The Indie Game Magazine December 2015 | Issue 56 | Page 15

their crafting progression, they will find themselves exploring
further and fighting creatures of epic scale.

IGM: Beyond item crafting, are players allowed to trade or sell
items? Or are they responsible for creating all their own gear?

IGM: In case some folks are confused, the game includes both single
player and co-op modes, right? It’s not predominantly multiplayer?

Rubyor: Player trading was something we had always planned for
from the beginning. In our minds, it is an important part of any
survival experience. It also helps drive socialization and community,
which is greatly needed for these types of games.

Rubyor: Savage Lands features offline play, player hosted servers,
and dedicated server functionality. Our goal was to give players
more flexibility in how they play. We also support cloud saves for
characters. This allows players to more easily play with friends or
new players without losing character progression.
The game also supports hostile (PvP) and friendly (Co-op) modes
of play. So if players don’t want to play on a PvP server, they
don’t have to.
IGM: When it comes to item crafting, are players able to augment
the visual appearance of things like weapons? Are there different
aesthetic/color options available when crafting variants of similar
weapon types?
Rubyor: At this time in Early Access, we don’t support any type of
visual augmentation to items. With that said, it is on our list to look
into as we move through the development process.
IGM: How much is there to actually do in Savage Lands? Are there
quests to complete, or other ways players can take their minds off
of the harsh survival conditions and viscous creatures?
Rubyor: One of our core pillars when we set out to build Savage
Lands was to support a robust and expansive open world wrapped
around the concept of survival. So instead of having a traditional
bread crumb-style quest/reward system found in most RPG’s,
we left the exploration and discovery aspect solely in the
hands of the player.
After several updates, we did add in a Day 1 task system that acts as
a guide for new players to help get them started in the brutal world
of Savage Lands. This was based on player feedback and suggestions.
Over the next few months we will also be adding in bits of
lore and story players will be able to discover as they explore the
world. This will help to immerse players more into the amazing
experience we have created for them.
IGM: Most first-person games don’t prioritize character
customization in terms of visuals. Did the multiplayer aspect of
Savage Lands lead you guys to place more emphasis on visual
customization?
Rubyor: For our team, we see character customization as
a major feature for any survival game. It gives players a
deeper level of immersion and connection to their characters.
It’s also a great way to distinguish their characters from others
when playing online.
The character customizer we have now is phase 1 of a much larger
system. Expect to see some more features and options once we
make the transition to Unity 5.

IGM: What sorts of design/balance challenges does multiplayer
present for a survival game?
Rubyor: For Savage Lands, we constantly have to evaluate all areas
of the game experience where having multiple players can make
the overall difficulty feel trivial. In our minds, balance is simply not
just health and damage. That’s the easy part. The biggest challenge
for us is creature management. We constantly evaluate and tune
the number of creatures that spawn when multiple players are
in an area. This is done to mitigate farming and ensure that the
experience feels natural and believable. We also layer creature
spawns in such a way that as you venture deeper into the world,
the encounters become more dangerous.
Mining and harvesting are also areas that we spent a lot of time
balancing. It is important that these things are thought out in how
they are populated into the world, to ensure players are exploring
and not mass farming in one localized area.
But again, balancing a game experience is a delicate affair. Luckily
we have an amazing community that supports our efforts in this

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