Creating An Iconic and Timeless IP
There’s never been a better time to create a new video game franchise than right now. Why? Because in 2021, anyone on the planet can download a world class suite of development tools, completely free, and get to work. Fast internet enables communication across every time zone on the planet. And small teams have proven they can make just as much an impact as big teams backed by billion-dollar corporations.
Then again, in 2021, it’s never been harder to deliver something that stands out from the crowd. After all… anyone can download those same development tools, right? It’s a busy landscape, which means it’s never been harder to create something fresh, iconic, and memorable. So why do we think we’re any different? What special sauce can we add to make our game leap out from all of the other games competing for players’ attention?
Elves and orcs? Been there, done that. Space marines? You’ve probably mown down your fair share of alien critters. Post-apocalyptic wastelands? We don’t know about you, but after all the challenges the world has been through recently, putting on a mask to venture outside of your vault doesn’t sound like the kind of landscape we’re eager to escape to. So what then? Where do you go when you’re looking to do something exciting and different? To the past? The future?
Well, as one popular meme says… “Why not both?”
Time travel. It’s a limitless canvas for the imagination. So why aren’t there a million other time travel games out there? Well, for one thing… time travel is hard. The rules, the complexity. Finding a take that’s simple to grasp yet emotionally resonant isn’t as easy as you think. But if you can boil it all down to its essence — the unexpected clashes of time and space, stories that span generations — well then… you might just have something. Time travel allows us to explore the familiar and the new. To reexamine some beloved characters from history and introduce a few new ones of our own. To spin a tale that plays upon your knowledge of the past, while subverting those same expectations in order to turn history on its ear.
One of the long term challenges in creating a successful online game is finding ways to keep serving up new content — expansion after expansion, year after year — without running out of ideas. We think our little time machine can solve that problem. The past, present, and future… sometimes all at once! A rich tapestry to paint on for years to come.
