Twisted Metal and FTL: Faster Than Light had a two headed lovechild and set it loose on the barren wastes of Omek Prime. In lieu of any new Fallout news Convoy seems to be a contender for scratching that Post-apocalyptic itch.
Convoy is a tactical action rogue-light set in a pseudo-apocalyptic wasteland. It has more in common with FTL: Faster Than Light than with say Wasteland 2 or Fallout, making it a somewhat unique experience. Convoy is split between the hex-based world map, and grid-based combat.
Cruising the randomly generated world map in search of quest items goes faster if the player sticks to roads, but they miss out on harder to reach landmarks. Random events pop up every few hexes depending on which region the player explores, but there are also radio signals marked out on the map for guaranteed encounters. In the build I played, most of these events were humorous references to Mad Max, A Clockwork Orange, Fallout 3, StarCraft and other such inspirations for the developers. During one of my more recent runs I stumbled across Rhiannon, a badass raider princess who joined my team after a bit of convincing. Very FTL. Camp sites dot the map within which players can buy weapons or new vehicles, and repair/improve the vehicles they already have.
Every combat is a car chase. The player’s Main Convoy Vehicle (MCV) lumbers down the road as raiders, cybernetic abominations, and land-pirates close in for the kill. This murder-bus of sorts sticks to the center of the screen while your littler fighter vehicles try their damnedest to protect it. That’s not to say the MCV is weak. Each variant starts with a different super weapon: A missile launcher, an EMP blast, mine layer etc.. Where the game really shines is in the player’s need to micro manage their units (thankfully a pause screen is available for folks to issue commands in). Managing line of sight is essential in protecting your MCV, and ramming, road hazards and other Hollywood action scene staples come into effect. If the trailer for the new Mad Max made your knees weak and you’ve got a penchant for games like X-Com, or Binding of Isaac, there’s plenty to love within Convoy.
The alpha wasn’t flawless, however. I experienced a couple of hard crashes early on, and the devs removed the original final boss (a truck seemingly cross-bred with the Millennium Falcon with a dash of Mecha-Godzilla somewhere in its lineage) to revamp the fight into something more tactically taxing. This makes the current build (at time of writing) somewhat anti-climactic since starting the final boss battle kicks the player to the main screen without fanfare or reward. However the three man team behind this Kickstarted wonder are extremely responsive to community feedback and have fixed most of the bugs I encountered within the week they became apparent. One of the founding members (Sander de Visser) took the time to answer a few questions over email.
KK. First, tell me a bit about yourself and your team. Who is responsible for art assets for example and who is in charge of story, or programming? What sort of team do you have (like is one person calling the shots or is developing Convoy a communal effort)?
SdV. We’re with 3 people as the core team. Roy takes care of most of the artwork, Sipke is the main programmer. I do a lot of everything, ranging from code, some art, business and other stuff. We also have Kevin as our writer. We 3 (Sipke, Roy and myself) design the game together, though we take a lot of input from people around us, as well as the community. We feel this is a good way to improve the game, as you get different inputs from a variety of people. Since Roy, Sipke and I are each 33% owner of the company, we make all decisions in a kind of informal voting way. If 2/3 people agree, that’s what we do.
KK. The current build of Convoy or at least the latest iteration I’ve played has some interesting design choices, and a seriously ftl feel despite having different mechanics both on the overworld and in combat. What are some lessons you took from ftl both positive and negative?
SdV. Phew, this is a hard one… We didn’t start out the project with FTL in our minds, it’s something that sort of grew onto it later. I think we really just look at things that would be cool to add to the game and it just happens to be that many of those elements are inspired (and sometimes taken directly from) FTL. But FTL isn’t our only source of inspiration, much comes from movies like Mad Max and also Alien(s) (mostly in visual style and setting), as well as other games like the Fallout series. We’ve looked at elements of the UI from games like Starcraft and Warcraft, and were inspired by games like Super Crate Box for the “feel” and many of the graphical effects (oversized bullets, camera shake, particle effects, etc.). I really think it’s mostly a combination of a lot of things we like, and we try to take the best bits of everything as an inspiration for how we do things.
KK. The current build is almost entirely referential. It makes for some great nostalgia, and moments of good humor but will there be a new story you and your team will want to tell when more/different events are added? For example, will there be a story based reason for the final boss? Having that red mcv pop up on the map was something of a surprise the first time. Is there a fourth tribe pulling the strings and will there be events that give insight into them (Maybe even minibosses)?
S. I don’t want to spoil too much, but there’s definitely an underlying story to it. Though it’s not in a classical, linear, sense. The final boss plays a big part in it in fact. You’ll definitely learn things about the world from stories you encounter, but it’s up to you to puzzle it together. Minibosses is something we have planned, but I can’t go into too much detail. It’s something we’re working on now and we’ll be releasing more info in the next few months towards release.
KK. Let’s talk about goals. In the short term I’m certain you’re working to create a game that is fun and functional. What are some long term goals you have for convoy? If the game is as successful as ftl, how long can you foresee yourself adding to it, and improving on its design?
SdV. Oh dear, I mean… If it were to be as successful as FTL, we’d probably take a few weeks off first! We’ve been working on this nearly non-stop for a year and a half and I think we’d all like a little break… As for future plans, there are of course the things promised in the stretch goals. We’ll be adding mod-support post-launch which will allow the community to expand the gameplay significantly. The Kickstarter fell short of it’s final “add-on” stretch goal, so we can’t promise that now, though I definitely think that, if the game is successful, we’ll release an add-on at some point. We have a lot of ideas on how to expand the game, but it’s really too early to say anything concrete about that now.
KK. Let’s get down into the weeds a bit. In combat I’ve noticed that positioning vehicles represents the bulk of my tactical decisions mainly because of road hazards and the need for line of sight. I’ve found that maxing range first thing on most vehicles is key to having a successful run. Are there other intricacies and strategies you hope to add? Will it be possible to have a no weapon destruction derby ramming only run for example?
SdV. I’m not sure which build was the last one you played, but in the latest update, we’ve changed the armour mechanics and added ramming. Where range was absolutely necessary before, just to minimize the damage you take, it is now also quite viable to focus on manoeuvrability and armour allowing you to just out-tank the enemies. We also changed the role of some weapons, allowing more diverse tactics. Balance, however, is an ongoing process and I think it’ll be some time before we’ve “nailed it”. Oh and yes, a ramming-only convoy should be possible, especially with the new melee weapons and upcoming terrain changes.
KK. How do you envision unlocks occurring (pun kinda intended) down the road? The privateer princess event was fantastic by the way. Reminded me of hero events in FTL. Will there be more heroic characters added in the future?
SdV. Unlocks is something we’re currently working on, and the way we envision it is by either A: finding a specific pair of vehicles on the same run, B: defeating a miniboss, C: completing a side-quest, and D: completing specific achievements. As for heroic characters, Kevin has several of them written down on various notes. If/how they end up in the game is mostly up to him…
KK. Last question. What are your thoughts on having drivers to be assigned to different vehicles? For example, in FTL leveling crew members is a key component to having a good run. Will Convoy personnel be a resource in the future? I gotta say, I’d really like to have a radiation based weapon that targets drivers directly or something like it, if only to add more strategic depth to an already exciting and tactical game. Thoughts on this concept or is it outside the scope of your design?
SdV. Having a crew, and leveling this is something many people, including ourselves, would definitely like to see. However, for now, it’s beyond the scope of the project. Perhaps it is something we might do in the future in a possible expansion…
The proposed release date for this bad boy is sometime in February of 2015. I’m looking forward to watching this game grow and evolve.