Tactical Soldier is a tactical squad level turn based game where you control a group of soldiers trying to uncover the dark secrets of an army research base, invaded by zombies.

We caught up with Magnus Blikstad, of WIT Entertainment, to talk about Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising. 

Horror News Network: How did you come up with the concept for Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising?

Magnus Blikstad: Back in 2009 we created another turn based game; Monster Ball (http://www.monsterball.net). Once that was done, we sat down and tried to figure out what we should do next, we had build up a lot of technology for creating turn based games and we wanted to make something bigger with it.

Why it exactly turned into zombies I can't entirely recall, we love games like the original fallout, x-com, jagged alliance as well as things like resident evil and wanted to create something in a similar spirit but with our own touch. Zombies may not be the most original theme, but it's never really been done before in this manner, so we just went with it!

As for our process of developing a concept, we almost always start by creating a prototype, a very ugly looking prototype, of the actual gameplay to make absolutely sure the game is actually fun before we start spending time and resources on it. Not before we have that we start sitting down and writing story lines and designing the various characters, etc.

Horror News Network: When battling zombies, good weaponry is key. Can you talk a bit about the weapons available in this game?

Magnus Blikstad: We have everything from meat cleavers to chainsaws to pistols, high powered sniper rifles to heavy machineguns. Oh... and grenades.

Which weapons you choose does play a big part in the strategy of the game, but Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising being primarily a "survival" game, ammo conservation plays an even bigger role. We've spent a lot of time balancing things to keep the player on his toes. Sometimes you simply have to throw away your nice and big (and useless since it's out of ammo) sniper rifle and grab a chainsaw if you want to stay alive!

Horror News Network: Can you talk about the biggest challenges in making a turn based zombie game?

Magnus Blikstad: There's been two major challenges making Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising, first one being the game is an "indie" game in the true sense of the word, it's something we've put our blood, sweat and tear into, developed over about a year using entirely our own funds. This of course have given us a lot of freedom to create the game WE wanted, but it's also a big strain and a huge risk when all the money is coming out of your own pockets.

The second one was balancing everything "just right", we knew we wanted to create something where the player get a feeling he need to do whatever it takes to survive. We spent a lot of time getting the amount of ammo you have available, the damage your weapons does etc right. It turned out to be a pretty tricky thing, specifically because you have these powerful long range weapons, and your enemies only have (mostly anyway) short range attacks. The zombies only advantage is numbers. In either case, as said, balancing it all was a big, or at least very time consuming, problem.

Horror News Network: What can horror fans expect in terms of blood and guts?

Magnus Blikstad: I personally spent a lot of time, almost a year ago now, coming up with the best way to generate blood splats and splashes in the game.

I remember it because I was out walking my dog and talking to a friend of mine one day and he asked the usual "so, how was your day?", the reply was "ooh... Spent my day trying to figure out the nicest way to have blood dripping down walls.", after saying that I realized what I had just said, looked up and there were several random people who had just happened to walk by and overheard the conversation with very confused looks on their faces.

In other words, there's lots and lots of blood in the game, splashing all over the place when you hit a zombie, slowly dripping down the walls forming puddles on the floor, etc, etc.

Our comic book panels have their fair share of gore in them too...

Horror News Network: Can you talk about the skill points system in the game?

Magnus Blikstad: The skill upgrades is a pretty light part of the game and a pretty straight forwards system while still adding another level of strategic depth.

Upgrading is done in between levels with the points you've accumulated, points are shared between your entire team so it's up to the player if he wants to upgrade only one character and have the others be useless, or spread it out.

Otherwise, as said, it's a pretty straightforward system.

Do you want a really fast guy, then upgrade speed. Do you want to make sure your sniper guy never misses? Upgrade his heavy weapons skill.

And so on and so forth.

Horror News Network: Can you talk a bit about the comic book style cutscenes? Who drew them, etc?

Magnus Blikstad: The process for making the comic book panels is actually a pretty interesting one, it starts off with very rough (and extremely ugly) screenshots of the game scenes/characters, then it gets shipped of to our comic artist who inks the panels, once that's approved he goes and does the final coloring and shading. The guy doing the panels for us is the great artist Patrick Hrabe (http://www.tubedaze.com), of "Hey, Shipwreck" fame.

Horror News Network: Are you planning any updates to this game?

Magnus Blikstad: Definitely! We currently have an entirely new campaign with new weapons, bigger and badder zombies, and entirely new missions waiting for apples approval. If it's not out already, it will be very soon!

Who know what the future holds, we'll certainly want to make a third campaign, but it all comes down to how the second one does sales wise.

We also have a few other turn based games kicking around using our tech, so we'll see what we end up doing next.

Horror News Network: Where can our readers find out more about Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising?

Magnus Blikstad: Visit our website! http://www.tacticalsoldier.com/ or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
http://twitter.com/TSURGame
http://www.facebook.com/TacticalSoldier

Horror News Network: In closing, what would you like to say about Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising?

Magnus Blikstad: Not that much really, if a turn based game in the veins of jagged alliance or x-com, with zombies and a heavy "survival" factor built into the game play sound interesting, please check it out! Available on the app store now! Just go buy it. =)
Oh, and check out the second campaign too!

Horror News Network: Thank you for your time, Magnus. Comment on this interview here.

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Published on: 2011-10-20 (146 reads)