Ten Ton Hamster

Interviewer: Padma Fuller – Ten Ton Hamster Editor
Interviewee: Chris Waldron – Executive Producer Fusion Fall

Ten Ton Hamster was lucky enough to catch up with Chris Waldron, Executive Producer at Cartoon Network for Fusion Fall, whilst he is in Korea working out the details for the game. Fusion Fall is in early stages of closed beta...but don't let me spoil it for you! All the goodies are in the interview so read on!

1. How is Fusion Fall at this stage of Development?
FusionFall is coming along very nicely at this stage. We’re at a point where all of the content and features are in the game. After two years, I still wake up every day astonished to see the world we envisioned! We’re basically in an internal closed beta as we continue to tune and revise and fix problems. We’re also at the stage where we’re changing the things that didn’t quite work as we planned in the design—but that we’re just able to see now. Happy to say that there aren’t nearly as many of those as there could have been.

2. I understand you recently took a trip to Korea. Can you tell us what’s happening in that studio?
I’m actually writing this while in Korea. For the past two weeks, we’ve spent hours each day playing together in a conference room and pointing out areas in the world that need revision, quests that need to have different rewards and different levels, NPCs that need to move from one area to another. Stuff like that. Both the Cartoon Network and Grigon staff are excited about the current state of the game, especially now that the content is in. We all know there is plenty left to do, but we also know we’ve passed a significant milestone.

3. We understand you are going to have a presence at the San Diego Comic Con. What type of coverage can fans expect?
We will definitely have the game available for Comic-Con attendees to take a look at again this year, so people will be able to see some of the progress we’ve made since last year. We will be making some new content available for play and I hope by then we’ll also have another couple of announcements about our launch and technical improvements that I’m very excited about. Members of our Customer Support and Community teams will manning the booth this year, and I know that they will all be very interested in what people have to say about how the game has progressed so far.

4. What are your plans for beta? When can fans expect that phase to begin?
We’re still taking applications for closed beta now. A few people have been let in, but not that many. We have been blown away by all of the applicants we received when we put the call out. When we start opening up the closed beta more in the late summer, we expect to see the beta pool start growing even faster.

5. In recent months, what have been the most difficult aspects of producing this game as you near launch?
Resisting the urge to redesign the game and/or add new features. Every day we look at what we have and say, “What if we did this?” Sam and I are trying to hold on tight to our original design as much as possible, but it’s so tempting to look at new ideas and try to find a way to incorporate them into the game as well.

6. What is the subscription plan for players? Will it be free, have a monthly fee, or microtransactions?
Our business model hasn’t been announced yet, but we are very aware of how important it is to have a significant free component in a kids game. There will definitely be lots of things that players of FusionFall can do for free, and much more beyond that.

Follow this link to the official Fusion Fall website and while you are there don't forget to sign-up for beta!