by Badger Nimahson
RPGolf was a wonderful mixed genre game that released on steam back in May 2018. A complete unkown when it landed in my inbox but quickly became one of my favourite indie games of all time.
Rpgolf is a true hidden gem and I urge everybody to play it. For less than £3 on the steam store, you really have no excuse not to.
As much as I love RPGolf, I am sure you can imagine my excitement when developer Articnet announced on Twitter last week that they are working on RPGolf 2!
Immediately upon hearing this news I reached out to ArticNet CEO Riccardo Castelnuovo to find out as much as I could about RPGolf 2.
For those who may not be aware of Articnet can you tell us a little bit about who you are?
ArticNet is a small company based in Osaka, Japan. It started 7 years ago as an IT company, and it still is. We also make games, and reaching the point where we could develop a game (almost) full time took a whole bunch of time.
How big a team is Articnet?
ArticNet is a small team. Right now we are two people working full time on RPGolf 2. We also have one incredible guy that is taking care of the musics and we have a crazy-good artist baking pixelart like there’s no tomorrow. So 4 people in total, 2 fully dedicated. Everyone is awesome.
Stoffel Presents became aware of Articnet in May 2018 when you released RPGolf. How did the idea for mixing RPG and golf genres together come about?
The idea for RPGolf was born back in 2014 (if you dig deep enough in my tweets you will find it).
For the inspiration, I have always loved the old “GOLF” game for the GameBoy. I remember when I was playing it as a kid, I always wondered what was happening around the hole. After that putting monsters in became OBVIOUS, because when you go and explore a golf course you are also bound to find monsters…right? Then, a gazillion of prototypes, coffee cups and blood tears later RPGolf was born.
Sadly (for an endless series of reasons) it took way too long to develop the first title…but better late than never, right?
RPGolf has cost £3 since it launched on steam. How did you settle on such a low price point for the game?
It was our first release. After our Indiegogo we had to work a lot and fast to finish it.
Did we put in a lot of content in? Yes. Could we everything we wanted to? Not even remotely.
Ultimately though, the price was decided together with the publisher.
As a development team what were the biggest lessons you learnt from releasing RPGolf?
It is VERY difficult to see a game objectively when you have spent so much time developing it. The community feedback is super important! That’s where we went with RPGolf 2. Also balancing what you want to put in the game and the time/budget you have is an eternal battle.
You announced earlier today on Twitter that RPGolf 2 is in development. What new features can we look forward to in the sequel?
SOOO MANY. For starters…54 holes. And not mirrored/slight variations/etc… 54 holes. Spread across 6 different environments!
Classes! Each one will have unique skills and abilities.
A WHOLE new fighting system (did anyone say Zelda?)
A new skill system!
Monsters are WAY more clever. And they have different attacks now.
I will not tell you why (surprise!), but boss battles are AWESOME now.
You can destroy boxes. Yep, there I said it.
The list goes on and on and on…but if I told you everything here there would be no more surprises 😉
Whilst new features are always good. What features have you kept and carried over from RPGolf?
We kept the synergy between golf and RPG (obviously) and we also made it a whole lot better.
The two games are very similar, yet completely different.
What I can tell you is that you will (hopefully) love it. It will feel a lot more “complete” and polished than before.
Will RPGolf 2 be a continuation of the story from RPGolf or will it be a brand new stand-alone narrative?
It is, but in a very “relaxed” way. We reference what happened in the previous game, but it is not needed in order to enjoy the sequel. People who played the first will laugh at some references (hopefully), but people that never touched it will still be able to fully enjoy the game.
How far into development are Articnet on RPGolf 2? Can we expect a release soon?
We basically completed the whole core engine. We are now implementing bosses and the map (hint: it’s huge.) Expect a release later this year!
Can we expect a similar price for RPGolf 2 as we saw for RPGolf?
Sadly, no. We have not decided on a final price yet, but being a console game and being WAAY bigger and longer than its prequel, the price will be higher.
How can our readers keep up to date with RPGolf 2 development?
We will try and post more updates on Twitter and we will start a devlog on Reddit!
Finally, I like to give a little space at the end of every interview for you to address our readers directly. Is there anything you would like to say or feel I have missed that our audience should be aware of?
I really want to thank all the players that supported us with the first title and reassure them on one thing: we listened to you all.
While compliments were always great, critics helped us develop a sequel that we deem worth of the RPGolf name. Hopefully you will like this as much as we do.
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