Brawsome working with Quest for Glory creators on new project - Hero-U
They're asking for your help on Kickstarter
21 October 2012
From Andrew Goulding:
Greetings from Brawsome!
Word may have reached you already that Brawsome is working with Quest for Glory Creators, Corey and Lori Cole, on a new top down RPG-Adventure game being dubbed "the spiritual successor to Quest for Glory". Indeed the game takes place in their world of Gloriana, on the Isle of Marete, where Quest for Glory 5 took place. Corey and Lori own the rights to the settings and characters they created before they began their work on the series for Sierra, so you can expect this game to contain many references to the series that made them famous.
This project, like many other adventure-style projects, is attempting to be funded through kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1878147873/hero-u-rogue-to-redemption. At the time of writing the project has raised nearly 25% of it's $400,000 goal with 29 days to go. While we're happy with the strong initial push the game has had, we're all keenly aware that that campaign has a long way to go, especially following on the heels of so many successful campaigns.
Brawsome's involvement in the project is simple, I'm developing the game. This involves putting the team together and, if funded, developing the tools and ultimately putting the game together. I'm also doing the technical design, especially working with the artist on tilesets, and working with Lori on UI, player input and game systems. I've been leading projects for a while now that set out with lofty goals and a tight budget, so ultimately it falls to me to rein in the scope of the game to realistically allow us get it done on time and on budget. On a team packed with highly creative people I do find myself explaining what can't be done more often than I'd like!
The team consists of the talented Eriq Chang as Art Director, Eric Varnes as Senior Character Illustrator, Paul Bowers as tile/character artist, John Paul Selwood as Illustrator and Painter and Ryan Grogan on music/sfx and of course Corey and Lori defining the design and direction of the project. Corey Lori's son Michael Cole is heading up the Marketing effort.
Paul and Ryan worked with me on developing MacGuffin's Curse and have been consistently awesome to work with. I've wanted to work with Eriq on a project since releasing Jolly Rover and discovering his heavy involvement with everything relating to Sierra artwork, including the Art of Sierra project: http://artofsierra.com/. Eriq and John worked with AGDI on their fantastic fan remakes of the Kings Quest and Quest for Glory VGA versions, so are no strangers capturing the iconic Sierra style.
You may ask, why am I working with Corey and Lori on this new game? How did this happen? Well, I always send copies of my games to my heroes when I release, and sometimes I even get a reply back! Corey and Lori were one such reply. I've kept in touch with them since I released Jolly Rover in 2010, and as soon as Tim Schafer's kickstarter exploded earlier this year I was emailing them asking to keep me in mind if they decided to go down that path. But I was still surprised when they contacted me in August saying they wanted to make a game with me using the MacGuffin's Curse engine. "MacGuffin's Curse? I thought they were going to make an adventure game?". But as I considered it more it made sense. It seems everyone is popping up to kickstart adventure games these days, and while I love adventure games to bits, possibly there's been an over saturation of this genre of late. And with Corey and Lori's D&D chops, making a role playing with their unique style sounded like it could be very cool! Though there are also many role playing games around, I doubt any would match their unique blend of writing and design, especially role playing games so in touch with their feminine side, thanks to Lori's predominant hand in the design and writing. The Quest for Glory series has always had strong and interesting female characters, even though the lead has always been played by a male. Read Lori's Women of Quest for Glory series of blog posts for more insight into this area: http://www.theschoolforheroes.com/questlog/1570/daughter-of-darkness/
Links!
Hero-U Kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1878147873/hero-u-rogue-to-redemption
Hero-U Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheSchoolForHeroes
Hero-U Website: http://www.hero-u.net
MacGuffin's Curse Website: http://www.macguffinscurse.com
Twitter:
Lori Ann Cole: @Hero_Lori
Corey Cole: @HeroCorey
Brawsome: @brawsome
