As promised, here is the continuation of our A Kingdom for Keflings coverage.  Keep an eye out this week for more info on the game leading up to its Wednesday release along with a surprise or two along the way.

I got to catch up with Steve Taylor, president of NinjaBee, to chat about Keflings.  Hit the jump for part one of the interview.  Today's topic was gameplay so Steve and I talk about cities, hats, animal cruelty, and I even sneak in a question about downloadable content.  If you're a more visual person there are some screens to keep your eyes busy.

LunarDuality: A Kingdom for Keflings contains two distinct levels of gameplay.  On the management level you must direct the Keflings personally and set them up to collect most of the resources necessary to build.  On the individual level you must personally lay the foundations of buildings and even collect resources yourself to move forward.  In my limited time with the game I feel that finding the balance between these two focuses is the key to success.  Where did this unique concept come from?  Was it a eureka-style epiphany or did it go through a million iterations?

Steve Taylor: The balance definitely came from a million iterations.  The basic concept of physically interacting with the Keflings came quickly and solidly from the original idea of doing an avatar-based game, but making it work well is the result of a lot of experimentation.  This is one of the reasons the game took a long time to finish.

LD: With that gameplay concept in mind, what genre do you think AKFK fits into?  It's not simply a "god game", nor a real time strategy game because the management aspect is limited by your player's physical presence in the world (aka you have to move to a location to affect that location).  It's not simply a city building game either, so what the heck do you call it?  Or was this conundrum of genres part of the ultimate goal?

ST: When I'm describing it to people, I usually call it a simulation game (for a general term) or a city-building game (for more specifics).  But I think "city building game" sells it short.  It wasn't a specific objective to mix genres or anything, but the basic mixed concept of an avatar-based city-building game is definitely very core to the game.

LD: Adding love to houses to attract Keflings has to be one of the most sickeningly cute ideas ever.  Who's responsible for that massive "aww" moment (or the retching, depending on the perspective)?

ST: Well, that would be me.  :)  I admit a few people didn't fully appreciate the idea at first, but those people now sleep with the fishes.  We've been working with it so long that we forget how strange it is.  When we first worked out the details there was a lot of laughing, but it became second nature after not too long.

LD: Keflings jobs are connected to hats and there's even a hat-based achievement.  What is with the hat obsession?

ST: We cannot overstate the influence of hats in the creation and refinement of human civilization.  Without hats, who would care about Napoleon, the Pope, or Queen Victoria?  I think the real question is: why are hats given second-class status in the study of human history?  Who is suppressing the awareness of hat significance, and what nefarious conspiracy is afoot?!

LD: Cloning Clyde has chicken kicking.  AKFK apparently has sheep kicking.  How long until PETA beats down the NinjaBee office doors?

ST: PETA would be a problem, but we bought them off.  We donate 10% of the sales of the free Band of Bugs expansions to their cause.

LD: Speaking of Band of Bugs, NinjaBee wanted Band of Bugs to attract casual players and turn-based strategy fans alike.  Is AKFK another game which aims to attract a casual player with its simplicity and a core player with depth?  Can you really do both well?

ST: Great question.  I don't know!  I think AKFK is unique in that people don't expect city-building or simulation games to be hardcore.  I think we'll have less trouble convincing people it'll work for casual players.  The trick will be convincing hardcore players to give the game a try.  What I am confident about is that if people will give it a try, they'll like it.  I've heard a lot of positive feedback from some pretty serious gamers who took the time to check out the demo.
This seems to be a battle we keep coming up against.  Even with Outpost Kaloki all we heard was how you can't make a successful console tycoon game.  But these are the kinds of games we want to make, and if the only alternative was making clone products, I'd probably be a cheese farmer instead.  Fortunately, that's one of the promises LIVE Arcade delivers on - a lot of developers are getting to make their own creative choices.

LD: AKFK offers 4-player online coop over Live.  What about local coop?  How does coop work?  Are you all building one city?  And how will I get that achievement for a game with 20 different player banners?

ST: No local co-op - we discussed this extensively, but it was one of the things that got dropped just because we're a small group with a very limited budget.  Online play is entirely co-op - you work together to build one city.  You share resources, Keflings, building pieces, upgrades, buildings, tech tree, etc.  This turns out to be really interesting, because there's a lot to do, and you can choose to share tasks or specialize in a lot of different ways.  One player can manage Keflings and resource gathering, another can work the tech tree, another can run quests, another can focus on secondary buildings or decoration, etc...  It's very natural, fun, and extremely rewarding.  Of course, it's my job to say that.  :)  Give it a try and see what you think!

AKFK online games are also join-and-leave-on-the-fly so people can come and go as they like without you having to start new sessions.  And the game does host migration, so the original host can leave and the rest of the people in the game can keep playing.  You can also save your online game, which is important since you might spend a lot of time building up a city you like.

I don't want to spoil too much about achievements, but the basic idea is that if you're playing an online game, people can come and go, and they can build banner towers.  The banner tower each player builds is unique, and you just need to play in a game with 20 unique towers to get the achievement.

LD: And finally, any DLC planned?  And if you can't say, how about answering this question: What kinds of DLC would be possible if you happened to want to add content down the road?

ST: There is some DLC scheduled - focused around further customization of your city.

Stay tuned.  Tomorrow we'll talk about the art and style behind Keflings.