The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Skulls of the Shogun
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We like that. This week, Skulls of the Shogun lead designer Jake Kazdal discusses developing a game for four platforms at once, and what happened to that "launch alongside Windows 8" promise. What's your game called and what's it about?
Skulls of the Shogun is an arcade-strategy game coming to XBLA, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Windows RT (Surface) very soon. It's an original title, developed by a small team of highly experienced AAA developers over the past 3.5 years. It's a mash-up of tactical turn-based strategy, with a feel that is very arcade-like and action-packed. No grids, very few menus and quick, snappy rounds give it a very unique and charming aesthetic, easy for action gamers to adapt to, but with all the depth a good strategy game lover needs.
Why did you choose to go exclusively Microsoft? Is there any chance of Skulls of the Shogun launching through Steam or anywhere else?
Microsoft's XBLA group is full of old friends and co-workers from my past in this industry, they're close by so we can zip over there for lunch and meetings, and they have my favorite game console, along with a phone and a tablet and a new operating system.
For a micro-studio like us to be able to launch on four platforms simultaneously was a huge incentive. We own the IP and would like to do more with it in the future (not only gaming) but Microsoft is the publisher for these versions and that has kept our hands quite full for now.
Skulls of the Shogun is an arcade-strategy game coming to XBLA, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Windows RT (Surface) very soon. It's an original title, developed by a small team of highly experienced AAA developers over the past 3.5 years. It's a mash-up of tactical turn-based strategy, with a feel that is very arcade-like and action-packed. No grids, very few menus and quick, snappy rounds give it a very unique and charming aesthetic, easy for action gamers to adapt to, but with all the depth a good strategy game lover needs.
Why did you choose to go exclusively Microsoft? Is there any chance of Skulls of the Shogun launching through Steam or anywhere else?
Microsoft's XBLA group is full of old friends and co-workers from my past in this industry, they're close by so we can zip over there for lunch and meetings, and they have my favorite game console, along with a phone and a tablet and a new operating system.
For a micro-studio like us to be able to launch on four platforms simultaneously was a huge incentive. We own the IP and would like to do more with it in the future (not only gaming) but Microsoft is the publisher for these versions and that has kept our hands quite full for now.
