Paul Kankiewicz, the creator of Grapplers: Relic Rivals, shared insights about his developer journey, the game’s development process, an in-depth look at its features, and what to expect post-launch.
Grapplers: Relic Rivals is a chaotic 2D PVP platformer with grappling hooks. In it, you will engage in fast-paced local PvP matches while unearthing ancient relics and harnessing their power to conquer your rivals. Dodge deadly traps, utilize your grappling hook, activate mystical runes, and master each relic to defeat your opponents and reign victorious in this thrilling PvP platformer.
You can get the game on Steam. You can also read our review of the game here.
Can you tell us about your development journey? How did it all start?
I started playing games at age 5, with my first being Super Mario Bros 3 on the SNES. After my parents sold the SNES at a yard sale, I saved up and bought my own, which was quite a feat for a 5-year-old! As a Nintendo fan, I played games like Mega Man X, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Mario 64. My brother’s passion for tech inspired me to take a programming class in high school. Despite initially struggling, I loved it. Unsure about college, my mom called Nintendo, and they recommended DigiPen in Seattle, a place I’d always wanted to live.
While studying game programming at DigiPen, I worked in QA over the summer breaks on titles like Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise and Rock Band 3 (due to my percussion background). Towards the end of college, I realized my true passion was in game design, not programming. Rather than switch degrees, I completed my programming degree, but shifted my projects to focus more on design.
After graduation, I struggled to find a job in design or programming. Rather than becoming discouraged, I decided to work full-time in QA at WB Games, which worked with Monolith and other studios. I worked extremely long hours—sometimes up to 80 hours a week—but the overtime pay was very welcomed. After a few years in QA, I decided to try my hand at programming or design again. I quit my job and started programming my own game engine from scratch in C++.
A few months later, a former WB Games colleague that had moved over to dev QA at Monolith reached out about an open entry-level designer position. I applied and ended up getting an interview. Much to my surprise, I recognized most of the people interviewing me from working at WB Games. I was offered the job and thus began my game design career!
I ended up working mostly on hints and tutorials on Shadow of Mordor, which wasn’t the most glamorous work, but the experience I gained was immeasurable. I was growing in leaps and bounds, soaking up all the game design knowledge I could – learning how to work on a large team, how to work directly with programmers, and so much more.
I watched a lot of game design videos to learn all that I could on YouTube channels like Game Maker’s Toolkit and Extra Credits, and read various game design books like Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers (which I was actually quoted in as part of a “Caption This Image” contest on social media).
When Shadow of Mordor shipped, we didn’t have a solid plan to support the game moving forward. I don’t think the higher-ups expected the game to be as big as it was; it was sort of a “last hurrah” for the studio at the time. When it became a huge success, they scrambled to figure out how to continue supporting it with DLC and other content. This left me with nothing to work on for a while, so I started reading Confluence pages about mission design.
I followed an old tutorial written by a designer on how to make a mission. I built a simple quest involving killing three orcs in a test level that was just a ground plane. Using my programming background and some trial and error, I learned the game’s scripting system. I then emailed a few higher-ups, including my producer and the head of game design, offering to help make missions in the future if they needed people.
They got back to me that same day asking if I wanted to make side missions for Shadow of Mordor’s DLC. I was flabbergasted, but of course my response was an emphatic, “Hell yes!” I’ll never forget that moment.
From there, I worked on side missions for the Shadow of Mordor DLCs, all of Shadow of War and its DLCs, and even helped with Hogwarts Legacy when Monolith assisted Avalanche Software (WB Games’ sister studio) for about a year. During the pandemic, I left Monolith and joined BioWare as a technical designer on what was then called Dragon Age: Dreadwolf (now Dragon Age: The Veilguard).
Unfortunately, within just a few months of me starting at BioWare, most of my direct team left the studio, which created extra pressure on those of us that remained. I stuck it out for a few years, but it eventually became too much for me, so I decided to leave to follow my dream of creating an indie studio.
You’ve worked on games like Hogwarts Legacy and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. What experience and knowledge did you bring from those projects into creating your own studio and developing your own games?
This might not be what you expected, but here’s my honest answer.
First and foremost, keep your scope small and manageable. I learned this the hard way from watching these games be way too big, even for the large AAA teams that worked on them. Pick a goal and stick with it – it’s so much harder to hit a moving target!
I also knew I didn’t want to work in Unreal Engine after getting a taste of it while working on Hogwarts Legacy. Despite its power and ability to create insanely good-looking games, it’s too bloated for a simple 2D project like Grapplers. I had prototyped in GameMaker while at Monolith and decided it was perfect for my needs. It does a fantastic job at greasing the wheels.
From working with the Nemesis system, I learned the importance of adding personality to characters. Despite the characters in Grapplers being much less fleshed out than the orcs of Shadow of War, I tried to give my characters diverse personalities and motivations to allow players to latch on to one as their favorite.
Finally, I learned lots of level design tricks, but in particular, how important it is to stick to metrics. I tried to design all my levels using certain guidelines that keep traversal feeling good.
Where did the inspiration for Grapplers: Relic Rivals come from?
Back in the pre-covid days, two good friends of mine would regularly host parties where we’d all get together and play all sorts party games. We spent many hours playing TowerFall Ascension, Ultimate Chicken Horse, Smash Bros, Duck Game, and many more amazing games.
I have incredibly fond memories of getting together with friends, building existing or new friendships, and just playing games. I wanted to make a game that paid homage to the times we spent together, and one that could provide that same sort of experience to a new generation of players.
What was your main idea or goal when you started creating Grapplers? Which audience did you aim to reach, and how long did the development process take?
My main goal was to make a game in six months and to learn everything I needed to make an indie game succeed along the way. I had never worked on an indie game full-time, so before I worked on a huge, multi-year project, I wanted to make sure I could focus on making a smaller, much more focused game.
I also knew there would be pitfalls and things I needed to learn about indie development specifically. This same advice was echoed across multiple creators I followed – Pirate Software, Extra Credits, Ask Gamedev, and more, even though I had a AAA background.
The game ended up taking roughly eight months to complete, but one of those months was fully spent creating an LLC and everything that goes into the business side of things. That was definitely one of the tougher months on the project – since I didn’t have time to push the game forward at all, I started feeling really down about myself and the project’s lack of progress.
The game is quite simple to play. Was this simplicity intentional during development? Also, why did you choose grappling hooks as a central mechanic?
Yeah, I would absolutely say the simplicity of basic gameplay was intentional. Separate from the “keep your scope manageable” stuff I mentioned before, I knew going into this that many people, especially my friends, who generally don’t enjoy platformers.
I think a lot of that has to do with platformers typically having very punishing mechanics. I added the grappling hook to combat that. With the grappling hook, you can just point where you want to go, press the grapple button, and go there.
This is a PVP game, and PVP players enjoy high skill caps. I intentionally added mechanics to raise the skill cap: dodging through an enemy’s hop while grappling, grappling hooks canceling each other out (acting as a block), stealing relics and intercepting mid-steal, powerful relic combinations, and multiple winning strategies. This game truly embodies the concept of “easy to learn, difficult to master.”
I also chose the grappling hook as the main mechanic because I could easily make it so versatile. There’s an amazing video by Game Maker’s Toolkit that dives into the dual purpose design of Downwell, which inspired me to give the grappling hook multiple mechanics.
In Grapplers, the grappling hook is used for traversal, snatching relics from afar, stealing relics from other players, blocking other players’ grappling hooks, activating traps and runes, and damaging enemy players when they don’t have relics.
How did you approach level design? Did you first plan where to place the obstacles and traps, or did you follow a different process?
I usually started with a specific idea for a level, known as a design nugget. This could be something unique, like the colorful Chromatic Canopy or Smolderstone Keep with its boulder traps on crumble platforms. Playtester feedback sometimes led to levels with fewer traps, like the Temple of Serenity. I also maintained an Excel sheet tracking traps, platforms, and other objects in each level.
Once I had the general idea for a level, it was on to building it. There are multiple methods to building levels, such as additive vs subtractive design, but I’d generally started by placing walls slowly but surely, keeping metrics, grapple sightlines, and general locations for traps at the top of my mind.
There’s an old story about how Nintendo made it fun to just move around an empty test level as Mario before they made the rest of the game, and I emulated that. I’d load the game up every few minutes, moving and grappling around to ensure everything worked well before progressing. Once the walls were placed, I’d find good spots for traps, playtest the game more, and iterate as needed.
I actually made a few level design timelapse videos of me building some of the levels, so you can check those out on YouTube if you’re interested in seeing the process in action.
What was the design process for the pixel graphics and how did you decide on the game’s aesthetic?
My artist, Nicolàs Pava, handled most of the aesthetic side himself, for which I was extremely grateful. I provided general ideas and requirements, reviewed the art with him, and gave feedback, but all the credit for the game’s beauty goes to him. I knew I wanted a pixel art style similar to Mega Man X, TowerFall Ascension, and Terraria.
What kind of relic combinations can players expect, and how do these affect gameplay?
Midas’ Grasp (Coin magnet) + Gemini Amulet (Double coin value) + Loki’s Keepsake (No coinsplosion) – This combo shifts the player’s focus from PVP conflict to collecting coins efficiently. You become a coin multiplication machine, and with Loki’s Keepsake, you keep all your coins even when you die, as there’s no coinsplosion.
Gaia’s Totem (Plant turret) + Guardian Sprite (Fairy) + either Hellfire Mantle (Flame shield) or Steel Cyclone (Spinning blades) – These offensive relics turn you into a destructive force. You become a spinning, burning, shooting ball of death, making you highly formidable in combat.
Any combination of at least 3 of the following:
- Bubble Bauble (Bubble shield)
- Lifeblood Gem (Extra health)
- Lifespring Vial (Heal over time)
- Guardian’s Grace (Longer invincibility time)
- Aegis of Deflection (Metal shield)
- These are the most defensive relics in the game. When you have three or more of them, it becomes decently difficult to die.
What I love most about these combos (and relics in general) is how they change the strategy of the game. Should you fight players and steal their coins? Should you steal other players’ relics to lower their power and increase yours? Or should you ignore other players and focus on collecting coins while flying under the radar? All of these strategies can work well, depending on the player’s approach, and relics play a huge role in determining the best strategy. Since relics spawn randomly and can be stolen, strategies evolve as each match progresses.
This isn’t in the game currently, but I also had the idea of possibly making certain relic combinations combine into some sort of mega relic – an idea inspired by the Program Advance system in Mega Man Battle Network. Maybe that mega relic can’t be stolen, maybe it only lasts for a certain period of time, or maybe it becomes one single relic that can change hands like a normal relic – the design hasn’t been finalized yet.
Are there any plans to introduce a single-player mode or campaign in the future?
A single-player mode has been one of the most requested features for the game. I’ve had the idea to add a challenge mode where players collect a diamond at the end of a level while dodging traps, with a timer to track their best time. Different levels would have various challenges, and some would even start you with certain relics to mix things up. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to add this before launch, but there’s a good chance I’ll include something like it in the future.
I’ve also rolled around the idea of adding a roguelike game mode where you explore areas and find treasure, with the goal being to escape with the most gold before you die or run out of time. That’s actually close to how this game started – it was a game jam game with very light roguelike mechanics.
What additional content or features can players look forward to in future updates?
Here are some ideas I have for future updates, in no particular order:
- More Levels/Biomes, Options, Relics, Platform Types, and Traps – I have pages of ideas for these, so it’s about deciding which ones would be the most fun.
- Single Player Mode(s) – As mentioned, a challenge mode involving collecting a diamond at the end of the level while dodging traps.
- Other Multiplayer Game Modes – Ideas include Capture the Flag (CTF), timed matches, or winning by gaining relics instead of coins.
- AI Opponents – This would likely require a lot of work but could enhance gameplay variety.
- Dynamic Levels – Levels that adjust or move whole chunks based on player input, such as hitting a button to move half the level.
- Demo Version – A demo so players can try the game before buying it.
- Collectables/Purchasables (using in-game coins, not microtransactions) – Items could include sarcophagus skins, player skins, color changes, coin skins, etc.
- Relic Combinations – Expanding on the existing idea of powerful relic combinations.
Which updates I’ll implement will depend on how much time I have to work on the game and how popular the game becomes.
What is your opinion on Steam Remote Play? Do you think it’s beneficial or not?
I’ve used Steam Remote Play a few times, and while it’s really cool that Steam provides that as an option, it tends to lag a bit too much to be useful in my experience, especially for a chaotic and action-packed game like Grapplers: Relic Rivals. It seems to work well enough for turn-based games, or games that are slower-paced though.
Can we expect similar games from you in the future, or will you be trying something else?
The current plan for my next game is to create an “all in” magnum opus. I made Grapplers: Relic Rivals to learn everything I could about the indie development pipeline and to give my next game the best chance of success. I’ve learned a lot from my failures, as I often do, and now feel ready to work on a much bigger project.
I don’t yet know exactly what this next game will look like. I need to do some market research to determine what types of games will appeal to the broadest audience. However, I have a killer idea for a top-down Zelda-style game that I’ve been wanting to build for over a decade.
(Croatian translation is coming soon)
Hrvatski 
English (UK)