It's a Saturday afternoon in early October of 2005 in what appears to be an old converted warehouse. A hundred or so members of the indie game development community crowd into a darkly lit room illuminated only by the computers lining its walls. The event is what may be the last of four annual Indie Game Conference's (IGC) hosted by Garage Games in Eugene Oregon and running on those computers are unreleased games written by the developers attending the conference. From around the country and even as far away as Europe and the UK small independent development teams have descended on this conference to elicit feedback from their peers about how to improve their games and how to find success as an independent developer.

Among the lineup of games are titles like Determinance, TubeTwist, MarbleBlast Ultra and more. Attending the conference was Josiah Pisciotta, the owner of a small but successful independent developer named Chronic Logic, and one particular game being shown had caught his eye. The game was "Capture the Frag" a 3rd person 3D capture the flag game that showed a lot of promise. "It looked like a real game, much more complete then most of the games that where being shown at [the conference]" Josiah recalls. Digging a little deeper Josiah learned that "Capture the Frag" had been developed entirely by one person, a guy by the name of Scott Thunelius.

By IGC 2005 Chronic Logic had grown into a successful indie game developer with titles like Pontifix, Bridge Construction Set and Gish headlining their growing stable of released games. At IGC they were hoping to find other talented indie developers to work together with to help bring more games to market. After meeting at IGC and discussing the possibility of working together to release a game Scott filled Josiah in on his latest project "Kingdom Elemental" a new take on real time tactical combat games. The two began talking about what Scott's plans were for the game and agreed to work together to bring it to market.

It is now the middle of November 2006 and Kingdom Elemental is about to be released. I had a chance to catch up with Josiah and ask him about the upcoming release, but first a little background about the project up to this point.

Kingdom Elemental is collaboration between Chronic Logic and Scott Thunelius. Scot Thunelius has been responsible for almost all of the game design, art, and development. In an age where most games are created at the very least by a programmer and an artist, this is nothing short of amazing. Scott has been making games for several years but has never sold any of his games or worked full time on them before Kingdom Elemental. Since 2005 Scott has put about 15 months of work into the game, the first 10 on a part time basis and for the last 5 months working full time on it in an effort to get the game finished. To help Scott reach his goal ChronicLogic has "funded" Scott's development in a very indie fashion contributing $1600 to the project for various resources and helping him with some of his living expenses. Josiah and Scott have been working on finishing Kingdom Elemental since the beginning of the 2006 and the game is scheduled for release on November 21st. (*Editors note: This article was written before the games release) The game blends elements from RTS, RPG, and Tactics games with a fantasy theme.

I asked Josiah about his thoughts on Kingdom Elemental and he seemed genuinely enthused about the game. "I have been playing it almost non-stop for months throughout the development process and I am still having a great time [playing the game]" Josiah confessed. He went on to describe how the game can be played for 10 minutes or 2 hours depending on what the player wants but does not require the same time commitment traditionally associated with the RTS and RPG genres. The game doesn't take itself too seriously and pokes a little fun at itself from time to time. "I really like this concept of a middle ground between these well-established game styles" Josiah elaborated, "It fills a niche for people who enjoy different aspects from any of these types of games or people who are looking for a new experience altogether".

Hearing about the challenges facing Scott as he worked on creating his first sellable game, I asked Josiah if he saw any similarities between Scotts experience and his history at Chronic Logic. "The biggest hurdle for getting starting as a game developer is getting your game finishing while supporting your self at the same time" Josiah explained. "Scott had been working full time and trying to develop Kingdom Elemental on the side. About four months ago he took up developing Kingdom Elemental full time." Josiah elaborated on the challenge of creating games when you aren't making any money from it. "Giving up your steady income job to take a chance on your own game is a big risk for anyone" he explained.

Josiah related his experience trying to balance the need to see income with the necessity of finishing a game properly and to a high standard. "When Chronic Logic was in it’s early days I was in a similar situation, living on savings and borrowing money to continue game development. This often forces you to rush your game out the door to hopefully start making money on it, and while Scott has been pushing forward on Kingdom Elemental I have been helping him stay focused throughout the long development and to make sure the finished before it is release."

This led me to ask about the nature of Chronic Logic's relationship with the project, did they exhibit a lot of influence over the games direction and design as retail publishers often do? "Chronic Logic is far from being a retail publisher. I don't really even consider Chronic Logic an indie publisher" explained Josiah. "We are just indie developers who looking for other indie developers to collaborate with on great projects. I want to work with people who are passionate about making games like I am, people who have a dream to make a great game and who are willing to work hard to see that dream through."

The discussion then turned to the plans for publishing Kingdom Elemental. I asked Josiah how he would classify the game. "Kingdom Elemental is an Indie Game. I would not classify it a casual game" he said. "We are hoping that people who play RPG's, real-time strategy games, tactic games and gamers who like aspects from any of these types of games will all enjoy Kingdom Elemental." Josiah then went on to explain their approach to bringing games to market. "We don't set out to make a game for any market or demographic, we make a game that we like and hope there are enough people out there like us" he explained.

Like most indies Chronic Logic plans to use any and all means to get Kingdom Elemental distributed, but their immediate plan is to push for direct sales from Chronic Logics website. The initial version of KE is for windows only but if all goes well there will be another version, which will also be available for OSX and Linux. I asked Josiah about their goals for the game at release and what they hoped to accomplish. "If people have fun playing Kingdom Elemental then I feel it has a good chance to meet our goals. I know that I have a lot of fun playing Kingdom Elemental but you never know how it will be received by the masses until you release it" said Josiah in anticipation of the upcoming release. In terms of hard numbers Josiah described the criteria for success being "Kingdom Elemental will be a success if it can provide the funding we need to develop the next version which will include support for OSX and Linux as well as a wealth of new content and multiplayer support. This will probably need to be at least one hundred direct sales a month for the first 6-9 months."

From a chance meeting at the 2005 IGC up to now it's been a challenging struggle to bring Kingdom Elemental to market. Please join us for the next article in this series when we check back with Scott and Chronic Logic shortly after KE's release to see how well the game has been received and how it's performed against their expectations from a sales perspective.

Spread The Word:    Del.icio.us  |   Digg  |   Slashdot  |   Reddit

By: Dan McDonald
Posted: Tuesday December 05, 2006