Game Dev: Order of the Thorne

The Order of the Thorne: The King's Challenge was our second major game released. It's no big secret that this game started out as something different - we were originally making a fan game - King's Quest, Kingdom of Sorrow - based on one of the paperback novels licensed and released under the KQ name.  While making it, we decided it would be better to sink all the effort into something we owned and could release so we took out the King's Quest characters and locations and kept the original content we created.  I think wrote a new back story, and created the world of Uir for the game.

There's a lot of lore and backstory stuffed into the "supplemental" stuff in the game, The King's Challenge - that is you don't have to watch or read it to complete the game, but it does give a lot of insight into the world and the larger story.

The problem with The King's Challenge is that it's really just half of a story. At the time, games in serial pieces were kind of a thing (ala Tell Tale) so we thought releasing a few chapters would be good. Though now in retrospect, I wish we'd just made one game, one story and told it all in one shot. Episodic Content didn't really work out - Tell Tale sadly went under, and The King's Challenge didn't sell very well, and our plans to make two sequels quickly changed. As it is, we've only been able to work on Fortress of Fire really slowly over the past few years. But we've got to a point now where I can begin truly assembling the game, and I'm excited to give the story the conclusion it deserves.

It has been hard being a small indie developer - we just don't have the money/budgets other companies do, so things happen in small increments. But it's happening even more now.  I'm glad that I've stuck with this, even if it's moving like a snail. Sure, 5 years ago we had a lot of momentum - and more people working on games.  Many of the talented folks that made stuff with us in the past have moved on to other jobs and even other fields altogether. But I'm glad I'm still here with you. We're gonna make a fantastic game here - and I think I am going to release a special edition of Order of the Thorne as one complete game. Probably for the Switch!