Cloning question: Interview with the authors of Jungle Heat
We talked to the creators of Jungle Heat from Mail.ru Group about their project, the search for style, as well as whether they are not afraid of a lawsuit from Supercell.
I will say right away, we will have sharp questions. And we have a tough setup from the very beginning: Jungle Heat is a clone of Clash of Clans. And verbatim (up to the characteristics of the units). But we still couldn’t help but act from the position of the devil’s advocate: it was time for Supercell to release Clash of Clans on Android a long time ago. But they didn’t. Based on this, let’s start with this question.
Do you expect to repeat the success story of Clash of Clans on Google Play? To take his place and, perhaps, in the future, not to let the Finnish company on Android?Certainly.
Owners of Android devices have been deprived of such games for a long time. Now they have our Jungle Heat, which has preserved the best features of the genre and at the same time brought something new to it. So we have set our sights on this niche and are ready to firmly occupy it.
How much time did it take to develop the project? How many people worked on the project?In general, it took about five to six months to create the game.
Twelve people worked in the Jungle Heat team.
It is clear that the game has completely different graphics. And the approach is surprising. Visually, the game is more designed for a hardcore audience (there is too much in it from the classic Cannon Fodder, Contra, Team Fortress 2 and even Metal Gear). The question to fill in is why exactly this style was chosen? Aren’t you afraid of not hitting the midcorners?Not really.
When we were thinking about the visual part of the game, we decided to focus on images familiar to everyone from the good old action movies. Such films as “Commando”, “Rambo”, tapes with Chuck Norris are remembered and loved by everyone – by the way, the success of the dilogy “The Expendables”, the heir of the genre, speaks about this. Jungle Heat has everything you need for a cool action movie in the spirit of the 80s: jungle, military dictatorship, tough guys with machine guns and machetes, and most importantly – an unstoppable drive.
Since I started about the differences. Tell us how your game differs from the Finnish one. Is the balance shifted in any direction, are there any chips because of which you need to throw Clash of Clans and download Jungle Heat?Download and play Jungle Heat is a must – at least in order to then compare the games and impressions from them.
Among the features that we plan to release in the near future is the ability to play on various platforms (Android, IOS, Social). Moreover, users of different platforms will be able to fight with each other. The development of heroes will be tied exclusively to game actions, i.e. it will not work, just by investing real money immediately become the first in the rating. In the game, too, you will have to seriously understand and develop your characters directly in the gameplay. And, of course, the clan gameplay is significantly different from the game of our Finnish colleagues.
Now there are a lot of sites on the web with tips on Clash of Clans, are these tips applicable to Jungle Heat?I don’t want to reveal all the details of the gameplay, so let the players find out for themselves.
The Supercell project is developing, new updates are released to it every month. How do you see the future of Jungle Heat? Will you start from your analytics or try to repeat the steps of the Finns?Despite the similarity, the games are still different, so we will decide for ourselves on the direction of the game’s development.
Aren’t you afraid of lawsuits? A year ago, the authors of Triple Town sued 6waves for a game about bigfoot, which did not differ in mechanics from the work of Spry Fox.No, we are not afraid.
Jungle Heat is an independent, bright, memorable project. It should be understood that in the gaming industry, as in any creative industry, ideas are drawn from the most successful projects. For example, before CoC, there was already a KIXEYE company with its War Commander. In our opinion, the main thing is not to stop, but to develop the game and bring new ideas to it.
I answered the questions Andrey Scratchaev, producer of the project. P.S. Let’s add from ourselves: despite the fact that the project is in places almost a complete copy of Clash of Clans, in terms of execution and polishing, it leaves a very pleasant impression.
So now it remains to wait for the original on Google Play, and see what comes out of this confrontation.
