Tyto Games comes back on Kickstarter with another unique and colorful project, GladiGala. A tactical 2-4 player arena game that uses their ingenious magnetic panels!
We had a chance to learn more about the company and their latest game in the following interview:

Interview with Tyto Games

1. What inspired you to go with this Gladiatorial theme?
   Being from Israel we recently went on a family trip one weekend to the Valley of Ella area in southern Israel. They restored a beautiful arena there which even had a caged area in the middle of the ring with a tunnel leading out! Bind that together with the childhood fascination with the era and honor that comes with it, and bang!, you have a great family theme that works perfectly with our INSYNC system: skirmish, simultaneous and challenging but not too gory.
2. GladiGala uses your innovative magnetic cards/panels that we experienced in Stone Daze. Did you implement this mechanic right from the start?
   Yes, apart from being just right for the mechanics, the magnetic cards proved to be a big success in our first exhibition in Essen SPIEL’18. Adults appreciate their handiness and kids love the look and feel of an App (we like to refer to them as an app with adrenaline). In addition, the response from fellow designers and the industry as a whole, including Tom Vasel and likes, pretty much made it a natural place to start.
   
3. This release is also your next addition to the INSYNC series. How did you come up with the series and can you explain the concept in more detail?
   Tyto Games’ general strategy is to publish one game from our INSYNC series and one from our INGEN series, alternating between them. This allows us to alternate and streamline smaller games and projects like Azimuth with larger and more elaborate ones like GladiGala. So, yes, currently the innovative magnetic cards work perfectly with INSYNC and would probably continue to dominate the stage.
4. What was the greatest challenge that you faced during the designing and development of the game?
   Introducing new variables to a working mechanism is always a challenge. Stone Daze, our previous INSYNC, enjoyed great success and had its small advances, like personalized special actions per cave(wo)man. In GladiGala, on top of balancing out the genders better, we also added core mechanism with management, particularly coin resource for using special actions, upgrading Gladiators and on top of that creating and assessing alliances between players in the 3 and 4 player modes.
5. The game has a vibrant design and expressive characters. Which one is your favorite?
   My personal favorite is the dagger character. She’s swift, agile and can give you just the edge you need to cut through the crowd’s noise and reach your opponent’s eagle first, making a big leap towards winning the Medal of Eagle and having a good chance of winning the whole match!
6. What kind of gaming experience do you want to create to players and for what kind of gamers is it suitable for?
   We at Tyto Games believe in a fun yet deeply strategic gaming experience which is accompanied by zero downtime and the shortest rules possible. That is why we use the INSYNC system in the more intricate designs, it just does a great service to easing out the multiple cards being read during a match and any need to go back to the rulebook. Everything is there on the table, ready for action in no time! But, and this is a big but, there’s no light headedness in this game and our other INSYNC gamers will testify and do so willingly for both Final Act and Stone Daze. These are very complex scenario simulations achieved with a simple rules set. Yes, sorry, we’re very proud of INSYNC and we try not to fluff our own feathers but INSYNC with the magnetic cards makes the game feel like an App on adrenaline!
7. What is your favorite element or mechanic of the game?
   That has to be the scene by scene action-packed environment created by the simultaneous action as opposed to other turn-based games.
8. What’s a fun fact about GladiGala?
   Gladis by itself is a funny term. It’s the nickname of the game’s characters or as we like to call them, Gladia©tors. They are actually performing a show and so enjoy eternal lives!
9. Which part of the crowdfunding experience do you enjoy the most?
   FEEDBACK, definitely the appreciation of all the hard work that goes into a campaign, especially since it is all done with four hands is amazing. Add to that a cherry on the top in the form of a random friend or colleague lending a hand without us asking and it is a mesmerizing experience. There a lot of good people out there, especially in our hobby world of gaming.
10. What else can we expect from Tyto Games in the future?
    WOW, that’s a big one. So much and it so frightening to even think about it but as bridging the gap between the generation who created technology and the one using it is part of our ideology you can expect from us, when time and budget permits and when the market is ready, a crazy hybrid board game that will bring many digitized kids back to the table, and when I say kids I don’t mean agewise 😉