Springloaded, the creator of Tiny Dice Dungeon, has almost finished its new title - and you can get access to the beta.

The Last Vikings is a F2P adventure game that takes part in amidst - you guessed it - the turbulent Viking era.

Springloaded’s Founder and Lead Developer, James Barnard, spoke to us about why he chose Vikings as the focus - and how you can sign up for the game’s beta right now.


What inspired you to pick Vikings for your theme?

"Vikings are really some of the most overlooked bad-asses of the past - like cowboys and ninjas, but better. As soon as we picked Vikings as the theme for our game everything just fell into place.

"Obviously the game has a pile of fantasy, from multi-headed Dragons to Cow-projectiles, but we also read up a lot about real life Vikings. I learnt that there are some really epic stories out there - for example Eric Bloodaxe killed all his siblings so he would be able to take the throne while Egil Skallagrimsson spent his time discovering new ways to kill people while enjoying his favourite hobby of writing poetry.

"We put quite a few of these real people in the game alongside the heroes we came up with. In the end, it’s pretty hard to tell fact from fiction."

What can you actually do in The Last Vikings?

"The game gives you the chance to run your own Viking clan and build it up to be as strong as possible.

"We opted for fairly different play mechanics between single player and PVP. In Single player you take to the seas and head for Europe in your longboat, with the boat's crew acting like a health bar (so having more men is always better). You can stop at any town you see, or take the risk and push on to the next one hoping you don’t die in the process.

"We wanted to carry across some of that feeling of choice and risk that we put into our last game, Tiny Dice Dungeon. Once you raid a port you can beat down the town barricade and enter the land battle section. This is very different gameplay, and has you battling a huge array of unique bosses, set across 75 unique graphical environments.

"In PVP, we have a unique balancing mechanic that allows you to battle against your friends regardless of how strong they are, while keeping things fun. Soon you will also be able to team up with your friends and go all out against giant mega-bosses in time limited battle events for loot and extra bonuses if your micro-clan manages to make it to the top of the leaderboards."

What are you most proud of in The Last Vikings and why?

"Well, I think the art is a huge improvement over Tiny Dice Dungeon.That’s because this time we started the game with a team of more than one!

"I realised that my skills in photoshop are probably not the greatest, which meant I could let our Design / Art ultra-girl Cindy handle making everything look amazing from the start, and now she has some help from our newest team member, Shuyun, so we have double-epic art.

"I am also pleased that we managed to make another game that is innovative rather than just imitating something else. Innovation is one of the things that makes games fun. When there are so many ideas yet to be explored I find it sad that a lot of companies believe in taking the ‘safe’ option and not letting their designer’s creativity run wild."

What updates do you have planned once the game is launched?

"Well, we expect to add more boats, cities, heroes, and bosses. Because the game is still in development we think we will get everything in before launch, but no doubt one or two things will get left on the cutting room floor for future updates.

"We want to run a small Beta, so we can see what things people would like to see in the game, I think it’s really easy to have your own ideas of what people want more of in your game, but those can be way out of line with reality.

"I think Tiny Dice Dungeon would have benefited with more connection to our players early on, so we don’t want to make that mistake this time round.

"So if you want to try the game, get in touch with us. There are only a limited number of slots, of course."

What made you decide to run a beta version of the game, rather than have it soft launched?

"We originally planned to do the Beta then the soft launch, but in the end we did the soft launch anyway. Despite that, I think that engaging players who are really active gamers and giving them the tools to make suggestions to us will only serve to make the game stronger.

"I think your readers are the kind of gamers that can really help make the game’s balance perfect, and pick up on the things we don’t see anymore since we have been looking at the game every day since the start of the year.

Also, we really value our player’s feedback, in fact we are adding some of our most active Tiny Dice Dungeon players to our new game as collectable heroes!"

How can players sign up to the beta?

"Just email us at [email protected] and ask to join the beta. Then if you are selected we will get back to you within a week. We are running the Beta on both iOS and Android, but please let us know which platform you will be playing on.

"The game will launch in just under four weeks on iOS, and some time later on Android, so we are looking to get help making those last changes before launch!"

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