Earlier this month, we shared with you a preview of the online card battler that incorporates the dark fairy tails, that inspired many of the popular Disney Films, with deck-building mechanics like Hearthstone and Magic.
After a fun and semi-addictive demo, we spoke with the creators of the game Josh Krassenstein and Kourtney Hoffman of Static City Games. During this interview, we asked about the inspiration for the World of Grimm, what their plans are for future content, and if there will potentially be a physical card game. Get our interview below:
Josh Static City Games Interview
Matt: Hi can you introduce yourself to everyone?
Josh: Hi. Yes, my name is Josh. I’m the lead developer and Studio Head at Static City Games.
Matt: With being the Lead Developer, were you the original creator or did someone pitch it to you?
Josh: World of Grimm is our own idea, our original IP. We were actually sitting watching Futurama and I looked up all of a sudden. I always wanted to make a card game. Never had any idea what I wanted to do with it. When I looked up, I saw a book; it was the Grimm Fairy Tails book. And I went what about this? This one would work. So we just ran with it.
Matt: What episode of Futurama was it or what was going on?
Josh: I don’t remember what episode it was honestly. I think it was something with Mom. I think Mom was in there. Yeah.
Kickstarter & Balancing
Matt: So with creating this game you had to balance things, how did you manage to balance the health, mana, and attack system?
Josh: I think I have a large amount of knowledge of card games. Growing up I played games like Hearthstone, Magic the Gathering, and Pokemon, just all that stuff. I think, there was a lot of planning, man. I think I have like a thousand hours on Steam. Enough of that is going, oh, that turned out to be too strong. Also, we were able to figure it out thanks to a lot of feedback from Kickstarter backers and everything like that.
Matt: So when did you launch the Kickstarter?
Josh: The Kickstarter launched in October of last year (2023). We raised 12 thousand dollars which was past our goal and enough to get us you know, Literally kick started.
Matt: Has the Kick Starter continued to grow?
Josh: Yes. So we have about a thousand players right now on the game on Steam. With it coming out this past Tuesday; I think it’s pretty good numbers so far.
Matt: With it being early access, is there a date that you want to have everything finished by? Like an official launch date before you consider bringing it to other platforms?
Porting/Expanding
Josh: So the game is going to be growing and constantly evolving with new cards every week. A big thing with early access is that we can get good feedback from all the players in the community. We were a pretty big discord community as well. We wanted to make sure that everyone has their input and we hold their input as a valuable resource on the same level as ours. So we’re looking six months to a year before it goes out of early access, But it’s not gonna stop having new content.
Matt: With it being on Steam have you thought of putting it out on other consoles or even a physical card game?
Josh: Yes, actually we have. So, we put out fellers and come up with ideas for physical cards if there’s enough hype behind it. Same thing with Android and iOS, if we have enough players on Steam, we’re gonna bring it to mobile and make sure that it gets the exposure, that it needs. If we put all the resources into Android and iOS and it doesn’t have the backing of players behind it, then it’s wasted energy.
Matt: With Steam, sometimes porting a game to their store can be a headache. Did you encounter any problems with that?
Josh: We are using the gaming version of Unity; Unity has a quick export for Android and iOS. With iOS, it has a couple more steps to go through now, we don’t need to own a Macbook without buying the developer tokens; there are a bit more loopholes there, but Android’s pretty easy to get on to.
Public Domain & Stories
Matt: With you saying that there’s going to be new cards every week, are you going to stick to the World of Grimm or expand as it grows?
Josh: So in the game with an entity known as The Dark One. You played against the Dark One in the tutorial. What he’s done is he’s opened up portals all over in the different worlds/realms and all these characters are coming together. That’s why Cinderella and Snow White are in the same world now. With that, he’s going to open portals that may bring in Hans Christian Anderson stuff or the Wizard of Oz stuff. Public domain is Public domain. We can take it from everywhere and make this game huge. We’re not close to done with the Grimm Fairy Tales; there are over 200 stories from the Grimm Brothers.
Matt: What is one story that you really want to work with that you haven’t worked with yet?
Josh: Meaning stories? So there is actually a really interesting story that’s called the Griffin; it has like four or five different characters that we can import in and we just haven’t gotten around to yet. But it’s one of my favorite stories in the Grimm Brothers world and we definitely need to.
Follow
Matt: Where can they follow you?
Josh: They can follow us anywhere, Static City Games. If they are curious about anything, they can check out the game on Steam, World of Grimm. A QR code can be found in the game to access the Discord.
Interview with Kourtney Hoffman – Static City Games
Matt: Hi, can you introduce yourself?
Kourtney: Hi. My name is Kourtney Hoffman. I am the main Game Advisor and Co-owner of the studio of Static City Games. I’m also the co-creator, for World of Grimm.
Matt: Do you do any of the artwork in the game?
Kourtney: No but we do have quite a few artists from all over the country. Maybe one day I’ll be good enough, be a really good artist and I can do that also.
Matt: With you being an advisor to the game, what have you picked out/pointed out that they needed to balance, work on, and give ideas?
Kourtney: Yeah, so in our Discord, we have our art feedback. So I’m involved in every art piece there is. I am really into the Grim Brothers stories. So very small details mean a lot to me. And if we can get a few details within the art piece, that’s definitely where I come in. Also, I kind of make sure that our relationships with our artists are as good as they can possibly be.
Favorite Grimm Fairy Tail
Matt: You obviously have a love of Grimm like Josh. Do you have a specific story that you like?
Kourtney: It sounds cliche, but it is Snow White; that’s why she’s so big on the poster Snow White just really hits home for me. I grew up in a similar situation and it was so wonderful to just see that she persevered. She’s just amazing. And, you know, she builds other people up, and that’s a great quality. I mean, she does get a little bit of Revenge. I will say it is the original story. That’s the really good one.
Matt: So I originally did not know about the Grimm Brothers Fairytales. It wasn’t until I started watching the shows Once Upon a Time and Grimm.
Kourtney: Wonderful shows. Wow, that’s awesome. It definitely highlights a lot of the complexities of the Grimm stories. The Disney version makes them very family friendly and I have kids so I appreciate that to a certain extent.
Goals for the Company
Matt: What are your goals or where do you want to see the company go?
Kourtney: My goal, a quick goal, is for the game to become an actual tabletop version. I think it would be amazing to have a physical card game that we share with everybody. Something that everyone can enjoy. My long-term goal is that everyone knows the game, joins the Discord, and that we can work on it forever.
Matt: Any possibility we see a physical version at PAX Unplugged?
Kourtney: Yes, possibly.
World of Grimm is currently in Early Access on Steam; the game launched on March 19th on Steam and has been positively received.
