Keiji Inafune On Making Dragon & Colonies’ Ambition Meet The Platform Needs

Level-5 Comcept’s Keiji Inafune recently sat down for an interview where he talked about how the idea for Dragon & Colonies came out, how they had to fit the needs of the platform such as making the game playable in one hand, and how the game will be supported post-launch. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

Here are the highlights:

• Inafune says that the team was very uncompromising when it came to fitting in ideas, and thanks to Level-5 president Akihiro Hino’s support and a long-ish delay, they were able to bring out all the elements that were originally planned in the design document, something that’s rarely seen in video game development.

• According to Inafune, the base idea for the game only really came together during discussions on what sort of game to make, where one staff member suggested cube-shaped worlds. It was a brilliant idea where one could instantly see how it could work as a game, and it became the base of Dragon & Colonies’ gameplay.

• Both the battle and Box Colony customization elements are key, and feed into one another, as you can also customize the positioning of the facilities on each box face. He suggests that it’s entirely possible that with proper customization, players might even be able to see a bunch of gardeners defeat a heavily-armored invading army.

• One of the biggest things they didn’t compromise on was accessibility, despite the game being a perfect fit for playing with the phone turned horizontally. There was a lot of debate, and a vertical view eventually won out among the staff as more people could enjoy the game in more situations that way. Fortunately, thanks to the game having a real-time strategy influence, a vertical view ended up being better for the game anyways.

• The first three months of content for Dragon & Colonies has already been planned out accordingly, so that players won’t easily quickly get bored and lead to playerbase loss.

• Finally, Inafune ended off the interview talking about how he feels thankful to Hino in the producer role, as while in the past 30 years  he has needed to face pressure from many sides during development, here on this title he has been able to completely put his mind on the development of the game itself.

Dragon & Colonies is due to launch in June 2019 for iOS and Android.