Hey adventurers!

Thanks for checking out this week's MythForce interview with Joel Beach!

Joel has been working in QA in the games development industry for ten years. He's worked on several RPGs (including Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Sword Coast Legends, as well as the console ports of classic BioWare RPGs) and action games (Warframe, Mythforce). On MythForce he focuses mainly on levels and combat. In his free time he likes to watch movies, listen to comedy podcasts, read comic books, and play strategy games. Some of his favorite video games are Knights of the Old Republic, Crusader Kings 2, XCOM 2 and the Civilization series.

What games first attracted you to game design?

The games that made me want to get into game design were Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate 2, Diablo 2, and Ocarina of Time. I've always loved games where players were given a choice to play in their own style, be that dialogue choices, character advancement, or open worlds. I think that game design is the most interesting when players have a choice to play how they want in a game.

What are some of your favorite 80s cartoons (or other 80s pop culture)?

It's hard to narrow it down, but some of my favorites are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, DuckTales, Transformers, and Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers. As for other 80s pop culture, I'm a huge fan of The Empire Strikes Back as well as John Carpenter's The Thing, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Aliens, Ghostbusters, and RoboCop.

What's one thing you wish everyone knew about working in QA?

The job is a lot more than just playing video games all day, which is what a surprising number of people assume. There's a lot of technical skills and knowledge about all aspects of a game's design that QA needs so we can work with the rest of the development team to make an enjoyable game for the players.

What's the funniest bug you've found in MythForce?

The funniest bug I can recall on MythForce was one that occurred when we started to implement the upgrades for Hawkin's Rift Arrow ability. When directly hitting an enemy with the ability it would cause them to fall over, but they wouldn't be able to stand back up. However, they would still try to move around normally while laying on the floor. So the result was an enemy rolling around and trying to attack the players while being stuck on the floor.

What's the most appealing element of a roguelite game?

I think one of the most appealing elements is that no two playthroughs are quite the same. Even if you're trying to recreate something you had success with in an earlier playthrough, your luck just might not be the same and you'll need to shift gears to compensate. Sometimes you'll end up with a Hawkins melee run just because you only got melee and defense perks. It might not be your best run in that case, but it definitely keeps things interesting.

Which is your favorite MythForce character to play, and why?

My favorite is Hawkins. I'm a big fan of the DPS role in multiplayer games. The ability to one-shot kill an enemy with a critical hit and to help with crowd control is incredibly useful to helping a team succeed.

What makes MythForce unique compared to other games you've worked on or played?

The roguelike elements and procedural dungeon generation make it so that no two games are quite the same. While this is great for the game's replayability, it can make it very challenging to test due to all the different variables changing every run. Thankfully our wonderful development team is really good about making us tools that help us reproduce anything we need in-game.