From BioWare to Beamdog to MythForce with co-founder Trent Oster

Calling All Heroes: The Saturday Morning Cartoons are Back!

Deep in the land of Eldryth, a kingdom steeped in magic and power, more than simple quests await our brave heroes. Beyond the castle ruins in the ancient forest, a blackest-hearted vampire calls upon his sorceress Hexstar to bring the dead armies back to life and prepare them for war. Who will withstand and face these dangers? Who will achieve victory over their enemies… through the power of teamwork?

As you may have seen in today’s IGN x [email protected] Digital Showcase, we introduced a brand new villain (Hexstar) and announced the inevitable release date of our upcoming title for September 12th, 2023 for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Inspired by popular Saturday morning cartoons, MythForce combines swords and sorcery with intense first-person combat in a new roguelike adventure.

To learn more about this upcoming game, our team at Aspyr had the opportunity to sit down with Trent Oster, co-founder of BioWare and Beamdog. Here’s what he had to say:

What inspirations from your work in Baldur’s gate And Never winter nights did you apply MythForce?

We were heavily inspired by our previous work. Some of the main inspirations came from the different roles of the character classes in our old D&D games. A rogue character plays very differently than a mage and a fighter. In MythForceThis is especially true for the Rico character, who acts very much like a villain, hitting high-impact targets and escaping again. Maggie plays the Mage archetype, high damage but not much defense. Victoria anchors the party as a brave combatant, able to absorb damage with a shield and control the pace of combat, and Hawkins is the closest thing to a ranger, a combination of ranged precision damage, stealth, and some magical abilities.

What are your roguelike inspirations for? MythForce?

We drew inspiration from roguelikes across the genre, from classics like nethackto understand the roots of the genre and how much of the “rogue” in roguelike we wanted to carry over into newer games like Hades And Darkest Dungeon, how they managed to successfully integrate narrative and a linear story into a genre known for its story-light genres. We felt that integrating the narrative was important to our roots and therefore was an important touch point for us.

We also played a lot of games and took inspiration from other multiplayer co-op roguelikes like barony, Deep Rock Galactic, Danger of rain 2And Gunfire reborn, each of which we analyzed their approach to a scalable multiplayer experience where you can enter the dungeon and play with a variable number of players. We took a close look at how they approached cooperative game mechanics and how the games scale difficulty when more than one character is on the field at a time. We looked at how they handled player character synergies and how unique or bespoke each of the roles they presented was, and how that impacted the player experience in each game.

We love the depth of gameplay and repetition that roguelikes invoke. A large part of our development team either started out as a roguelike fan or really embraced the genre and all of its possibilities as we developed the game.

The shaders inside MythForce It seems like they were created by a Saturday morning cartoon fanatic. Can you tell us more about the art style? MythForce?

The art style of MythForce is a High Octane 80’s cartoon tribute that aims to be as authentic as possible while providing a fun 3D first-person experience. both Luke, MythForceand Eric, our art director, are big fans of the classic cartoons of the period.

We did extensive research, spent hours watching and analyzing classic cartoons, and even looked at original animation cels and backgrounds firsthand to consider both the techniques and the limitations of the genre. We were fortunate that Eric was able to enlist the support of a mentor with experience from the period, who taught us the techniques, approaches, and shortcuts common to cartoons of the period, from flat colors to all of the cartoon elements, to to the visual separation of the characters from the environment and the critical importance of detail management, subtle linework, and where one would use shading and where not.

We investigated what gives an 80’s cartoon the recognizable visual style and developed interactive shader techniques to implement this in real time. We put a lot of time and effort into it and are happy with the result.

More information about this MythForce, visit www.MythForce.comand follow the latest updates discord, TwitterAnd Facebook.