Gravitee Wars is a space-themed artillery game currently in development by FunkyPear. It is a follow-up to a popular series of Flash games that was released in the period of 2007-2015. FunkyPear is a two-person indie game developer based just outside of London, UK. We started as a Flash game developer in 2007. After a 10 year hiatus, Gravitee Wars will be the developer’s first release on Steam.

Rose: For someone who has never heard of your game, how would you describe it without using the usual genre labels?

Gravitee Wars is a physics-based game where you have a team of little astronaut-looking dudes, scattered across a level of planets and other spacey elements like suns and black holes. You take turns firing missiles at the enemy astronaut-looking dudes and those missiles are affected by the gravity of the planets. As you hit the enemy units, the planets get destroyed, and the dudes get knocked into space, land on mines, get electrocuted by shields, and generally trigger lots of cool chain reactions.

Rose: Where did the idea for this game come from?

This is a sequel to a Flash game series we released between 2007-2015. We wanted to make the best version of the game we could, and add in all of the things we didn’t get to add before.
The original Flash games came about because I was building a little physics engine, based around planetary gravity, just for fun. It was quite an organic evolution. I added a ball that would be attracted to nearby points. The points got changed to planets, and then it felt right that the ball should bounce off of the planets and eventually come to a stop on a planet. Then the idea came to turn it into a golf game, where you’re aiming for a hoop on a different planet. So that was the first Gravitee game. I did another golf sequel (Gravitee 2), and following that I decided to make it into a game more like Worms, where you’re still using the same gravity, but with little astronaut-looking dudes, missiles and explosions.

Rose: What makes your game different from other games in the same space?

Well, the artillery genre is not as popular as it once was. Even the latest Worms games are avoiding the genre. But the standout element is definitely the planetary gravity, as well as the destructible planets. The gravity combined with the other level elements, like mines and wormholes, mean you end up getting these crazy chain reactions happening, which is really satisfying to watch and leads to totally unexpected mayhem.

Rose: Was there anything you had to cut that you still secretly wish you could put back?

In the previous game, Gravitee Wars Online, we had a really cool ‘custom weapons’ feature. As you played through and levelled up, you got points to spend on your custom weapon. You could make weapons that split into clusters, or fire multiple shots at once. Add fire damage, radioactivity, etc. It was really fun. But because you could end up with a super powerful weapon, it meant that battles with high level players would end really quickly, as the whole level got destroyed in one shot! Low level players would sign up, and then end up not being able to win a game, so they’d stop playing.
So, we won’t be launching with that feature. We’re likely going to add an update after launch where players can build custom weapons and play through a campaign where they can have that destructive fun without it ruining the game for everyone.

Rose: What is something players probably won't realize took an absurd amount of work?

In the earlier games, we really wanted to add a story that you play through as you have these battles, but we didn’t get time to add it in. So in this sequel, we decided to add a proper story that explains why you’re taking part in all of these battles. We had already decided to make the game using 3d assets (even though the gameplay is 2d), so we thought ‘why not have full 3d cutscenes?’. As it turns out, writing a whole cohesive story, building the different locations and scenes, spaceships, and so on actually takes quite a lot of time! If we’d realised at the beginning it was going to take so long, then we’d likely have scaled it back a bit! But we’re proud of it, now that it’s (nearly) done.

Rose: What is the weirdest bug you've encountered that you almost wanted to keep?

We had one recently where when a missile went into a wormhole, it came out of the connected wormhole really big. Like, a little meteor would come out the size of a planet. As we’ve built this game a few times now, in this sequel we haven’t had too many unexpected bugs like this, but that one definitely surprised me.

Rose: Is there a particular emotion you wanted players to walk away with from your game?

Is ‘surprise’ an emotion? With the unexpected chain reactions that I mentioned, new players tend to get a lot of that. For example, you’ll shoot a weapon, and it’ll knock a dude flying around, and they’ll land on a mine. A few seconds later, that mine will explode and send that dude flying off again. He’ll land next to another dude, dead. Dead units detonate themselves, so the dude he landed next to will fly off again. He’ll land next to a barrel, which will explode and send a mine flying off which might land next to yet another dude… and so on. You just get these set ups where you have all of these explosions happening and triggering another set of physics interactions.
We recently took the game to the Glasgow Indie Games Festival in Scotland. The people that played were mostly friend groups, playing local multiplayer. They’d shriek as they blasted their friends into space and trigger these unexpected chain reactions. As a developer, it’s just a really rewarding thing to see people experience that joy.

Rose: What's one piece of advice you wish you'd had before starting?

I gave myself the advice of definitely not spending over two years making this game. I wish I’d listened to myself.

Rose: Five years from now, what do you hope people remember about this game?

Just that they had fun playing it. Plus the invaluable life advice; aim for the feet, and don’t walk into a mine.

Rose: Why should someone watching this go play your game today?

Well, we’ve currently got a demo out with a funny little story to play through. We’ll be running some multiplayer beta playtests in the next couple of months. We’ve used no AI, we’re going to have no microtransactions in it. It’s a labour of love made by two people, and we’ve spent far too long on it.

Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?

I don’t know if there’s some deep lore or in-jokes about the name ‘probably a game’. I think you likely mean it at face value, but I can’t be sure. So the best I can confirm is that it's probably probably a game.