IP Creation & Worldbuilding

Relaying the elevator pitch for this project would probably get me in trouble, but the idea was that you catch creatures, level them up, evolve them, and so on. When I joined the team, much of the character and environment artwork was already defined, so it was a classic case of crafting a narrative to fit around what was already there.

But there's a reason why coloring books are so damn satisfying! I developed the whole world from scratch, designed all the major characters, and wrote and hooked up hundreds of quests. Unfortunately, the project and studio were a casualty of the Activision-Vivendi merger so it never saw the light of day, but the "isekai pocket monsters" world of Sunder still holds a special place in my heart.

Back Story →
Creature Taxonomy →
Quests →

See, kids, this is what happens when you put off naming the game for too long! The mandate from Chris Taylor was "Dungeon Siege in space", but other than that, we had a blank piece of paper. Creativity without constraints can be overwhelming, but working closely with the Lead Level Designer really unlocked the world.

Once we had the world and the environments in place, I crafted the story, characters, and all the primary and secondary missions. I wrote tens of thousands of lines of dialogue by myself, cast all the actors (including Troy Baker before he became Troy Baker), and attended three weeks of VO recording. It was one of the highlights of my career.

Setting & Timeline →
Multiplayer Story →
Multiplayer Missions →

This was the first Kickstarter I'd been a part of, let alone led. Our funding goal was fairly modest, and we achieved it – thanks to the amazing art that showed the possibilities of the world we created, and the weeks of writing I did to spark the imagination even further.

For a video game Kickstarter to succeed these days, you need at least one of three things: an established IP, a recognizable dev team, or a lot of assets. We had none of those three and were still successful. It's a testament to the hard work and vision of the Hopetown development team.

Kickstarter campaign page →
Interviews: The Gamer / eXputer / VG247 →