Thunder Lotus Games team pulls together for Sundered
For Montreal-based video game maker Thunder Lotus Games, the work of producing a new game doesn’t end when it comes out.
On Friday morning, the day the company’s second game, Sundered, was officially released, the studio’s staff was still hard at work on the game.
“All the reviews came out yesterday, so we’re already looking at what can we fix, what can we address, how can we improve the game, how do we make sure that players are really getting the best experience possible,” said Will Dubé, the founder and creative director of Thunder Lotus Games.
Dubé and his team have been working full time on Sundered for more than a year and a half. Development is an interactive process that involves a lot of moving pieces, Dubé said.
“There are a lot of different things going on, from the art to the programming to the design to the animation, the marketing to the business side of it,” he said.
“(It’s important) to have a very clear vision of what you want the player to feel, what are the core emotions you want to create in your game, and then everything kind of aligns toward that. It dictates the art style, it dictates the music, it dictates what you do in the game, the rules of the game, the game mechanics,” he said.
Dubé’s first game, Jotun, which came out in September 2015, was based on Norse mythology. With Sundered, Dubé and his team have drawn influences from horror fiction.
“It’s an action game. You play Eshe, a wanderer in a ruined world who is trapped in these ever-changing caverns filled with hordes of terrifying enemies,” he said.
The game uses a two-dimensional side-scrolling perspective — similar to the classic Mario or Sonic games, though the similarities largely end there. The game’s visuals have a hand-drawn look, which has been praised by critics, and players are able to upgrade their character’s skills as they play. It’s available for Mac, PC and PS4.
“We really started from what worked well with Jotun, and then what we wanted to improve,” Dubé said.
For a game from a new independent studio, Jotun was a success, selling around 200,000 copies.
“It’s not a runaway, massive hit, but it was definitely a really, really big success, especially for a first game as a studio,” Dubé said.
While revenue from that game helped fund Sundered, a campaign on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter also played a role. Dubé took a similar approach with Jotun. The second campaign raised more than $200,000 from more than 4,500 people, but it wasn’t just about the money.
“We went back to Kickstarter because of the community, because of the fans and people who could help us make the game better. That was really the primary reason. Of course, the money is nice, but it’s really about connecting with your very hardcore players and people who are most excited about the game,” he said.
Many of those players are so invested, they pay more than the game’s market price for “perks,” Dubé said. They also got to play the game while it was still in development, providing early feedback.
“If these people aren’t happy, then no one will be,” Dubé said.