OK COOL · Dom Schott

Vom Genre-Klassiker Battle Brothers zum Nischenhit Menace: OK COOL trifft Paul Taaks

·1 hr 13 min·5 clips

Dom Schott meets Paul Taaks, whose games Battle Brothers and Menace consumed his last ten years of free time.

1. OK COOL host Domschat interviews Paul Taaks, co-founder of Hamburg's Overhype Studios, about the development of Battle Brothers and the new sci-fi tactics game Menace. 2. Paul Taaks co-founded Overhype Studios with his brother Jan; he previously worked as a concept artist at Hamburg's Big Point browser-games company before founding the studio. 3. The episode's central question is how two brothers with no game design education built Battle Brothers into a genre-defining classic, and what drove them to pivot to a sci-fi setting for Menace. 4. Paul explains that Battle Brothers began as a desire to play X-COM (UFO) set in a medieval fantasy world, leading him and Jan to decide: 'nobody is making this, so we have to.' 5. He studied geology at the University of Hamburg from 2001 to 2009, chose it partly because game design degrees barely existed in Germany at the time, and completed his diploma thesis at a gold deposit site in Chile. 6. After graduating, Paul applied simultaneously as a concept artist and as a geologist, and was hired immediately by Big Point, where he spent five years before founding Overhype. 7. At Big Point, Paul's first two years were thrilling because he was being paid to draw for video games, but multiple projects he worked on were cancelled before launch, leaving nothing publicly online after five years. 8. Battle Brothers was developed during evenings and weekends for approximately three years while Paul maintained his Big Point job; he only quit three months after Battle Brothers entered Early Access in 2015, once income was confirmed. 9. His daughter was born during this three-year parallel development period, which he describes as 'a bit wild' but manageable because the project could have been abandoned at any time. 10. The studio was invited to visit Valve's Bellevue office twice — once in the old building and once in the new one — after a Hamburg-based Valve employee who handles legal matters made contact, initiated by fans of Battle Brothers within Valve. 11. Paul describes walking through Valve's offices and seeing dedicated team spaces for Counter-Strike, Dota, and Team Fortress, and taking a photo next to the red Portal orb in the entrance area. 12. Overhype briefly considered requesting a Games Workshop license to make a Warhammer 40K tactics game, but abandoned the idea after other licensees warned that Games Workshop must approve every new enemy type, item, or design iteration before it can enter the game. 13. Paul confirms that Battle Brothers was never given a review score by the host, who believes subjective criticism is more honest, but he says it has achieved 'Klassikerstatus' (classic status) in the turn-based tactics genre. 14. The host describes Battle Brothers' combat system: squads of individually named mercenaries wield weapons with material-specific strengths, axes are most effective against unarmored heads, and spears penetrate chainmail more effectively than leather. 15. Paul notes that the characteristically legless, bust-like appearance of Battle Brothers' soldiers was a direct cost-saving measure: no legs meant no leg animation, conserving resources during the bootstrap development phase. 16. Menace shifts Battle Brothers' formula to a sci-fi setting with voiced characters, 3D models, and a ranged combat focus replacing the medieval close-quarters system. 17. The Overhype team is currently beta-testing a new late-game crafting system involving robot constructs in Menace, using a 100-person Discord group curated by publisher Hooded Horse. 18. The conversation is conducted in a warm, biographical interview style with the host sharing personal anecdotes — including his first email address '[email protected]' — and Paul speaking candidly about burnout risk from constant multitasking. 19. German-speaking fans of turn-based tactics games, indie game developers curious about bootstrap funding and game design origins, and Battle Brothers players interested in Menace will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners with no interest in tactics games or German-language content will find little of value.

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