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Karaz’s Conquest Interview with Lek Chan 🎤

Do you remember our review of Karaz’s Conquest, a Tamagotchi-like space exploration game? It isn’t every day you stumble upon a game that actually requires you to take your troops mental health into consideration before fighting a war…

Today we would like to share our interview with Lek Chan, the creator of this very unique space exploration game. If you have yet to check out our review of Karaz’s Conquest, you can do so here!

Before we start we’d like to thank Lek Chan for participating in our interview and for answering all of our geeky questions! Thanks!

…and without further ado, our interview begins…

 

The Interview


Thanks for taking the time to talk to us about Karaz’s Conquest, could you kick-start this interview by telling us a little about your studio and what drew you to Game Development?

I am Lek Chan, a solo indie game developer. I was previously a project manager working on various multimedia production projects. A few years back I came across the term ‘indie games’ and realized that publishing games as an indie developer is no longer something unachievable. Hence, I did some research and embarked on my game development journey.

 

 

First question. What was the core idea (or inspiration) that sparked the development of Karaz’s Conquest?

Space Invaders was the spark plug of the whole game idea. It was my first contact with video games, but what has always been bothering me is: why was the game named Space Invaders when the player is playing as the defender? Normally when a game is named something like “Ninja”, the player plays as a ninja character. So I decided to make a game based on this thinking, where the player actually plays as the “Invaders”.

Edamame Reviews: Nice Thinking…🤔 maybe we should start reviewing edamame beans…😆

 

What were the hardest problems you faced during the different development stages of Karaz’s Conquest?

The hardest part was to come out with the character’s designs of the playable units. There are nearly 140 playable unit types in the game. Apart from the appearance, I have to come up with unique attack actions for each of them; at the same time planning on species evolution branching. It was a very brain squeezing task for me.

 

For our nerdy Developer Fans, what programming language and or software did you use when developing Karaz’s Conquest? And was it a good decision?

I used Gamemaker Studio for this project. It has its own language commonly called GML. The software is majorly targeting users without programming knowledge, like myself. I find it quite convenient to use and am able to do prototyping very fast to test out new ideas.

 

What advice would you give to a new player trying Karaz’s Conquest for the first time?

Exploration is the key element of Karaz’s Conquest. There are a lot of unit types, space puzzle blocks and cabin supplies lying across the vast universe waiting to be discovered. The player can take a slower pace in story progression, and spend some time exploring the different areas that they pass by.

 

Where do you get your inspiration or ideas from?

As my projects always revolved around the theme “retro”, I always look out for ideas by searching for old games, especially those of NES and SNES era. I think the games at that time are more diverse and experimental in terms of gameplay.

 

If you were to participate in a Developer Interview (like this) again, what would be the dream interview question to answer? If you have one, please tell us the question and the answer!

Q: What was your biggest success/satisfaction gained as a game developer?

A: Apart from being featured on App Store and GooglePlay, I think the biggest satisfaction is receiving emails from fans, asking details about the story or gameplay. It feels great to know the player is actually enjoying my games and submerging into the little virtual world I created.

 

A few words to Karaz’s Conquest fans on Edamame Reviews. Any new games in the near future? What can we look forward to next?

I have got an ongoing “Sudden” game series which is based upon a family that I created. The family members consist of 4 people and a Shiba dog and each of them have their own unique fighting skill. I am planning to continue on the series and develop a new game featuring one of the family members as the main character.

 

Lastly a few words on how you feel about Edamame Reviews and our service.

Edamame Reviews, in my opinion, has been providing very honest and truthful reviews with a lot of in-depth comments. When my last game got reviewed on Edamame, it was rated with a mixed feeling. However, despite criticizing subjectively, Edamame provided me with rationales and constructive suggestions which helped me grow on game experience design. Most importantly is that Edamame is very friendly and willing to help indie dev like myself.

Edamame Reviews: Thanks for the kind comment 😄

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