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Tails of Iron is perhaps one of the most thought-provoking indie titles of recent times.
Developed by the indie development team Odd Bug Studio, Tails of Iron takes players on a perilous quest across a deceptively charming, immersive, hand-drawn world. When the deadly Frog Clan invades, Redgi, heir to the Rat Throne, must assemble a band of fearless comrades and fight back to save his crumbling kingdom in this RPG Adventure.
In an exclusive conversation with Sportskeeda’s Suryadeepto Sengupta, Jack Bennett, co-founder, producer and game designer at Odd Bug Studio, opened up about the studio’s journey with Tails of Iron and also teased about the title’s future.
The following is an excerpt of the conversation
Q: Tell our readers a bit about yourself and the journey you have had. What was the idea behind creating Odd Bug Studio and developing video games?
Jack: I’m Jack, I’m one of the co-founders as well as producer and game designer here at Odd Bug Studio. Odd Bug really started when Dan (Game Director), Martin (Art Director), and myself all met at Norwich University of the Arts.
It was through NUA that we went to an event called "Dare to be Digital" and met Sony, who gave us our first funding to make games. Our main aim when making games is to create interesting stories and believable worlds. We really like to mix our "cute" art style with dark stories and worlds similar to Grimm’s Fairy Tales, as we feel this gives the player a unique experience.
Q: Tell us a bit about Tails of Iron. What sets it apart in a marketplace filled with AAA games from multibillion studios?
Jack: The thing that really sets Tails of Iron apart is its art style. All of the scenes in the game are made up of hundreds of unique assets that are all individually hand-placed, which gives us the really intense parallax effect that you see in all our games.
I think on top of that, when we mix it with that dark story and the world and especially the level of brutality we show in our combat I don’t think there’s anything really out there like it.
Q: What are some of the hurdles you have faced during the development process of Tails of Iron? How is the team feeling before the September 17 launch?
Jack: Developing games is hard! We came across a number of issues when creating Tails of Iron. I think the main one that stuck out for me was when we were developing the combat. Initially, we had a stamina bar similar to most other Souls’ likes and RPGs, however, we also had different color attacks from enemies that you need to react to.
When we would watch people play we noticed that people were more worried about an uninteresting bar in the user interface than they were about actually studying the enemies’ attacks.
We much preferred the players to have a deeper understanding of their enemy and really wanted their attention focused on that, so we completely removed the concept of stamina.
This has worked really well for us, it gives the player a much better grasp of the game's mechanics, and with no stamina, it gives the player the freedom to try new things and take a risk more, which often leads to more interesting and rewarding combat encounters.
Q: Do tell us a bit about Odd Bug Studio’s partnership with United Label. How has United Label helped bring the game to previously untapped player bases?
Jack: One of the biggest impacts that United Label has had on the game is securing Doug Cockle as the narrator. When we initially discussed having a narrator in the game, we jokingly put out the idea of how awesome it would be to have Doug work with us, thinking that "Geralt of Rivia" would never want to work with such a small indie team.
Somehow, United Label was able to arrange it, and working with Doug was a dream! If you look through the comments sections of any of our trailers you can really see players responding amazingly to hearing his voice which is really cool to see!
Q: Tails of Iron is shaping up to be one of the best indie games of 2021. Looking to the future, are there any plans for post-launch DLC or a sequel, or does the team plan to create a new IP for the next project?
Jack: The first thing I should say to this is that Tails of Iron is just one story in a massive world. What you see in this game is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of characters, factions, and locations.
From our initial story trailer, you can see that the war between rats and frogs has been waged for centuries so there's plenty of stories to dive into.
The second thing I need to say here is that everything is currently under NDA but we have signed a second contract with United Label so I’ll let you make of that what you will.
Q: Tails of Iron launches on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. What are your thoughts on bringing the game to Cloud platforms such as Google Stadia and Amazon Luna? Do you see Cloud Gaming as a viable alternative for casual gaming audiences?
Jack: At the moment there are no plans to bring the game to cloud platforms, we’re solely focused on the traditional console platforms and Steam. We’re a really small team of just six people so we have to focus our attention on the platforms that best suit our games.
On the second part of the question, I definitely think it has a future, I don't think there’s any doubt about that when you have giants like Google and Amazon backing it, I just think it probably needs time to mature and become more mainstream.
Q: PC gaming titan Valve recently announced the Steam Deck, which interestingly runs on custom SteamOS based on Linux. While the Steam Deck can run most Windows games out of the box due to the proton translation layer, what is your thought on bringing the Tails of Iron natively on the Linux operating system?
Jack: At the moment we don't have any plans for a Linux port of the Tails of Iron game, we just don't have the manpower to spend time doing that. Talking of the Steam Deck - it looks really cool! It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out and what position it takes up in the market.
Q: Due to the ongoing pandemic, many studios across the globe had to adapt to a work-from-home situation. How did Odd Bug Studio cope with the pandemic?
Jack: We had to do the same! When we were first starting to develop Tails of Iron to get funding to make the full game we were working from home in our living room.
After signing with United Label and getting funding, we rented an office so that the team could all be together again, it felt like we’d started to be a real studio again!
After about a year of full development, the pandemic came about and now we’re back to working from home. I think that if our employees are happy with it, we’re going to continue this way for the foreseeable future.
Q: Five years down the line, where do you see yourself and Odd Bug Studio?
Jack: After surviving through a pandemic, I don't know if it's possible to plan five years ahead anymore! My dream is to have expanded to a second studio.
We have lots of great game ideas sitting in design documents that we just need the funding and manpower to make. In an ideal world, Odd Bug 1 will be working on the next installment of the Tails of Iron franchise and Odd Bug 2 will be working on another of our IPs.
Q: Any words of advice for an aspiring game developer?
Jack: My main word of advice is to talk to people! Get on Twitter and be involved in conversations, go to your local indie meet-up, go to a game jam.
I know for a lot of people right now, meeting and talking to people is very hard but it's important to make those connections. Just like us at university, it was the people we met there that we started our careers with.
Once you’ve met those people, my second piece of advice would be to start making something. Make anything, just show that you are willing to learn, willing to work with others, and have a drive and a passion for making games.
