We are very excited for Blood Bowl. While we’re not Games Workshop obsessives by any means (I’ve tried to get into it several times, but don’t want to sell a kidney to buy all the stuff), none of us can deny the alluring power of goblin football. Needless to say, we are looking forward to this upcoming adaptation of a tabletop classic, and want to know as much as we can.
Fortunately, we got in touch with developer Cyanide in order to ask a few questions about this promising sports title. We got to ask how the real-time and turn-based modes work, just how deep the customization options are, and more importantly, just how much blood is in Blood Bowl?
Read on for our Destructoid interview with Cyanide.
Destructoid: Before Blood Bowl, Cyanide was known mostly for developing the very similar Chaos League — a game so similar in fact that you almost got sued for infringement. Here we are though and you’re actually developing a licensed Blood Bowl videogame — how did that come about? Was it Games Workshop that pursued that first or did you approach them?
Cyanide: It was Games Workshop that came to us, and it was because we did something very similar to Blood Bowl, and we told them we’d be very interested in making a real Blood Bowl game. So we both formed an agreement and decided to stop Chaos League and start Blood Bowl.
Destructoid: One of the most interesting features is the turn-based and real-time mode, and we’re curious to see how that works. Are they two separate games entirely, or do they fundamentally work the same way?
Cyanide: The fundamentals are the same. You play the same teams with the same characters with the same attributes and skills. So it’s the same balance, it’s just two ways to play a match. In theory, you could play the same championship with each match being either turn-based or real-time. It’s not the case because we did not allow that, but technically it would be doable.
Destructoid: Right, so you can’t switch the modes on the fly?
Cyanide: No, you can’t switch modes on the fly. But of course if you do quick matches, you can choose either real-time or turn-based.
Destructoid: What about the customization options? How deep is the team creation mode?
Cyanide: So, you have eight races, you have different player types, you can choose your team color, paint the armor, you can of course give your players your own names. Also, to add more visual variations, we added some [race specific additions]. For example, for Chaos, you can select horns, use different tattoos and skin colors. So, two of the same player types will not look the same to laymen.
We also added an equipment system. There are four equipment types, and for each item there are three levels. When you are playing Blood Bowl with classic rules, there is no equipment system, so it’s just reflecting your player levels. The more levels he has, the more equipment you see on his body.
We also added some extra rules and features in what we call the Blitz mode — that’s where you find the real-time mode. Here, you can activate an equipment system, where you have to buy the equipment yourself and it has an effect on the game.
Equipment has a huge visual difference and you can use it to differentiate your good players from the others on the pitch just by looking at them and not needing to select their attributes.
Destructoid: The trailer that was recently released showed cheerleaders. We were wondering if they worked the same way in this game as they do in the original Blood Bowl.
Cyanide: That’s working exactly the same as the original Blood Bowl game. If you play BB with classic rules, we kept everything from the original board game. We tried to be really faithful to the original game, so yes, it works in exactly the same way.
Destructoid: It looks like you’ve managed to capture the brutality of the Warhammer universe, but at least one of our community members wanted to know just how violent and gory the game will be.
Cyanide: There’s no way to remove the blood from a game with a title like Blood Bowl. Yes, it’s a violent game because you can punch players that are lying on the ground and your players are beaten by the crowd when they are thrown out of the pitch. At the end of a regular match, there is a lot of blood on the pitch.
Destructoid: The confirmed platforms for the game seemed a little confusing, with Blood Bowl coming out for the PC, Xbox 360, DS and even PSP, but we wanted to know why no PS3 version had been announced yet, or if that was coming.
Cyanide: So the question is, why not on PS3?
Destructoid: Yeah.
Cyanide: It’s very simple in fact. Cyanide is a small company. We have no previous experience on that platform [and] it would have been a bit risky and expensive for us. But, we are hoping to do a PS3 version if the game is selling well.
