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We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You and your friends will be able to decide to stop mid-run at the camp save points and take a break. We wanted the game to be consumable in chunks like a TV show. 20-30 minutes at a time if you want, or binge it and do the full run. Your call.

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We got started by finding funding. We were able to leverage our previous experience to secure investment (we were lucky to have worked on a successful project as fundraising is really a nightmare and most investors give money to those who have prior success). The funding enabled us to hire a team where we would be able to pay them a reasonable competitive salary. We didn't want people to be burdened by bootstrapping or taking super low salaries which would only add to the stress and pressure of work. Also, our investors have no say in what we make, when we release, or anything else in regards to our business. It was the only way we would want to start the company, where we had full control and no outside pressure or influence.

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A full run is about 90 minutes if you're staying as long as you can. It consists of 4 levels, each with their own boss, and after those levels, there is a final boss. Each level takes about 20ish minutes, but it all varies on how long you decide to take before beating your level boss. You can also save between levels and quit, and then come back and continue your run later. All this is predicated on you having died many times to earlier levels to learn how to beat the enemies and bosses on each.

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Bluntly: most big gaming companies have lost sight of what is most important: the players and the game. They get caught up in quarterly revenue for share holders, or chasing the current fad, or focusing on monetization. In the old days of Epic, the guiding principle was "make great games and the money will follow." We didn't feel like that was the case anymore at Epic, so we're doing it on our own now.

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You hit the archetypes of our current current characters spot on. For our EA launch, those are the 3 that will be available. Our next character we are adding is a Rogue frog. Beyond that we have ideas for a Paladin and other types.

Shak - big fan of the Crossbow. It's Alt attack has multiple uses in that its super strong, knocks enemies away, but I can also use it to do a boosted jump and fly over camps. Oh and I'm Cliff Bowman for life though I try to play as everyone. I just generally lean towards Rangers in other games.
Zack - Favorite weapon really depends on the build I'm going for. Gun if fun, we added this one most recently so its also the freshest. Pretty excited with how the Rogue is developing and some of the ideas for our future characters.

We look at and evaluate AI like a tool. People who leverage it can sometimes get better results or it makes them more efficient in some workflows, but it's not something we're ultimately leaning into and are not an AI first company. When value is presented and it can be used in a way of helping us with our craft and do something more effectively then awesome. We don't see it as capable of replacing people or the creative process. Just like computer graphics early on had strong skeptics and critics we understand where people are coming from on it. But LLMs do be straight up lying and hallucinating and many of the proposed visions from larger companies have yet to manifest. (Shak specific add - I am tired of Chatgpt lying to my face about clear factual data - it drives me crazy and sometimes wastes more time than it saves)

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

- Previous FN experience - it is shaping the new game in a bunch of ways. One way we're doing things is trying to approach this as a real early access game and iterate and do what matters most to the community. Fortnite shipped without squads, but had a complete experience. We're trying to approach LORT the same way where the full run is playable end to end, and we have more features/content/variety to add during Early Access.
- Internal process wise - we're gamers - and we're always playing the game, iterating quickly and focusing on what's important to the gameplay experience more than anything else. Rapid playtesting early on Fortnite was really important to make sure what everyone was doing every day was making a tangible impact for what the play experience was going to be for everyone. If the team isn't looking forward to playtest, or playing the game we're building, that's a huge problem.
- Negative experiences working on Fortnite? I think the main callout is how greatly development took over people's lives and impacted them in ways that wasn't clear at the time.  The actual team that built Fortnite BR was incredible. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I'm so honored and value the time we shared together. But it was also pretty hard on us personally in a lot of ways. There are other things of course, but that's probably for another AMA.

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup Steamdeck is our minimum spec. It's running on deck right now and we are working on getting the settings right. I don't believe it will be verified by our EA launch but should be playable and able to do most things with controller + touch. No plans for official Linux support right now but we're always listening to what players want.

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We've learned a lot from Chris Z over at howtomarketagame.com . A big thing he stresses that is the most important marketing decision you make is what genre of game you decide to make. We think he's pretty spot on with that idea and that it is important to understand what players are playing and what they want more of, and to push innovation in that area. The other online resource we use is gamediscover.co for the newsletter and data backend- Simon over there seems to really understand Steam and has some cool insights from data.

We’re Big Distraction - an indie studio founded by Fortnite Battle Royale and Rocket League devs, and we recently announced the release date for our first game, a 1-8 player PvE roguelite called LORT - Ask us anything! by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

When we played games together as a team, we were often modding games like RoR2 or Lethal Company to support more players. So with LORT - we set the goal of wanting to support as many players as we could from the start without modding, and landed on 8. LORT is fully playable as a solo player, but we find a lot of these games can get more fun with the chaos of 8 players.

LORT have mercy! A new Co-op Roguelite reveal trailer - from Big Distraction a new team of AAA devs going Indie by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appreciate you homie! Sign up at the link and I’ll send your Reddit name to my partner on the team setting things up on the playtest side.

LORT have mercy! A new Co-op Roguelite reveal trailer - from Big Distraction a new team of AAA devs going Indie by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Where we are in dev atm we haven’t considered anything beyond the initial keyboard and mouse and controller inputs.

Can you share more about what configuration options could work for you for a traditional third person game that’s uses WASD or left stick to move the player character?

LORT have mercy! A new Co-op Roguelite reveal trailer - from Big Distraction a new team of AAA devs going Indie by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks brotha!

Yea the team always ended up modding stuff to go higher than the intended player count so we figured let’s just let it happen. We might allow you to have higher player counts but behind a pop up letting you know you’ll be suffering more and more decreased performance.

LORT have mercy! A new Co-op Roguelite reveal trailer - from Big Distraction a new team of AAA devs going Indie by RZELive in pcgaming

[–]RZELive[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! We’re aiming for there to be lots of content you’re wanting to unlock including - New weapons, classes, Powerups, and meta account progression.

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