"Game Designer Is Not a Creative Profession": Experts from Owlcat and Cyberhead Discuss "Ruses Against Lizards 2"

The new episode of the monthly deconstruction show "What's Up with the Game?" aired on April 30. This time, industry experts shared their impressions of the sequel "Rus vs. Lizards" and speculated on the possible future of the series.

Joining the hosts of "What's Up with the Game?"—App2Top.ru's chief editor Alexander Semenov and Owlcat Games producer Maxim Fomichev—was Evgeniy Sudak. Currently, Evgeniy holds the position of producer at Cyberhead Games, and previously, he was the head of game design at Pixonic and the monetization manager at Wargaming.

When it comes to "Rus vs. Lizards 2," opinions diverged depending on how exactly the new project by the Bratans studio is viewed.

If you analyze the game seriously, its professional execution is obviously lacking. Most criticisms about the game design came from Sudak. He believes that in many respects, the second "Rus" entries are poorly executed—particularly in terms of consistency.

Sudak noted that the game doesn't give the impression that specific decisions were made consciously. Developers seemed to focus on how cool or trashy things would look rather than how consistent or player-friendly they were. According to Sudak, there is no design work in this.

"A game designer is not a creative profession, but an engineering one," Sudak believes. "It’s someone who turns an idea into working documentation, processes it, deconstructs it, breaks it down into bricks, and then feeds those bricks to programmers. A good game designer understands the experience they want to give the player and whether certain decisions align with that experience. This is what I call consistency of the design process."

Fomichev, on the other hand, suggested that "Rus vs. Lizards 2" should be perceived not as a multimedia product but as a cultural phenomenon: "It’s an interactive three-hour meme."

Despite all its flaws, the second "Rus" game includes many well-executed elements, especially considering the budgetary and other limitations. These include, for example, the overall quality of the 3D models and the attempts to diversify gameplay situations.

Both experts agreed that there is room to develop this universe further. At minimum, they can consider developing games in other genres, not only focusing on third-person action games. The only question is how long they can monetize this meme without adopting a more serious approach to the projects themselves.

"I believe that if the team continues with 'Rus vs. Lizards 3' with the same level of progress—regarding mechanics, art, dynamics—their next project could well reach the level of 'Smuta' with proper funding," Fomichev noted. From there, a truly high-quality and large game could emerge.

It all depends on whether the Bratans have the resources to develop in this direction and how many more projects it will take for them to gain the necessary experience for creating larger-scale games in terms of production and game design. Most importantly, do they even have such goals in mind?

"I hope the team goes further and creates something bigger and perhaps less trashy," concluded Fomichev. "Something that can be scaled and turned into a series."

"What's Up with the Game?" is a monthly show that airs on the WN Academy educational platform. Anyone can watch it live and ask questions—just register on the platform once. After that, reminders about each upcoming episode will be sent to your email. Also, after attending the first show, access is granted to the archive of all previous episode recordings.

The next episode will take place on June 4 at 6:00 PM Moscow time.