We reached out to Fabien, the lead developer of the indie 4X ‘Fantastic Creatures’ and were able to get him to answer some questions for us. Stay tuned later this week for a Let’s eXplore video on our YouTube channel and in the meantime, read what Fabien has to say about his game!
1) What’s your name and where did you get your start in programming?
Hi, my name is Fabien, also known as FMR on the web where I used to have a Youtube channel. I mostly created Endless Legend and Endless Space 2 guides there but also tried a few different strategy games.
My day job is a software engineer so I’ve had a lot of exposure to programming before. I mostly specialize in web development so moving towards game development was definitely a challenge! After playing quite a few 4X games for my channel, I started having ideas for my own vision of what a 4X could be and after trying out a few game engines I decided to develop Fantastic Creatures 2 and a half years ago.
Since then it’s been a daily grind between family, day job and passion. I have a limited budget that I mostly used for the visuals and the music. I’m taking care of everything else during my evenings. Luckily I now work 4 days per week, giving me more time to finish Fantastic Creatures!
2) What 4X games do you take inspiration from?
From a 4X point of view, my main inspiration comes from Endless Legend, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and Oriental Empires. However, I’ve been influenced by other strategy games like Starcraft 2, Age of Mythology and Into the Breach to cite a few.
3) What’s Fantastic Creatures’ unique selling point? What makes it different than all of the other 4X games out there?
Fantastic Creatures has been designed as a relatively short and fast-paced 4X – from playtests, I think a game should take between 3 to 5 hours.
I wanted a game where the mid and late game wouldn’t drag on for hours but with strategic depth. For example, you make a lot of early choices in the early game about technologies and buildings that generate a lot of pollution: if you leave it unchecked it can very quickly degenerate by turn 100!
Another unique aspect of Fantastic Creatures is its setting: there is a lot of Lore elements from Chinese mythology: from units to technologies, even music! For example, the goddess Xiwangmu who appears in the game has its own theme and the poem sung during the track is actually coming from the Tang dynasty and depicts a scene where the goddess waits for a king.
4) Will there be multiplayer?
I’ve carefully considered this early on but very quickly decided to not include multiplayer in Fantastic Creatures. It would have added a lot of extra development time and as it is my first game I felt it was better to spend my energy and having solid gameplay for a single player.
5) Is there anything unique about the diplomacy system?
There is no real diplomacy in Fantastic Creatures. You have Portals on the map from other Gods that send armies to basically destroy you and act as pirates/bandits. Again it was a choice I made early on, to avoid having to develop an AI that would ultimately be very time consuming or would just end up feeling wrong.
6) Tell us more about the combat system. It appears to be very unique in its presentation and mechanics.
Obviously, with an indie budget, I couldn’t plan on having dynamic combat with a lot of animation. I initially studied how other games do it and learning from a game like Thea: The Awakening helped me figure out what to do. That’s when I settled on abstracting combat using either card or die. I ended up going with a dice-based system similar to a game named Nantucket. It brings the right ingredients to what can be an easy yet interesting system: some random elements when throwing dice, strategies with unit compositions and different tactics by choosing from a variety of die.
7) What is your targeted release window?
The game will be released this year, most likely this November – which is very soon actually!
8) Are you holding a beta test and if so, how do 4X fans join?
There is a beta that has been going on since late August – it has been great getting more and more feedback. I’m still happy to have new testers joining, keeping in mind the release is coming soon! To learn more, the easiest way is to join the game’s Discord at https://discord.gg/EzX2QYP
9) What do you think your focus is, development-wise, from now until release? Do you have a roadmap?
I have two main areas of focus until release: improving usability and balancing the game. There are a lot of extra tooltip, explanations or numbers to show the player to make sure he/she has all the information needed to make decisions. At the same time, I want the game to be balanced enough for it to not be too punitive but always be challenging towards the later stage of the game.
I hope the game will have some sort of success to keep my motivation on improving the game. Otherwise, I already have a lot of ideas for another one!
10) Have you played any 4X games recently? If so, what and what were your thoughts?
That might come as a surprise, but I’ve almost completely stopped playing 4X games since I started developing my own. I suspect it’s fairly normal: you probably don’t want to hear about your job when you play games for fun!
However, I still play other games whenever I have time. Recently I’ve acquired Total War: Three Kingdoms which was just astonishingly beautiful and I also discovered Stardew Valley with my daughter: it’s charming and addictive!
Thank you, Fabien, for taking the time to answer our questions! We’ll be showcasing Fantastic Creatures more in the future! Good luck to you and we look forward to seeing Fantastic Creatures