The Technomancer and the Rise of B-grade Games

Spiders, the French studio responsible for such games like Mars: War Logs and The Technomancer, is one of the more notable double-A, or as this IGN feature puts it, B-grade game developers. Their passion and ambitions oftentimes exceed their budgets and manpower, leading to games that can best be classified as flawed gems.

The abovementioned IGN article features plenty of quotes from Spiders’ creative director Jehanne Rousseau and Focus Home Interactive’s CEO Cédric Lagarrigue and offers some insights into the French studio’s creative process, the making of The Technomancer, and the ongoing development of GreedFall, Spiders’ upcoming title. An excerpt:

“Our budgets are that of games that occupy the space between small independent productions and big blockbusters,” Cédric says. “They keep increasing every year. I may not give precise numbers as they are confidential, but let’s just say that while not reaching that of AAA games, we are starting to have solid budgets for the most important games in our line-up.”

He just might be referring to GreedFall – Spiders’ next big RPG outing with Focus Home Interactive, and their fifth game together since they struck up a partnership in 2009. Early last year, its trailer made an impression as something altogether different from either sci-fi or fantasy. Though its 2018 release date remains non-specific and details are scant, Jehanne is very talkative when it comes to discussing what making The Technomancer has taught her about making GreedFall.

“There was a lot of love in Technomancer, but of course our game came also with some flaws. As you’ve already said, the Technomancer’s universe and story were mostly appreciated, but a lot of players complained about the combat difficulty,” Jehanne says. “It’s true that the combat was very demanding, and because we used a percentage system, it could feel a little unpredictable.

“For GreedFall we decided to create a story mode, where combat will be easier, and we removed the percentage system for a gauge system instead. Critical actions can now be used as soon as the gauge is filled up, and can be applied to any type of combat action. It can be used to transform a simple healing spell into a powerful group spell for example, or of course to give the deathblow to an enemy. These changes in the combat make it more tactical, and we hope it will improve our players’ experience.

“We also decided to greatly improve the size of the game areas to give more importance to the exploration. As a teleportation system was painfully missing in Technomancer, we have added some fire camps that need to be unlocked in the various environments of the game. I could also talk about the fact that the players couldn’t choose the sex of their main character in Technomancer, and probably a lot more decisions in the design of GreedFall that inherits from the feedback of our previous games.”