Das Entwicklerstudio Fall Damage besteht aus vierzehn Entwicklerveteranen die vormals bei DICE gearbeitet haben. 2016 wurde das neue Studio gegründet. Mit BATALJ wurde nun das erste neue Spiel angekündigt welches irgendwann 2019 erscheinen soll. Zum Titel selbst ist aktuell noch nicht besonders viel bekannt aber das soll sich in kürze ändern.
Der COO Dan Vaderlind hat uns ein Interview zugespielt das wir euch natürlich nicht vorenthalten möchten. Wir wünschen viel Spaß damit.
Das Interview
What is Fall Damage and who are you?
Fall Damage is an indie game studio based in the heart of Stockholm. Four of us founded the studio in late 2016. All Fall Damage co-founders have a background at DICE, where our Creative Director Markus Nyström is one of the original four DICE-founders. Today we are 14 super talented people who are excited to see our first game ship in 2019.
How did you come up with the name Fall Damage?
It was a long, long process. We probably went through hundreds of different names that we sent back and forth in text messages. You could wake up one morning to 15 different new suggestions in that message thread. Some were better than others, most of them were already taken by other studios or long forgotten Twitter accounts. When Fall Damage was suggested it stuck directly. We wanted a name associated with games one way or another – and while pondering the name, we created a logo suggestion of the guy falling and it all fit together.
What’s the biggest difference compared to working at a big studio?
There are plenty of differences. The biggest one being that we, the 14 people in the studio, are the ones deciding what we should create. The game only gets as good as we can make it. It was a bit scary in the beginning but completely outweighed by the freedom and the joy of being our own masters in both big and small decisions. For us it is important that everyone working at Fall Damage should feel that they can contribute, not solely in their craft but in any other way they care about. We’ve had programmers pitching in on art ideas, artist coming up with game mechanic solutions and so on.
What has been the biggest challenge setting up a new studio?
The biggest challenge by far is finding fun and talented co-workers. We are fairly confident in that we know how to build games and how to run efficient teams. As a young and small studio, everyone you hire has a huge impact on the future of the company. Either we were lucky or really skilled, but everyone working at Fall Damage today is a champion in their own right. Beyond that, setting up a studio and start building your game is the easy part. The hard part is what comes after, gaining visibility in the crowded eco-system of the industry. A lot of talented smaller indie studios compete for the same attention as the large mega-corporations with 100s of million dollars in marketing budgets.
Are there any similarities from way back when, to setting up a studio now?
In many ways it is easier now, since it is a much more established industry. The concept of games is now mainstream. Millions of people are gamers, without actually referencing themselves as gamers, and mainstream media writes about games all the time. Finding the right talent thought, that is still a challenge. The rise of game development studios, especially here in Stockholm, has increased the demand of talented game developers and the supply is still trying to catch up. Reaching your intended audience is in some ways equally challenging as way back when. Gamers today are exposed to a lot more of varied type of games due to the sheer volume of awesome games being released every month. This allows them to be a lot pickier about what to buy. Back then it was a blessing to get a new game at all.
The only thing communicated so far is the name of your upcoming game. How did you come up with the name Batalj, and what does it mean?
Naming things is really hard. We wanted to steer away from the more generic names including words like War, Battle, and Combat etc, while still have some association to the game itself. Batalj is the Swedish name for a smaller skirmish/battle. For us this hint at several things. 1. It is the IKEA version of our name. Swedish version of something that if translated will be quite descriptive. 2. It is short, snappy and not too complicated to learn. 3. It looks great as a logo 😉
When and how to we get more info about Batalj?
Easiest way it to visit our web site and sign up for the newsletter – which will grant you beta keys in a not too distant future, as well as to follow us on social media or talk to us on discord.
After all this, is there any more news about the game!?
No, not more than that we are rolling out betas, and that Batalj will be released in 2019. But here’s a last bit of information: The Beta will arrive earlier than both New Years and Santa. Much earlier.
