have a ship that was full agility, and with a Phobos weapon.
04:33And that basically, with the settings we had for the arcade game, that would have allowed you to basically be
04:40practically invincible.
04:41So we needed to revisit that attribute distribution, and we needed to revisit the weapons.
04:49So we addressed those issues in a subsequent update, and we restored the core WrestleGun experience to a really balanced
05:00state.
05:05We have a lot of passion, and we have a lot of creative minds working on the game, and a
05:10lot of times some ideas come up, they're easy to implement and prototype, and with a little bit of extra
05:16effort, we can actually have them in the game as well.
05:19So local co-op was a result of one of these extra kind of things we tried out.
05:23It worked well enough, people were asking for local co-op, so we decided to deliver it, and that was
05:28part of the free update as well.
05:33So with Protector Mode, we tried to, once again, revisit the whole core WrestleGun formula, but kind of flesh it
05:41out in a slightly different direction.
05:43So, there's the shoot and survive mechanics, there's saving the humans, there's building up your cities there, and having that
05:51sense of growth, there's all of these new power-ups, there's, in the survival mode we had these sentinels, which
05:59were kind of like mini-bosses, in Protector Mode, we replaced those with these city destroyers,
06:05that come down, they look like this Independence Day kind of UFOs, and they're, they're trying to destroy all of
06:11the hard work you put into creating these cities.
06:14In many ways, I like to think that Protector Mode is the culmination of all our efforts to create the
06:21most refined WrestleGun experience.
06:27We started experimenting with all these mini-games and variations to the core gameplay,
06:32and in its original state, Commando Mode was nothing more than our take on Missile Command.
06:41So you had a static turret in the middle, you had houses left and right, and you had meteorites dropping
06:47down that you were shooting.
06:49So that got really repetitive really quickly, but there was something there that we liked.
06:53So we thought, why not replace the main turret with a little human,
06:58and make this guy be kind of one of the last surviving humans.
07:04And we did that, and it was instantly clear to us that this is going to be the next mode.
07:09When we first started, you had, of course, the human, and you had many houses.
07:14We decided to remove all of the extra ones and keep only one house in the middle,
07:18because that created a larger sense of attachment with your home, in a way.
07:25And of course, Ari, our music guy, is a great musician, but he also does a really mean Arnie impersonation.
07:37So it was actually pretty clear to make the connection there.
07:40Commando Mode, 80s action movies, Arnold impersonator.
07:45It was a match made in heaven.
07:51With Defenders, we also released it alongside a free update to the game.
07:56This free update, in many ways, changed the core WrestleGun experience in many ways,
08:00because it introduced a ranking system.
08:04So now, basically, the more time you put into the game,
08:07the more you complete these different objectives and goals, the more you will get these challenge points,
08:14and the more your rank will increase, and the more content you will unlock.
08:19One of the things that we have in the free update is also challenges.
08:23So these are basically variations to the core gameplay, kind of like mini-modes of their own, if you like.
08:31These add really subtle to really bizarre variations to the core gameplay.
08:38They have exclusive leaderboards, and they spice up the WrestleGun gameplay quite a bit.
08:47There's, for example, Super Revenge Bullets, there's a challenge where every enemy that you destroy releases a human.
08:55These are all ideas that we had tried out in the game, and had been interested in at different points
09:02of development.
09:03And now, in many ways, players get to experience them through the form of these challenges.
09:09One great example here is the Super Stardust challenge, where you get to actually use this 360 shooting.
09:15That was originally prototyped, we didn't like it, but it also, including this as a challenge, allows us to have
09:23the best of both worlds.
09:24So players can experience these fresh challenges, while the core game still remains really balanced and focused on the core
09:34WrestleGun experience.
09:40One of the other features we included in the challenges expansion was the concept of feats.
09:47So in many ways, these are kind of like in-game trophies that you can unlock.
09:53The idea here was that we got really good feedback from our fans about the trophies that we had in
10:00the game.
10:01So we thought, why not add a couple of hundred of them?
10:06And of course, both the free update and the expansion have their own trophies, but these add extra goals for
10:16the players to achieve, that cover a broad range of skill levels.
10:20And by completing these feats, you can also get more challenge points and increase your ranks.
10:28And you can also compare the feats that you've completed and the challenges that you've completed with your friends.
10:34So I guess this was just one other way that we wanted to extend the longevity of the game,
10:40because this is sadly the very last expansion for the foreseeable future for WrestleGun.
10:48And we really wanted to ensure that we go out with a bang and leave the game in the best
10:53possible state for players to enjoy for many years to come.
11:02Overall, it's a little bit bittersweet to be honest,
11:04because on the one hand, it's great to finally reach this part where we can look back and look on
11:13WrestleGun as a complete package now.
11:15It has all of the expansions, it has lots of different modes, lots of content,
11:21and we're really happy to see it kind of as a game that can hopefully stand the test of time.
11:28It's always a little bit sad to let go of such a great project,
11:31because we've had a really great time developing it.
11:35It's been a privilege working alongside so many talented developers here at Housemarque
11:40to bring this game to life.
11:43And we've also raised the bar pretty high for ourselves.
11:46So now we have to make sure that our next game is even better than WrestleGun.
11:51Basically, in every company you have some hierarchy.
11:54And of course you have lead designers, you have lead programmers, you have creative directors and so on.
12:00But ultimately, there's a certain authority that's above any of us, and that's the game itself.
12:06So, the game is the boss, the game always comes first,
12:11and we should always learn to keep our ego out of the equation.
12:18As hard as it is, try to not get too emotionally attached to things that
12:23that we feel might be great, but simply don't work in practice.
12:27And just listen to what the game is telling us.
12:32That's what I've learned the most.
12:34Well done.
12:38Good luck.
12:47Good luck.
12:48Good luck.
12:49Grazie a tutti.
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