[Interview] Ankit Kumar Dhillion | Creating a with Lovecraftian Deck-Building Roguelike with Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness

“Nothing bad about this spill!”

Just because WASD Live 2024 is now over and the doors are closed until the next event, the fun is far from over. With many games played and lots of developers and publishers to speak to, in today’s interview, we’re joined by Ankit Kumar Dhillon, the lead developer and creative behind the upcoming deck-building roguelike that is the The Last Spartan: Glory over Madness. From forming his very own studio with BAD Spiele Studio to working in flash, here is our complete WASD Live 2024 interview:

Ankit Kumar Dhillon | Creating a with Lovecraftian Deck-Building Roguelike with Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness:

Miketendo64: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role with BAD Spiele Studio?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: Sure, my name is Ankit Kumar Dhillon and I am the founder of BAD Spiele Studio, I started this studio alone and made Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness alone since January 2023 to August where after Gamescom showing of my game, I  incoporated the BAD Spiele Studio UG in Berlin, Germany, with the goal to delve into the shadowy realms of Lovecraftian lore, meticulously crafting strategy games that merge haunting atmospheres with intricate storytelling, all brought to life by me and my team who are all devoted and immersed in the dark romanticism that will define our titles as I now direct everything and have a 3 people team including me to keep making Last Spartan.

Miketendo64: Can you elaborate on your full involvement with Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: As mentioned I created the game engine, and the whole game myself up until Gamescom 2023 whereafter I could have a team of 2 more, one artist and one animator to help me reach the goal of our 300 Enemies, 300 NPC, 700 Dice Faces ( cards ), 10 Gods, 20 buildable town buildings etc and we are actually 50% there already in assets and will launch early access at this point in August 2024.

Miketendo64: With development for Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness starting in January 2003, what inspired its creation?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: It began in January 2023, but in my head it began in January 2022, when I lost someone dear, and the game is dedicated to them and inspired by them and my love for H.P. Lovecraft’s work, I actually call my engine Lovecraft Game Engine but when we release the game engine to public we might go with more typical name don’t know but back to the topic, yeah so after that who else to face and beat the madness of eldritch horror then the most gritty and willed Leonidas, the king of Sparta! And that is where it all began to form!

Miketendo64: Can you provide us with a brief overview of what Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness is about?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: The game sees you playing as the titular Last Spartan as you battle through a story-driven campaign where keeping a grip on your waning sanity becomes increasingly difficult as you do battle with more and more enemies that draw inspiration from Greek mythology and the Lovecraft mythos. From the Darkest Dungeon and Slay the Spire comparisons, you’ve probably correctly guessed it’s a roguelike with deck-building elements. The only difference here is that your deck is actually a set of customizable dice, with each face acting as a slot for a different ability. There are over 700 dice faces to discover, allowing you to develop and learn numerous synergies to suit your preferred playstyle.

Aside from the dice, you will be accompanied on each run by an ally Greek god. There are over 10 of them, although they won’t all be unlocked immediately, and each provides distinct active and passive abilities. With them, you can develop different strategies for dealing with the many foes you encounter.

Miketendo64: Who is the main protagonist of Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness and what motivates them?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: The main Protagonist of my game Last Spartan, is the legendary Leonidas, king of Sparta himself, and his motivations are defined and made clear throughout the game as a true king, ridden with guilt, fear, and anger as he couldn’t save his spartans and saw all of their dye and seeing his motherland in the grips of madness he fights all the emotions with his great will and carries on to find and end the source of this all, the eldritch god himself.

Miketendo64: If you had to compare Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness to another game, what would be its closest match in terms of gameplay or theme?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: I would say Last Spartan is a lovechild of Slay the Spire + Darkest Dungeon.

Miketendo64: With each run of Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness allowing you to start with a different Greek God by your side, how does each God differ in terms of how they assist the player?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: Well, you can think of them as different classes, each provides different active and passive abilities and a starting deck of dice. For example, if you have Athena, you can reroll 3 times instead of 2 in battle, if you have hades, you gain sanity from winning and deal damage equal to your damage multiplied by lost sanity, so a very risk/reward god, while Ares, is the balanced all-rounder providing more HP and armor in every battle and more.

Miketendo64: Can you tell us a bit more about the city builder mechanic in Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness and how it functions?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: Yes, the city building mechanics is that of a roguelike, every time you  dye you are resurrected at the statue in town where all your rescued people are, you can put them to work collecting resources as you go on runs, and coming back, use the resources they collected and you found in your journey to build and gain more and more advantageous buffs.

Miketendo64: Built on an engine of your own making and utilising Flash, what prompted the use of Flash in the first place?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: I love Flash, I started as a Flash game developer and used to sell Flash game licenses to different gaming websites if you can remember in your childhood, Newgrounds, Armor games, and Y8. That paid the bills, and allowed me to grow into a 10+ year career in game industry and hence, when I started my own studio, I made sure to build a backend of Flash as a throwback but also because its great.

Miketendo64: Lastly, would you be so kind as to list all platforms Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness is coming to?

Ankit Kumar Dhillon: Sure, for Last Spartan news, you can always visit us at BADSpiele.studio and see more about the game, but in short, it’s coming to PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and iOS.

For more WASD Live 2024 content, be sure to click on this link here:

About Last Spartan: Glory over Madness:

In this deck-building roguelike, you’ll customize and build your own dice set to use in turn-based battles as you explore a dark, randomly generated world, full of new enemies and encounters on every run. Experience a story-driven campaign! Fight for your Sanity and defeat the Lovecraftian horrors.

Last Spartan is an epic, ambitious, single-player strategy game with rogue-like deck-building gameplay built around custom dice-building mechanics! Choose your god allegiance and build your dice set to dive into intense turn-based battles.

Build and customize your dice as you battle and explore a dark, randomly generated world, full of new enemies and random encounters on every playthrough.

Face new and unique enemies on every playthrough, from a pool of 70+ Unique enemies and 10+ Bosses. Inspired by Greek mythology and Lovecraftian mythos.

Encounter new random events on every run from a pool of 100+ NPC with every decision/choice made during the conversation, leading to unique rewards, blessings, and curses that last for your whole run.

Full of exciting and unique encounters and narrative events as you carve your own path toward the final battle. Fight for your Sanity and defeat the newly arisen Lovecraftian horrors.

Choose your ally god from a pool of 10+ Greek gods, all offering different active and passive abilities, allowing for different builds, playstyles, and strategies.

Collect new and powerful 100+ Artifacts through various random encounters on randomly generated maps. Granting permanent stats/abilities for the rest of your roguelike run.

Collect 70+ unique dice faces as rewards for winning turn-based battle encounters. Dice faces can be used to customize your dice deck as you progress on your roguelike run.