Making games is hard. But that doesn’t stop the thousands upon thousands of talented developers who put in good time to bring their dream game ideas to life. One of those developers is Klub Kofta Studio, a one-man “club” who recently put out their non-traditional tower defence title ‘Operation Octo’, which derives some heavy inspiration from everyone’s favourite lawn defence title ‘Plants vs. Zombies’. Operation Octo has received plenty of positive traction and fans have expressed how much they love the game to the developer, which in turn helped shape the game into the way it is today.
Recently, I had the chance to ask Klub Kofta Studio about themselves, making games (particularly this game about octopuses, of course), and what their thoughts are on the industry as a whole. You’ll find that transcript below and hopefully, you get an idea about how the squid legs are made.
I would’ve said “octopus” again, but my redundancy sensors are tingling.
Heads Up! This interview has had its formatting adjusted to improve readability, but otherwise its contents remain intact.
Hello! My name is Genghis Husameddin and I’m with the writing team over here at XboxEra. Thank you for taking the time to answer a couple of questions we’ve got about your studio and your recently released tower defence strategy game ‘Operation Octo’.
First and foremost, who and what is Klub Kofta Studio?
Klub Kofta Studio is currently only run by me. I’ve spent the past 5 years developing my first game, while I was studying Game Design at college.
After a particularly bad internship experience, I wanted nothing more than to simply be allowed to make my own games. I saw so many obstacles that stand in the way of people who long to create, and I dream of forming a studio that’d someday give aspiring game devs the means and freedom to create arts of the purest form, without external constraints or concerns for profit.
That would be my ultimate goal for Klub Kofta Studio – It is a “club” rather than a company. I can only wish that my next game titles will continue to be successful, so I’ll eventually have the resources to support other game devs like myself.
What is Operation Octo? How did the idea of an octopus fighting off a bunch’a skellies come to be?
Operation Octo is a non-traditional Tower Defense game inspired by my love for Plants vs. Zombies. You play as an octopus scientist who physically moves around the map to place down towers while dodging attacks from skeleton enemies.
I am really bad at action games – There are many dungeon crawler and bullet hell games that I wish I could be good enough at to enjoy. I wanted to make an accessible game where you simply focus on strategizing and staying alive – Your automated turrets will handle all the fighting for you.
As for why I had an octopus as the protagonist: I love the ocean and its multitude of creatures, particularly intelligent life forms that reside in a different realm, yet are so similar to us.
The skeleton enemies originated from an earlier paper prototype I made while trying to come up with a game idea. It was a strategy game where you were meant to send expendable characters to their deaths – Hence the characters were skeletons.
How did the art and sound come to be for Operation Octo?
OO’s art style has been a highlight that people keep bringing up. I grew up making Flash animations as a hobby, so my characters naturally carry an old Flash-game feel.
I always loved drawing, but I’ve never taken a proper drawing lesson in my life. I can only draw in the one Pokemon-ish style that naturally developed for me. People keep saying my characters are cute – I never make things “cute” on purpose – I just can’t draw any other way.
The game’s soundtrack was initially composed by a talented friend of mine from college, Tiago Massochin. He got hired by Ubisoft (after attending two categories of the Ubisoft NEXT competition and making finalists in both), so I went through dozens of online portfolios in search of a new composer to continue the OST.
This led me to commissioning the works of Daniel Teles. His tracks are catchy from the get-go and immensely memorable. I frequently got earworms from his music; The players also give constant compliments to his works. Daniel is an absolutely brilliant and incredibly dedicated composer – He deserves so much more recognition!
What does progression look like in Operation Octo? What can players expect to unlock and what kind of challenges will they face the further they get into the game?
The game takes players across various biomes in the ocean. Each biome comes with its own cast of characters, as well as unique environmental gimmicks. For instance, the Toxic Wasteland is littered with poisonous brine pools; The Twilight Zone has a dark environment that limits your vision range.
You unlock a huge number of sea creature turrets as you venture through each biome. Each turret type offers something unique for you to strategize around, as well as various upgraded forms for you to explore. This game is about the ocean, and the ocean is all about endless possibilities of discovery!
From what I can tell, player feedback on the demo has been a boon for the game. What have reactions to Operation Octo looked like, and how did it shape the final product?
When the YouTuber Creeps20 made a long video essay, in which he dubbed Operation Octo “The Successor Plants vs. Zombies Deserves”, the game’s demo really took off.
Fans have been incredibly positive about the game – I am genuinely surprised by how much people have expressed their love for OO. As I am writing this, someone on Discord has just said that he got OO two days ago and has been playing nonstop.
When the demo got its sudden increase in popularity, I actually delayed the game’s release by a month to implement an entirely new gadget system. I believe the game is better for the change, and that the system addressed many issues that were revealed by the influx of new players.
Allowing a feature creep of this scale right before release was obviously borderline insane, and I ended up releasing right after Silksong. The game’s launch was a bigger success than I could have anticipated, though!
Which stage is your favourite? And how fast would you say you can complete your own game?
My favorite stage is the Toxic Wasteland boss fight – Dr. Kraxen. After spending weeks animating the boss, I decided that I really wanted the boss fight to be memorable. I spent a whole night doing research, writing down ideas, and connecting them into a cohesive whole. The boss ended up with quite a few unique mechanics and surprises. To give the boss more personality, I voiced him as well. I really loved the character.
I was playtesting with a friend whom I consider to be an exceptional designer – After he finished that boss fight, he went: “That was sooo good!”
It’d probably take me 7 hours to do a single playthrough of my game. It’d take others a bit longer. Although according to Steam’s official record, I only have 0.3 hours of playtime on my own game 😉
Can we see Operation Octo swimming its way to mobile and consoles at some point in the future?
Due to my lack of game dev experience at the start, OO was never optimized for mobile. Making a mobile port would be a complete nightmare, and I don’t intend to tackle that.
As for console ports, they could be justified if the game becomes a bigger success in the future. I have lots of massive content updates planned, and OO is still an ongoing project.
Do you have any observations about the gaming industry that you’d like to share?
I am continually impressed by the dedication and creativity of indie devs. I am a huge lover of indie games – They pack so so many design innovations, and deliver memorable (even transformative) experiences on a regular basis. These are crafts made with love – They reveal the immense yet-to-be-uncovered potential that video games have as an artistic medium.
So, needless to say, I am thrilled by indie games’ rise to popularity. It’s often hard for me to talk about indie games with “any average joe”, but I find that more and more “typical gamers” have picked up indie titles for one reason or another (A guy I chatted with today, who is in his 40’s with a toddler, mentioned that he began “tolerating indie games with bad graphics”, because these games were easy to pause & pick back up later). I can’t wait for the day when indies truly become widely appreciated by the general public.
Are you playing any games yourself right now?
I have not gamed in many months due to the pre-release crunch. There are many games by other developer friends that I intend to play soon. However, earlier this week, I have finally gamed for the first time in many moons – I played Darkest Dungeon 2’s new update. This is completely unrelated to this interview, but I just really like Darkest Dungeon.
Is there anything you’d like our readers to know? Anything at all? The stage is yours!
To the readers: I am greatly honored if you’ve read the interview thus far. If you are a game developer, I would be very happy to connect with you! (I am too socially awkward and definitely need more friends)
Thanks for having me!
Thank you for your time!
Operation Octo is available on PC via Steam at the low price of $5.99 USD and the developer offers a free demo for your perusal.
