Video games play a key role in shaping the world. They provide entertainment for millions. They help the innovators, creators, and doers of the world relax amid countless late nights and stressful times. They open minds to creative notions, ideas, and problem-solving — benefiting nearly all facets of life, whether games are involved or not.
This is the philosophy of games shared by Colin Day. “Games do a lot more than entertain us,” he says. “They allow us to shift our entire mind and body from the everyday and recharge ourselves.”
Day is the founder of Spellbind Studios — a small, independent studio based in the San Francisco area. While the studio doesn’t have the same resources or funding available that larger studios might, they aren’t lacking for talent and skill.
The Talented Team
Day has been a programmer in the gaming industry for 20 years and worked on such high-profile titles as Diablo 3, Marvel Heroes, Command & Conquer: Generals, Nox, and Hellgate: London. Alongside him are Clay Retzer, who worked at New World Computing and Activision and “possesses a phenomenal sense of game design;” Tricia Gray, co-founder of Plan of Attack; Alex Madrigal, who has worked at Gas Powered Games and has “brilliant 2D artwork;” animator Aden Scott who “really brings the characters to life;” and Jeane Wong and Tyler Nagata who are big believers in Spellbind Studios and focused on grassroots campaigning.
For Day, the hardest part of building Spellbind Studios has been finding the right people to work with. “Not only do I have to find great talent, but I also need people that can work well together and share in the vision of the game,” he says. However, putting the team together was also the most rewarding part of the studio-building experience. “Combining all of our talents allowed us to do more than we ever could alone. The result: a beautiful and engaging game we’re all proud of.”
Rogue Wizards
That game is Rogue Wizards, a project that has been in development for a year — a significant investment in both time and money for the up-and-coming studio.
In the game, you take on the role of a wizard and use magic to conquer dungeons and ultimately rid the world of dark magic. It features both town-building and RPG dungeon-crawling, and travel is done by portal — a combination not often seen in games which provides for singularly unique gameplay.
The game also features randomly-generated dungeons so each user will have a different experience. “No other player will have the same dungeon or find the same items,” Day says. “Not even the developers know exactly what you’ll find — and that’s pretty special.”
The game is designed to reach an audience looking for a “deep role-playing experience” on either a desktop or mobile platform and is meant to be intuitive for both. “Mobile games have a reputation for being very ultra casual, and I wanted to take some of the core mechanics usually found in desktop games and make them accessible on a mobile device, too,” Day says, noting that while some companies have tried to combine in-depth games with mobile devices, the controls are often clunky and hard to use.
“I’ve strived from day one to include core mechanics that feel natural whether using a mouse and keyboard or touchscreen,” he says. “Rogue Wizards has been designed … to give mobile players a bigger and more core game experience. At the same time, we don’t want to make that experience so light that it alienates desktop gamers more accustomed to deep, complex RPGs.”
Day came up with the game’s concept and had been working on the game as a hobby before Spellbind Studios was even formed — eventually deciding to transition the game from a hobby to his full-time job. After leaving his lead programmer position in June 2013, Retzer came aboard, and the two bounced ideas off each other. Some early ideas for the game featured a floating island for travel and discovering dungeons on a world map.
Not ever having done the indie thing before, Day gave himself a six-month deadline to work full-time on the game. If he wasn’t happy with where it was going or the project was draining his bank account too much, he’d find another job. “Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and I made a lot of progress,” he says. At that point, he decided to officially form Spellbind Studios.
Fanning the Flames
With a game in development and a new studio, securing funding and getting noticed has been important. Currently, Day is funding everything out of his own savings — which “isn’t really sustainable.”
In order to secure more money for Rogue Wizards, the company started a Kickstarter campaign. It’s Day’s first attempt at using Kickstarter, but he has had a lot of support and help from friends. Spellbind Studios has also brought attention to the game by submitting it for voting on Steam Greenlight.
“I’m really lucky to have such wonderful and supportive friends who have helped motivate me along the way. They love to call it ‘stoking the world’ and ‘offering you a lighter for your lamp.’ … Getting word about the game has to be a grassroots effort and we intend to keep building this base through to the final release,” Day says. “This helps us find our fans now so we can include them in the development of the game — the only thing better than making a game for our fans, is making a game with our fans.”
One of the innovative ways Spellbind Studios has included others in the game development is by releasing a piece of concept art — a magic stone — and asking fans what should be done with it. “That magic stone was a test to see what it would like be interacting with the community and if being involved in the game is something they would be interested in,” Day says. “The answer is a resounding ‘yes.’”
The original idea for the stone was for it to be a “forgestone” which could be use to level up items. However, the studio received “a lot of really awesome and wild ideas” from fans, including using it for a teleportation stone that would open when used. Day’s favorite, though, was suggested by Blizzard game director Mike Booth who thought the stone could be used as a magical wheel: “Throw a valuable gem into the inner ring of runes. It spins around rapidly like a roulette wheel. Whichever rune the gem stops on invokes a magic effect, consuming the gem. Different gem (equals) different effect.”
“I just might have to use that,” Day says.
The company also takes note of how people are responding to Rogue Wizards on places like YouTube and Steam’s forums — taking both positive and critical feedback to heart. Overall, “the reception has been outstanding” with the Kickstarter campaign off to a great start and Rogue Wizards trending on Steam Greenlight.
Independence
Modern technology has made it far easier to make games and get them into the hands of gamers than it used to be — even for small studios like Spellbind — and Day has big plans for the future.
However, money is still important to the process and Day’s ultimate goal is to keep Spellbind Studios independent and move the company forward in a sustainable way. He’s hoping Rogue Wizards and Kickstarter can help him achieve this goal.
And he hopes gamers will enjoy the ride. “We all need a break from the daily grind, and it’s fun to lose yourself in a fantasy world for a while. I hope that when people play Rogue Wizards, they’ll enjoy its fun, light-hearted, and very accessible approach to the fantasy RPG genre while also experiencing, at the same time, it’s deep and rich role-playing experience.”
Find out how Rogue Wizards’ is doing on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight. More information on Spellbind Studios can be found on their website, Facebook, and Twitter.
Comments
