Dreamatrix Game Studios Interview

We had the chance to once again ask Iggy of Dreamatrix a few more questions. This time we talk about the recently funded Wave of Darkness, game patches, and the SpaceForce IP.

Couchpotato: Welcome back to RPGWatch as I believe it has been over five months now since out last interview. So, how have things been since our last talk?

Iggy: A lot has happened. We released a few significant updates to Legends of Dawn, we prepared and successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign and we are strongly pushing Wave of Darkness towards Early Access.

Considering there are only six souls on board, juggling with these high-profile games and campaigns is not a small task.

Couchpotato: Your new Kickstarter for Wave of Darkness was launched last month, and despite the slow amount of pledges, it was funded. So, how do you all feel?

Iggy: Well, it was an amazing experience all around. We had a very strong start which was about 20% better in contrast to Legends of Dawn campaign, but we also had periods of severe stagnation. There have been times when we thought reaching the funding goal will be pretty difficult, but in the end we even managed to complete three stretch goals. All in all, we feel great, ecstatic to have another title successfully crowdfunded, and now it's time to work!

Couchpotato: Now that Wave of Darkness is funded, what happens now, and do you have a date in mind for when to launch on Steam Early Access?

Iggy: We are putting all of our time and energy into Steam Early Access release, and all of our team testers are hard at work uncovering the issues.

Now we have to wait for about two weeks for Kickstarter to send us the funds, so we estimate Wave of Darkness will be on Early Access around the end of April.

Couchpotato: I noticed you offered a third stretch goal for Flying Islands, but needed to make $24,000. Will PayPal pledges go towards the goal now?

Iggy:  Exactly, with PayPal pledges we actually managed to complete all three stretch goals, which is quite amazing considering how things were going until the last few days.

Couchpotato: You mentioned you originally envisioned a trilogy, and that Wave of Darkness is the second game. Does this mean all three games will use the same engine?

Iggy:  Yes and no. Yes because it is the same Dreamatrix engine and no because the engine continuously evolves. For the purposes of Wave of Darkness it was significantly upgraded and now it comes in a version 2.0. The game and the engine are now 64-bit only. That unfortunately means the game will no longer run on 32-bit operating systems. Considering the Steam Hardware Survey, the most popular system RAM amount is 8 gigabytes, so we believe we made a good decision.
The good news about that is that memory problems are thing of the past now. Game can now utilize all the RAM you have, well over 2GB per process that is the limit of 32-bit processes.

NVidia PhysX is not dependent on external system software anymore, which means no more separate installation of physics software is required. External physics installation was the cause of many problems in the past - from configurations where physics software was not recognized, even though it was installed, to problems with non-Steam installations where users simply forgot to install physics software. This is now solved, physics is part of the game itself and should work without any intervention from the user or external software.

To be even more "techy", rendering distance and streaming distances are doubled, shadow distance is improved, and since rendering distance is doubled, old shadows were too short so we had to increase generic shadow distance.

Bit of quality we lost on shadows due to the stretching of shadowmaps is compensated with better shadow filtering. Overall, shadow quality is the same, only on larger area. Animation for all dynamic entities are now smoothed over time when transiting between animation states. This is most noticeable on monsters and player characters. Entity system is upgraded with skinned meshes over current entity hierarchies. Now we have snakelike creatures and more realistic monsters.

Also, many other systems are now implemented or upgraded. We are extremely proud of our programmers and their skills.

Couchpotato: One of your last updates mentioned you had some trouble getting the press to cover your game. Did they give a reason why, and is it hard to market your own game?

Iggy: The main problem nowadays is that crowdfunding sites are oversaturated with the content. From the moment you launch the project online until it's pushed deep under by new arrivals takes just hours compared to days or weeks, two or three years ago. Kickstarter visibility is dramatically reduced and consequently developers rely much more on other media to get their projects noticed. With every project developers spam the same media over and over so unless you have something completely new and interesting or pay for advertisement it’s near impossible to be featured.
It’s then understandable that the gaming press today are very selective about the crowdfunded games they write about and many added a policy not to feature crowdfunding project at all.

Incidentally, when we talked with the news editor from one of those major gaming websites, he told us they don't do Kickstarter games anymore. We said, okay, no problem there. The next morning we went to their website and saw an article about some other Kickstarter PC game. Sure, the team who makes that game is comprised of the industry legends, so it's somewhat "natural" the website will write about their game, but their recent statements about the stuff they publish are very contradictory, and their actions are a bit unfair.

All in all, gaming websites like RPGWatch which are willing to publish articles about small teams and their projects are in a vast minority.

Couchpotato: I often see mentioned on our website and on Steam that you don't listen to your backers, or community. How would you respond to these claims, and are they correct?

Iggy: When Legends of Dawn was launched we did not have a community manager. I am handling this task now so I believe that we improved a lot in that aspect. Our Kickstarter campaign has been surrounded by incredibly friendly atmosphere, as well as on several forums and communities we have been active at. Of course, there are always people who will say the most negative things you can imagine about your team and your work. The best thing to do in those cases is to remain helpful and constructive while trying to preserve the friendly atmosphere.

Couchpotato: Since we're talking about fixing games, I noticed you are still patching Legends of Dawn, and I was wondering if you have plans to continue the patching?

Iggy:  We want to invest a lot more work into Legends of Dawn, but above all we have to be very careful regarding the time allocation for a certain task. Exclusively for RPGWatch I can share that our next goal is to develop "Legends of Dawn 2.0" which will be significantly improved over the original. In some aspects it may feel as a new game. We don't simply abandon people who like to play Legends of Dawn. Their support is very valuable to us and we will strive to upgrade, update and patch the game the best we can.

Couchpotato: A new update also announced the Space Force IP is back in your hands. So, I was curious about who owned the IP before, and do you have any plans to make another game?

Iggy:  Spaceforce: Rogue Universe space sim was a hit which sold more copies than much more advertised and better marketed products at that time. Despite the fact that our publisher never advertised our title anywhere, and invested all earned profit into the Gothic 4 development. When they ceased their operations, the other publisher bought all the rights to their titles, and they claimed that the clause that states that the rights roll back to developer in case of insolvency was not applicable. A long legal battle would have been too costly for us at that time so we rather waited until the final licensing period expired.

There are many such cases where publishers calculate with the fact that developer might not be equipped with enough muscles for legal battle, so they take advantage. They will not report true sales figures, they will not pay royalties, they will forget to pay the last part of advances etc. Dirty little world.

Anyway, Spaceforce: Rogue Universe is finally where it belongs, back to Dreamatrix. The plan is to release updated HD version; “Spaceforce: Rogue Universe HD” on Steam within a month or two.

Couchpotato: That is all for now guys. I want to thank you again for answering my questions. Now, do you have anything you would add before we finish?

Iggy:  Thank you for asking those questions. The work on games in general brings mixed feelings, both joyful and sometimes very stressful moments. The support from RPGWatch is one of those very joyful moments. You and your community have important share of successful funding of Wave of Darkness. Thank you and your great community for the support, and keep up the good work.

If you missed your chance to back the game you can still support the developer using PayPal. He is also a member of our site so don't be afraid to ask him any questions.