The author of the original Eador: Genesis is Alexey Bokulev. For a more complete view on this: Alexey joined Snowbird to work on the international release of Eador. Masters of the Broken World as lead game designer.

And

The original game was started in 2007 by a games designer Alexey Bokulev, who managed to create the 2D TBS strategy called 'Eador' almost alone.

In 2010, 'Eador' was released by an indie Russian publisher Snowball Studios in the retail as a limited edition with a bonus soundtrack [...] Then it was decided that 'Eador' deserves the chance to conquer the Western markets. The reasons were simple: it's a great game, the press and gamers love it (average game rating was around 80%).

Thus was started The Masters of the Broken World (MBW) project. Lead game designer is the same Alexey Bokulev, who created the original game from the scratch, but he isn't alone anymore - Unicorn Games (developers of XIII Century: Death or Glory) is in charge of the technical stuff like AI programming, new graphics and interface, etc. while Snowbird Games (formerly known as Snowberry Connection. Yes, we aware that some of us have a weird passion for snow) is acting as an overseer of the production process.

By the way, in the second interview, Vladimir Tortsov mentioned that the original Eador was available only in Russian, while (as non-Russian speakers know well) that is not the case, or at least not anymore.

Anyway, for those interested in supporting the making of games of the kind Eador belongs to (solid turn-based strategy), the fact that Alexey were to be involved with further Eador games would be only secondary, compared to questions like: Is this the kind of game I like? Does it have a good quality (is it free from crippling bugs)? Is it free from intelectual property issues? Is the pricing right? Is it fun to play? Do I want more games like this to be made?

Edit: format.

Boggles my mind to see the Eador series, a deeply loved one, gettin' so much negative attention (when it comes to MotBW, for sure).
Hope this one makes justice, for all, and for once!

Riiight, guys?!

Guys?!

;(

I've got it on Steam, only played a very early build and not very far...Looked nice, no bugs for me (but that was for a very short, limited play). Now that it's actually released, I'll give it a proper try. Won't buy it here unless I really, really like it! I'm hopeful though...

So it seems to be a case of poor technological choices, or a shift from being the programmer to being the lead designer... since Bokulev was able to make Genesis work without any major issues (the only issues I ever encountered were bad design decisions, such as the insanely crippled save system), but I don't recall any actual bugs.

One trend I noticed in many modern games is that they put so much focus on fluff (hardware-optimized special effects, high frames per second, large resolution textures, detailed 3D models...) that they suffer in stability department. On some hardware they don't work at all, on other hardware they stutter and crash, and maybe they work well on the hardware/platform they were tested on, but only there.

Couldn't they instead focus on making the game work first, and then add fluff as optional for people who have the exact hardware they were testing on, or extremely similar?

I mean, at least in case of turn based strategy games I'd say most players prefer good gameplay and bug-free experience even at the expense of "modern" graphics. And I don't even mean they have to stick to 2D. There's plenty of 3D games that look good and work well. The problem happens when the developers keep adding fluff when the core of the game isn't working properly yet, or if the core works, but fluff breaks it.

Thats right, no one would complain about it ( and even no one himself would'nt mind having some extras)
but having extreme weapons or abilities can't be called a nasty bug or a crash, this would be a nice 'feature'

The Steam version of the previous game ran well for me, I did not have any issues with my first playthrough, although it must have been significantly patched by the time I bought it.

I expect Imperium to eventually get fixed as well, but I won't buy it on GOG, I think the Steam version is a much safer choice when this game and developer is concerned.

my favourite game ever, played it almost a year non stop when it came out. Made by one dude, 3,50 $ on release.

saw no reason to play broken world, but this is interesting me, because it at least is a new game. (not just the same in, to me, uglier and slower 3D)

I've up-voted your post, because of the references given (and the new stuff learned). What are your answers to your questions?
(as a reply to your questions: I bought both steam&gog releases because I like the uniquess of Eador and I'd like to see the saga, continued)
I've always thought fluff is the easiest part of the enterpise. At least, it can be done in parallel to the non-UI(i.e. core) stuff.

This does not vibe with what I heard from a hard-core Russian player of Eador who kept living on the Snowbird boards during MotBW development (also did beta testing for them). Perhaps it was a "honorary" position, since mobygames actually does credit Alexey with work on MotBW: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,569080/

There's another early involvement of Alexey mentioned on destructoid, but that's basically pre-production cycle:
https://www.destructoid.com/preview-masters-of-the-broken-world-209470.phtml

Again, as far as I am aware, based on information from some hardcore fans of Genesis, Alexey Bokulev had no involvement in actual development of MotBW. Assuming this information is accurate (and I see no reason why the greatest fans of the franchise would lie about such things), perhaps he regained the trademark rights or whatnot and was initially involved in pre-production. Certainly not in actual development, and the credits on mobygames are likely due to MotBW being a very close remake of the original.

This alone makes me suspect of the accuracy of the citation. Eador: Genesis had a fully translated English-language release at the end of 2012, around the same time the article was written.

Frankly, anybody interested in the history behind Eador's development (and Snowbird Studios ownership) would do best to discuss it with some Russian fan of the series, since most of the information is unavailable in other languages.

Edit: Also, I'd be far more inclined to buy a game from Bokulev because he has proven his excellence as a designer with Eador:Genesis (basically a one-man project that still outshines the full remake, with better technology and much larger production crew, years later.)

Edit2: Forgot to mention that in 2013 Bokulev was already working on another project, "Gremlins, Inc" ( http://gremlinsinc.com/videogame/ ). The pre-production began around the end of 2012, and the game was already in actual code development by mid-2013.

Wow, that Gremlins, Inc looks interesting! Thanks for the informations!

It depends. Things like artwork can be developed in parallel and without affecting game stability. Things like graphics engine and generally the code responsible for handling the artwork - not so.

While theoretically, the graphics engine and the gameplay (game logic) code should be separate, when it comes to bugs that cause the game to crash, or otherwise not work properly, I would usually blame graphics rather than game logic.

Why? Because developers optimize the graphics heavily, while optimizing game logic isn't that common. Well, theoretically in a typical game you have three or so computationally expensive things:
- graphics
- physics
- artificial intelligence

In Eador we have no physics, so that leaves graphics and AI. I guess AI counts as core, so ok, there is some core functionality that is important and computationally expensive at the same time. But anyway, optimizing either of those increases the complexity (because instead of using the simplest solution, you use the fastest solution), and therefore makes bugs more likely. Also, hardware optimization and platform-specific optimization is the reason why the game works good on some computers and abysmally on other devices, despite them having similar specs.

For me, some of the more annoying bugs in MotBW was the fact it would usually crash to desktop after about an hour or two of playing, without apparent reason. On lowest graphics settings. On higher settings it would last shorter.

Therefore, I would conclude that there were some memory leaks or other such minor and inconsequential problems that were accumulating over the time I was playing, to a point when there were enough minor problems to cause a major crash of the game. And apparently graphics were related to that, because higher settings crashed faster.

Also, most other bugs I encountered related to graphics as well (textures not showing up, water being invisible, or even the entire screen being mostly black and distorted until I switched to higher settings and back to lower settings which would temporarily fix the issue.

Regarding graphics: I asked "OpenGL or DirectX game?" on steam - http://steamcommunity.com/app/477730/discussions/0/135507548129258276/. No reply so far.

Hi there. For me the answers sum up as yes, I liked the original, I want more games like this to be made and I am glad that they would reach a wider audience. Also the enhanced version added the allies DLC, so why not trying it. Plenty of bugs on release, then much much better, at least on my machine. The developers claim that they have learned their lesson; it is up to each one to give them a chance or not. I certainly want to play more...

What is more difficult to understand is the sheer hate.

You know, those people who love a somewhate obscure music band/writer/whatever and then when their object of admiration becomes known to a wider audience they became angry because that is not their own special group/writer anymore? Or rather, they feel they are not so special because now they like something that everyone else likes as well.

That would explain a portion of the hate. Along with the farfetched arguments that make no sense for justifying it that some provide... Wow, it is just a game, love it or pass, but so much emotions... I would tell them: Come on, guys you will continue to be special in your own unique way...

Sadly busted: http://snowbirdgames.com/blog/?p=2660

Well sad but true.
Look...they used the same engine and all their games crashed a lot.At some point they even admitted in a Q&A that it is an engine problem,plus an amd gpu compatibility problem.the new team mentioned that there is also a memory management issue.The game sometimes requests more than 2 gigs of ram,an amount that the 32bit operating systems will not give to the program causing it to crash.That would explain the crashes in larger maps.
So, all in all, it is really sad when people lose their job and income.As for their customers,the new team seems to be active on the latest game Blood and Gold,which means that the other games will probably be left as they are now.Good luck to all of you who bought Imperium and a GJ! to the guys who defended the developers that "they will fix it" .
A lesson to be learned...never accept a half finished product with the promise that "it will be fixed someday TM". As consumer,s we pay and should demand a finished product.