The Square Enix Collective, as you might recall, is publisher Square creating a platform where developers can present ideas for a game where the community will then vote on and if successful go to indiegogo.
Square would then help the crowd-funding campaign and provide distribution for the title when finished. Ruffian Games is participating with Game of Glens, a resource-management game.
The premise follows competing Scotsmen in the Highland Games where their goal is to build a huge tower whilst trying to know their opponents down with projectiles.
Two other indie studios are signed on in this pilot round for the Square Enix Collective. Kitfox Games is showcasing their Moon Hunters idea, while Tuque Games presents World War Machine. For 28 days the community will vote and decide which, if any, moves onto crowd-funding.
”We see Collective as an opportunity to get Moon Hunters more coverage than we can get on our lonesome, and really connect with potential fans that otherwise wouldn’t hear us,” said Kitfox Games.
”The initiative gives players a voice to let Square Enix know which games they want to see get made and the power to influence the raw, early-stage development process… I’m both excited and terrified to see how players will react and what they have in store for game devs like us,” added Jeff Hattem.
Ruffian’s Game of Glens isn’t actually a new game idea but was originally Tribal Towers that they showed in early 2013. ”We were always really happy with the core gameplay mechanics in Tribal Towers, we ran a limited alpha test in summer 2013 to gauge the opinion of people that weren’t close to the game and we got some really great feedback,” said producer James Cope. ”As it turned out, that feedback just emphasized some of our privately held concerns; there were some issues with game complexity and we just didn’t think the visual style was strong enough.”
”As part of that re-imagining process, Game of Glens was born out of some concept art that we really liked,” notes Cope. ”The bearded Scottish clansmen are immediately appealing and suggestive of fun. Being a Scottish Studio, and given our Ruffian nature, it felt right to embrace our slightly stereotyped heritage in a light-hearted manner.”
”Initially it’s for PC, but we’d love to see more platforms follow as we’ve already got various control schemes prototyped that work across different types of controllers,” he continued.
”Finding the right funding for Game of Glens has been the biggest struggle, it’s not a game that fits into any existing genres or play styles so it’s a difficult sell in a traditional sense.”
Check out the three game projects over on the Square Enix Collective website for more.
