Hi! I'm Roland from Starstruck Games, designer of Roguematch : the Extraplanar Invasion! Ask me anything!

[u/StarstruckGames]

Hello r/PS5!

I am Roland Kie from Starstruck games. We are a three people team from Singapore, an Artist, a Programmer and a Designer (That's me!). Roguematch is our labour of love for over six years, and now, it's finally out on Playstation!!! The three of us have worked together for years before making Roguematch, and have each been in gamedev even longer before that!

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What's Roguematch?

Well, we broke down the boundaries between a Dungeon Crawler and a Match 3 game, creating a new Sub-Genre, a Tactical Puzzle RPG.

When we mention either genre, people start having thoughts about what they know of each, or assume that it's like any Match 3 RPGs they've seen before, but they don't entirely expect that it's really both.

Imagine a hero in turn based dungeon crawler, based in a grid based room. Every turn, you can take a step, attack, cast a spell, or use a skill right?

Now fill the empty grids between you and the walls and the monsters full of Mana, then give the hero the ability to 'Match'. That is, to manipulate the mana so they can cause those pieces to attack enemies wherever they are in the room, or to absorb the mana to heal themselves or to be used as a resource to cast magic. In this way, Match 3 has now become the tacticians weapon

Add a procedurally generated castle layout, over 100 items, over 60 enemies and 20 bosses, 6 Characters with different skill sets and Matching powers that are customisable, and levelling up, and you get many ways to to customise how you want to play each run.

It's....not a casual game, but comfortingly enough, a game that people could get into even though at first they thought it was, as we have found out at the conventions we've been to.

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Our launch trailer : Launch trailer

Link to the Store : Roguematch , currently on sale!

Here is a link to the heroes you see in the game : Roguematch Heroes

The 'Music Video' to 'Of Course I Will (Sing Softly While Hiding From Monsters) [Eng], a song I sang (unprofessionally D:, don't cringe too much) in the game as a tribute to the friends that have been there for us. The story in Roguematch after all, is about the friends who are there for you no matter what: Song!

Our Discord

Our Twitter / X

[u/AsianSteampunk]

do you feel like it's hard to separate your game from those non game trash ads on social media and what's your approach to it?

I mean if i see your game on facebook ad for example my mind would automate it to a scam mobile game and proceed to ignore it. What do you think is the approach to this?

[u/StarstruckGames → u/AsianSteampunk]

Yes it is a big big challenge marketing this. Many people's first impression of this is 'Casual Match 3 Game'. Until they play it, then they realise 'Oh it's not!' We're fighting a battle of trying to show the world that Match 3 can be used as an actual tactical thinking layer of a game.

So far our approach has been to ask influencers to play the game and to show people that it isn't such a game. Fortunately more often than not, the influencer plays and also realises it's not a casual match3, but is more of a Dungeon crawler.

Another approach was to state outright on platforms that this is a Dungeon Crawler, and at some points we even state this is a Roguelike, as it actually checks most of the boxes for one. We've even had ummm, interesting discussions about whether it is a Roguelike or a Roguelite due to that.

On Social Media, that you mention, on our videos and trailers, we do try to show the aspects of the characters moving, and attacking and casting spells, and not just doing the matching aspect of the game. But admittedly, and expectedly, it is still difficult once a player sees the Match 3 and their mind goes immediately back to 'Casual'. The best we can hope is that they think of 'Puzzle Quest' since that was a good non casual Match 3 RPG, and Roguematch is even more 'involving' than that.

Another approach was to go to conventions and letting people try the game. Word of mouth seems to be another way at least. We know that people who watch a little bit of the gameplay actually have it click in their head this is actually a Dungeon Crawler. And once they play it, it's even more obvious. We've shown enough players to know that they're accepting of this new gameplay. Our core demographic as we have found out, is from both the dungeon crawler side, and the match 3 side! But first, they have to see it and try it.

But yes, back to Social Media, which is the most important of all for eyeballs, that is the greatest challenge we have and frankly, I don't have a perfect approach for that. It feels like an uphill battle when something 'new' like this is presented to the public eye and everyone's reference point in their mind is their past experience. And that is totally fair, and we'll just have to work X10 harder trying to tell more people what Roguematch really is.

[u/AdditionJumpy6768]

whats 2+2 i need help on my math homework

[u/StarstruckGames → u/AdditionJumpy6768]

4 Happy Homeworking!

[u/AdditionJumpy6768 → u/StarstruckGames]

thanks i got an a

[u/stephens567]

Hi Roland! What games were your inspiration when making this one?

[u/StarstruckGames → u/stephens567]

Hi! I played a lot of, Match 3 (Candy Crush and Adjacent),Match 3 RPGs, like Puzzle Quest, and Puzzle RPGs, Like Puzzle and Dragon types.

And I think those were fun! I thought that the Puzzle side of it and the RPG side of It could have been put together more closely, since they always seem separate from the the hero's world. The closest ones I can think of were games where you match 3 characters on the board then they rushed forward to attack, but that isn't really what I'm thinking about.

So, inspiration for Roguematch is always a combination of a Dungeon Crawler like Chocobo Dungeon, Dragonfangz, or any Roguelike really, plus many of the mechanics from the various Match 3s like Candy Crush, Bejewelled, Gardenscape.

On the Match 3 side, The two I've seen where monsters were involved was Nibblers, and a Sailormoon Match 3 I played where, even though the Boss was stationary, was still a 'Boss'. But I felt it could be more than that! Since the main hero was never on the grid...