Interview: Ironhide Game Studio Project Manager, Leonardo Clavijo, discusses Junkworld following its massive subterranean-themed update
Venturing into the underbelly of a wasteland to do battle with mutant rodents may sound like a Christmas nightmare for most, but for fans of Junkworld, it’s a Christmas treat come early thanks to the game’s latest update: Underground - Part 1.
Starting from today, players will have access to new towers, a new tactic and a new explosive hero, as they explore the subterranean depths beneath a treacherous mountain.
Here, you'll come face-to-face with the mutant rats called the Krittz - and uncover an ancient city as you venture into 8 new trap-filled stages, whilst duking it out against 6 new enemies that will stop at nothing to make their underground invasion a reality. There are 4 new missions that will put your tower defence prowess to the test - thankfully, the new hero Ratchet can lend you a hand as a rebel Krittz that can attack enemies from afar using his minigun called the "ratling". He can also dig through the earth to traverse long distances, which can be quite useful in a pinch.
With this exciting new update underway, we leapt at the opportunity to speak with Ironhide Games Studio’s Project Manager, Leonardo Clavijo, to discuss the journey the game’s taken so far from conception to completion, and what lies ahead for its fans.
We wanted to explore a new intellectual property with a theme that hadn't been covered in our previous games, so mediaeval and space were off the table.
That’s why in this project we did some research and decided to go with the idea of an apocalyptic world. The inspiration for the achieved theme brings elements from classic movies like Mad Max, to modern events and references, like the Burning Man festival.
The main advantage with this theme was to have room to stretch our legs regarding Ironhide games’ distinctive humour, to have a chance to explore a crazy art style and create fun characters, and to create a sense of a post-apocalyptic reality that players will find thrilling to explore.
What were the key lessons learned from the Kingdom Rush series that you put into Junkworld's development and is there anything you sought to do differently?As the game is, per se, a Tower Defense, Kingdom Rush was -of course- an important source of inspiration, and we even seized some development tools from it.
We wanted to explore new ideas to bring to the genre, including the possibility of building towers and moving them without limits on the stage, for example.
We also sought to maintain the fun gaming experience the Kingdom Rush saga offers to players, without losing the opportunity to explore and innovate with new ideas and mechanics.
For instance, we considered trying shorter stages, introducing faster waves in each combat. Or even creating new different game phases (Build and Defense phase), for players to set their strategy based on different elements that come into play at different times during each stage.
Those simple yet important changes crafted a game that, even while sharing the style of Ironhide's already known tower defense games, sets itself apart from the Kingdom Rush series.
The difficulty curve was tuned to provide an easy first-time experience and then offer more challenges with each new terrain. We wanted to create a game that could cater to all kinds of players, from those new to the genre to the hardcore tower defence players. With the four selectable difficulty modes, we also give players the option to adjust the challenge according to their expertise.
Junkworld is the result of several years of us exploring new ideas that gave shape to the final game.
In the testing stage, we received very positive feedback, as players seemed to recognize the new elements in Junkworld’s gaming system, as the ones they suggested for this kind of tower defense games.
After a dedicated period of time we spent adjusting the game based on the community feedback, we achieved a final result that, as soon as it got released, got a very positive reaction from players.
How did your collaboration with Apple start and what motivated the choice to make Junkworld an Apple Arcade exclusive?We first started working together with Apple Arcade for our exclusive Legends of Kingdom Rush release, back in June 2021.
As for Junkworld, the decision was based on what was best for the game, and what possibilities and opportunities Apple Arcade would create for us.
All the team behind Apple Arcade is kind and eager to collaborate to bring the best game for the platform. We were pleased to work together one more time.
Junkworld currently boasts a 4.8/5 rating on the iOS App Store, and can be exclusively played via an Apple Arcade subscription with no ads or in-app purchases required. You can play the game via your iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV with a monthly subscription fee of $4.99. This includes unlimited access to the subscription service's library of games such as Iron Marines, Kingdom Rush Frontiers, Legends of Kingdom Rush, and Kingdom Rush Vengeance from Ironhide as well.
