It’s a busy time for Singapore-based development team Witching Hour Studios – not only is the studio working on the very intriguing isometric RPG Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, but it’s just about to bring tactical strategy game Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion – the mobile title that made the team’s name – to PC for the very first time. I tracked down co-founder and creative director Ian Gregory for a chat.
GameWatcher: First off, can you give us a brief background of Witching Hour Studios? You guys took a slightly different path to video game development, right?
Ian Gregory: We started… basically we were three guys who were interested in games in general. We come from different backgrounds; I come from an advertising background, I’m a trained copywriter, and my two colleagues were business majors in university.
GameWatcher: The Ravenmark series actually began as the setting of a tabletop RPG campaign that you ran, right?
Ian Gregory: Yes, the D&D campaign and also my attempt at trying to solve the problem that Warhammer is ridiculously expensive where I’m from. In Singapore it’s particularly expensive because there’s not a large enough market to justify shipping it in. What it started out as, actually, was a mix of Warhammer and Magic: The Gathering, because it was intended as a card game. Then my two business partners got together and said, “hey, there’s a business opportunity here,” especially with the mobile market being so viable.
GameWatcher: Is the world of the computer games directly taken from the original idea, or did you make a lot of changes on the way?
Ian Gregory: Pretty much, very close to the original ideas I came up with. Obviously throughout the game itself, things were changed that would kind of break the world, so that came along with the narrative. But the world itself is very close to what I originally intended.
GameWatcher: Why did you decide to adapt Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion for PC?
Ian Gregory: Mostly because there’s the technology and opportunity to allow it. When we first started out we saw mobile as something we could get on very quickly, but we always wanted to do a PC game. So it’s just that at the time we couldn’t get it done, but now we have the opportunity to take a stab at it.
GameWatcher: Is it also a kind of a good preparation for Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, which is a big PC-focused RPG that you have in the works?
Ian Gregory: Very much so, and it was also about getting across the idea of what we stand for, and the kind of thing we intend to do with our portfolio as we go along.
GameWatcher: Tell us about Ravenmark’s We-Go system, which takes a more simultaneous approach to turn-based strategy. How does that work?
Ian Gregory: So it’s functionally… the best way to reference it is actually Dungeons & Dragons; so in D&D, everyone gets a turn based on their initiative, and when everyone has a turn the round has ended, so functionally it works like that.
GameWatcher: Have you made any changes to gameplay for the PC version? Or is this largely the same as the tablet game?
Ian Gregory: I’d say we spent a lot of time making it feel native to the PC and the mouse and keyboard. Everything from smooth scrolling to an interface that makes good use of the new screen real estate. But a few things we decided to keep on, because we think they make a lot of sense and we’re hoping people get on board with them. The main thing is the radial menu. Instead of moving your mouse all the way to some far off corner of the screen, everything can be done in quick moves from the center of the screen. That’s something that we didn’t change from the mobile version because we thought it worked so well.
We also added a campaign that continues the story, that’s exclusive to the PC. It’s an epilogue campaign, so you’ll have to finish the game to play it. One thing I hope is that people give the game an opportunity, because when we started out we were very new at all this, but we very quickly got into the groove of things. The game really does mature as you play along.
GameWatcher: It’s also a very story-focused game for a mobile title, isn’t it?
Ian Gregory: Very much so. We’re huge on storytelling, and I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons since I was 15, so the whole idea of associating story with games is very big with us. It’s a world that lives, and it’s something I hope that people enjoy exploring. It’s not just the story, it’s also a new place to explore. A new Middle-earth, so to speak.
GameWatcher: Are there any plans to bring other Ravenmark titles to the PC in the future?
Ian Gregory: I wouldn’t say there are plans, but I’d say there are hopes. I’d love to see our multiplayer Ravenmark: Mercenaries come to the PC as well, because I think that one has a lot more nuance, and you also see a lot more of the experience we garnered making the first game go into that. I think the PC audience would appreciate the depth that the game has as well.
GameWatcher: Is Ravenmark a world you would like to return to in the form of a PC game, maybe in a different capacity?
Ian Gregory: Oh yes, it’s a world that’s close to my heart. Given the opportunity, and given an audience that’s willing to take that journey with us, I would love to revisit that world, expand on it, put in things that we didn’t have the opportunity to add in before, like flying units and so on.
Many thanks to Ian for chatting with me. Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion is available on Steam right now. Check back soon for our review!
