Battle Vision Network is the latest game from prolific Toronto-based indie developer Capybara Games.
Revealed during the Summer Game Fest Day of the Devs indie stream, Battle Vision Network is a PvP puzzle-battler that mixes cozy colour-matching gameplay with turn-based combat. Vertical colour formations will create attackers, while horizontal ones yield defenders, and you’ll recruit new units with unique abilities as you play.
All told, it’s reminiscent of one of Capybara’s earlier games, 2009’s acclaimed Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, and that was very much the point.
“We wanted to take our design and dust it off and see what new ideas would shake loose,” says Dan Vader, game director on Battle Vision Network who also worked on Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. “And immediately, we knew we didn’t want to do fantasy again — we wanted to go in a different direction.”
During early brainstorming sessions, he says the team kept coming back to the idea of a sci-fi Olympic Games-style event with a Eurovision-inspired vibe. “On the surface, it’s a singing competition, but it can be pretty unhinged in a really fun, vibrant, creative way. And so we really just took that as an inspiration,” he says. “Let’s make the galaxy a melting pot of all these different kinds of competitors from different quarters of the galaxy, all merging on this one stage and producing this sort of spectacle.”
Once they settled on that colourful sci-fi premise, the team had to figure out how to build on Clash of Heroes‘ core gameplay.
“We knew that the great thing about Clash is that it’s got that sort of simple first layer of colour matching that really invites players in — it’s a low ceiling, it’s like, ‘Oh, I get it, I’m just matching the reds with the reds and the blues of the blues.’ So any player can just start doing that and get a reaction out of the game,” says Vader. “But then the more you play, you start to go, ‘Oh, there’s a deep turn-based strategy.’ There are play styles and strategies to enact within this format.”
One of the key differences between Clash of Heroes and Battle Vision Network is that the latter will regularly get new post-launch seasonal content updates over time. So far, Capybara is promising new characters, quests, modes and more. Capybara’s last game, Grindstone, had a similar live service framework, so Battle Vision Network presents the opportunity to do the same with a Clash of Heroes-style experience.
Vader notes that this wasn’t originally the plan for Grindstone, but it’s nonetheless been able to take what it learned from content updates with that game and apply it to Battle Vision Network.
“This time around, we’re like, ‘Let’s try to build the game knowing that we want to evolve it and keep pouring new ideas into it and revitalizing it and changing it and pivoting little things and expanding the world to make it bigger and bigger.’ So by the end of the game, it’s the kind of game where anybody can find a little corner that they love in it.”
The live service structure also fits well with the subscription service model, which is appropriate since Battle Vision Network will be available on Netflix Games on mobile as well as PC. This is Capybara’s second time launching a game right onto a subscription service, following Grindstone on Apple Arcade in 2019. He says the opportunity for Capybara to work with Netflix came up “organically,” and both parties became excited to work with one another, especially with the latter’s burgeoning game efforts.
For Vader, the subscription model also helps the team avoid some of the pitfalls of the mobile market.
“We started in pre-smartphone mobile — we’re talking flip phones. So we watched that landscape change, especially changed with iPhone gaming in the App Store, and part of what changed about it was the free-to-play experience — a lot of games moving to in-app purchases, and that kind of live service model. And that’s a whole kind of science of almost game design and economics, and we just don’t really have a lot of interest in trying to grow in that direction of figuring out that whole science of trying to monetize the game,” he says.
“We just want to make cool games. And I think what subscription services offer — not just Netflix or Apple, but all of them, and the ones that are probably coming on the horizon — is the chance to just make a good creative game and get it into as many hands as possible, and not have to worry about the sort of ‘game design’ of monetization — how you have to work it into your game, which is a really daunting prospect. It just gives you the freedom to just make a cool game.”
The subscription model also provides games with greater exposure and availability; in this case, it means everyone who has a Netflix membership can play Battle Vision Network at no additional cost. “It just gives you the freedom to just make a cool game that hopefully reaches a lot of people,” he says.
What also helps with that reach is events like Day of the Devs, which is a non-profit dedicated to uplifting indie game creators around the world. Watching the Summer Game Fest stream, I notice how organizers iam8bit and Double Fine commendably shout out where each of the teams is located, including pointing out that Capybara is in Toronto. It’s a nice gesture, considering that the Canadian games industry, in particular, often doesn’t get recognition despite its sizeable talent and output.
Vader says it’s great for initiatives like Day of the Devs to spotlight developers in this way, especially when they’re given time to be on camera and discuss their games. “It puts faces to who makes your games — it shows you the real human beings that are making these things that you love, where they’re from, and I think that’s a great way to demystify the process of making games. It’s just a bunch of people who are inspired to make cool things.”
That’s especially important, he says, because it can help inspire the next generation of developers.
“There are so many Canadian developers making so many games big and small, and I often get surprised when I find out that this game I’m playing is actually not just from a Canadian dev, but a Toronto dev. I even get surprised by that, and I’m in the industry,” he says.
“And I think if more Canadians, especially young Canadians, knew how big it was, how many opportunities there might be, it might steer the course of their lives. Because when I grew up, I didn’t think video games were made in Canada, I thought they were made somewhere very far off — it was not possible to get into them. And the truth is that there are multitudes of games being made in Canada.” He says he’d eventually love to see a Day of the Devs-style showcase focused entirely on Canadian games.
For now, though, Battle Vision Network serves as the latest example of an inventive and engaging experience from a Canadian developer. Vader notes that the game is in a “good state” as it approaches a launch next year, which allows the team to “start pouring more and more ridiculous stuff” into it.
“References, jokes, art — I can already see that happening now. There are definitely allusions to older [Capybara] games. I literally wrote a quest the other day where a character is from Manitoba,” he says.
“They’re in space now competing on this crazy stage in an intergalactic battle sport. But their origin is from Manitoba. So yeah, I’m trying to work in the Canadian and the Capy anywhere I can.”
Image credit: Capybara Games
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