The psychedelic grand tactics of Cantata: an interview with Afterschool's Kyle Kukshtel

pcgamesinsider.biz:

“Cantata is our first game together as a full studio, but different cross-sections of us have worked together in the past on everything from short films to VR experiences,” explains Kyle Kukshtel, co-founder and creative director of Afterschool Studio, when we interview him in August.

Afterschool Studio describes itself as a game development studio “dedicated to creating art-forward, systems-driven games that allow for expressive player experiences.” Clearly, strategy game Cantata has a striking artistic style, as well as a deep blend of game mechanics.

Kukshtel previously co-founded the Emmy-award-winning XR studio Scatter and is a prolific writer on game development culture. Cantata – a passion project inspired by the likes of Advance Wars – is his first game with Afterschool Studio. “We all wanted to make a ‘real’ videogame,” he continues. “So we got together for Cantata, which was a huge learning experience. But I think we were able to build tools and workflows that allowed us to punch above our weight class.”

At the game's launch by publisher Modern Wolf this month, we quizzed Kukshtel about his vision and what makes the game distinct.

The thing I mention most internally is thinking about games as cooking something that needs a reduction, like a sauce or spinach or a leafy green. You throw a lot of stuff in the pan and then sort of let it simmer and reduce. What’s left is a potent mix of the ingredients, but the mass itself is much less than the initial product.

So, I view it as this process of throwing a lot of things together, cutting liberally to find the core of the idea, adding more, and so on. If you participated in Cantata’s Early Access period, you definitely saw this first-hand. We’d add major features or