From Flix to Phantom: An Interview with Mark Thomas and Peter C Ruth II

I recently reached out to Seal Team Flix and Phantom Division Designers Mark Thomas and Peter C Ruth II to answer some questions in regards to the upcoming release of Phantom Division and the journey from Seal Team Flix to Phantom Division.

Wade: Phantom Division is being published by Phantom Horizon. Is that just a weird coincidence or is there more to the story?

Mark: Elzra (of Catacombs fame) wanted to branch out fantasy dexterity games, so they launched a sci-fi game imprint. They chose to combine words from the first two games in the lineup, but the second game has since been renamed. I think it used to be called Event Horizon. Neither Pete nor myself had anything to do with it. We did, of course, come up with the name Phantom Division, which was kind of an amalgamation of Ghost Recon and The Division.

Pete: No coincidence. Basically, Aron wanted to have an imprint for his sci-fi stuff as the Elzra and Catacombs are primarily aimed toward fantasy “swords and sandals” fare. He and I have had discussions about how he wants to expand to an ecosystem, or IP universe, which supports this and more games. We came up with Phantom Division and he made the Horizons moniker to dovetail with it.

Wade: What, if any, feedback from players of Seal Team Flix impacted the development of Phantom Division?

Mark: I’d say the biggest takeaways from player feedback were that we really needed a better rulebook, and that the minigames were a real highlight of the experience. Phantom Division does feature a vastly improved rulebook and has more minigames than STF. Only two from the original game return, the time bomb and the e-Lock Bypass. Both work in the same manner as before, with the exception that when playing on Hard difficulty, the time bomb demands that you “cut” the wires in a specific order. This small change really ratchets up the pressure!

Pete: The rule book will be far better laid out, and not so much repetition. We also took some things out which were found to be a bit too difficult and didn't add fun to the game. Mark and I are absolutists when it comes to “cut anything that reduces fun”.

Wade: Dexterity Games can really be about the physicality of the components. I love the wooden elements in the game and the Neoprene Gamemats seem like a logical evolution. In regards to the side boards and the gamemat, I assume they have different texture/resistance?

Mark: The neoprene mats are fantastic for flicking. The trade-off of having to build the map every time is well worth it, and the maps themselves can be assembled in much less time than you might expect. I think you could set up and tear down Phantom Division a LOT of times before you could assemble one set of SEAL Team Flix. As for the sideboards, they do use cardboard as before, and yes it’s different flicking on it. The experience is great on both surfaces, and since they are used for different game functions, they don’t really diminish each other.

Pete: This game is superior in every way and we have made good use of the new format. The game is infinitely easier to set up and tear down, the components also are rock solid and don't fall apart on accident, and best of all, we have new geometries to flick, each with their own physics.

Wade: The development time on Phantom Division has been significant, which has given you plenty of time to tweak and adjust things. Has it been hard to find a spot and say “That’s it, we can’t add more stuff.”

Mark: Ha! That decision came down to cost and time, as well as just not wanting to overwhelm people. You can have too much at once. We have a lot more content planned, and hopefully we get a chance to release it. Phantom Division could easily be twice as large as it is now.

Pete: Generally, Mark and I will come up with a ton of great ideas and then as the development cycle expands, we reduce the scope and toss things into the “expansion” or “die” piles, as it were. Some of the best ideas about this game are carry overs from concepts we had for expansion material on STF. We were under budget and editorial limitations for Flix but this was much more open ended. So, we got to do cooler stuff, but not all of it fit with the “world” and others just ended up being not fun. If it ain't fun, it dies.

Wade: Speaking of expansions, anything you would like to highlight about the Phantom Division expansions: System Soundbar Nightclub and Powell Spaceport?

Mark: The Nightclub is my favorite map in the game (even among the ones not yet shown!). It is the spiritual successor to the infamous Hotel map from STF. That map had a printing error that unfortunately made its survivability a real challenge. The Nightclub is difficult but the tactical choices are really interesting, particularly when you use a Breaching Charge to make your own door! There are a lot of ways to navigate this map.

The Spaceport is a spiritual successor to the Airport map from STF. It features a long hallway portion of the terminal, a central locked guard post, and the rest of the map is extremely open, making enemy line of sight particularly threatening. Players will need to bring their long range flicking skills for this map.

Pete: Airport and Office were my favorites from Flix, and Airport especially because you get to shoot through a window and tag a Tango while holding a hostage. The entire map was designed on that premise. I love the idea of long shots and now, with Spaceport, you have that feel but now you have multiple ways to approach because of the new insertion sideboards.

Wade: What is your least favorite part of the game creation process?

Mark: Probably when something has to make the transition from “fun game you are designing for your friends” to “product that can sit on a shelf.” There are a lot of concessions that have to occur, and while many times they are for the better, sometimes they aren’t.

Pete: Waiting. Waiting on proofs, samples, edits, text changes to be printed, and the neverending proofreading. Mark has the mind for those kinds of details so he really has done an exemplary job of dialing in the rule book.

Wade: What's your favorite Dexterity game?

Mark: Since I’m not going to say it’s one I made, I will go with Dungeon Fighter. I think the variety in it is really amazing, and the artwork is great as well.

Wade: Well, I’ll say it, Seal Team Flix is my favorite Dexterity game. It’s the only game where I was willing to do arts and crafts in order to play it. And it is one of the only games I have ever soloed.

Pete: If it's not Crokinole, it's Flix. I didn't make a game for people, I made a game for me, so Flix is hands down my favorite non-drinking dexterity game. I like the one where you “push a ring to land on a hook, and if you're successful, you push the shot of whiskey one space towards your opponent” as well. I also love the game I played as a kid with Army Men and rubber bands, which I’m sure most have played.

Wade: Did you guys set out to make a tactical shooter with dexterity elements or just seem like they logically went together?

Mark: STF started out as a more standard grid-based combat game, like Descent. We had it working, but it was fairly uninspired. I think Pete had spent a weekend playing Crokinole or something, and had the idea to incorporate dexterity into the game instead of the dice combat that it had been using. It was an immediate hit, although it introduced all sorts of new problems, like how to make the maps. Later on, I had the idea to spice up various objectives with the sideboards. It felt much more fun than just spending an action defusing a bomb, for example.

Pete: The long short is that seal team flix was a spec game - Zev wanted a “Call of Duty” game in a board game. Being a dedicated tabletop war game lover as well as a lover of dungeon crawls, I went to work. It took about four years or so to get a decent game going but it wasn't great. It was like so many other mediocre Descent knockoffs. Then I brought on Mark to try to see if we could work out something better. It came along but it just totally lacked the COD feel. I sat and pondered the core of what makes COD worth playing, and it was that it was a skill game. I immediately thought of Crossbows and Catapults, then my mind went to Crokinole, and then it all came together. I loved the idea of making every aspect of the game a skill test (versus rolling a die and calling  it a skill test) so I came up with some ideas and Mark added his own, and that was Flix.

Wade: One of my favorite games of all time is Tenchu on the original PlayStation. I imported the Japanese version before it was ever released in the U.S. and spent weeks sneaking around trying to complete missions without ever being spotted. Can you (eventually, with unlockables) make a complete stealth build in Phantom Division?

Mark: With the right loadout, you can be extremely quiet in Phantom Division. Getting through an entire mission without stirring up any trouble would be difficult though, as sometimes the threat level can raise without you actively making noise. I look forward to seeing what people come up with.

Pete: You can, but you're fighting an uphill battle. When I play games like Far Cry, I try to stealthily do things so I absolutely am in favor of this. We added melee weapons and stealth kills to this game, so you theoretically could, but it's so much more satisfying to make crazy flicks and pull off one in a million shots. We wanted to make this game way more flexible in that you can try your best to be quiet and pull off a win, but the enemy gets a say in it, and we made them way more interesting and unconventional this time, without adding complexity.

Wade: I was so disappointed when So Very Wrong About Games did the Phantom Division playthrough and pulled the “Go Loud” card. I wanted to really see the stealth in action.

Mark: It seems like that card is going to be divisive. My intent for it is to be a nice change of pace, getting to use some equipment that you might not normally use due to how loud it is. That said, if people want the traditional approach, they can just ignore that card and draw another Plot Twist.

Pete: This game and Flix are really two separate games in one - sneaky thief and kinetic chaos. They aren't really separable because the idea is that you are nice until it's time to not be nice. It's really kind of an ambush simulator if you're clever about it.

Wade: Mercury Bombs look like a real bitch. How often can you guys pull off defusing a Mercury Bomb? And will there be an alternate way to defuse Mercury Bombs using the dice system?

Mark: The Mercury Bomb is very difficult! In fact, the game now has two versions of it: a simpler version without holes, and the advanced version that only comes out via a Plot Twist card. It’s much easier to defuse the standard version now. As for how often I can do it… I’d say I can do the advanced version pretty well, depending on how much caffeine is in my system. There is a trick to it, but I don’t think I’ll reveal that here! I think Pete was working on a dice variant but I don’t know what its status is.

Pete: I want to see people fail to get better, but as Mark points out all the time, not everyone is me and has freakish steady hands. So, we made it much easier on easy mode. I would beg your readers to TRY hard mode because doing hard things makes for a better experience and develops character, but if not, remember that we made this to be fun and if you can't do something so often that it ruins the game, we're the ones who made the mistake.

I'd like to thank Mark and Pete for taking the time to have this conversion and I wish them the best of luck with the release of Phantom Division. As of publication, you can still late pledge for Phantom Division at https://www.hiveinteractive.net/projects/phantom-division-168