Hills of Glory 3D developer interview

There are loads of addictive and fun games available from the Windows Store, but over the past month, Hills of Glory 3D has been the one I’ve turned to repeatedly when bored.

Hills of Glory 3D puts you in command of a military bunker, where you’re left to defend yourself – using rifles, machine guns, flame throwers, mortars, air strikes and more – against an army that gets increasingly more difficult to beat.

The graphics are the first thing that stand out about Hills of Glory 3D, and it looks fantastic. There’s a cartoon quality to the game, but all the details are beautifully and lovingly rendered, and the design helps to keep things light hearted.

To fire at oncoming soldiers, all you need to do is tap the enemy you want to shoot. Sounds simple, right? It is, until you realise that there are hoards of them heading in from all directions, some with armour that need shooting multiple times, and some bringing tanks and heavy infantry with them.

Michel Bams, Co-Founder at Mando Productions, the developers behind Hills of Glory 3D, explains:

“We liked the idea of having to hold a position, and facing increasingly numerous waves of enemies. We thought from the beginning that the game shouldn’t be realistic – nor serious – and preferred to have a layer of humour. Inspiration came from movies such as Inglorious Basterds or M*A*S*H.”

“Then, when we started to work on the design, we decided to work on the humorous route even more strongly. In the end, we’re happy with this ‘cartoony’ look.”

You’ll be awarded ‘money’ for different things in the game – looking after your armour, killing a specific number of enemies, for instance – and succeeding will be followed by a promotion and the ability to buy better weapons, such as the aforementioned flame thrower.

It’s a weapon that Michael is particularly proud of, telling us: “We like the flame thrower very much, although I have to say that the idea came through our publishing partner AMA.

Designing the game wasn’t without challenges though, and Michael adds:

“Our main challenge was to find the right balance. It had to be fun but challenging. So all the tuning was focusing on progression: neither too hard nor too easy. And we knew that our audience was going to be composed of core and casual gamers, so the challenge was really high.”

The hard work of the team at Mando has paid off, and Hills of Glory is one of the most addictive games I’ve tried in recent months – it literally gets played until my Lumia’s battery dies.