City of Ashes Interview: Bringing Gritty Brawling To A World Without Guns

My name is Lubomir Dykast, and I’m one of the five main developers of these projects. We’re a small team with diverse skills, so we can work quickly and efficiently, thanks to Unreal, which gives freedom to our creativity. The basic idea of the game is mine, but the result is brought by the hard work of 5 people, each with more than 20 years of experience in game development. I’m doing a lot of things, but my main responsibility is planning and managing, bringing the vision from first ideas to the final game. I’m also responsible for environment art, including level and sound design.

We wanted to make a game that focuses on unarmed combat, in a high-stakes, life-or-death scenario, in a setting that gives us possibilities for strong narrative elements and a distinct atmosphere. There are, of course, many other possibilities, but a wreck of a once big city that had strong weapon control laws, so survivors have to depend on their skills and whatever improvised weapons they can find or make, seemed like a natural fit for all our needs. And we wanted a realistic yet powerful character, a professional fighter, with a personal stake.

The game explores a theme of times soon after a big apocalyptic event, when the civilization has just crumbled and mostly died. The cities are death-traps in these scenarios, especially with not enough food. Some people escaped, but those who stay, for whatever reason, soon don’t have enough resources. The stronger takes them from the weaker, but soon even that is not enough. Once someone breaks the taboo, it goes quickly downhill. Smarter gangs will try to leave the city, but those who have already gone over the edge plunge deeper in the madness, gaining new members by forcing them to partake, or giving them a choice of eating or being eaten.

They are all inspired by existing moves from various martial arts, and it’s up to the player how they chain them together. Some work as possible finishers, some are great for stunning an opponent so the player can continue with a chain of normal attacks or focus on another attacker, and others are more defensive to give the player some breathing room when fighting against several opponents at once. Player needs to learn the most efficient ways to combine them to suit their combat style.

About what you would expect in a post-apocalyptic city that used to have strict laws regarding weapons while the civilization was working. Real and good melee weapons are rare, but anything that increases your reach and gives you a hard swing can help, from a simple crowbar to a heavy hammer. The RPG system allows players to improve handling of these improvised weapons, but the game is focused on unarmed combat. The main character is the master of mixed martial arts, who spent a lot of time in the ring where no weapons are allowed, and he’s sure about his ability to take down just about anyone. In his mind, he still hadn’t transitioned to true post-apocalyptic times.

Players can pick areas where they want to see improvement, from general stats to boosting their combat moves. The player can find jewellery that gives some small special bonuses and equip it in several slots. Combining perks with the items allows for optimizing character build for a specific style of combat. Up to you. Do you want a fast and strong but rather fragile character, ideal for quickly taking down a single opponent, but one that has to be constantly on the move against more opponents? Or do you prefer a tank that can take a lot of punishment and win by brute strength?

Although melee combat is central to the game, player needs to explore, look for ways to overcome obstacles or to get in a better starting fighting position, and look for resources to help them overcome the opposition. Though not an open world, the player is rewarded by exploring the sideways alleys and dark corners because you never know what you might find there.

This is more art than science. You can develop an instinctive feel for the flow, but it still requires many iterations to get the balance just right, to create a flow that gives the player tension and builds it up as high as possible, but occasionally changing a pace to give player some breathing room, time to check up his possibilities or look for another options. The exact sweet point is, of course, different for different players, so getting feedback early on is very important.

The focus of a melee combat is on realism. There are unique enemies with a specialized combat style that players will have to overcome by adapting their own style against their weaknesses. Again, it’s up to the player to find the best way.

The biggest challenge and also the biggest risk is something mundane: money. We’re developing the game from our own resources, without investors or publishers. That forces some hard limits on what we can do, but it also gives us absolute freedom in development. I think it works well so far. We’ll see when the game gets released :)

Right now, I don’t see any strong trends except the fact that a lot of people are trying to come up with a new hit, often just by blindly copying the success of others, but many are trying to find new ways to combine roguelike mechanics in something new. We, as fans of MMA, are trying to do it a bit differently.

I consider them very important. It’s not just a sense of growth that most players enjoy. The possibility of trying different character builds, leading to a different game experience, vastly improves game replayability.

15 months and five full-time developers, with some assets outsourced, like sounds, music and voiceovers.

We’re a small team. Games and martial arts are our passion. We believe in what we’re doing and we think we’re doing it well, but we’ll be grateful for any feedback on our game before we release it.