I met Alexis Bonte in the press room of the Filmoteca, a sort of audiovisual museum in Barcelona, where Gamelab took place from June 25th to 27th, 2014. The event was crowded with indie developers of all sorts. Alexis, who runs a small yet consolidated company, looked constantly in his element.

After mutual greetings and a sincere handshake, we dove right into it:

• eRepublik was a web-browser game, with few if any graphics (it’s text-based) and millions of players at the time. How is it going?

eRepublik is still ongoing. It may not have the millions of users it had, but there are many committed players that have been playing for years and log in every day, and we have not let them down. We have a team looking after it and making monthly updates, and we plan on keeping it this way for years to come, no matter if we have one million or fifty thousand players.

As long as people play it, there’ll be eRepublik, and there are active communities in Eastern Europe, South Eastern Asia and South America.

• Tactical Heroes brings 3D graphics, multiplayer and turn-based combat to the table. Isn’t that quite a change?

It’s more than a change; it’s a pivot in the company. It’s something we’ve been working on for a long time. Know that in the past years, we’ve killed three different projects before coming up with Tactical Heroes, before finally ending with something that was fun to play. That’s the most basic feature of all.

• How much time are we talking about? Everybody’s talking about retention times here at Gamelab. Two days, a week?

Years. There are players that have been playing eRepublik for seven years; we want the same for Tactical Heroes. It isn’t just a game — it’s an IP. That’s why we focus on multiplayer, since multiplayer creates community. Community is very important for us.

• Tactical Heroes seems openly inspired by XCOM.

Yes, XCOM is a reference, and I myself have been a frequent player — but it isn’t the only one. You can also take Fire Emblem, for example. But [Tactical Heroes] also goes further, adding original features like base building and adapting them to mobile gameplay.

• You can build a base in XCOM, too.

But it has little if any real influence. You don’t defend your base, nor do you have to attack others’ bases.

Base building is important for several reasons. Your strategy depends on it: will you gather a lot of resources and spring for expensive upgrades? Will you invest in defense buildings? How will you place your buildings?

Keep in mind that if your base is poorly planned, I’d be able to raze it with a squad of four rookies regardless of your ranking.

In your review you pointed out that the management features were dull, and I agree. At this moment, Tactical Heroes is really strong in combat, combat, and combat, because that’s what players come looking for. But as time goes on, base building will be more important, and we have yet to see what players do and plot. We’re paying a lot of attention to that.

• Maybe they’ll start to write their names with buildings and it’ll all end like Farmville.

(laughs) That would mean that players are telling us what they want, and we would act accordingly. We’re aware of gameplay balance. Every update brings a lot of new possibilities, and we can’t let it get out of hand. Attack and defense must be balanced: when we added the sniper class, we need an equivalent in defense, and so on. These little things keep a game playable in the long term.

• Are you still adding features to the game, then? Which updates are you talking about? Customization options, vanity items?

First of all, the flamethrower. There can’t be a game like Tactical Heroes without a flamethrower (laughs and gestures like firing a flamethrower). And we are adding new classes, too, both attack and defense. As I said, defense will be more important; that’s something you learn as soon as you have to split your units between attack and base defense.

Customization options are on their way, for sure. Vanity items aren’t a priority at this stage, but who knows if eventually we’re asked for them, or we feel like they can contribute in some way to the game. We’re proud of our design and artwork.

• Yes, that artwork is nice, but graphics seem a little simple sometimes, especially when you’re in combat.

There’s where you can see how many hard choices we have to take, and how we deal with a game that will be always growing and we’ll be always working on. There are several reasons for it: Tactical Heroes’ size is 80Mb. We could make it as heavy as 1.5Gb like some other games in the Store, but that’s runs contrary to the whole mobile idea, doesn’t it?

It also depends which iPad you’re playing on. We did our best to adapt to different performance levels (shows how it rains on an iPad Air), and at the same time give the smoothest possible feeling. See how you can move the camera with finger gestures? We had one guy working on it for a whole week, to it be perfectly precise.

It’s about players, too, about how they play. We learned that new players could be confused by too many elements other than those involved in combat. That’s why the grid is so clearly shown, and we’re so proud of the user interface. We've reduced complexity without sacrificing gameplay depth.

• Indeed, you said (in the game announcement) that Tactical Heroes will bring console gamers to the iPad.

Yes, it will. Tactical Heroes has a great combat gameplay, and all the base building features are innovative. Players will feel comfortable and at the same time play something they haven’t played elsewhere. They will enjoy the solo campaign, which has 20 missions now and will grow to 90 or 100. There’s also multiplayer and online rankings,and we’re going to launch tournaments.

It’s also a bait for mobile players of other similar genres who want something else than attack, attack, attack (referring to Clash of Clans-like games) and in the end have little strategy other than pay to win, because the more troops you can afford, the better your army is.

This isn’t this way in Tactical Heroes because of the ranking and experience system. You know, there are paid features, but if players felt they were the only way to win, they’d leave. A game must be fun and award those who play well, even more so if we’re talking about a tactical or strategy game.

• It will be published as F2P (Free to Play) after the soft-launch, then. Wouldn’t it be easier to slap it with a premium tag and move on?

I strongly believe that F2P is the most honest way to launch a game. You can try it out for free, play as long as you want, and leave.

Trust me, I as a gamer have been fooled many times by $40 games that were bullshit. I want my games to be F2P, because that’s the way I like to play them. F2P also guarantees that the company will back its own game forever, as we do with eRepublik.

This doesn't mean pay-to-win. You have to be very careful to not make a game pay-to-win. It’s a mistake.

• What about tactical games? Are they enjoying a new dawn (as I wrote about here and here)?

Tablets are perfect for tactical games. Although you can’t have intensive modding, you can have user content. Users can arrange their bases as they please, and a that’s a kind of modding somehow, because that mixed with strategy means that every one plays like they want.

• Tactical Heroes is only available for iPad. Is the iPad market ripe enough to be considered a standalone market?

We wanted to create an optimal user experience, and iPad can provide it. Apple has helped us a little, too, which is always appreciated. Anyway, you can expect an iPhone version in Q4, as soon as we get the UX we want.

• What about Android? Is it as much of a nightmare as Miguel Ángel Pastor from Halfbrick told yesterday in the Future of Mobile Gaming panel?

The Android version will come right after for sure. We have an exclusivity period with Apple. BUT, with games like this, the more platforms the better, including Facebook. Multiplatform games get as high as a +20% retention rate. Anyway, games must be multiplatform not only for user base reasons, but also for gameplay: I may be calmly managing my resources and building my base on mobile on the metro, and once I get home, sit comfortably and say “well, let’s attack this or that friend” (snaps his fingers)

• Is that how you make the difference between console and mobile gaming?

Battles in Tactical Heroes last for ten minutes or so. The interface is designed for touch screens, and makes use of mobile features you don’t have in console (like the gesture-based camera controls). You can’t simply make a console game for mobile, it’s nonsense.

However, some console features must be brought to mobile. I haven’t told you about replays, which is a feature we’re very proud of. We’re sure it’ll boost community and encourage long term playing. Imagine successfully assaulting an opponent’s base against all odds and sharing the replay. Isn’t that great?

• eRepublik is a Romanian company. We don’t usually meet Romanian video game companies.

Romania isn't as far out of the video game industry as it might look like. Big companies like EA, Gameloft and King keep studios there, because there’s plenty of talent, especially in regards of programming skills, and the wages aren't exorbitant. It’s a similar case in Poland, though to a smaller degree.

• And you've opened a studio in Madrid.

Yes, we put together a small yet highly experienced team in Madrid who've been working on iOS games since the beginning. They are extremely creative and do great artwork. Indeed, we could say that Tactical Heroes is 100% Spanish, though the customer care, PR and other red tape stuff has been done from Bucarest.

• I like to ask everyone how they see the future of gaming, and you aren't going to an exception. What will we see in, let’s say, five, ten, twenty years?

On one side, technologies will be more and more immersive. Have you played EVE Valkyrie with Oculus Rift? It’s awesome! Those are the kind of experiences we’ll have in the future.

On the other hand, some simple experiences won’t disappear, because time is a crucial factor, and games have to fit our way of life. You may not stay for hours playing at home if you have to go to work. We may not play the games of the future depending on our lifestyle.

Another reason for simpler games to exist is that if you want everybody to play, you need games for everybody.

What I’m sure of is that there will be more people playing every day.

• Any last word for our audience?

Sure! Don’t miss our website www.tacticalheroes.com

• Thank you, Alexis.

As of today, Tactical Heroes is in soft-launch stage, available only for iPad in New Zealand, Indonesia and Spain. It can — and will — be played for free.

This interview was originally published at Appszoom.com, where you can find other interviews and stuff related to m-gaming and apps.

This interview was written and published by Appszoom editor Peter Warrior (@PeterWarrior_AZ), special correspondent at Barcelona Gamelab 2014.