Interview with ASONE GAMES, Developers of Strategy RPG War of Crown

Making a mobile strategy RPG can be a challenge. The game has to be simple enough for the user to understand, and at the same time maintain the genre’s hardcore appeal. Strategy RPGs involve a lot of complexity. Our strategy RPG War of Crown has been on the market for around three months. Both GAMEVIL and ASONE GAMES are constantly adding content and adjusting the gameplay to improve the user experience.

I recently reached out to the developers, ASONE GAMES, and they were kind enough to talk about their experiences while developing their title with us. As I stated, it is tough to balance that fine line between simplicity and genre integrity, especially on a mobile platform. ASONE GAMES have achieved that balance though. War of Crown runs on the Unity engine, and the final product is a smooth and visually arresting mobile game. I wanted to understand ASONE GAMES’ thought process as well as hear about their experiences while developing this game.

Our Interview:

1) Thank you for your time. My first question is, what was your main goal in developing a mobile strategy RPG game? Was there any SRPGs that inspired you during development?

At the time of development, we began with the goal of developing a complete SRPG that worked in the mobile environment. We made sure to include genuine strategic options and high-quality visuals, which we believe are the key features to consider when developing a SRPG. War of Crown’s terrain-based gameplay was inspired by Square Enix’s Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics.

2) How many people are on the development team? When was the company founded?

The company was founded in 2015 and it currently has around 40 developers.

3) Which part of the development was the most difficult?

Starting from the initial build to the final product, we had to make many modifications to War of Crown’s battle system. We initially had issues with certain situations obscuring the player’s field-of-vision. Another problem we had to deal with was accurately creating the sense of hitting an opponent; we did not want the impact to mimic that of hitting a flat tile because the player is actually hitting a 3D model. Finally, we had to deal with the difficulty of creating these types of detailed environments on mobile games because the cost and manpower required to do so was much higher than expected.

4) When was the most rewarding moment of development?

Every moment was rewarding. Even though a lot of issues surfaced during the two closed beta tests, it was great to hear user opinions. The responses were positive; they were waiting for a game that reminded them of beloved past SRPGs, so they really enjoyed War of Crown. Our team is always working hard to make the game better, so we appreciate when players continue to show their support.

5) What kind of engine did you use to develop War of Crown and how did the engine help with development?

War of Crown uses the Unity engine. The great thing about the Unity engine is its ease of use, whether the user is a game developer or a graphics designer. It is also very good at converting any game to work on  various platforms.

6) War of Crown has a strong emphasis on its story and its characters. How much of a priority were these two aspects of the game?

Actually, one of our main priorities when deciding to create an SRPG was the game’s story and its characters. We continue to build on its story and characters with almost every update. Players can look forward to learning more about the heroes and the world of War of Crown by playing various modes: Bard’s Song, Hero’s Song and Event Dungeons. We hope players look forward to new additions to the game with anticipation.

7) What do you think users will like and enjoy the most?

Players really like our Hero’s Song and Wanted missions. In the future, we will have updated guild-related features. New Hero’s Song content will be constantly released so we can increase the pool of available heroes in a way that is different from other games. New Wanted missions will offer users never-before-seen challenges and force them to adopt creative and intelligent strategies each time. Guild-related features will improve and grow the sense of user community.

8) What are your plans to turn War of Crown into the best mobile strategy RPG now that it's launched?

We are positioning War of Crown as a SRPG that offers an intricate meta-game. In order to accomplish this, we will offer many heroes in the future, and each hero will be unique and offer interesting skill sets to increase a number of team compositions available.

We will listen carefully to user feedback as we release new heroes, content and events.