Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant, developed by NZ-based studio Thousand Tonic, is an upcoming “story-rich strategy trading game where you will trade goods, earn coins, and unravel a riveting tale.”
We had an extensive talk with studio founder Cynthia about Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant, the games many intersecting systems, the turbulent game development journey, and the recent experience at PAX AUS.
Hey there Cynthia, thanks for joining us today at GamesNight. How was your recent experience at PAX AUS?
This was my first time at PAX Australia. It’s definitely an event with a lot of people, as expected. A lot of attendees. Very well organized, which is great compared to other conventions I’ve attended. PAX is definitely the most well-organized one I’ve been to. CODE (Centre of Digital Excellence), who helped me attend their booth alongside other New Zealand games, gave me an amazing opportunity. The booth they created exceeded my expectations. The booth art really stood out, but it was very exhausting. It was just one of my artists and me. We talked to a lot of people, which was great, and got a lot of positive feedback, but it was definitely exhausting.
Was this your first PAX or an event like this?
No, not the first event like this. I’ve exhibited at several New Zealand events, like indie showcases at Grid Auckland and Armageddon, but those are smaller than PAX. I also went to Gamescom earlier this year with CODE showcasing at the Indie Arena booth. I’d say PAX was definitely the most intense with the most attendees.
Can you tell us about your journey and your studio, and how you got to this point with Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant?
Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant is my first serious commercial indie game project. I started Thousand Tonic, my indie game studio, in 2017. Before that, I’ve always wanted to get into game development. Gaming has been a big part of my life, as it is for many game developers. I started making games as a hobby back in high school. Back in the 2000s, there weren’t as many options for indie development as there are today. I played around with a few game engines, and it became clear I wanted to pursue it as a career, though it was a bit scary because it wasn’t seen as a “real” job back then. My parents didn’t understand it, and there weren’t many resources available.
At that time, indie game development was still a very new thing. Most game development was done by big studios with publishers. So, I decided to take a more general approach and studied computer science in case game development wasn’t a viable career. I moved to Auckland to study at Media Design School, which was my first serious attempt to pursue game development. It was a tough journey, but I was lucky enough to land an internship at Gameloft in Auckland, which was about to become a full-time job. Unfortunately, that’s when Gameloft shut down, and the whole studio was laid off. That was my first real experience with the game industry.
Yes, I noticed your studio has worked on a few smaller browser-based games?
That was when Ten Thousand Coins began. It was hard to find a job at that time because the New Zealand market was flooded after Gameloft closed. So, Ten Thousand Coins started as a prototype in 2016. But as an indie game, it was hard to get started without financial support, so it was something I worked on in my spare time. I also had other jobs, doing contract and freelance work, and even teaching at Media Design School. Back then, funding for indie games in New Zealand was limited. Kiwi Game Starter was one of the few options for early funding, but I applied several times without success, until 2018, when the project won first place and received the award. That was when I realized the project could actually go somewhere. After that, I continued working on the project part-time. In 2020, I worked on smaller games with New Zealand On Air, which were targeted at a younger audience. Our studio released three games that are available on the New Zealand On Air website.
Yes, those helped me through the process of shipping a game, which was valuable since Ten Thousand Coins has been in development for so long. It wasn’t until I applied for the Code Startup Fund, and the results were announced in March this year, that the project really gained momentum. Now, I’m working on it full-time and have brought on two part-time artists to speed up asset production.
Can you give us an overview of Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant?
Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant is a story-rich strategy trading game where you trade goods, earn coins, and unravel a tale spanning two timelines. You play as a forsaken fox merchant searching for her lost mentor. At its core, it’s a merchant strategy trading game. You visit different settlements and barter with traders for goods they produce. Once you fill your wagon, you travel through the wilderness to reach another settlement. Along the way, you’ll encounter various events.
You’ll face beasts, bandits, and other challenges. You can fight them in turn-based combat or try to negotiate your way out. Once you arrive in a new settlement, your goal is to trade your goods for profit, earn coins, and then plan your next move to make even more earnings.
There’s quite a mix of genres, with story-focused parts, strategy, and turn-based combat. Why did you choose these elements for the game?
There are two main reasons. First, I really enjoy narrative in games. Even if the game isn’t fully focused on story, I think storytelling adds a lot to the experience. For Ten Thousand Coins, I wanted to tell a merchant story because there aren’t many merchant games out there, and even fewer with strong storytelling. I wanted to make it a unique experience.
The game has two distinct modes: Story Mode and Company Mode. In Story Mode, you play through the journey of the cast, following the protagonist, Via, as she searches for her lost mentor. You also play as the mentor in a separate timeline. Your trading decisions impact the story and lead to different endings.
Can you explain why you chose the two different modes in Ten Thousand Coins?
I’d say initially, I was trying to combine two different modes together, having the story and the company mode as well. So, trying to incorporate the story with the merchant gameplay, but it’s very challenging to balance. Players might not want everything at once. I modelled it after classic strategy game modes, where you have a campaign mode with missions, but also a sandbox mode where you can explore freely.
With our story mode and company mode, that’s what we were aiming for. In company mode, you focus mainly on trading. You have your own merchant company to build from scratch. You set out on missions, trying different types of missions. Your progress is about making earnings, bringing them back, and using them to build up your company with permanent upgrades.
Originally, you were the founder of the studio and the sole developer. Can you explain your solo journey and your view on that?
Yes, definitely. I don’t recommend being a solo developer if you can avoid it!. A close-knit team of people with different skill sets is ideal. I’d say the magic number is somewhere between two and four people for a small indie team. But sometimes you have to go solo. It’s only viable if you’ve picked up various skills along the way, which isn’t for everyone. I’ve generalized in areas like programming, game art, writing, design, and project management, so a lot of different hats.
If you decide to go this route, it’s very challenging. The hardest part is realizing how long everything takes, even for a small project. For Ten Thousand Coins, it was mostly me working part-time, so the game developed at the slowest pace possible.
But there are rewards. As the sole vision holder, you can make adjustments and changes quickly, as long as you avoid overscoping or feature creep, which many indie developers learn the hard way. Financially, it’s more forgiving as there’s only one person to pay.
However, as a solo developer, you can’t do everything yourself. In practice, it’s more realistic to have a small core team and hire contractors or freelancers for specialized tasks that would take too long to handle on your own.
You mentioned one of your hats is the art side of the game. Did you do all of the art yourself?
Yes, the majority of the art was done by me. For the UI art, I did 100% of it. For the character and environment art, I did about 50% in the current build. In the early builds, I did everything myself, but eventually, I brought in talented artists to help. They polished my art style and made the assets look even better, something that would have taken me too long to do on my own.
Were there any particular inspirations for Ten Thousand Coins?
In terms of gameplay, one of the oldest inspirations would be Oregon Trail. If you’ve played the classic version, it’s about traveling with a limited supply of goods and trading with others along the way while encountering random events. In Oregon Trail, it’s less forgiving, with many of your crew members dying from things like dysentery. That’s the meme of the game.
Other gameplay elements are inspired by strategy games in general. Turn-based combat is definitely inspired by JRPGs, but with my own twist. There’s also a roguelike element, with upgrades that you earn during missions. I really enjoy roguelike games, and that’s a modern influence on the design.
On the story side, I’ve played many narrative-driven games. The style, humor, and writing are inspired by the Ace Attorney series, which is one of my favorites. I also draw inspiration from the anime Spice and Wolf, which has similar themes. For the humor and story writing, I take inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the art style is also influenced by that.
One of the labels on Steam was “Choices Matter.” Is that referring to the story in Ten Thousand Coins or the different options while traveling?
Definitely both. In terms of gameplay, the “Choices Matter” aspect is most significant in the type of goods you carry. I wanted to make sure that the goods in your wagon can be used for a variety of gameplay choices. For example, you buy and sell goods at different settlements, and their value changes depending on the settlement’s needs. Your goods can also be used in combat. If you encounter wild beasts, they might want food, and you can throw some of your supplies to them to get them to leave. Bandits, on the other hand, want more valuable goods, and you can use those to negotiate.
If you end up fighting, you can use your trading goods as weapons or for defense. For example, you can use axes—sharp tools—to throw at enemies, causing them to bleed. Each trading good has unique effects. But of course, using them degrades their quality, so you need to decide which goods to use in combat and which to save for trading. You don’t want to present something in bad condition to a trader in the next settlement. That’s one example of how goods can be used. You can also consume goods if you’re hungry and need to save inventory space, so you need to pick and choose what to carry.
Also, a lot of choices involve the story, which is a big mystery of what happened to the mentor and how Via got into her current situation. So as you play with the two different main characters, a lot of decisions you make in those will change the story, depending on simple things like deciding to trade with this person instead of that person, or keeping this good instead of getting rid of it. So the story could end up quite differently.
When you’re traveling between towns, the enemy spawns—is that procedural at all or predetermined?
Yes, except for the tutorial section, which is predetermined; most of it is randomly generated and based on a threat meter of how long you’ve been traveling and how many goods you carry. The more valuable goods you carry, the more likely you are to attract stronger enemies or bigger groups of enemies.
You mentioned a heavy influence from roguelike games. Could you explain the development process when it comes to difficulty?
I think in terms of difficulty, it’s always hard to balance because you have players of all different skill levels that try your game. I believe something we will implement in the future will be difficulty levels, because that way we can cater to most different groups of players. Ultimately, in terms of balancing difficulty, I think that’s also one reason why we decided not to mix too much of the story with more of a sandbox-type gameplay. It would have been too difficult to balance, whereas with the campaign-like story structure, it’s easier to handle with one mission at a time.
You’re currently aiming for a Steam release. Do you have any plans for other platforms?
Yes, we would definitely like to release on consoles as well. But at the moment, it will depend on whether we can get some kind of publisher agreement. We’re aiming for a release on Steam and consoles at the same time but if we’re going ahead with a self-published route, Steam will be the first platform, with consoles being considered afterward.
In terms of your development timeline, do you have an idea for a release date?
I wouldn’t say there’s an exact window that we’ve announced yet, but we are aiming for late next year if everything goes well. But at the moment, it’s just an aim.
The next big stage of development will be creating all the content for the game. We’re aiming for about 10 hours of content in each of the game modes.
As you mentioned before, how instrumental Code has been in terms of development. What are your thoughts on the current state of the New Zealand game industry?
10-12 years ago, I was still living in Dunedin. There was nothing there at the time, so I had to pack my bags and move to Auckland to find paths in game development. Dunedin is now one of the bigger, more focused places for game development. CODE has been one of the best things to happen to New Zealand indie game development. Just in terms of helping us get started, providing support and funding, and helping bring a game to the next stage. With Code, there are multiple levels of funding. So if you have a very early-stage prototype, that’s something you can apply for. If you have a more late-stage game like I did, there’s also a different type of funding for that.
It’s also not just about the amount of funding they give, but also the opportunities and mentorship they provide, which has been amazing. Over the past year or two, I’ve attended so many CODE workshops that have helped hone my skills as a game developer. They’ve also given me the opportunity to travel overseas to events which I wouldn’t have been able to do without the help from CODE. The indie game development scene in New Zealand is looking very bright.
How can people keep up with you and Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant?
The Steam page is the hub for everything. I also post my development blog there. You can also visit our website, which has links to some of our social media platforms. We’re trying to be more active on Twitter (X) and Reddit. But I’ll say Steam is where the most updates are, especially with our development blog. Please wishlist and follow us if you’re interested in our game.
