Featured Game Arco

One of our recent Top 5 Kickstarter Games was Arco, a fast-paced puzzle RPG set in a fantasy world that is also looking to be greenlit on Steam.  Arco is being developed by Last Minute Games, a small indie studio from Aalborg in Northern Denmark.   I spoke to Jonas Christensen, the CTO of Last Minute Games about how the studio was formed and the development of Arco.

Q. How did Last Minute Games come about?

A. Let’s take it from the beginning. Dennis Risborg and Juan Garcia, two of the founders, used to work together at a former game company called Progressive Media. Juan is our lead graphics artist, and while he was working at Progressive, he wanted to do a simple, yet unique game set in a fantasy setting, since this wasn’t something they ordinarily did. But due to commitments to the company’s other games, the idea had to be put on hold. When the opportunity presented itself, Juan teamed up with Dennis and a programmer to develop the idea into a more complete concept, and when Progressive Media went under, they continued with the development. When the original programmer left the project, I replaced him, and the company began to take shape.

We began working on the game about a year ago, but in the beginning it was mostly as a hobby project. However, in October 2014 we established the company Last Minute Games and started working full time on the game.

Q. Tell us all about Arco

A. Arco was originally called Archer, but in order to avoid any conflicts with the show Archer, we changed it to Arco. The overall concept of the game is similar to Plants Vs. Zombies, where you control a character, and you have to defend yourself against enemies coming towards you in lanes.

The game takes place in a fantasy world, where a large earthquake has created a large chasm throughout the world. The player controls the archer Arco, who sets out to unravel the cause of the disturbance. You travel through many varied environments, where you encounter hordes of enemies.

What sets our game apart from many similar games is that we have an interesting and innovative way of combining the environment, skills and enemies to achieve various effects. As an example, when you kill an enemy in the fungus forest, they can drop a spore that will send any enemy that comes into contact with it into a frenzied state. Also, we have a wide range of skills, that you can combine, that will either help or hinder your efforts. You can freeze an enemy with an ice arrow and then shatter it with another arrow, but if you use the wrong arrow, you might actually unfreeze the enemy instead. This is just one example of combinations, and we have many, many more, that we will be unveiling throughout our Kickstarter campaign.

Q. Have there been any particular highs or lows during development?

A. There have been a couple of highs and lows throughout the development. When we first started working together, I had to suddenly move out of town for six months due to a consultant gig, and the two others were still committed to other projects, so the progress was slow, and it was difficult to work in a coherent manner. When I moved back, we found an office space, so we could finally sit together, and the game quickly began actually looking like a game. To finally see the game taking shape, to see the hard work finally paying off, that was such a motivation.

Another low was when we recently launched our Kickstarter. We knew how difficult it would be to get the game out to a lot of people, and it’s been tough to see how slowly our Kickstarter campaign has been going. But we’ve finally begun getting some press attention, and we’re hoping to get some traction from that.

Q. Do you have any advice for other indie studios?

A. Our biggest advice for other indie studios is to work hard (and early) on getting a good online presence. Also, try and establish connections to game sites or reporters early, so you will have your network in place, when you launch a new title or a Kickstarter campaign.

Q. Do you have any plans for other games in the future?

A. If we can get funding for Arco and release that, then we certainly plan on releasing more games in the future. We don’t currently have any specific games in mind, as we’ve been focusing solely on Arco, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something great.

Kickstarter

As mentioned, the game is currently in a Kickstarter Campaign and is looking to raise kr165,000 by Monday 16^th March – in US Money that is approximately $25,000.

I particularly recommend going for the kr165 ($25) reward tier.  This is an early bird bundle (max 200 backers) and includes:

·         Digital Copy of the Game

·         Digital Artbook

·         Digital Soundtrack

·         Beta Access

·         Super Secret Instruction Manual

·         Name in Credits

·         Digital Wallpaper

Further Info

For further information on Arco, check out their Kickstarter Page, Greenlight Page and Last Minute Games.