Today we invite you to take a look at this exclusive interview to Kristian Metzger, the Director of Product Management for Infernum Productions AG about the free-to-play sandbox shooter Brick-Force, in which we asked him about the game, the new features of its third season - BrickSaga, and what is planned for the game.

Below you can read the answers that he gave to us.

 

First of all, thank you for giving us the opportunity to interview you about Brick-Force. Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

My name is Kristian Metzger, and I am Director of Product Management for Infernum Productions AG. After a career as a journalist, e.g. Editor in Chief for Eurogamer Germany, I worked for some time as Game Designer, Consultant and Product/Business Development Manager. My last job was with the specialist in Shooters Splash Damage, developer of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Brink, Arkham Origins Multiplayer and Extraction.

How would you describe Brick-Force to someone who has never heard of the game?

Brick-Force is basically a mixture of Counter Strike and Minecraft that can be described as the fun shooter-sandbox which you've always dreamed of. You can build your own maps, share them with the community and fight in exciting battles against players from around the world. You can evolve your avatar, dress him up with funny costumes and be part of our great community. Brick-Force means: build, share and play!

The concept of the game is pretty unique and interesting, and it is rare to see the word "shooter" next to the world "sandbox", can you tell us something more about the sandbox part of game?

The sandbox aspect of the game has many options. The game has integrated a construction mode that allows you to create your own map. You can create it all from scratch, and choose the design of the sky, which is the environment where you want to fight, and choose each brick that makes up the map. So creativity truly knows no limits in Brick-Force. The community loves this feature, and has already created more than 600,000 different maps. With the new content of the third season - BrickSaga, even more options have been introduced. With the new interactive bricks like traps and doors, creative minds can now create backdoors and offer new strategies when playing the map. With the building mode there is always something new to explore in Brick-Force.

Talking about the shooter part of the game, what sets its apart from the rest of the genre? Why should players choose Brick-Force rather than other Free-to-play shooters?

First the game does not force you to stick to the same limited amount of maps all day long. And there are a lot of differences more. Each match will be unique, there are many different styles and costumes; for example in the second season of the game, Brickstar, we introduced many options to be able to face your enemies in a space theme and tons of maps have been created around this theme so far. With the third season, BrickSaga, players can enjoy a new medieval theme. They can disguise themselves as Robin Hood and ambush their enemies or let them fall into deadly traps. All these mechanics make every single match a unique experience.

Secondly, each season adds new unique and crazy weapons. You can fight with crossbows, shoot fireballs with magic wands and attack with swords and even a fish. In the future we will add more spectacular and fun weapons. Brick-Force is not a brown soldier shooter, it’s funny, colorful and one of a kind.

Over time, you have added to the game, several new features, items and themes to Brick-Force. What can we expect with the third season and how it will affect the gameplay?

Bricksaga is centered in the middle ages and introduces a couple of new interactive bricks, more varied costumes and funky weapons. The biggest impact on the gameplay is the arrival of the traps and portals. With different types of portals, you can create shortcuts to important strategic points of the map, or lure your opponents into a deadly spike trap. And as I mentioned before we have added new ranged and melee weapons like an accurate crossbow and a smashing scepter.

Can you give us more details about the new medieval weapons and the new traps of the map editor?

You can expect to see a whole bunch of new weapons like different types of deadly crossbows, razor-sharp swords and axes or toxic potions to throw and wrap your enemy in a cloud of poison. They fit nicely to the new costumes like the king with his scepter or the knight preparing to defend his master with his life. Also you can use the new interactive bricks. With Bricksaga we added wooden planks, medieval banners and torches to give the new maps the right atmosphere. With the practical windows you can open and snipe out of, stained glass that breaks if shot and deadly traps that do incredible damage has been introduced for a new game element. Well-known strategies might need to be changed and adjusted to win against the other players. Another really important feature we added is the portals. Three different types of portals allow fast travelling between the hot spots on the map for both teams and open up entirely new gameplay possibilities for everybody, changing how you play Brick-Force.

Is there some kind of competitive scene in Brick-Force? Are you going to celebrate special competitions or tournaments with Season 3?

At the moment we are fully focused on implementing all the changes as we had planned, and make sure that the new mechanics are working properly. As soon as we receive the feedback that we are on the right track we will set up competitions and tournaments. As those are very competitive we decided to focus on the changes as they have a strong influence on every single match.

We know that you have changed some things in the item-shop and character progression based on players' feedback. What's changed and how?

Since we launched Brick-Force we received feedback that some players experience the game as pay-to-win. We therefore worked closely together with the developer and the community to change this aspect. The whole level progression and items you unlock have been revised. You now get access to all the new and better weapons on a regular basis through leveling your character and not by paying for them. The way the game channels work has been changed as well. You can now choose between channels where you will only fight players of your level range and earn some extra experience or decide to enter the fun channel where basically everything can happen and all the players can meet. Also, we converted brick points to force points to simplify everything as much as possible. In case you have not tested it out yet, go for it. Brick-Force is a whole new game since Season 3 started.

The players are difficult to satisfy when the "new game" effect starts to disappear. Which are your plans to keep them entertained in the long run? What can we expect from Brick-Force in the future?

You definitely can expect us to add even more content to the game. As the changes now show their first impact and thousands of players enjoying the game every day, we will continue to work on this topic. We want to make sure that the path we took was the right one. Therefore we will also continue to work closely with the community in regards of upcoming patches and changes. The developer is already working on future content and will add even more weapons, bricks, costumes and some awesome gameplay changes to the game. Stay tuned!

Thank you for all your answers. Would you like to add something?

I would like to invite players to have a look to Brick-Force and test the construction mode. Our game lives and dies with the creativity of the players and the impressive maps developed by the community. So pull up your sleeves and get into the thick of it!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 4th, 2013 at 2:56 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Puedes dejar una respuesta, o un trackback desde tu sitio web.