Visiting Dungeons of the Amber Griffin - an interview with Tomasz Rożyński

Despite many promotional efforts, the region of Kashubia and its folklore is still not known well enough, even in Poland. The Frozengem Studio's team is going to change it using one of the most popular mediums: video games. I spoke to Tomasz Rożyński, CEO of this independent Polish developer, about this project. Meet Dungeons of the Amber Griffin – a dungeon crawler set in a world of Kashubian folktales and legends.

EnklawaNetwork.pl: For all of those who are not familiar with your game: what is Dungeons of the Amber Griffin? What are your main objectives?

Tomasz Rożyński: Dungeons of the Amber Griffin is a cRPG game set in a fantasy world. In collaboration with the Museum of Literature and Music of Kashubia and Pomerania in Wejherowo, we create a unique gaming, original universe of Kashubian fantasy. It contains a bestiary of Kashubian mythic creatures based on Pomeranian legends and writings from the Dictionary of Kashubian Dialects by Father Bernard Sychta. We build a world full of magical items, weapons and other equipment, intertwining real stories and fairytales with the main plotline.

 

Besides having fun while exploring the magical world, the game's primary goal is to bring knowledge about our cultural heritage to a broad audience. Slaying monsters will let players unlock new pages of the bestiary where they can find stunning illustrations and descriptions based on our beliefs. This way, we would like to raise the interest of younger players worldwide (older ones too). We want to teach through entertainment. (smile)

EN: Games are a very attractive medium to promote a region’s history or local folklore, allowing high freedom of expression. Why exactly did you choose a dungeon crawler genre?

TR: It was a bit accidental. In the past, I worked on such games singlehandedly in my spare time. I burnt a lot of midnight oil to build a fantasy world, create items and play around with code. At some point, I decided that a game without a narrative could only be a boring "brawler." By coincidence, while living in Wejherowo, I discovered an exhibition about Slavic beliefs, rituals, alchemy, etc. A light bulb went on in my head to contact the Museum in Wejherowo as they had an enormous collection of what I needed. Maybe they could help me. I emailed the director, who appeared enthusiastic about the idea. It is how it all began.

Speaking of dungeon crawlers, I dusted off a very old gaming mechanic that is unpopular nowadays. It allows players to explore this world and not just breeze through it to the end. Instead, they will take their time, slow pace, and look around to discover this magical world in detail.

EN: Are you trying to balance the game to make it enjoyable for lore-seekers, attracted mainly by the narrative and Kashubian folklore, as well as die-hard fans of dungeon crawling, who skip dialogues and do not pay too much attention to the plotline?

 

TR: Yes, exactly. We will not break through to promote the Kashubian narrative and folklore if the game does not have exciting gameplay. We will try to create a world enjoyable for die-hard fans of classic, grid-based dungeon crawlers but with entirely new game modes unusual for the genre. We want that younger players and players who prefer bloody shambles would find something to enjoy themselves, too.

We keep dialogues short so that our players do not get bored. If a player is eager to dive deeper into the game world, they can do it by reading in-game books, among other things. Currently, we have 17 short stories within the game; all are written by an excellent Kashubian writer, Roman Drzeżdżon.

EN: It looks like the main plotline is based on the relatively unknown, at least to me, the story about Amber Griffin. What is it about? Can you tell us more about the story without too many spoilers?

TR: According to one of the Kashubian legends, a griffon hid an enormous chunk of amber somewhere in Kashubia. In times of great disaster, the treasure would be found, and the amber's power would bring back peace and prosperity. However, at the beginning of the game, players will focus on an event connected with Òpi, which rose from the grave and messed around big time (we mentioned it in the trailer).

As a team of heroes, we have an exciting story to investigate, and this is just a chapter of a bigger one. Overall, I can add that there will be more such mighty wraiths and our heroes are not the only ones looking for the treasure (you can also meet some merchants from the amber trade route or some mercenaries working for them). I will not tell you anything more! (smile)

EN: Is the story set at some specific point in history, and will we be able to meet some historical figures and visit historical sites? Or maybe you set everything on an undefined point in the early medieval times and prefer not to connect history and legends too tight?

TR: The story is set in an undefined period of early medieval. You will not meet historical figures, but some NPCs might resemble them. When it comes to historical sites, we will not make any reconstruction. We are trying to stay on the safe side: we know that current technology enables us to transfer the whole reality into the 3d world, but we also know how costly and resourceful it is. If we start to refer to historical sites, we could end up making a historical game. Doing it in a small team with a shoestring budget is impossible.

We are definitely aiming for a loose mix of history and legends without too much historical distortion. For example, most huts are made from wood because there were no stone ones in Kashubia, but ruins are built from stones because wooden ones would not be too attractive from both gameplay and visual perspective.

EN: Legend of Grimrock started a kind of renaissance for the dungeon crawlers genre though not all of its "successors" met players' expectations – just to mention the not-so-great results of The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep which had a well-known brand, yet that couldn't save the game from financial failure. All in all, this genre is quite a niche, and it's hard to convince more casual players to play it. What would be the measure of success for Dungeons of the Amber Griffin?

TR: Yes. It's a niche genre, but it has a lot of dedicated fans. For me, the latest cRPG games, where you are just ticking off quests, are boring. Many new cRPG titles are stunning from the visual side and just super well-made, but I am bored after a few days (sometimes after a few hours). In most of these games, you are just chasing after quests and running back and forth. I want our title to have freedom of exploration of the game world, not just forcing players to run from one quest into the other. We experiment a lot, and we intend to hear players' feedback. (smile)

For example, in the demo, available during the Steam Next Fest, players can quickly progress into the swamp map, where they can be beaten up quite easily. In our game, you can find some outdoor locations, the weather system, and more exciting stuff like that. More and more people ask us about the turn-based mode, and we will think about it in the future. Besides that, we have interesting character classes, item descriptions inspired by regional beliefs, 10 short stories written by the Kashubian writer, NPCs, which do not treat us like heroes, dungeons built from many non-repeatable textures, and many other solutions that I am not going to reveal just yet. We know that our competitors never sleep.

EN: Turn-based combat has many supporters, so such questions are not anything strange. The thing is, creating a game with two different combat modes and properly balancing it is a very tricky challenge. Are you going to experiment with it?

TR: We see questions about turn-based mode on Discord and Steam forums. We will try to add such a mode but not in the main campaign because then, we would have created two different games.

The turn-based system is possible, but its creation requires additional time and costs, especially on the coding side. It mostly depends on how our Kickstarter campaign or negotiations with publishers will turn out.

EN: So, you plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter? Have you already set a date and a goal?

TR: We intended to launch the crowdfunding campaign around November, but we will probably move it until next year. To make a successful campaign, we need to gather players around the title. In other words, we must create a community. Currently, we do not have any marketing budget, and, unfortunately, advertising on social media is costly. Long story short, even a campaign for a super fantastic game can fail without paid promotion. That is why we are now focused on polishing the demo for the upcoming Steam festival, and at the same time, we are trying to promote our game without the budget. Step by step, we publish videos on YouTube, discuss the game on Discord, and we are trying to establish connections with the press in the hope that they will help us spread the word about the game. It is not an easy job.

EN: Can you define how big the game is? Maybe by specifying the amount of time the average player will need to finish Dungeons of the Amber Griffin?

TR: At the current stage, I cannot define the game size or the time needed for a single walkthrough. It highly depends on the budget we will be able to secure for the rest of the game's development; it will help us determine whether we can hire one or maybe two level designers. I do all the level design by myself, but I am getting out of time and energy.

I assume that players would be able to walk through the main campaign in a few hours, but additional dungeons, game modes, etc., would extend the gameplay time by many more hours. Exporting the party from the main campaign to different game modes is very important. This solution would require players to build a party that excels in the main campaign and other game modes.

EN: You officially state that the game will be available in 2023. What is the current stage of production? When can we expect the upcoming demo?

TR: We assumed one extra year of production as most of the coding part has already been done. Our priority is to ensure we have a fully working game with an attractive but not necessarily long story campaign and additional game modes. We will leave doors wide open for more free and paid DLCs. It is easier to gather small sums of funds and direct a small team than to take on the challenge of producing something big. One step after another, but onwards. (smile)

EN: I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the crowdfunding campaign's success, and I’m looking forward to the demo's release!

A Demo version of Dungeons of the Amber Griffin will be continuously available on Steam Next Fest 2022 on the game’s page on Steam.


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