Hey! It took some time, but we've answered as many questions as we could.
Question
Answer
Will there be more classes being released over time?
Martin: We have several ideas for new classes and new heroes. We're evaluating potential implementation and roadmap together with our publisher.
Are new units on the horizon? Would love to see some more siege type units to help bring variety to the towers/ballistae everywhere.
Martin: We definitely like the idea of having siege-type units that could be used both for defense and for attacking camps (which would also have improved defenses and wouldn’t be easy to destroy with regular units). However, we’re not planning these changes in the near future..
This one is very important. What's your favorite kind of sandwich?
Lukas: Definitely none from Subway (Sorry!) Ondrej: A free sandwich Martin: Tuna and egg sandwich Tadeas: I don't eat carbs, only to drink them later on Jakub: Club sandwich David: Sahib’s Dream
What's your favourite kind of ice cream?
Lukas: Mojito flavour (non alcoholic ofc!) Ondrej: Does ‘yes’ count as a flavor? Martin: Lemon in bananas in chocolate 🙂 Tadeas: Vanilla Jakub: Mango ice cream David: Magnum Double Caramel
What is the favorite hero of each member of the team?
Lukas: Paladin, brings some nostalgic feeling from vanilla wow. Ondrej: Eldrin, because life’s too short to run up and hit things Martin: Ardan (because he was our first Hero and also has a very nice model) + Garnet (because he's red-haired like me) Tadeas: Nariel just because hasn't been nerfed ever since 😈 Jakub: Garnet David: Nariel
About the campaign from a tester, how far did campaign testing phase (me as an example) came compared when each mission was first made?, or in general how long did it take to make each mission.
Ondrej: Each mission took roughly one to two months to go from a top-down sketch on a whiteboard to a fully playable version in the game. After that, we entered the testing phase, where we iterated based on feedback from multiple tester groups. We intentionally rotated testers between iterations to ensure that feedback reflected a fresh perspective, not prior familiarity with the mission. While the content of the missions didn't change drastically during these iterations, testers were invaluable in identifying bugs and helping us fine-tune elements like pacing, difficulty, and clarity. In some cases, they missed certain areas altogether, which told us we needed to make those sections more noticeable. Overall, the testing process played a huge role in shaping the final experience. It helped us spot design elements that weren't working as intended and ultimately made the game more intuitive and enjoyable.
You mentioned back then that you came up with original designs to later finding out that they were already present in WC3 & were thus scrapped. Could you mention the Warcraft mission names that were close to your design for us to speculate how would the mission play in Darfall (yeah last time I forgot to add this part :D).
Lukas: I no longer remember the scrapped ones (as the ideas were halted quite soon before any implementation) But for similar ones, The Defense of Strahnbrad was an issue. They introduce main hero (Arthas), then also second hero (Uther), mission is a tutorial and they fight orcs. Our first mission we also need to introduce our hero (Eldrin), introduce other character (Captain Thorne), have it as a tutorial, as well as fight orcs. Trying quite hard, it still looks very same, even though we could not cut/change almost anything without completly changing our campaign structure and lore. The Culling of Stratholm was inspiration and still is very close to our mission “Mistfen’s last Hour”, (but you evacuate instead of cull citizens) while the last mission is also quite close to Mount Hyjal, but you invade the demons, instead of being invaded.
Are you considering to add some way to regrow trees on the map or at least manage wood a little better? Right now its the hardest resource to deal with and can get quite tedious depending on the biome. It also doesn't work very well with the long survival mode (or would simply make endless a lot more appealing)
Martin: Even on maps with fewer trees, there are still enough wood to cover the required amount of resources. The real bottleneck in terms of progression is more often the mana orbs (during early game); food on certain maps (which can be managed by choosing the right strategy); but the most significant bottleneck is the hard cap on workers, which is set due to technical limitations on the number of entities in the game. If someone is lacking wood, they need to build more woodcutters, either by expanding territory through lamps or by utilizing outposts. We do recognize that more players are having trouble with wood, but that's mostly because our economy is set up differently than what players are typically used to. So we don’t rule out making some adjustments to bring it closer to player expectations. As for tree regrowth itself, we’re not considering it at the moment.
Any plans for an optional/experimental settings to increase unit limits in survival? At the least - an option to do it for custom maps in the editor? Since you already have code for limiting units, I imagine it wouldn't take too much of dev time.
Martin: The unit limit in Survival mode exists for several reasons. One of them is performance on weaker PCs. Having too many units could lead to FPS issues, especially during night invasions when there are dozens of entities on the map. Another issue is that it's technically quite challenging to ensure units remain easy, responsive, and intuitive to control during battles. We've already released several updates focusing on this, but in general, the more units there are, the messier it gets and the more micromanagement is required. Adding this limit to the editor is a good idea. It's been noted in the backlog.
Do you have any plans to further develop survival mode beyond what it is right now (in terms of content or mechanics, whatever they may be)?
Martin: We have hundreds of notes recorded and are still in the phase of collecting feedback. Later on, we’ll organize and evaluate it. For now, we’re not planning any major changes, but we do like the idea of adding progression to the survival mode.
Will the new campaign assets be available in the editor as placabless or else? - they re awesome and I'd love to use them
Lukas: all campaign assets are present in the editor, as we use the same editor/assets players have available for the public.
Would you consider making a necromancer like character?
Martin: Yes, the Necromancer character is in our backlog, and we like the idea of making her a woman.
Will there be more survival maps? With how big the map is it really looks like there is room to grow.
Martin: If new biomes were created (e.g. jungle, tundra, mountain), new maps would be added as well.
(Q1) Will survival get any kind of earned progression? It just doesn't make sense to me that it is laid out the way it is but the heroes always have to start from 0. (Q2) Will there more progression systems when playing the game? me and my friend complain a bit regarding that "there's no progression between maps", simple stuff such as passive skill points would make it more exciting for us !
Martin: We’d really like to have some type of metalevel layer above the Survival mode, but the problem is that it would disrupt gameplay balance if a Hero started with some improved stats or equipment. That’s why we’re considering a metalevel system that would be separate from the game-level and in-level progression.
What are you bigger insparations when making Darfall? I'm sure most RTS vets can pick out the main ones but I'd like to hear if there any guiding philosophies you had that are similar to RTS games of the past!
Lukas: The Warcraft was the main one, mainly the visual thematic, races and combat. But “survive the nights” came directly from They Are Billions. And as there was no “wacraft 3 survive nights” game, we knew we had a chance! Not directly games, but the Warhammer universe and Game of Thrones had big influence on atmosphere, lore and continent composition (world map). Martin: I tried to look at Darfall with Don’t Starve in mind as a source of inspiration. You have a main character (both in Darfall and in Don’t Starve); you build your base (in both games); and you explore the world and gather items needed for base development (again, similar to Don’t Starve). Even though it’s a different genre, I still see a lot of similarities when it comes to base building and resource management :)
Are there any deep gameplay changes being talked about/in the works for expansions in future? AKA: Any micro / macro gameplay changes that could be coming down the pipeline? Or do you guys feel satisfied with the backbone and core gameplay loop that you have created?
Martin: In general, the hardest thing in game development is prioritizing tasks and features. We have an incredibly long backlog that we’re constantly adding to, but choosing what’s truly important is very challenging, especially when there are only a few of us working on a project as big as Darfall. So, we're currently in a phase where we're still collecting feedback, which we'll evaluate later.
What was the timeline like for Darfalls creation? From idea inception to first character/level design untill current day? The game has a ton of visual polish that leads me to believe that development was a laborious process.
Lukas: Darfall was actually started as 1 men project years back, as a “tower defense” game on islands with minecraft like graphics. Then I got addicted to They are Billions, and from that point, I knew what I wanted Darfall to be :) We were working on the game in just our spare time with Martin for the past few years, then the real production, with artists was little over a year, leading to full release. Martin: To add to what Lukas said, I’ll try to be more specific in terms of the timeline. Hopefully I remember it correctly :) • 2019–2020 - Lukas created the initial prototype of the voxel-based version • Mid-2020 - I started collaborating with Lukas (by the way, we know each other from a previous job) • End of 2020 - I quit my job so I could, among other things, start working part-time on Darfall • 2021–2023 - We continued working part/full-time on the project, just the two of us • End of 2023 - We signed a partnership with Paradox, and Lukas left his job • 2024 - We began expanding the team with new members • May 2024 - May 2025 - Ongoing redesign of Darfall from a voxel-based style to low-poly textured graphics; completing the entire game
(Q1) When will coop be added? (Q2) Coop mode where multiple players build a base together (Q3) Versus mode where players each have their own bases and waves to defend against and can spend resources or cast spells to strengthen the waves attacking enemy players
Martin: Coop is technically very demanding; unfortunately, we do not plan it for now, even though we would also love to play together as a team or with/against friends.
dwarf faction, elven faction and orc faction would be great... also new heroes with this game style is a must. hoping to see a sword and shield style hero,
Martin: All these suggestions are noted in the Backlog as ideas for further game improvements.
Wood gathering needs to be increased. I never have issues with anything other than wood every game, and on some maps depending on RNG, it's over before it begins due to wood.
Lukas: Isn’t the wood comparable to gold from Warcraft or crystals from Starcraft? As its a main resource and used for everything, even in the mentioned games, the resource is always spent and in great demand, since its used for almost every purchase, thus the player needs to carefully plan, spend and expand to get more of it. Increasing the wood production would just allow you to spend it more faster, leading to the same result, not enough wood, just faster :)
When will Darfall support cloud saves?
Ondrej: We do support cloud saves Martin: It was added a few weeks after the release.