Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption Interviews
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Ingmar: Since Hero-U is meant to just be the start of a new franchise, what's the overall plan for this series?
Corey: Step 1 is to get the first game Rogue to Redemption funded on Kickstarter. We can't emphasize enough how important it is for players to support the game early. If you decide to "wait and see", we might not be able to make the game at all. If we succeed in raising the minimum goal, we will have to keep the game features and extra background scenes to a minimum to complete it within the budget. So by supporting our Kickstarter campaign, you are both "voting for Hero-U" and allowing us to make the best possible game.
Buying a game is always a risk. If you wait until it ships and buy it, you won't be able to return it if you don't like the game. You will also send a message: You want your games to be spoon-fed to you, and you don't want to participate in their creation. By backing quality, story-driven adventure games early in the process, you allow the creators to make games that big publishers won't touch. It's an incredible time for gamers, but only if we use our power.
If the fund drive and release of the first game are successful, we will continue the series. The additional games will have the same setting and a few of the same characters, but each has its own unique feel. In game 2, you will play a female Wizard. All of the story and dialogue will change from the first game, but all of the plot threads tie together into a much bigger overall story. Combat will also be completely different, as the Wizard relies on spells rather than items and stealth. We'll have some traditional "fire dart" type spells as well as much more subtle ones. Some combat will be avoidable; we'll have to see whether we can make it entirely skippable for the Wizard.
Game 3 will feature a Warrior student, again a woman. She will be more direct in her approach, and will also be able to use her leadership abilities to work with others in combat.
Game 4 centers around a Paladin. The Paladin is similar to a D&D Cleric in having abilities that heal and protect. He will be able to avoid most, and possibly all, combat. The Paladin also has a difficult struggle to remain honourable at all times, often when circumstances might make it easier to do something less honourable.
We have an idea for a Game 5 that is somewhat different from the others. We aren't talking about it at this point, as we need to work through more of the design and decide on the best way to handle it.
And then we stop by Gaming Furever for some additional questions and answers:
5. Was there ever any thought of making Quest For Glory VI, or was Hero-U the new game project idea right from the start?
We might have had one chance to make Quest for Glory VI. In our final months at Sierra, Craig Alexander the General Manager of Yosemite Entertainment offered to broker a deal with the corporate office to get us a perpetual license to the series. All we had to do was give up all royalties on all of our past games. If we had known then how little we would end up making from those royalties, we would have made the deal. Of course, it still might not have actually happened.
The situation since then has been that Sierra and its long succession of parent companies owns the rights to the Quest for Glory name and previous game content. We had no luck trying to license the series from Vivendi, and we've heard from three other companies that they haven't been able to get a license from Activision.
So we can't make Quest for Glory VI unless/until that situation changes. We would also need a lot more money than we think we could raise on Kickstarter. We estimate that a worthy successor to Quest for Glory say using the equivalent of Quest for Glory IV technology would cost $1 - $1.5 million to make. QfGV actually cost over $4 million to develop, but we think we can improve on that.
We specified Hero-U to be less expensive to produce than a traditional Sierra adventure game. It will have fewer unique screens and less animation. It's still going to be incredibly tight, but we have other ways to raise capital later in the project if we need it.
