Genera Games chat with us about their latest title Gladiator Heroes

If you enjoy RPG games and you’re a fan of city-building, this might be the game for you.

Gladiator Heroes is the latest RPG game with a difference. Launched by Spanish developers, Genera Games, this new titles boasts an original balance between RPG and construction simulation.

And you’re not simply, building, managing and defending any old city, you’re playing within one of the most iconic cities in the world, Rome.

You have complete freedom of movement and there are 25 buildings to explore and defend in ancient Rome; Coliseum, Jupiter’s Temple and Catania are only a select few.

Take your time to enjoy the total control the game offers, and responsibility over the construction and ultimately the growth of your city.

If that wasn’t enough to keep you entertained, the games diverse map is continuously updated with new exciting arenas in settings such as scorching deserts and treacherous forests.

So, you’ve built an epic city, you need to defend it, and you’re ready to move into bigger and better things; must be time to conquer some new worlds.

You are free to explore a variety of unique and impressive arenas, which only add more drama to the deadly fights.

Once you have acquired a strong force you can conquer using strategically placed gladiators. Position the gladiators with the most effective skills in the right place, and destroy your opponents in no time at all.

Every effective strike, stun and counter brings you closer to victory and the affluent empire you’ve been building.

There is a vast amount of content to explore, multiplayer options and the complexity of the combat system is inspiring.

We spoke to Genera Games about the games early beginnings, challenges they faced during development stage and exciting plans for the future.

What do you think Gladiator Heroes offers that you can’t get from any other title on the App Store?

You won’t see the combat system that we’ve designed in any other game, and it is, without a doubt, where we’ve focused our efforts. The idea is to make it easy for the user to understand, but complex enough that the system truly evolves as the player advances in the game. I think we’ve managed to capture the essence of gladiator combat in ancient Rome, and adapted it to an RPG format.

What challenges did you face during development, and how did you overcome them? Was the physics engine hard to perfect, for example?

Gladiator Heroes is huge in terms of content, as it features both RPG and city building in the same game. This presents a number of challenges in various parts of the app, like in the game balance for example. The balance is incredibly complex, and both aspects of the game (RPG and city building) are 100% linked with each other. That means any small modification to one part or the other could be disastrous. There are 25 buildings, 4 types of gladiators, more than 600 items, 200 campaign levels, and multiplayer… all of those elements need to be perfectly synchronized to create a positive user experience. But there’s so much more than that… the AI of the gladiators, the rewards systems, personalization of the characters, etc. As if that weren’t enough, our team is always looking for new challenges, so we’re using “physical based materials” for the gladiators and scenes.

What made you create a game set in ancient Rome?

Once we decided to create a combination of RPG and city building, the next step was to choose the setting. We wanted a setting that felt epic, that supported combat between various types of characters, different types of buildings, and that felt familiar to users without being overly exploited. The obvious choice would have been medieval fantasy, but as I’m sure you know it’s one of the most overdone themes. All this, plus the fact that we love films like Gladiator and shows like Spartacus, made Rome an easy pick. Our team lead’s name is Cesar, but that’s just a happy coincidence!

Which part of the game are you personally the most proud of any why?

Definitely the combat system. It would have been easy to copy the systems of other successful games that you see at the top of the App Store ranking, not only because they’re tried and tested, but because they’re simple. But we didn’t want simple. We wanted to take a risk and try offering something new in a market that is so full of copycats. It isn’t enough to just change the setting; you need to change the mechanics. That isn’t to say that Gladiator Heroes doesn’t include elements of other games. As with all games, it’s important to integrate elements that players are familiar with and enjoy. The design of our combat system began with a board, paper, pen, cards, and dice. Until we could make it fun on paper, we weren’t going to write a single line of code. In the long term it’s a process that has paid off and allows us to continue working on the system from a solid base.

Do you have anything planned in terms of future updates for the game, and if so, can you give us any details of what these might include?

We get excited just thinking about all the ideas we have for future updates! We’re currently working on the PvP (player vs. player) combat, which will be added in August, prior to the global launch. But we certainly aren’t stopping there. Cooperative combats, or “joint efforts”, clans, trade between players, mythical creatures, customized arenas and tournaments, not to mention new levels, gladiator types (both male and female), arenas with special obstacles, and abilities… these are just some of the ideas that are being developed. But first we need to ensure that players like what we’ve done so far, and their reception of the game will determine what we do down the road.

Have you any plans to bring the game to any other formats in the future?

Based on the game’s design, it would probably work well online, but for now that’s more of an idea than an actual plan.