Numantian Games knew what they were doing with Lords of Xulima. Mostly positive Steam reviews and over 1,300 backers don’t lie. The 2D isometric, turn-based RPG successfully raised $35,657 on Kickstarter back in 2013. The game has since released on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. It’s no wonder then that Numantian has set their sights on developing a follow-up.
The devs created a thread on the Lords Of Xulima Steam Forums to solicit feedback from the game’s community. Recent discussion in the forums have raised the questioned of if the devs would make gameplay in the sequel more casual to attract a wider audience. Numantian posted an update to their Kickstarter page to address these concerns.
“We will always try to make the games as accessible as possible so any player can play it, but with the same level of challenge and depth as they were originally designed.”
The update points out that it is easy to conflate accessibility with casual gameplay, but this is a mistake. They designed Lords Of Xulima to have challenging and deep gameplay full of mechanisms and possibilities. At the same time they didn’t want the game to be difficult to play. Players should be challenged by the game’s content, not obscure controls or awkward interfaces.
“For us, a hardcore game is one that is mainly designed to challenge the player and always try to make him fail so only players with a lot of experience and a lot of understanding of the game mechanics can advance and overcome those challenges,” the update explained.
It’s The Same, But Different
Numantian has said that the Lords Of Xulima sequel would follow this lead by offering a low difficulty mode that doesn’t disable any of the game’s mechanics. Players who opt for the more challenging experience are compensated with additional rewards and a special ‘hardcore’ ending.
Regardless of the level of difficulty selected, the devs promise the new game will be even more challenging, open, and deep than its predecessor. They also hope to include additional options for evolving the party and more secrets for players to discover. It sounds like players don’t have anything to worry about, aside from whatever great evil will plague Xulima next.
