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Miner's Mettle, by indie developer Singular Scheme, ambitiously attempts to blend the genres of artillery shooting and real-time strategy within a story about mining on a foreign planet. Four factions are fighting it out amongst themselves to gather resources aboard an advanced artillery train.
The game has been in development for nearly five years and has spent a significant period of time in early access, during which time players got to experience the gameplay and report back with their feedback. Miner's Mettle was finally released on November 4 last year.
In a conversation with Sportskeeda Esports' Angshuman Dutta, Ahad Oomerbhoy, the managing director of Singular Scheme, provided an insight into what goes into making these indie games.
Ahad Oomerbhoy, managing director of Singular Scheme, on development of Miner's Mettle
Ahad Oomerbhoy provided an in-depth look at the development of Miner's Mettle, their philosophy with the game and what inspired them to create it. He also sheds light on the studio’s experience with Miner's Mettle's early access and what it feels like to be an independent game studio in India.
Here’s the excerpt of the conversation.
Q: To start off, can you describe Miner's Mettle to our readers?
Ahad: Set on a mining planet in the distant future, Miner's Mettle is a strategy game where you control a few artillery-cannon trains. Players need to make strategic decisions like building facilities, researching new tech, and increasing their economy, while at the same time also being an accurate shot to destroy their competitors as they also try to grab as many resources as possible.
Q: The game has been in development for nearly half a decade. What has been the experience of developing it? Were there any major changes?
Ahad: It was the first game for many of us in the team, and we were naively confident that we’d have it out at around the two-year mark! We were optimistic and eager for the first couple of years, but as time went on and we realized we were still very far from a complete game, we began to understand the old game developer trope that the first 90% of the game takes 90% of your time, and the last 10% also takes 90% of your time!
Since we were working on a unique type of game, we had to experiment a lot to try and find the fun. While the core loop hasn’t changed too much, we did need a lot of feedback from our players to shape the game into what it is now.
Q: Rare materials, miners, factions and an inhospitable terrain - Almost sounds like the future of the space race in reality. What was your inspiration in choosing this particular setting and story to tell?
Ahad: We love science fiction and fantasy novels. They lend themselves well to video game settings, so we knew right away that we’d look there for inspiration.
In the end, Dune was probably the strongest influence in terms of setting. The game’s storyline asks questions of human nature that will persist even centuries down the line – can you resist temptation? How far would you go to realize your ambitions?
Q: Artillery shooting and strategy - What drove you to create this unique amalgamation?
Ahad: Being our first game, we decided it should be unique to help us stand out from the crowd. There have been some incredible sub-genres created by other indie teams, and we were inspired!
We tried a few different prototypes and enjoyed this one the most. I used to play artillery games like Scorched Earth and Worms, and I wanted to try shifting it to both 3D and real-time instead of 2D and turn-based, and it evolved from there.
Q: Did the Early Access period of the game bring any significant challenges to deal with?
Ahad: Yes, we weren’t originally planning on being in early access, but with development taking much longer than anticipated, I thought it be a good move. The positive feedback motivated us to continue working hard, and the negative showed us areas of improvement.
Unfortunately, our early access launch was a bit too early and we had a lot of technical issues to fix and deal with. While we’ve dealt with most of the issues by now, the negative reviews from when we first launched still weigh down the game’s rating on Steam.
Q: This is the studio’s first game and is a product of hard work over many years. What has the experience been like since its launch?
Ahad: It was a huge relief getting over the finish line! We knew from talking to others that the hard work intensifies right after launch, as that’s when thousands of people play your game for the first time. You must deal with a huge amount of feedback, respond to your community, and continue improving the game all at once.
It’s now beginning to slow down finally, but it’s been a very enjoyable experience. Some of the comments the players have given us make us feel like it was worth every single second of effort that we’ve put in to Miner's Mettle.
Q: What is it like being an indie game studio in India?
Ahad: While sometimes, we do feel a bit isolated and distant from the international game dev community, the small local scene is also friendly and welcoming, and we’ve met some great people during the past few years.
The focus here remains on mobile and real-money gaming, but there are other teams and studios making indie games too, and we’re excited to see them push the barriers on what’s possible here.
Q: What further plans do you have for Miner's Mettle? What is the next step for Singular Scheme?
Ahad: We’re continuing to improve Miner's Mettle’s stability, and also planning on adding in a new mode or two to increase the longevity of the game. For us as a studio, we’re planning on starting pre-production for our second game soon. It’s still not decided yet, but it looks like it might be quite a different sort of game than our first!
