13 years ago
Skulls of the Shogun preview: strategy games go to the afterlife
When I arrived at Haunted Temple Studios, the cab driver gave me a smug look. I’d asked him to stop one door over from a strip club at what looked to be an abandoned construction area. The gears in his head were turning and his face read “this kid just doesn’t want to admit he’s going to Dreamgirls.” He continued to prod me about being in the wrong location, but my trusted iPhone assured me this was the address Jake Kazdal, founder of Haunted Temple had given me. I wandered into the construction area hoping this was the right location. The glitz and glamor of the neighbors distracting the average onlooker from the amazing gem inside an unmarked building next door made arguably the perfect metaphor for an indie studio’s plight in the industry. Inside this large open, warehouse of a building, Jake and his team were putting the finishing touches on Skulls of the Shogun, literally hours after rescuing the game from a flood.
13 years ago
XBLAFancast – Skulls of the Shogun Interview Special
Upcoming turn based strategy game Skulls of the Shogun is being developed by a core team of three gentlemen at Haunted Temple. We were lucky enough to talk with the founder and design director Jake Kazdal (the guy in the dev diary). Fresh from his showing of the game at Fantastic Arcade, Jake was kind enough to venture into the netherworld and sort out some of the details, or rather, pretty much all of the details on Skulls of the Shogun.
Of the massive plethora of topics discussed, up first was mechanics. While the game may look shallow at first, we can guarantee you the tactics go far deeper than one might imagine, without being all that complicated. Spirit walls, eating skulls and haunting structures are just some of the finer mechanics in Skulls of the Shogun. Jake goes on to discuss art direction and story, telling of his time spent in Japan and the myriad of influences that period of his life has had on the development of Skulls of the Shogun.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/HauntedTemple_InterviewSpecial.mp3[/podcast]
