Earlier this week, we shed some light onto one of Kickstarter’s star projects, Jotun. Still in it’s infancy, Jotun has managed to rally over $20,000 (nearly half of it’s total goal) in less than a week. To find out what’s behind this seemingly overnight success, I sat down with the creator of Jotun, Will Dubé of Thunder Lotus Games.
First and foremost, thanks for taking the time out of your day to talk to Gamer Headlines.
Oh no problem at all, thanks for contacting me.
I know you’re probably pretty busy with this whole Kickstarter campaign so let’s jump right into it.
Perfect!
Jotun’s recently been thrown into the spotlight as one of Kickstarter’s staff picks. How much of an effect has it had on the game’s progress towards your end goal?
That had a huge effect. Right when we launched on Monday at about…we launched at 8:00pm EST, so after dinner. It had a huge push from friends and family that really helped to launch and give momentum to the campaign, and that’s what allowed us to be staff picked because we rolled so fast within the first few hours. Once we were a staff pick, I think that helped a lot to give us a lot of visibility on Kickstarter. Right now we’re getting about 25% – more or less anyways – of our pledges through people coming to us from Kickstarter directly, so I think it had a really big impact.
Speaking of your goal, $50,000 is a pretty hefty target. Kicking off this campaign, were there any serious concerns before that big push of Jotun’s chances of reaching that goal?
Absolutely. Pressing that ‘Go’ on the launch button and launching was extremely intense. It was a really intense moment for me. A lot of people have suggested, you know, ‘you should reduce the goal to something lower. That way you can be sure to make it and then when you make it you can get stretch goals’ and whatever. But the truth is I really wanted to make sure that we actually had enough money to actually build the game. Of course, $50,000 isn’t…it seems like a large goal but, in reality, if you’re three people working on a game full-time for a year, it’s really very…it’s really the bare minimum.
Jotun definitely stands out from the crowd. It’s got a very unique story, it’s got dynamic visuals…what made you choose Norse mythology as the backdrop to the game?
Well I’ve always loved, like, centuries-old stories like Beowulf, and The Divine Comedy, and The Odyssey and things like that. In high school I also studied a bit of Greek mythology and stuff like that. I’ve always liked big epic stories so, for me, Norse mythology is something in popular culture that’s known through movies like Thor and through different movies and influences as soon as you get into literature and stuff like that, it has a really big impact, but it’s not super present in video games. I mean, there are video games about mythology like Banner Saga and there are a couple of other PC games that are based on vikings too, but really the biggest viking game there’s been – as far as I know right now – is Skyrim, and it’s not event truly a viking game. It’s kind of viking-y because it’s based in the North and you have all these…the imagery is very viking-inspired, but it’s not even really a viking game. I thought this was something that passioned me; that really spoke to me and that I knew that a lot of people really liked the mythology. I really saw a hole there in the game space.
Will Dube of Thunder Lotus Games
Another thing, and probably the biggest thing, that caught my eye, or I guess my ear when I first checked out the Kickstarter is the music. The musical score is just…it’s crazy. It’s this larger-than-life, beautifully orchestrated piece of art really. you might not be the guy to ask, because I know you’re not the guy who’s running the music necessarily, but where did the vision for this grand musical them come from?
Well the music is amazing, I totally agree. It’s composed by a friend of mine, Max LL, who’s a fantastic composer and we’ve known each other for years and years. We actually had a prog-metal band together in high school and stuff like that. Now he’s fully launched his music professionally and I’m really, really lucky to know a composer like him because, I agree, it’s pretty awesome music.
It’s a big shock, for sure.
For the vision for the music for Jotun, it’s one that we really wanted the music to be part of the gaming experience. So often times in games, and I’ve worked on projects like this in the past, music sort of comes in as an afterthought. Towards the end of development you’re like ‘okay, well now we need a soundtrack’ and you sort of tack it on and you have a track running in the background. I think it’s super important that music is part of that full audio/visual gameplay narrative experience because it’s so powerful. Like, I think that one of the reasons that the Kickstarter is such a success is that the music, that track, has been specifically composed for the Kickstarter pitch videos. So whenever I talk about something in the video the emotion goes up because of the music and then it goes back down and then there’s a big dip, then a big buildup at the end there when you have the reveal of the Jotun right there.
Like, it’s known, in any entertainment or film it’s the same thing, that music is so essential so, for me, I really want to give Max a lot of liberty and try and integrate music too in ways that aren’t always done in games you know? Maybe more of a dynamic score where if you approach certain places in the world you’ll have a certain song that plays and do sound and music in a more interesting way for games that’ll really help build the experience.
“it’s known, in any entertainment or film it’s the same thing, that music is so essential”
Absolutely, and you’ve compared the game to Shadow of the Colossus and Journey; both games where music is absolutely key. Journey especially, I mean, getting through that game, hitting the end, and having that big musical piece…it just…it gives you goosebumps.
Ya, absolutely.
Now as a relatively new developer, is there a certain degree of pressure that you feel from the gaming community to release a game that’ll meet the expectations of…pretty picky fans?
Ah, well..I mean there’s always a huge amount of stress that comes with development, both from myself and from the fans’ expectations too. And with Jotun we are pretty ambition too with what we want to do. I mean, as you said, we’re citing games like Journey and Shadow of the Colossus, and the Legend of Zelda. These are not, like, small games. But at the same time though, I think that’s what this project cool is that it is a larger vision and that it’s something that could become really, really awesome with everyone’s support.
Stress is a part of going out on your own and being a developer of your own and all that. It is something that’s relatively new because this is the first time I’m out on my own and have launched a project like this, but I’m starting to cope with it better and Kickstarter is a pretty…it’s kind of a ‘sink or swim’ type of situation. If you can stand the roller coaster ride of a Kickstarter campaign,I think we’ll be able to get through a lot of things.
And this Kickstarter again…the community’s been very generous to Jotun so far to say the least. When I checked this morning, you’d just passed $20,000.
Yep.
And with 26 days left, I mean, the odds seem to be in your favor; knock on wood, finger’s crossed.
Ya *laughs* Don’t jinx it.
Ya, exactly. *laughs* What is it about Jotun than you think people are finding so appealing?
Well first of all I want to thank everyone for supporting like that. The support has been, just, really crazy amazing. Like, I wasn’t expecting this much. We got a big shout out from Time Spinner, which are just finishing up their Kickstarter right now; that helped drive a lot of traffic to us and that initial push from family and friends, like I was saying, was huge to us. It’s the reason we were able to accelerate so fast.
I don’t know what to say, it’s just been so crazy.
Okay, so we’re going to be a little optimistic here. We’re going to jump into the future a bit. You say you’re hoping to release the beta in nine months, right?
Yep.
Are you hoping to showcase certain aspects of the game when that beta launches or are you going to let players jump in and sort of let them discover everything for themselves?
Well in our backer rewards we do have beta access, so if you pledge at that level you can get access to the beta and alpha so you’ll have access to it no matter what. I’m not sure something like an open beta would necessarily make sense for a game like Jotun because, like…for example, if you’re a multiplayer game you want to balance the game and make sure everything’s fair and things like that. But the kind of game we’re doing is like a single player experience type of game so we’ll see exactly what we do but I can say for sure that if you do back the game you’ll have access to the alpha and the beta.
Okay, now on the Kickstarter page you described Jotun as a ‘love letter to classic games’, again relating back to games like Legend of Zelda. So what aspects of these games are you trying to replicate in Jotun? What was it that you fell in love with?
Right, I think the…the reason I said that like that was…I use the words ‘classic’ and ‘honest’ gaming. I think…I worked in mobile games for two and a half years before jumping into Jotun and, you know, that means I’ve done free-to-play, I’ve done things like that. I’ve worked with ads in games, cross promotion in apps, you know, like paying for installs and all that stuff. And obviously as a gamer I’m aware of everything like things that people aren’t super enamored with; things like DRM (data rights management) or day-one DLC’s and I think that why I said that is because I really want people to understand that my vision for [Jotun] is to make a good game that people want to play and that they’ll buy and receive and enjoy. Then they can move on or they can do whatever they want with it at that point, you know? I don’t want to split the game up into multiple chapters or anything. I don’t want to bash other games at all that do that. I mean, sometimes it makes sense and it’s really amazing but sometimes these models are used in ways that aren’t necessarily the best for the gamer. Especially in the space we’re in with indie games and stuff like that, I think people really respect when you can be honest and just deliver an awesome experience.
“my vision for [Jotun] is to make a good game that people want to play”
And you can tell the popular indie games are games that do that: Spelunkie, The Binding of Isaac, Super Meatboy…these are all games that really respect the gamers and who really respect whoever supports the games, you know?
Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. So listen, thanks again for giving us some of your time and energy. Is there anything you’d like to tell the fans before we go?
Just that we’re live on Kickstarter and that we really appreciate you’re support. It’s been amazing so far and let’s keep it up. Let’s see how far we can go.
Alright, it’s been great talking with you Will.
Thanks so much, Travis.
