Gamasutra has a new series called "[url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12630]Road to the IGF[/url]" in which developers whose titles are finalistists in the 2007 Independent Games Festival answer some questions about their game and current gaming habits. As you may recall, Band of Bugs is [url=http://xblarcade.com/taxonomy/term/92]finalist in the Technical Excellence category[/url].

[quote]We had a lot of wild ideas on how to approach the strategy genre, but the size of our staff and budget didn't support a lot of room for too much experimentation. This was especially the case with out decision to ship an editor with the game. The editor was a whole project in itself.

What we ended up doing was taking a lot of the staples of tactical strategy and stripping away any excess baggage. We took a hard look at a lot of the reasons a casual gamer would like or dislike a turn based strategy game and based a lot of our decisions on that. Encounters in our game aren't epic, they are kept to a small scale, and our turn order is very fast paced for a turn based game. The last thing we wanted was players sitting around and waiting for minutes on end for their turn to come around.

On the flip side, we didn't want players to feel they had to master the game right away to be competitive. We wanted to make sure they didn't loose that sense of security that comes with a turn based game, where you can strategize, plan your move, and go when you are ready.[/quote]

For the entire interview, check out the [url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12630]Road To The IGF: Band of Bugs' Jeremy Throckmorton feature at Gamasutra[/url].