First how did the idea for Guardians of Graxia come about?

We had just finished a World War II game called Panzer General: Allied Assault for the Xbox Live Arcade platform, and we were very excited about the base game mechanics. Several developers wanted to do a fantasy strategy game, and so we decided to merge our existing ideas and put them on the PC in a fantasy environment. Our experience with Panzer General: Allied Assault provided us with a bunch of ideas on how to improve the gameplay mechanics in a way that the fantasy genre allowed, that a realistic setting like WWII just wouldn't work for.

What would be the basic description of the gameplay?

Well, it's a merger between turn based strategy and card gameplay. You have unit and spell cards in your deck. You place unit cards on the board that turn into your armies. You can move these armies on the playing field, attack with them or use their powers, but you can use your spell cards to directly attack your enemy or enhance your units' abilities. If this sounds like I'm describing a physical board game, that's because the base concept is from a board game, but ported over to the PC.

How hard is it to combine elements of a card game and a board game to work well for a PC game?

We really found that it wasn't that difficult, but you have to understand that our game is unique in its own way. It isn't a mass market title. We decided, right from the beginning that we were going to cater to strategy gamer. We have a very detailed combat system with the player having a variety of options at any given time. While the basic concepts are simple to understand, it is a challenging game to master.

For example, to be successful in defeating your opponent, you have to understand how all the powers, units, spells, and abilities can be used in combination. If you're the type of player to analyze a game down to its tiniest details, Guardians of Graxia provides hours of study.

But in terms of the actual conversion, it wasn't that difficult. The hardest part was actually the UI. The basic combat and strategy mechanics were already tested and played out during the development of the board game, so we were confident in those systems. Coding the AI was also challenging to ensure competitive gameplay, though our programmer, Jason Curtice, really came through there.

What can you tell us about the basic fictional back story for the title?

The concept of Graxia is that it is a planet of floating continents. For centuries these continents were isolated from one another. It wasn't until the advent of the Guardians that Graxians were able to portal the extreme long distances in order to travel from one continent to another. Mana is the basic source of power and economy in the land. The ability to portal opened up new lands to these Guardians immediately put the world at war, as Graxians could now invade one continent from another. Each Guardian, of course, has his own reasons for going from one continent to another, but gaining Mana to increase their base power certainly counts as a common one.

The interesting thing about the overall concept is that it creates a world where race is not the deciding factor of alignment, but rather geographical location. You will find that an Orc Guardian may have orc troops, but he may also have elves, boneshadow, or even humans.

What sort of units and spells can we expect in the game?

The game will release with 6 races and 4 Guardians. These races are Boneshadow, Celethreals, Humans, Orcs, Goblins, and Skeletal. We also have a scattering of other creatures including Wisps, Giants, Dragons, and Timberlings. Each race has a variety of troop types. For instance, the Gold Knights of Mir, the Mammoth Riders, and the Horsemen of K'lan are all Human troops, but we also have Goblin Boom Throwers, Celethreal Warriors of Righteousness, and Skeletal Flamecasters.

As for spells, we have Haste cards that give your units extra movement, Dark Summoning spells that give you the power to restore a spell already used, and Wild Fire, a spell that lays a destructive path of fire across the battlefield.

The game will have "Geomorphic Map Tiles". What does this mean and how will it affect gameplay?

The game map consists of a series of tiles. Each tile is rectangular in shape and is off-set from the row of tiles below it and above it, which means that at any given time a tile is touched by 6 other tiles. Each tile represents a certain terrain type: Mountains, Hills, Forest, Plains, Cities, etc. These terrain types can affect combat in a variety of ways, including mitigating damage or increasing battle effectiveness.

What can you tell us about the single player campaigns?

In the single player campaign, you play Draknal, the Human Guardian. You soon find yourself at war with another continent. During the course of the campaign, you will be asked to make decisions where many of which may speed up or severely set back your progress, depending on your choices. Some decisions are minor; others are most certainly not a trivial matter to choose from.
What will multiplayer be like?

Our plan is to phase in multi-play later, once we've established a core audience. Guardians of Graxia has a lot of potential, both in literal game expansions and more basic content updates. We've made sure that what you get now is satisfying on its own, but also can open up to much more in the future.

What other important features will Guardians of Graxia have?

The unique set of skills for every unit card and the benefits provided by the terrain are definitely one of the key unique features of the game. Using different combinations of unit abilities and terrain modifiers gives the player many opportunities to customize their strategy. The combinations of active abilities, passive abilities and terrain modifiers will make available to the player multiple ways to accomplish the scenario goals; making each scenario play fresh each time.

Will there be a playable demo of the game?

This has not been determined yet. I can say that the game will come with a robust tutorial, which will give you key information not only about how to get started but also backstory that provides explanation to who you are in the world and what your purpose is there.

After its release will there be post-release content added to the title?

Yes, we currently have post-release content planned. We intend to put out new units, spells, powers, campaigns, and new features such as multi-player, in time. As to the details of that plan, I'd rather not get into specifics, but suffice it to say, we have a very detailed layout as to how we want to deploy follow-up content. The success of the game will of course partly determine the scope of this content.

What will the Guardians of Graxia board game be like and how will it relate to the PC title?

They are both extremely similar. In fact, unless you learn the nuances of the powers and units, at first glance you may not be able to tell any kind of functional difference. Of course, in the board game you can play against a living opponent and the solo content is not nearly as robust, whereas the PC version currently focuses on a dynamic solo campaign. Another advantage of the PC game is that all the calculations in the game are automatic. This can speed up game play significantly.

We have to ask: Are there any plans to bring last year's Panzer General game to the PC?

We would love to do that, though the decision is up to Ubisoft who owns the license, and they currently are deciding what their next move with the franchise will be.

Finally is there anything else you wish to say about Guardians of Graxia?

We're all really proud of Guardians of Graxia. It's a game we will definitely be playing ourselves, even after working on it for as long as we have. It's a deep, rich game full of strategy and tactics. Also, I think the illustrations (card art) are amazing. Speaking of which, our card game was recently announced, Heroes of Graxia, which plays on the Graxia world in a physical deck-building card game theme that uses the same cards as Guardians of Graxia PC.