MAHER CHEBARO SAGRILLO: I think games are very important to people as a medium

Your recent creation is Cryptic Explorers, "a competitive, asymmetrical, sci-fi / horror tabletop board game for 2-4 players.In Cryptic Explorers, 1 to 3 players take on the role of Cryptonauts (explorers of the unknown), tasked with entering the Realms of Death to steal occult knowledge, and escape back to Earth. Each Cryptonaut player customizes and controls their own squad of individual units. Opposing the Cryptonauts is a single Deity of Death player, a malicious and powerful Goddess who seeks to kill all the Cryptonauts before they can escape with her Realm’s occult secrets. Cryptic Explorers has all the depth and asymmetrical overlord-vs-heroes play of a dungeon crawler like Descent, combined with squad-based tactics and unit customization (similar to XCOM), all rendered in a malevolent sci-fi / death metal / horror aesthetic."

Sounds very interesting, especially the death metal and occult parts. Could You explain more the story behind this game?

Thanks for your interest. A friend and I started this game in Florida (USA) under the name "Necronauts". We were really interested in making a game, originally, about cave exploration, using oxygen tanks and trying to survive underground. Eventually the idea, after prototyping, moved towards a turn-based tactical combat game. I am very much a fan of black metal, death metal, and other extreme subgenres of heavy metal, so I thought it would be interesting to combine the aesthetic you find on old metal album covers for bands like Blasphemy or Darkthrone and make an entire game look this way, with a "necro" aesthetic. We are also huge fans of turn-based tactical games like XCOM: UFO Defense, and that was a huge inspiration. We decided that instead of using XCOM's model of "aliens try to invade earth and you stop them with soldiers" we would do "you invade the land of Death and try to steal occult knowledge and escape". The theme fit the highly-mortal nature of games like XCOM, where your soldiers die suddenly and often, and the aesthetic seemed to be a cool match for that too.

Board games are almost the same intellectual level as chess. Do You like chess? How did You start to create games?

I do enjoy Chess quite a bit! It's the basis for many turn-based tactical or strategy games, even till this day. I started making games for fun as a child, then attended school in Florida to work in 3D art for games. I decided after graduation that I preferred to work on design and making wild game ideas a reality. My friend Elisha, same designer who worked with me on Cryptic Explorers, worked with me during college, and we made a little atmospheric platformer called "After Years in Dark Tunnels" (actually named after an Emperor song - so more heavy metal). This got us into making games to actually release for other people, and the game currently has something like 100,000 plays on the web. Pretty cool!

Also, the death metal and music in general are very important in the game. Are You a musician, have You ever played or are playing in any band? If yes, could i know more?

I am not a musician and have never played in any bands, but I like to think I have heard almost all the heavy metal that is out there, though that seems impossible! I love every genre from black, doom, sludge, drone, thrash, death, grind, classic NWOBHM, you name it. There are great examples of every style out there, and metal musicians are still making new, fresh examples of the music, lots of great things coming out every year. I listen to a lot on bandcamp nowadays. I like to bring my passion for extreme metal, and the dark/occult metal aesthetic that often comes with it, into games. It's not something that has been done very much, and it excites me to do. Extreme metal and metal in general are pretty niche, so that makes it a bit difficult to sell, but there is overlap between nerds/geeks and metalheads, as metalheads are often nerds. :)

Did You also listen to Lithuanian metal bands?

No problem! Admittedly, I do not know many, or if I do, I did not know they are Lithuanian. I know Obtest (pagan / black metal band) and like them very much. I think they are from Lithuania. Thundertale also (power metal). :)

How could You philosophically evaluate the realm of games? There are various ones. Pokemons and shooters, RPGs and many more. Why do people need them so much?

I think games are very important to people as a medium. They used to be a kind of nerdy thing, but now everyone plays games, tabletop and video. They offer immersion and interaction, visual art, and challenge, and people enjoy all of those things. There are more complicated opinions on games than mine found in the works of people like Baudrillard, but to me they are a combination of entertainment and artwork. I love most the games that immerse me, challenge me, pit me against other people, and offer a novel world or atmosphere to experience. Naturally, for board games, this means I usually lean more towards "Ameritrash", but I like a lot that in recent years the idea that theme and narrative are fun has been combined with the "Euro" style of elegant and mathematically deep mechanics, so the dichotomy of Ameritrash vs Euro seems to be going away. Our game is definitely Ameritrash, but little in the way of chance, and a lot of decision making and complexity, so it's still very different.

Thank you!

Thank You!