Nonstop Knight just launched this month on iOS and Android devices. A hybrid between Action RPG and the clicker genre, Flaregames and Kopla have made an extremely addicting and accessible experience for fans of fantasy ARPGs. We caught up with Kopla Games’ Antii Salomaa, Vice President, to talk about the game and its inspiration and goals.
MMORPG: What was the inspiration behind Nonstop Knight?
All of us at Kopla are crazy about action RPGs and with a game like Diablo – a definite inspiration to us – we must have sunk thousands of hours into that game between us! When initially devising the idea for Nonstop Knight we took the success of mobile action RPGs in Asia as a big inspiration and saw the huge growth potential in the western market for such experiences. For one, it was interesting to see how developers were designing their games so that the action progresses without the player needing to constantly interact with what is going on. Fast-forward two years and here we are having launched Nonstop Knight with a lot of these learnings from the Asian market in-built into the game.
MMORPG: What were the challenges bringing the action RPG experience to mobile?
It’s not an easy thing to do and we had to be strict with which classic action RPG features we retained in the game. A great action RPG can be a very deep, immersive and sometimes complex experience so to distill all the best features of the genre into the game was certainly a challenge. In terms of the knight, one of the lengthiest discussion points for us was whether to introduce a background story and give the player some context as to how the knight got into this never-ending mess in the first place. In the end we chose not to create this legend just yet, so the story and the actual knight’s name is one very much still shrouded in mystery.
MMORPG: What was the reason for the push towards one-handed controls and the simple interface?
For us, it’s all about making the experience as accessible as possible. When players have spare pockets of time in their day, we want to ensure they can immediately jump into the game, whether standing on a busy train or taking a 5-minute coffee break in the office. With this mindset, we designed the “one-thumb” style controls so that players can do exactly that – control the action with just one thumb and play easily while on the go. After all, it’s difficult to do this when playing a mobile game in landscape perspective with many buttons covering the screen, hence why we like to say that Nonstop Knight is perfectly designed for mobile. MMORPG: What new features are going to be added in the future?
Although the game recently released (globally on 2nd June), our work has only just begun! In the coming months we’ll be adding a slew of new features to the game, including new environments, enemies, weapons and gear and even a number of new assist buddies. We’ll also be rolling out weekly tournaments to challenge players to compete against other dungeon brawlers from across the globe! For now, however, we are working on perfecting the core experience and look forward to seeing how players compete within the game’s leaderboards and reach the furthest dungeons.
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MMORPG: How do you want this game to be remembered?
Both the strategy and match-three genres have blown up on mobile in recent years and as hardcore RPG fans we wanted to take a stand! We want Nonstop Knight to be the catalyst for getting more gamers hooked on action RPGs and believe our game offers a simple and accessible introduction into this world!
