Tag: BlueGiant

We recently got the chance to interview the makers of TRYST, a PC exclusive RTS game. The whole interview with Vinnie Reddy of BlueGiant Interactive is below:

Dan: How did you originally come up with the idea for Tryst?
Vinnie: We started off with the intention of making a sequel to our first title – Apox. It didn’t take the team long to decide that we wanted to do something different. We loved Apox but we wanted to try something new. Tryst is what happened.

Dan: How successful has Tryst been? Has it exceeded your expectations?
Vinnie: Unfortunately, not. Reception to the game hasn’t been anywhere near what we’d been predicting or expecting. We’ve learned a lot from this project and at some point of time we will consider publishing a postmortem to chronicle the ups and downs of our production.

Dan: Do you plan on releasing DLCs in the future?
Vinnie: Without a doubt. We promised DLC right out the gate and that’s a promise we intend to keep.

Dan: Has Tryst sold well enough to warrant a sequel? What’s the customer reaction like?
Vinnie: We’re not in a position to contemplate a sequel at the moment. Its like I said earlier, reception has been a little lower than what we’d expected.

Dan: How do you think Tryst matches up against other RTS games like Blizzard’s Starcraft and Warcraft series?
Vinnie: That’s a comparison we try our best to stay away from at the studio. The work Blizzard has done is phenomenal and they’re among a long list of studios and dev’s that we all look upto.However, to answer your question – I think we all agree that we’ve got some ways to go, yet. We’re getting there, though. Slowly, but surely.

Dan: Has Tryst been created as a result of any kind of inspiration, or was it a planned project from the beginning?
Vinnie: It was more a result of inspiration. We’d wanted to move away from Apox’s setting; try out something new and see what we could do with it. A lot of us at BlueGiant love Sci-Fi, so that became the obvious choice. The rest of the game was a very fun mix of planning, realizing that we need more plans and lots of inspiration and hard work!

Dan: Can we expect to see Tryst on other consoles? RTS games may be difficult on consoles other than a PC, but a spin-off perhaps?
Vinnie: We’re PC guys out here. We’ve developed two games for the platform and are comfortable enough with it now to begin pushing ourselves more. Developing for the console is a whole new beast and not one we think we’re ready to tackle just yet.So, no, I doubt you’ll see anything Tryst related or by us on a console anytime soon.

Dan: How is it like developing games in a country like India, did you have trouble finding game developers?
Vinnie: Yes and no. No, in the sense that we’ve got a pool of talent out here. Most of the industry knows us for our art potential but we’ve got a lot of great programmers out here… the problem being that there just aren’t that many companies out here for them to consider sticking around.And it was difficult in the sense of finding the right people with the right attitude, skills and mindset. We actually interviewed more than 6000 people before we finalized our programming team of 6.

Dan: What are BlueGiant’s plans for the future?
Vinnie: At the moment, we’re focusing on supporting Tryst. We’ve been sending out weekly patches ever since we launched, fixing bugs, crashes, and updating the multiplayer balance. We’ve also got resources working on the DLC we had talked about earlier. Between those two, we’ve got the next few months charted out for us. Beyond that, well, we’ll see.

Be sure to also read our review for TRYST.

It’s been so long since I’ve played a good RTS and after playing Tryst I’ve got to say, it’s not as good as I expected it to be. Tryst was expected to be a bit different than the other RTS games out there. However, the gameplay of the game makes you feel like home with it’s simple and straight-forward campaigns. BlueGiant Interactive’s second attempt at a RTS yet again failed to deliver what was expected of the title.

Like a typical RTS, it has an 8 players PvP mode. You can also play online and you can choose any of the two races: Humans or Zali’s. The choice you make will change the way the game is played giving you a diverse experience. You can also play against computer in the multiplayer mode.

Tryst begins with a short campaign which tries to explain what’s basically going on. The story of the game is that the humans are going through a rough patch, facing some sort of economical crises, and are travelling across galaxies in search of resources. Along the way, they come across an alien race known as Zali who are also following the same objectives and thus both the races end up living peacefully with each other until some rebellions cause problems and some Zali also try and move in to the Human territories. It doesn’t take long enough for both races to go for war.

Our first mission is kind of a training step as usual, in which we try and save some of our soldiers who are under attack of the opposition, and obviously we take a couple of aliens out along the way. There are two kinds of resources in the game: energy and ore. The user is able to create buildings and units for resource gathering and such purposes like your typical RTS games. You can also gather resources using the resource buildings found in your surroundings.

The maps are filled with all sorts of objects that will affect the way you play the game, or in other words, will affect your strategy. You’ll get to choose whether to use your resources to heal your damaged units or get new ones. This is what makes the game flexible when playing. Different difficulty levels are done nicely making it pretty simple and easy for the easy difficulty. Resource gathering, structures and everything is pretty simple and straightforward. There’s different types of vehicles plus air units, which are available to both races. You’ll also get to build new kinds of buildings as you progress with the game. With these new buildings, new units are introduced.

Tryst uses ARM (Augmentation Research Mechanism) by which you can research or focus on a certain kind of unit or ability of a unit which will result in better use of units with additional features. It strengthens our cavalry by introducing stronger units of the same kind without getting into building new buildings.

Multiplayer mode, one of the emphasized parts of RTS games, was the mode BlueGiant wanted to stand out. As mentioned above, you’ll be able to go against 2-8 players that are filled with the Resource buildings and the environmental hazards. Although there’s a lot put into this mode, as one can tell, it doesn’t really give a unique experience but it is still enjoyable. One of the pluses of the multiplayer mode is that if any of the users disconnects during the game, computer itself takes over his game from there on. However, you can’t play with different users and computer at the same time.

To conclude all I’d like to say about Tryst is that it’s not that appealing but it isn’t that bad either. It’s an enjoyable experience when playing multiplayer for the price tag. If you’re more of a solo player, the story mode’s is not long enough. You wouldn’t want to play this game for long if you’re not the casual RTS player. All in all, it’s a good effort by BlueGiant Interactive and I believe they’ll come with a better addition to their list of games in the future.

TechDeville gives Tryst a score of 2/5.