Super Evil Megacorp is no stranger to video games—beginning as a humble mobile games-focused studio, they’ve recently made their way to the traditional console experience with ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (TMNT): Splintered Fate’—a cooperative action roguelike that has seen incredibly positive reviews on Steam and other platforms.
Recently, we’ve had the opportunity to forward a couple of questions to the team about their recent release and, of course, to frack at the minds of these Super Evil people. Though spoiler warning, they are not actually evil. A tad disappointing, but that’s life I s’pose.
Check out our interview below and our review of TMNT: Splintered Fate right over here. The game is available on PC via Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and iOS devices.
Heads up! This interview form has been modified to better support your eyes (via formatting alterations). No questions nor answers were altered in the making of this article.
All answers were provided by Tom Westall, Director of Product Management at Super Evil Megacorp.
Hello! I hope you lovely people are doing well – my name is Genghis and I’m a part of the writing team here at XboxEra. I’m here to prod a few brains over at the Super Evil Megacorp team about your latest roguelike brawler title ‘TMNT: Splintered Fate’, its conception and release across multiple platforms over the course of the last two years, and the evil geniuses (that’d be you lot) behind the game.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
Tell us a bit about Super Evil Megacorp. Who are you people and how many of you are there? And are you all actually evil?
We are not, we promise! We are an independent developer and publisher of passionate game makers from around the world. We were originally founded 12 years ago to make games that celebrate the joy of gaming together, inspired by the LAN party/couch co-op era of our earliest gaming memories. All our projects are social action games, focused on making great gaming moments together with friends and family. Whilst our name may be Super Evil we do our very best to be the exact opposite 🙂
I can see that the company was founded in 2012, around the time when the mobile gaming industry we know and partake in today began slowly but surely taking off globally. You’ve published two games in your past: a MOBA (“Multiplayer Online Battle Arena”) by the name “Vainglory” and “Catalyst Black”, a team-based third-person shooter.
Can you give us a brief bit on the inspiration behind your previous titles?
Technology plays a big role in our company. We have our own game engine (EVIL Engine), and all our projects focus on creating shared gaming moments that can push the genre forward in some way.
I noticed that Vainglory shipped across multiple platforms with full cross-platform play – that’s fairly ambitious for its time! How did the team make that work?
I don’t think we have enough time or paper space to give this question justice! We learned a lot in the process and we are immensely proud of what we built.
Any notable learning experiences you’d like to share from your previous games?
Every project we’ve worked on has left its mark on how we approach the next one. Game development is a deeply collaborative process, and we always strive to carry forward the lessons we’ve learned. One of our most significant learning experiences has been building our own engine over the years—continually adding new features and optimizing it to run smoothly across multiple platforms.
Let’s talk about TMNT: Splintered Fate!
Super Evil Megacorp previously only worked on their own original IP before this game. Why go for a licensed property this time around?
We love making action games that you can play together with your friends. TMNT was a perfect fit for the type of games that we want to be making. At its heart TMNT is about working together to achieve far more than you can alone. It didn’t hurt that most of the team had grown up watching the cartoons on a Saturday morning and had a deep love already for the IP.
Tell me a bit about Splintered Fate in your own words. As a roguelike brawler, what makes your game stand out and are there any notable features you’d like to point out?
We believe TMNT: Splintered Fate stands out because it’s not just a roguelite brawler, it’s a loving homage to the TMNT universe. Many players are drawn in by the TMNT appeal, and stay because of the satisfying moment to moment gameplay, but players are often surprised to find a rich, fully voice-acted story play out across the campaign. We believe these ingredients, and the fact that you can enjoy it with three of your friends from the same couch as a refreshing co-op experience, really make us stand out.
What makes for a good brawler? Heck, what makes for a good roguelike brawler? And why not simply ship a brawler, like some of the older KONAMI TMNTs?
A good brawler is fast, responsive, adds a little chaos into the mix, and definitely feels better to play together. An ideal brawler has players frantically clearing the enemies on their screen while also chasing down the various power-ups, and reacting to all of the ensuing chaos as enemies flood in. We made a roguelite because we felt we could tell a compelling story, and add interesting and meaningful gameplay systems to the core experience that can elevate TMNT above just being singularly an arcade brawler. These systems really support the solo play experience, where playing together you will really feel the brawler experience shine.
This is also your first console release! Previously, Super Evil Megacorp only shipped on PC and mobile platforms. What were the main challenges of becoming a full-fledged paid title for the studio? Up to this point, the company has only developed free-to-play games. Would you be able to quantify the kind of expectations console players expect from their games compared to that of mobile titles?
Growing awareness of your game is very different for a free-to-play game versus a paid game. We had to change our mindset when it came to how we market the game as you’ve really got to work hard to convince people to give us their trust. In terms of game design we’ve always tried to bring a console quality experience to mobile so didn’t have to change much there.
Compared to PC and mobile, console platforms generally operate under more restrictions in terms of publishing and certification. Would you say that the process of shipping a console game for the first time went relatively smoothly?
We’re really happy with how it went. Each platform holder has been really supportive at helping us get ready for launching on their platform. There was a lot to learn and we’ve definitely been getting much better at doing the releases the more we’ve been doing it. We didn’t face many challenges here as the game was designed to run optimally with touch, controller or keyboard and mouse from the very beginning of development so we found that we were already compatible with most requirements.
Any challenges with implementing crossplay support with the new platform?
TMNT: Splintered Fate was built using our own game engine and infrastructure. When we started on the project we built the game such that once you’ve connected to our game servers it didn’t matter which platform you were on so that part has been very straightforward. There has been some work to meet the guidelines of each platform but we’ve found that as cross platform is becoming the standard for games the individual platforms have been making it easier to do.
What do you love about TMNT: Splintered Fate? Got any easter eggs or development tidbits you’d like to share?
The game is fully voice acted which was a lot of fun to record and really makes the game feel special. As for easter eggs there are lots to discover as you play. We had the chance to tell our own TMNT story and whilst we drew a lot of inspiration from the IDW comic series, there are lots of little nods to all the different flavours of TMNT that have existed over the years. You’ll have to play the game to find the easter eggs for yourselves.
Has Super Evil Megacorp seen success in shipping across a large volume of platforms? And will the company consider large-scale platform targets for their future titles?
We’ve had a great time getting to learn the ins and outs of each platform and we’re really happy with how each has performed. We look forward to using everything we’ve built and learned to bring more games to as wide an audience as possible in the future.
What’s the favourite game around the water cooler? What are you guys playing right now?
As a games company, it’s probably a new game every day that’s getting discussed. We’re big fans of what other indie developers are doing right now, things like Windblown and Haste have been a lot of fun and bring fresh twists to the genre. We also had quite a few conversations about games outside the roguelike spectrum, like Expedition 33! We have a very active dedicated internal channel to share opinions and game design insights.
Any final thoughts you’d like to share with our readers – be it about Super Evil Megacorp as a whole and/or TMNT: Splintered Fate?
Despite our evil-sounding name, Super Evil Megacorp is a team of passionate gamers with big dreams and ambitions. We’re incredibly excited about what’s coming next and can’t wait to share more with you. And as for TMNT: Splintered Fate—we’re not done yet, so stay tuned! -wink-
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