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During our time at London Games Fest's New Game Plus event, we caught up with Joe "Stampy" Garrett to learn more about the Minecraft and Hypixel challenger, Reforj, which is currently in-development by 4J Studios.
"Hello everyone and welcome back to Gamereactor.
Today I'm in front of the 4J Studios booth for Reforj at London Games Fest, the New Games Plus event.
I'm here with Joe, or better known as Stampycat, to talk a little bit about the game."
"So Joe, first of all, tell me a little bit about why you wanted to get involved with Reforj.
What's so special about this game?
So I actually joined before it was Reforj.
So 4J Studios were working on their own engine called the Elements Engine."
"And they brought me up to the studio and were like, hey, this is this technology we're making.
We don't know what game we're going to make, but this is cool. Like, look what it can do.
And then they kind of mentioned the idea of maybe kind of consulting or kind of, you know, maybe every few months giving some feedback."
"But it was right around the time when I was finishing doing YouTube, which is what I used to do.
And I was like, hey, I got time.
And so I've kind of come on as the design team.
So one of the first things I was doing was kind of coming up with, you know, with the team."
"What genre is the game going to be?
Like, what is the setting and what is the world of the game going to be?
So I was kind of right there from the start to kind of help make Reforj kind of what it has ended up becoming so far.
And how is that experience?
You know, you have so much past experience working in Minecraft and creating community around that."
"So how has that creeped into what you've done here?
And how has it allowed 4J to really take Reforj to the next level, should we say?
Yeah, so, I mean, one of the fun things that we're working on at the moment is 4J Studios has a history of making minigames.
They made a lot of minigames for the console edition."
"And so I really look at games in terms of I love, like, system-based games.
I like taking a game, this is our game, and I'm like, oh, that's cool.
I'm going to make my own game inside of it by using these systems in maybe ways they weren't intended.
So one of the things I'm always trying to push for to the team is, you know, rather than adding a thing where it's like this is a thing and it does one thing, it's, oh, no, let's add a system or a mechanic that's versatile enough and we'll see what the players end up doing."
"You know, a good example is there's like a blaster which anything in your hotbar you can just fire.
So we didn't just say, oh, you can fire blocks.
We said, oh, anything.
You could fire a workbench."
"You could fire a torch to light up caves.
You could fire an explosive device to blow things up.
And because rather than just being one thing that does something, it's like a system just added to the sandbox.
So that's kind of always where I'm trying to push the direction of the game in is to kind of have really open, versatile mechanics because the engine can handle it as well."
"So it makes that sort of that sort of gameplay works really well.
And tell me a little bit about the Elements engine as well, because it's one of the, you know, one of the most exciting parts about ReForge is this engine behind it and what it allows you to do as a studio, I guess.
Yeah. So what it's really good for is it's a voxel based engine, does procedurally generated worlds."
"The worlds give the effect of being a sphere.
They're technically not, but they're about four kilometers by four kilometers.
But if you keep walking in one straight line, you'll end up right back where you started.
So it's kind of like these little globes."
"And then the plan is not in the game yet, but we're getting there, is to create these gateways that will link several of these worlds together.
So say if we had an update that's adding new structures or new ores to the game, rather than create a new save or having to like wander miles in the distance for new terrain to generate, you could just hop through a gateway to then discover these new worlds."
"And the engine's really efficient at loading these worlds.
And for multiplayer worlds, the saves are really small.
So it's kind of really built specifically for this type of game that we're making.
And it's been in the hands of players for a little while."
"I think it was last April that it first sort of made its debut, but it's obviously got a long road ahead of it as to where you want the game to be.
So what does the future look like for ReForge?
Yeah, so at the moment, we recently went open on the Xbox Insider Program."
"So at first it was kind of like invite only or used to apply.
Now anyone on Xbox Series X or X can play for free through the Xbox Insider Program.
And so the next big step will be early access.
And that is when it will be coming to PC as well."
"And then maybe not at the same time, but it will also be coming to PlayStation as well.
So the goal is Xbox Series S and X, PlayStation 5 and PC, and then early access.
And that's kind of when the doors will be open.
At the moment, we have a nice group of players that are giving feedback, a very dedicated core group where we can listen to every bit of feedback."
"And the idea is to kind of gradually scale that as we develop the game so we don't get too overwhelmed with too much feedback immediately and getting pulled in too many directions.
So it's actually working really well so far."
"I suppose with the platform as well that you've created and the foundation that ReForge has built upon, the sky's kind of the limit with what you can do with it.
So how do you rein yourself in and say, like, you know, we want to prioritize this for the moment."
"We'll get back to this crazy, kooky idea later.
I don't think we do very well.
Like, we know we have the long-term plan.
We know there's some big things we want to have, like vehicles."
"The engine's really good at vehicles. We have vehicles in the engine.
They're not in the game yet, but they were in kind of previous demos that were created.
So there's like that we know we're going to have.
We know we're going to have gateways with these big tentpole things."
"We know we're working towards them.
But in terms of like the smaller things, or things we can implement like a little bit more quickly, so like kind of new mobs or new like quality of life features, like we're really fast to adapt to that."
"You know, because we're listening to the community so much, like any like little suggestions or like, oh, add furniture or things like, I know I'm saying little suggestions and the rest of the team probably watching this, like I worked two months on that."
"You know, things that are a little bit easier to implement than things like vehicles.
We're very agile, and so we can add that stuff quite quickly.
And so we have the big picture. We know the world."
"And we have kind of that line.
But in terms of the little smaller parts that we're taking, we're purposefully not locking ourselves down too much.
Because if we spend months and months working on a thing, and then we show it to the community, and they're not interested in it, or they say, oh, it could have been like this, we've just wasted loads of time, right?
So we're literally sharing, you know, if we're working on a mob, we're showing it in gray box stage, or we're showing concept art, and we're getting feedback then before a load of animators are animating it or adding sounds to it."
"So that's kind of the way we're trying to develop, and it seems to be working.
Well, there's a final question then, Joe.
So obviously you're looking down the route of getting the game into the hands of more players relatively soon."
"But as of where Reforge is right now, what's one part of the game that you think perhaps isn't being talked about enough, but that you really would like people to start talking about more?
I think one of the things is, so we have sculpting."
"So it's a voxel-based engine, but that doesn't mean that all of the shapes are voxels.
So you can sculpt them, it has slopes, it has curves, you can do vertical slabs, and it's like an obvious thing, but compared to other sandbox survival games, the types of shapes that you can do and the fine detail that you can create really changes it."
"And we find that people that, like me, might have a history of playing a lot of Minecraft, when they first start playing the game, they kind of have a lot of muscle memory like in Minecraft, and they kind of build very similar things to Minecraft."
"But then once they play for a little bit longer and they learn the tools, they kind of realize, like, oh, actually, the way that I always did roofs, or the way that I did doors, I don't need to do in that way, because I have these other options available to you."
"And so it's kind of fun seeing players, they jump in, and they're very familiar from playing other sandbox survival games, and then they kind of work out what's different and unique about the building, and it kind of really expands the types of builds that they're able to create."
"And then there's some amazing 4J Studios builders who build crazy things.
It blows my mind every day, it's so quickly.
We did a stage show with building of Weatherspoons on stage with an observatory and stuff that he built in like half an hour, which was crazy."
"Well, for more from Reforge, you know where to find it, all on your local Game Recs region.
And again, as well, there'll be plenty more information because, again, the idea is to get the game to hands of more players relatively soon."
"But yeah, thank you for joining me.
Joe, thanks for having me.
And we'll see you on the next interview."
