Chatting with Mark Ng, Programmer & Co-Founder of Clapfoot Games

I loved Foxhole from the moment I logged in. Persistent and open worlds are the quickest way to my heart right now. In case you don’t know, Foxhole is a top-down shooter set in a never ending trench warfare world! After passing an e-mail to the head dev, I got a few of those burning questions I had about the game answered. Maybe one of yours is here too? Read about some of what’s in store for the future of FOXHOLE! Huge thanks to Mark for getting back to me with these answers! Indie devs are the best for this.

Q. What inspired Foxhole? Games? Movies? Books?

More than anything, Foxhole was inspired by our love of historical war narratives. We wanted to make a game where one could jump into a large scale war, work with lots of players to win, and come out with a cool war story to tell.

There are certainly aspects of TV shows like Band of Brothers or games like Eve-Online that we really admire.

Q. What made you choose the top-down perspective? Will there be more camera control in the future?

We chose the top down camera perspective because we wanted the entire focus of the game to be about strategy and working with others. We asked ourselves early on what would be the presentation format that will allow us to do this most effectively. With a first person camera, a lot of our attention would be spent on immersion and physical realism.

Q. Foxhole obviously requires some deliberate preparation to be successful. How much time should players expect to spend on logistics versus actually engaging the enemy?

We don’t have an exact number on how we want to split the two aspects of the game, but early on set a goal of wanting the game to have long periods of build up followed by bursts of explosive action. This way, the action would have weight and stakes would feel high during battles.

Q. Another time question, Foxhole is a persistent, unending experience. That said, what kind of time investment can players expect to accomplish something concrete like conquering an outpost? How about an entire map?

It really depends on how players on both sides are playing. Our hope though is that on average it takes in the order of hours to take over a Town and days to conquer a map region.

Q. Do you have any additional factions planned beyond the Wardens and Colonials, or have you ruled that out?

Nothing planned right now beyond Wardens and Colonials in terms of playable factions.

Q. How are you planning to balance team sizes? Will there be any mechanics or incentives to encourage team choice?

Team balance is a tricky challenge for us. Our main goal with Foxhole is not necessarily to make a perfectly balanced game. Rather, we want to enable players to craft their own war stories and feel like they are part of a high stakes battle. That said, balance is important to ensure that players feel like they have a fair fighting chance.

Q. Are there any funny or particularly memorable moments from developing the game that you can share?

Yes. There used to be a bug in the game where vehicles sometimes floated upwards after players exited them. I laughed every time I read “I got out of my Truck and it flew away” on our Discord. Luckily we fixed that bug.

Q. What does your ideal vision for Foxhole look like? What do you hope the game looks like when it’s ‘complete’?

We hope to have hundreds of players all fighting in the same war and be able to come out of it with all sorts of cool stories to talk about.

Q. What is the best way for fans to help Foxhole succeed at this point?

The best thing that fans can do is participate in the community and to tell others about Foxhole. It would also help a lot if they bought the game once it’s released into Early Access :).