F.U.B.A.R. — An Interview With nDreams
by BONZO, HSM editor, and Gideon, HSM team writer; information provided by Joe Dale, nDreams Digital Production Manager
F.U.B.A.R.
The teaser video got the gears spinning in the minds of the Home user, speculating just what F.U.B.A.R. is really all about. The teaser video flashes the breakdown of the acronym, and it’s not what you think. Fight Until Blood And Ruin. This video also flashed a dark message with a hint on what the game is about.
“To achieve peace….wars must be fought….ironic really…”
Indeed. So this gave us a hint, that the game would be some kind of war theme. The blog reveal has now clarified the game itself as a strategy tower-defense game. Out of the announcement video some questions still lingered, and so we asked out friends at nDreams if they would be kind enough to answer a few of those inquiries for us. Gideon and I went over the content, and Joe Dale, Digital Production Manager for nDreams, lent us his time to answer them.
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HSM: The FUBAR trailer shows a direct overhead view and an angled 3/4 view; will the user control the angle they view the playing field from, and will FUBAR be restricted to such a detached perspective — meaning the user will not have direct access to the base or freedom to explore in the standard third-person view?
nDreams: The camera angles you see in the game are fixed and the whole game will be played out from those points of views. There will be a F.U.B.A.R.-themed apartment that you can purchase which will have a model of your base in that changes along with your base in F.U.B.A.R. It’s a nice way of showing off your base to your friends whilst having a chat!
HSM: There appears to be two elements of the game, if not two games integrated into one: a base building game, somewhat like SimCity where you build and grow your base, and the actual tower defence mode. Are these two indeed separate elements of FUBAR?
nD: You are correct! There is the base building / management aspect of the game and also the daily tower defence games.
HSM: On the base itself, it appears there are sleeping quarters, strip clubs, and game rooms. I am making the assumption these are elements to maintain troop morale. The base, then, is less about destruction or defeating an enemy and more about growth and expansion; do these elements hint at an emotion meter for your troops? If so, how does the troop morale affect their performance? The Cheerleader tent seems like it would be a morale unit yet in the trailer it’s listed under operational. Could you expand on the cheerleader dynamics of FUBAR and the colour code for different operations?
nD: When you purchase barracks that will give you more troops within your base and more points towards placing turrets in the turret defence section of the game. You will need to balance morale with certain buildings having a better effect in keeping morale up. If morale is high, your base in the tower defence section will have more health that allows you to take more damage. The different entertainment buildings have varying levels of effect on morale. There was still some moving of buildings between the sections when the trailer was completed!
HSM: What is the relationship between units and troops in the FUBAR world? Are troops recruited separately from units that are purchased? Is it possible for there to not be enough troops to man the towers and units in a defence? If so, what are the penalties for losing a tower or mission? Are there repercussions to your base or stats if you fail a mission or lose a battle?
nD: So, as mentioned, when you purchase a barracks for your base that gives you a certain amount of soldiers for your base, this then has an effect on the amount of points that you start with when playing the daily Tower Defence section of the game. Units are placed on the map in Tower Defence and each cost a certain amount of points. There are some special units that can only be purchased with War Bucks and not with in game points that are collected during the tower defence missions.
HSM: There are some similarities here with the grid system of Blueprint: Home. Are the customization options based on the same system? If so will there be any cross-promotional items like the Aurora style pack for Blueprint?
nD: F.U.B.A.R. and Blueprint:Home are leagues apart in terms of customisation. The grid system in Fubar is really only used to show you exactly where you can place the ready-made buildings available. At the moment there aren’t any plans to offer a style pack, but I’m sure it’s something we will take a look at down the line — but there is a F.U.B.A.R. island that will be in Aurora that you can use to go straight to your F.U.B.A.R base.
HSM: The only tower defence game Home has ever seen before was in the Abstergo Labs: one level, one way of playing, and very limited, so it didn’t give the user the level of control FUBAR is poised to give. FUBAR, however, looks somewhat like a Facebook game translated for Home. Did nDreams feel the current innovations in Home called for a bigger push in the level of games offered to the Home user? How has the platform of PlayStation Home influenced the development of FUBAR? Are there any features of the game that were made possible specifically because of Home?
nD: Production on F.U.B.A.R. started long before I joined the team, but it is obvious that we always like to try and do things differently. It is obvious that there is so much more content in PlayStation Home than there was even eighteen months ago so we wanted to create a game that would keep people coming back to it but doesn’t need the user to invest a huge amount of time in one sitting.
When I jump on Home I will flit between different spaces and chat, maybe play a game for a few minutes and then log off. F.U.B.A.R is something that people can come to daily, play for a short amount of time and then go to their next space knowing they have everything there is to do in the game that day.
HSM: This approach is certainly a smart deviation from being another direct combat shooter game for Home; did nDreams worry the limited perspective would be compared too much to classic games, or is the casual gaming approach the strength of FUBAR and how does FUBAR exist within the Home universe? Will there be a FUBAR public space, a private space or will there be a FUBAR active item like a war table? How will the Home player access this new experience?
nD: I think the casual approach to F.U.B.A.R is one of its huge strengths because it doesn’t need to fight against other spaces / games to claim a huge chunk of the user’s time. With regards to accessing F.U.B.A.R, you can enter the game from the relocator in Aurora, via the main navigation or if you own the F.U.B.A.R apartment you can go directly from there.
HSM: Social interaction is a must, particularly in Home, and you’ve shown us a points currency earned by helping friends or friends helping you. How does that interaction work? Is there a collaborative defence approach? Do friends help you build the base and vice versa, or is it like social games we are familiar with in gifting resources back and forth? What will the benefit be of visiting other bases and how important are friends to player success in FUBAR? Must players rely on friends to be successful and attain the highest rank?
nD: You can be as social or anti-social as you want in F.U.B.A.R. If you want to gift players a new building you can, and hopefully someone will gift you something back! You can visit friends’ bases and help train their troops which activates a mini game that tests your reaction times by shooting targets as they pop up. Completing this gives you and your friends extra points which act as the currency as well as the level-up system; completing the shooting quicker or slower affects the amount of points you both own. It will certainly help you move up the ranks that little bit quicker if you interact with your friends’ bases, but it’s not essential.
HSM: Defence missions are available per day. Does this suggest that the missions are based on NPC and not a direct PvP mode, or will there be both types of missions available? Will they be limited to one per day to maintain long-term user activity like Aurora? Will there be the opportunity to go on the offense to expand your territory? Will there be a specific territory to conquer or is the territory that is being defended more of an abstract concept? Furthermore, will there be interactions with other Home members who are not on your friends list, who might be discovered in the scouting missions that are hinted at in the trailer?
nD: There isn’t a PvP mode for F.U.B.A.R — it is primarily a single player experience that also includes the element of social interaction if you would like to. There is one tower defence mission per day that allows you to earn points. Once you have completed the mission that day you can replay it if you would like but you won’t earn any extra points. Territory expands as you level up so you won’t be able to purchase “extra base room” or something similar and the area you are defending is more of a concept yes.
The scouting missions are a way of just giving the player something else to do if they wish. You will send some troops off to another area which is shown on a map and that mission could take twenty minutes or it could take four hours. When the timer counts down and the mission is completed you will get a reward which could be some extra points or something for your base.
HSM: With all the previous games introduced by nDreams, you have experimented with how a user perceives the gameplay via various camera perspectives. How do you feel the community will respond to a Facebook-type of casual game that takes them away from the third-person perspective they are used to in most games in Home? Do you feel the gameplay alone will be enough to make them forget they don’t see their own avatars in the game? Is it in fact necessary for a Home game to have the avatar as the focal point for the player to relate to?
nD: I guess we will find out! I personally enjoy playing F.U.B.A.R — it has charm, humour, great tower defence missions and a lot of variety. We are confident people will enjoy the game. If we were asking players to play for an hour at a time then I think the avatar questions might crop up but due to the “pick up, put down” nature of F.U.B.A.R I don’t think it will be an issue.
HSM: Aurora set the bar for long-term user participation, and did so by limiting the amount of points you could earn per day, even with upgrades. No one knows better than nDreams if that formula was successful or not. Was it successful, and will you implement that same levelling system to facilitate long term user participation even with premium upgrades?
nD: Aurora has been incredibly successful and the fact that we have had over one million unique visitors is a testament to that fact. We have 30 ranks in F.U.B.A.R for users to rise up and you will have to put some time in to become the ultimate General. The system is very similar in that you won’t be able to sit on the game for one whole day solid and get to the top level and hasn’t been designed to be played like that.
HSM: What is the grand design behind the game for nDreams? It is a military war game but it is also a strategy game. It will appeal to the players just looking for something to shoot, and for the gamer looking to challenge their brains. Most tower defence games do require more thought than firepower, so mentally it is more challenging, but in order to keep it casual and a daily regime for the Home user will it maintain a casual approach, or will it be challenging enough to draw the player a little more in depth and keep the users interested for more than a few minutes a day?
nD: F.U.B.A.R is a lot of things, it’s a base building game where you can be as pedantic as you like with your building placements, a tower defence game where you will need to use strategy to overcome your enemy (and if you are struggling maybe call in one of the special units to help you out) and it’s also a social game where you can help out your friends level up quicker if you so wish.
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nDreams, the people that brought us Xi, Aurora, and several other games, think outside the box repeatedly. You really can’t assume they will do something a specific way; they may bring a Facebook-style game to the table, but with it they bring a deeper level of interaction which takes advantage of the Home platform. For a moment, the war theme and the teaser video may have had some of us worried about yet another third-person shooter in Home; this is obviously not the case, and the daily activity approach to the game and its social interaction elements will bring a new element deviating from the Aurora-style daily hunting method. It isn’t until you reach level one-hundred in Aurora that you realize how much you miss having an activity to participate in each day, and that approach may prove just as successful for F.U.B.A.R. as it did for Aurora.
What excites me about this game is the concept of a dynamic personal space housing a model of your base, which changes as your base changes through the procedural customization. A personal space element directly linked to a public game is an interesting dynamic element which makes personal space even more engaging. The ability to visit friend’s base, and take an optional active role in helping your friends with their base building through gifting items and troop training adds a deeper level of interaction and a greater incentive for a collaborative effort. But whether social or independent, this is a game you can truly enjoy. Abstergo Labs currently hosts a single-level tower defense game, which left us hungry for more interaction and some customization, and nDreams, with F.U.B.A.R., delivers that and more.
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This game is going to be a very unique experience in Home like many of the other new ones are. I am glad they did their own thing with this instead of just adding another shooter type experience. I haven’t played many strategy games but I will definitely give this one a try.