Pocketwatch Games’ Andy Nguyen stopped by the nVidea booth at E3 earlier in the year to discuss the studio’s next title, Tooth and Tail in detail. Although the interview was brief, quite a bit of information on the game was revealed in the three minute interview.
Andy Nguyen, the producer at Pocketwatch Games (Monaco) took to the nVidea stand during E3 to discuss Tooth and Tail in a bit more depth. The game, which we’ve not seen much of since last year, was also showcased with some in game footage.
Hot points of discussion during the interview were the game’s setting, the decision to go with animal characters, and the games controls. The conversation moved fast however, with discussions of local co-operative, and the game’s -unspecified- release date also coming up during that time.
When asked about the setting of the game, specifically the choice to go with animals over anything else, Andy responded, “It goes back to when we decided to make Tooth and Tail in the first place, we were trying to make a real-time strategy game that could have the high level competitive play that people love about real-time strategy games, but also make it a little more accessible to different types of players – people who may not have the APM skills that are required to play at a competitive level.”
APM, for those unaware, is short for Actions-Per-Minute which is essential in most competitive RTS’ mainly due to wide battlefields and the requirements of managing large amounts of units. Ultimately, regardless of player tactics, if you can’t keep all of your units moving, or in the right place, then you’ll lose the match on pace alone.
Andy then continued, shifting the subject to point, “– When we were talking about the setting for the whole situation we found that animals would be one of the best settings for it because animals are really readable – right? So, when you have a battlefield with tons of units on and they’re all killing each other in different ways it’s hard to tell what’s going on, but everyone can immediately recognize that the birds are flying, the squirrels are tiny little creatures, and -you know- larger creatures are more powerful than them.”
Of course, as you’ll see in the interview video, the characters are not strictly animals – in fact they are anthropomorphizations of industrial era, and Russian Revolution era humans. This means that battles are fought with revolvers and turrets, while bases are windmills -and the like- requiring workers to man.
Gameplay is played out via a single champion/hero character which the player controls, with them using various commands (on either shoulder button) to select either local units or a larger army. In many ways the control scheme is reminiscent of Pikmin, or Bladestorm, with following characters grouping closely to the main character until instructed otherwise. You can have a look at the games’ control scheme at 1:58 in the trailer.
The full interview is available below,
Tooth and Tail has not yet received a release date, when it does launch it will do so for PS4 & PC.
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