Culdcept Saga team members Aaron and Norbu respond to the questions posted last week:

I think a lot of people want to know about the possibility of updates, fixes, additions, etc. Are these realistic possibilities? Although it is becoming more common to see patches for console games it is still relatively rare to see and probably requires a lot of time and resources to accomplish. Certainly, it would make the fans happy but is that alone enough to justify the expenses. (I hope so, but understand we have to be realistic and the product is already pretty darn good.)

At this point, there are no plans to make any updates or patches to the game.

When I first played Culdcept Saga I thought it was very strange that the opponents hand was not completely hidden. I personally think their hand should either be viewable at any time or never shown at all. I understand playing multiplayer on a single screen this is a problem. Can you give some commentary on reasons for and against hands being hidden vs not hidden.

This was a design decision from the very beginning. When playing some games like poker or black jack, you can have a very different experience in terms of strategy based on what you know or don't know the other players hold in their hands. Being able to see your opponents cards serves a couple of functions. First off, it lets you see and learn about cards you may not have acquired in the game. It also allows you to learn how the AI may think and strategize - for example, some AI Cepters may not ever use certain cards, even though they have them in their hand (*cough*). Additionally, being able to see what cards your enemies have adds the strategy when you are deciding whether or not to go into battle, or even what items to utilize when a battle begins. If your enemy has a Battering Ram that you think they might use, you may want to equip an item to destroy it. Of course, you might end up wasting an item when the computer uses none. That's what makes the game so intriguing!

What are your favorite deck types/makeups and why?

My favorite deck types lean towards heavy usage of Magic cards. Simply because those are the most fun to use and also can change the tide of things if you have the right combinations at the opportune time. This is also based upon my strategy and theory when making a Book. I always strive to make maximum use of my turn at any given time. Hence, I place emphasis on Magic cards which can be cast rather freely. You'll notice that your win will dramatically increase if you construct your Book so that you do not waste any given instance. I believe this is a core concept which can help any makeup or strategy Book our players are building.

Now that the game has been released in the US, can you confirm or deny if Culdcept Saga will be released in PAL regions and if so, when?

At this point there are no plans to release the game in the PAL regions - sorry! :(

What recommendations do you have for amateur game designers? How did you get started? (Not exactly a Culdcept question, sorry)

Well, neither of us are actual game designers per se. However, based on our experiences in the industry, there are a couple of ways that you might want to go about pursuing a career in game design. The first recommendation, is education - a lot of schools are now offering specialty classes in game design, from art schools to universities like USC (GO BRUINS - Aaron). Another option would be to become a QA tester for a game company. Many producers and designers come from a background in QA and bug hunting, as they learn the ins and outs of games. Finally, the last way is to take a different path. Aaron went to business school to get an MBA in marketing, while Nobu speaks fluent Japanese and can work with the teams in Japan.

Have you thought about trying to make a physical board game for Culdcept?

We haven't really discussed it, but it is a very neat idea. The game is rooted in board games, and so it could be a lot of fun!

I know this has been asked/suggested many times: please allow co-op for multiple players on one machine for online matches. I understand the whole thing about one person being able to dominate a match using multiple cepters, but can't this just be restricted to ranked games and allowed during casual games? I know there are many people like my wife and myself that would love to be able to play this way. Also, the ability to join with another player on xbox live and play vs. AI characters would be a huge plus. These two things would really open this game up to husband/wife, father/son, etc. teams. For example: I have a friend with a 10 year old son that would love to play over Live against my wife and I. We bought our xbox thinking this simple thing would be an obvious option...

Well that is a really great idea. Unfortunately, we had to prioritize all of the different options to make sure they could be built into the game and tested within our timeframe for getting the game out to the fans. We will certainly pass along the idea though!

It seems that the computer AI become weaker because they seldom do the movement attack in culdcept saga.

We aren't exactly sure what this question means, but we think essentially that you might have become the best player in the history of Culdcept.

Will there every be Culdcept themes we can download?

At this point, no themes are in the planning stage.

Can they provide us a graphical list of the games cards on the official website?

We will see what we can do, but as the cards are drawn by many different artists, it might be difficult to get every card approved

Will we ever have the ability to create our own maps? If not in this version, in a future version (3.0)?

That is a very nice idea, but it is too late to be included for this version of the game.

Will there ever be an update, so that if someone gets disconnected they will be able to rejoin the game and reclaim control of their Cepter from the AI?

At this point there are no plans for further updates.

Are there any plans to address the shady online connection issues? The AI takeover is great for stopping early dropouts in pickup games, but if I'm two hours into a game with a personal friend, I don't want to lose that because of a hiccup in one of our connections. Maybe there could be an option set when you start the game for "if disconnected wait for reconnect" or something?

This is an interesting idea - however, when it was conceived, we thought of it in terms of making sure if one person dropped out of an online match because they thought they would lose, the other person wouldn't be penalized as well and have to stop playing the game.