Upcoming title The Dragoness: Command of the Flame is a fantasy strategy game with a roguelite twist. The game is inspired by older Heroes of Might & Magic titles, where players will explore the map and collect resources alongside grid-based fighting. Players serve the Dragoness, a powerful dragon who's working to bring peace to the region as warring factions of dragons fight.
Players assume the role of the Commander, who - after she is killed in battle in the beginning of the game - can assume different physical builds before leaving for each battle. Each build has its own stats and attributes that players will be able to improve over time in a mechanic that forms to core roguelite element of the game. Alongside going on turn-based fighting missions, players will work towards building up their home base by building and improving various structures, like a Forge, Camp, and Marketplace. Players will have a myriad of different monster choices for building their army, which only expands over time as the Commander explores new areas.
The game's Producer Maciej Struzyna and Designer Janina Wojciechowska talked with Screen Rant about the game's HoMM influences, the story writing process, and what players can expect from The Dragoness: Command of the Flame's features.
I've played through about three hours in The Dragoness. It's really cool, and I like the Heroes of Might and Magic inspiration behind it. What were things you thought were really important to bring in as an homage, or things that you wanted separate yourselves from and change to make it more distinctly your own?
Maciej Struzyna: I love everything about Heroes of Might and Magic, so it's a great question for me. First of all, different versions of Heroes of Might and Magic have a different kind of love from us. The third version is the best and was kind of the basis of the idea for The Dragoness. We want players of Heroes of Might and Magic to feel the game is a familiar experience for them.
But we have different amounts of resources to make a game, and also we are different people than we were 20 years ago when we played Heroes of Might and Magic III, so we wanted the game to be a little bit more adjusted to who we are right now. HoMM, as we see it, is a challenge on every map. But you build your army up to the point that you're undefeated, and then you finish each map.
For us, it was very important to make every minute of the experience count in the game, so we have changed some parts of the progression system. Every battle is a challenge up until the end, and even the small battles in the end matter. Because if you get some injuries, then you will not be able to finish the map, or it will be harder.
Also, we did quite a lot to make each scenario and each map a unique experience. So, it's kind of different than Heroes of Might and Magic, where you beat each level with very similar tactics because you're building up your army. In our game, it's a little bit different because the challenges are much different.
We also changed the progression, the maps, and we also wanted to change the metagame experience a little bit with a roguelite twist. It's not a roguelite itself, but the players are able to start each scenario more on their own terms. They can choose a little bit about the starting formation of the player, the army and stuff like that. These are things that are not that much present in HoMM, and we added them for the game to feel more familiar to us as we are right now, 20 years later.
Can you go a little bit more in-depth about how you've changed the progression system?
Janina Wojciechowska: There are basically two progression systems. One of them is on the map itself, and this one is much closer to Heroes of Might and Magic. Of course, we have different skills and different spells that we have created, but you get the experience; it's more RPG-like, where you kill monsters, get experience, get it from other sources, and then choose what skills you want to gather for your hero. Which facet do you want to go with: do you wants to use your monsters more, or maybe you want to use spells more, or maybe a combination of both. It's up to you.
The second one is on the city side. The city is something that is there for the entirety of the game, and it's quite unique. You go in there after each mission, and you start there for each mission. How you upgrade the city and how you want to structure your loadout will make a pretty big difference in how you play.
As far as I know, this is the first strategy game to come out of development from Crazy Goat Games. What was that transition like, and how did it differ from games you've made in the past?
Maciej Struzyna: On our website, you can find tower defense games, logic games, and even mobile games. We also did a lot of stuff for other companies. We also did RPG games, for example, that are not on our website.
For me, it was always about making a strategy game like Heroes of Might and Magic, so it was a natural transition. But all the pieces and even technology that we gathered from the other games came together to create this game. About the design, technically, the game was a challenge because of the scope and the amount of scenarios and stuff. But on a smaller scale, we already knew how to make it.
For us, the biggest challenge was to make it as fun as this right now. Because it's Heroes of Might and Magic, so we should not let down fans of this title. They are very easily offended - I'm one of them, and I am very easily offended by some stuff. This was the biggest challenge; not the technical stuff, or that we never did a turn-based game before.
For example, we did an RPG game that I cannot talk much about. But it had a lot of skills, and in our game, we also have a lot of skills. The tower defense game even helped us with the battles a little bit, because of the technology we had. But still, putting in the spirit of HoMM is the biggest challenge for us.
We've touched a little bit on the roguelite elements of the game. At what point did that come into the development, or was it there from the start? Did any roguelite titles help inspire that section of the game?
Janina Wojciechowska: This element was present, basically, from the very start of the game. In terms of inspiration, I couldn't pose a specific one-to-one. It's kind of different. From the start, we knew that we wanted to preserve the feeling that you have this adaptability. You can embrace and work with it or, if you're really skilled, you can just do your own thing. "This hero has a specific specialization and this amount of steps, so maybe I should tweak with my artifact selection."
It's in line with that, and it was there from the beginning of the development.
I know that having a bunch of different play styles available to players has been really important to you. There's a lot of experimentation in terms of what monsters you start with or artifacts you're using. When you play the game, do you have a specific strategy that you gravitate to, or favorite monsters to start with?
Janina Wojciechowska: Actually, I think I was playing the game a lot. It was an interesting experience for me, because I played so many times that I started to go through different options.
I believe when I started, I was going very heavily into the range units and trying to make this composition of one unit defending them and the range units just sniping. But then I started to gravitate into the high-fidelity units that can travel very long distances and have very high maneuverability. They are easy to kill, so you have to position them and stuff like that. Lastly, through this cycle of playing again and again, I started to gravitate to more tank monsters and trying to do healing synergy. It's hard to say which one was my favorite, because I just naturally tried different things.
The lore of this game in really cool. I love the pangolin so much, but I'm just curious where that came from.
Janina Wojciechowska: I'm so happy about this question, because this is also my favorite.
When we were working on the story and the lore and the world of the game, we didn't start with specific or visual characteristics. It was more, "What is that person? What is the character of that person?" We knew we wanted somebody who could guide us through the game like a friend. One of the characteristics of that person was that he was small; he wasn't very battle strong. You can picture a small dog that is barking at bigger people, but he's very sweet to this owner. It will sound wrong, but please bear with me. He was really subservience to the Queen Dragoness. She's the leader of the country; she's the queen.
So, it really fit when we were looking at pictures for inspiration for the animals. We saw the pangolin in the picture, and when they stand up, they do this pose. When we saw that, we were like, "Yes, this is it. This is our guide." That's how Pangolin came to me.
Because they're also scaly, he talks about being like a miniature dragon, which is adorable.
Janina Wojciechowska: I almost went into the spoilers, but the scales were also a big plus.
What was the creative inspiration behind the game's story, with the warring factions of the dragons?
Janina Wojciechowska: I wanted it to be mainly about the characters, and those characters that have influence on the world itself. So, I really stuck with the idea of something that is good inherently, but it can be corrupted through sheer circumstances.
This is something that I really tried to emphasize in the opening, that the Big Bad of the game weren't bad from the start. Something happened that made them that way. That idea really struck with me while working on the story for the game. Yeah.
The game has really varied environments. As you go through, there's the frosty area, there's a desert, and there's a lava-filled area - with all these different creatures to match the area. How do you decide the types of monsters to include and the environments you thought would be the most fun for players?
Janina Wojciechowska: The game is set in the high fantasy world, so you can really see the inspiration for the creatures around that. That's why you can see griffins, for example, or you can see that our main character is an elf.
From less of the creative inspiration, but more of the design perspective, when you look at something you get used to it. For example, if we introduced the sand biome, the desert biome and more sound biome? For the player, it wouldn't be this distinctive. From this perspective, we really wanted to bring something that is visually striking. We have a beautiful forest - sorry, I have to praise our art guy - covered in snow, then we go into the deserts of the world, and then we move to the fiery hellscape.
This strong visual variety was also really important from a design perspective to take players to different places, so they can feel they are traveling this world that has much to show.
It really offers that comfort when you do go back to the hub too. If you've been in an especially harsh environment, and then you come back home to all your stuff, it's a nice contrast for sure. Do you have a favorite area or favorite creature?
Janina Wojciechowska: For me, I really like the snow zone. Not to spoil too much, but we have those places where you can see this almost grainy, horror look. It just struck me as a little bit melancholic for that part, so I liked it very much.
My favorite unit is going to be funny a little bit, but it's actually a mud gremlin. It's really from a design standpoint, but through the development of the game, everybody was joking that it's useless. I was always saying it's not; it's actually one of the very strong units in the game.
As the development that progressed, and I started introducing to the game the units that I planned to do, they started to see that it's actually it's useful. This little tiny gremlin is my big favorite. Just because it's like you don't expect much of him but he can become a hero.
Is there anything that you want players to know about this game?
Janina Wojciechowska: We covered so much here. From the creative standpoint, it's always like, "And I did this cool thing!" But you have to experience it for yourself to really get the experience. As Maciej said before, something really important to us was taking you on this adventure. Come ride with us, and see where it takes you. I hope it will be a pleasurable adventure.
Maciej Struzyna: For me, this is the game that I came into the industry to make. Hopefully not the last one, but it's the first one of these. It's very important to me for the players to know that this is a game that - if you are a Heroes of Might and Magic fan, and you could make a game - this is our approach to it.
We love it, this is our inspiration, and we can make games. Maybe not all the players are able to do that, but we can, so look at it from this perspective. We love HoMM, and we can make games, so look what we did. It's an experience. We didn't want to compete with Heroes of Might and Magic, and we didn't want to copy them, but we are heavily inspired. This is what we came up with; let us know if you like it.
I've read about some of the updates you have provided, in terms of fixes and adding new creatures or environments. Are there any planned updates for the game as it goes on after release, or even before release? Or is it too early to think about additions like that right now?
Maciej Struzyna: Contrary to what many might think, we consider this game as a complete experience. When it will be launched, we think that it will be the thing that we wanted to provide to the players. At the moment, there are no DLCs or updates or stuff like that, because it's finished. We had time to polish it, and this is the baby we wanted to make.
The Dragoness: Command of the Flame will release September 1 for PC via Steam.