Jul 2

Jul 2 Behind The Scenes Preview | Inferni: Hope & Fear

It’s safe to say that 2024 has been a rough year for the games industry; veteran studio closures, generative AI takeovers and unstable workplace management have broken the creative spirit that drives many developers. With no solutions in sight, I was ready to write off the year like an overpaid CEO, but WASD 2024 has risen from the ashes of a capitalist hellscape by bringing together a bright bunch of inspired, independent creatives eager to show off their innovative ideas.

One game that truly rose from the ashes was Village Studio’s debut title, Inferni: Hope & Fear, an inventive new “battle royale deck builder”. During my time at WASD, I managed to get an exclusive hands-on preview and chatted with Village Studio co-founder Cyril Barrow for a behind-the-scenes look at Inferni.

Briefly summing up my experience with the demo, Inferni pits four two-person teams against one another in real-time card-based battles revolving around communication, timing and tricking rivals. Each card takes a set amount of time to cast and becomes visible to everyone once played, adding an extra layer of defensive strategy to the genre. There are drafts, which interrupt play at certain intervals, double up as both a booster to players and an opportunity to trick teams as each player draws from the same set of cards.

I only had a brief hands on demo, which felt a little overwhelming for a tactical card game novice such as myself, the cluttered UI didn't help issues on this front, but the communicative gameplay had me hooked regardless. My match required a surprising amount of synergy with my teammate to create on-the-fly strategies that took advantage of cards not featured in my own deck. This resulted in a comradery that gave me the confidence to mess up and learn throughout the skirmish. Discussing tactics felt rewarding and made me excited to play Inferni with a newfound appreciation for the game's mechanics.

The build at WASD had notable issues, but these imperfections couldn't keep me from caring about a core gameplay loop that demonstrated incredible potential.

Barrow told me that the deck-building battle royale concept came from two major sources of inspiration: Tetris 99 and Magic: The Gathering. Inferni is essentially a digital reimagining of MTG’s casual commander mode with new ideas designed around the team’s expertise in digital development. “We’re marketing towards fans of deck builders and battle royales, people that like adapting their strategy during the course of a game”.

Village Studio Founder Will Luton is one such fan, attending MTG events and tournaments in his spare time. This passion shaped the project and spread to the small studio, resulting in a creative concept that exudes enthusiasm, but it took a while to get to this point. Village Studio comprises ex-mobile developers, and the team’s first independent game originally played to their strengths, a match-3 game with card-based powers.

There were definitely some teething troubles transferring skills to a premium PC game, as much of the team showed little interest and knowledge in developing a tactical card game, but before long, the team embraced the game’s new direction. This transformation was highlighted in a story Barrow shared to me, “Grace, a developer from China, didn’t know anything about card games but really dived into the project and even got into Magic the Gathering… she’s the best Inferni player at the moment”.

Pictured left-to-right: Gabriel Zuliani, Will Luton, Cyril Barrow

Barrow’s passion for his game and team was palpable throughout the interview, leading to moments of reflection for the COO. This resulted in a surprisingly open discussion illuminating the challenges associated with managing the remote studio. One of the most important things he highlighted was the importance of maintaining strong emotional wellbeing to foster a safe and creative workplace.

In regards to Village Studio’s design philosophies, the team has chosen to embrace the challenge and weird quirks that come with pursuing an independent project in favour of committee-led development, a process that often waters down unique ideas. One of these distinctions is hidden in plain sight “We’re called Village Studio because, on the village green in the UK, people gather as teams to play both together and against each other… we’re inspired by real world, physical games and want to give digital players similar experiences”.

From what I managed to gather, Village Studio understands the importance of catering to a specific player base. When asked about microtransactions, Barrow stated “we, most likely, won’t be selling booster packs, but we will introduce new characters that come with new cards”, though admittedly a monetisation model hasn’t been chosen at this stage. It is, however, reassuring to know that the game’s design hasn’t been affected by purely profit-driven motives.

One thing that took me by surprise is Inferni won't feature tutorials “by design”. Instead the team hopes to teach players through a gradual learning curve that showcases Inferni’s thrilling gameplay loop. This approach once again breaks away from the studio’s mobile roots as mobile games often overly explain dumbed down mechanics with the intention of funnelling wide audiences to addictive storefronts. Barrow also points out that “a tutorial would take forever if you wanted to explain every card and move''.

Village Studio’s proposed approach poses difficulties for a tactical card game with in-depth mechanics. Barrow admitted “the first session can be a bit of a nightmare as people aren’t familiar with the cards like we are, it's a discovery phase. In the second session they get it… we think it takes around three sessions to start to be strategic with the gameplay”. Despite the difficult prospect, the small studio welcomes the challenge, believing that it’ll provide the best experience for players.

Inferni’s biggest hurdle has been its WASD demo. The vertical slice went through a roller-coaster development cycle as Village Studio decided to attend the event at the last moment. “We had a call with the organiser who explained there were only a couple slots left” said Barrow. “we were busy, we hadn’t defined the game’s parameters and the art wasn’t ready… we had two weeks to make a demo, but we asked ourselves, ‘why not?’”

During this time Village Studio “pushed the art, special effects and fixed animation bugs that had been in the game for two months”. The result is extremely commendable, delivering better than expected results for the indie team. It has also given Village Studio the confidence to announce a release schedule.

WASD itself has been an invaluable resource for both Barrow and Village Studio as a whole. Inferni hasn't had any large-scale playtests up until this point and the convention successfully advertised it’s potential while giving the team new goals to reach for through player feedback. “The main feedback has been UX improvement and on Monday we know exactly what to do''.

Interestingly enough, WASD may have also inspired Village Studio to implement a new way to play their upcoming title. “Our game is actually an eight player game comprising four teams of two. For WASD, we were limited to four computers so we made a two versustwo variant, but it seems to work very well, so we might make it into a game mode”.

I’m excited about Inferni. This imaginative, passion filled project has the potential to shuffle up digital deckbuilding and attract new players to a genre that is often filled with overwhelming rules. A Steam demo is live right now if you want to check it out with an Early Access release scheduled for the 1st of July.