Exploring dungeons has never been anything like this, and so we felt compelled to learn more about the development of Dungeon Party. We spoke with French creators Cyanide in a cartoon-flavoured exclusive interview.

FreeMMOGamer: Could you introduce the development team of Dungeon Party?

Sure! Our team is composed of 5 to 10 developers, depending of how much work has to be done. One thing to remember concerning the Dungeon Party’s dev team, we all share a common point: our mothers have beards! (and don’t ask me why – just play the game and you’ll understand ;-))

FreeMMOGamer: In a few words, what is Dungeon Party? How are the parties composed and how does a normal game unfolds?

Dungeon Party is a 100% team-based game allowing up to 10 players to fight for the love of a treasure which has its own personnality and is able to shape the progress of a game.

Game sessions are usually shorts (approx. 10-15min) but when two teams with the same skill randomly meet and both know the tricks of the maps, fights can be longer and much more tactical.

FreeMMOGamer: Will Dungeon Party bring back memories of Gauntlet or even Diablo?

Kind of, as the cam is set above the hero. But the game is much more based on coop and strategies than pure monster bashing. Simply looking at some screenshots, one can think the game took inspiration into Gauntlet. Gameplay is really different though.

FreeMMOGamer: The cartoon style is very original and distinct. Did you choose it to get away from the tired usual graphics or to make it more suitable to younger players?

Neither one nor another, I’d say :P
We’ve wanted to create a humoristic and uncommun game and thus our spells, environments, monsters and even our heroes vary from what can be usually seen in heroic-fantasy-based games. Our main idea was to create a universe that would break the codes of the fantasy.

A game’s visual aspect must match with its thema and the atmosphere it wishes to offer. Then it became evident to us to give it a cartoon touch, not to set appart or seduce yougsters but simply to match its nature: fun, fresh, not serious, short and easy-access.

FreeMMOGamer: Is the game steered towards humour, keeping in pair with the graphics? If so, could you give us some examples?

We particularly focused on the humoristic side of spells. For example, the executioneer features spells that stun ennemies around him in a short range. It’s a very classical spell that is often seen in RPG games but in Dungeon Party, it is described as a joke told by the Executioneer and resulting in ennemies spliting their sizes laughing, stunning them for a few seconds.

When a player casts this spell, he can see a text bubble representing the joke and the ennemies laughing around. It’s not just an icon, the bubble contains a real joke.

FreeMMOGamer: Dungeon Party is free to play but features items that can be bought with real money. Could you describe some of those objects, how they will affect the gameplay and the balance of the game?

Items from the shop are above all cosmetic.We’ve wanted to offer a team-based and strategic game and our goal is to maintain an equilibrium between those who pay and those who don’t. We sell costumes and weapons but they don’t have any influence on the gameplay and the game balance.

Of course there are also life or mana potions, traps to set in the dungeon and in addition we plan to add more items in the near future. Those items are bought with virtual money earned while playing, games after games.

Keep in mind free consumables are less efficient than paying version. Free versions have a faling percentage while paying versions are 100% efficient.

FreeMMOGamer: How is the open beta going? Any significant suggestions or improvements from players?

The beta is going well. We are gathering a lot of feedback from the community and that helps us greatly to improve the game.

We have a lot of ideas for Dungeon Party, a lot of wishes and goals in terms of content we’d love to see added to the game. We are very far from the game we want and we are pleased to see that many ideas and suggestions coming from our testers match those we already have and plan to implement. Basically, that allows us to set better priorities and please our players to give them as soon as possible what they want most.

We also keep in mind that more and more players have spent far many more hours on the game than we had. Thus, their feedback are very important.

FreeMMOGamer: What is the release date?

Speaking of online games, giving release dates is quite tedious and for Dungeon Party that’s precisely the case. The game won’t be available at retailers, only via download from the web. For free of course.

Yet, the game is in a fully playable state but as I said, we’d like to add some important additional features before we can announce a release date.

FreeMMOGamer: Thank you for your time!

Thanks for yours :-)