Your donations keep RPGWatch running!

OutWard Kickstarter Interview

by Kevin "Couchpotato" Loveless, 2015-04-20

Outward is a new an open world kickstarter RPG from developer Nine Dots Canada. I had the opportunity to ask developer Guillaume Boucher-Vidal a few questions this week.

Outward is an open world RPG with a focus on simulating the life of an adventurer -- not a legendary hero. Outward started with a simple question: 

"What would it really be like to live the life of an adventurer?" 

From simulating the day-to-day lifestyle of living alone in a vast world filled with creatures of fantasy to retiring and passing on your knowledge and skills to your next of kin, Outward is about creating a complete adventuring experience. It's not just combat, it's not just survival, it's both and more.

Couchpotato: Welcome to RPGWatch to get started can you introduce yourself, and your studio Nine Dots Canada for our readers?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: Hey there! I’m Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, founder of Nine Dots Studio. My goal with the company is to create a more sustainable development culture than what is usually seen in the game industry. This means that we don’t do crunch time, ensure that the whole team has a creative input on the project and that we make the kind of games we want to play.

 

Couchpotato: So lets start with a simple question can you give a brief overview of your new RPG Outward:The Adventurer Life Sim?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: The whole idea is to build a game around the question “What would it really be like to live the life of an adventurer?”. While it may sound mundane, I actually don’t feel like an adventurer in RPGs. I always feel like I’m a god. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. I can run for 4 days and slaughter armies on my own. While I understand the appeal of power, I think that at this point, it comes in the way of immersion.

I am making the bet that what RPG players really want is immersion, not power. They want to imagine themselves in another universe, living a story, deal with constraints and overcome them in a way that makes them feel like they’ve earned it.

 

Couchpotato: What made you decide to use crowd-funding to develop the game , and also what is your opinion on the funding model?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: Crowdfunding is the best form of external funding. You get paid by your audience. You only have them to answer to. You don’t have to bend down to someone else who does not understand nor care for the players, which is par for the course in game funding.

Not only that, but you get to build a community. Nothing is more powerful than that. Money is good but once it is spent, it’s lost and you need more. When you engage your community, it doesn’t go away, it gets stronger.

Right now many gaming outlet are treating crowdfunding like some form of scam. I think that the real problem is that everyone needs to be educated on the fact that Kickstarter isn’t a pre-order store. When you pledge, you are taking a risk, because you want to give a project a chance to succeed. It is way more gratifying when it works, but it’s tough when it doesn’t. Crowdfunding is here to stay, and people will have to understand the associated risk. To be fair, I feel that most backers understand what they are getting into.

 

Couchpotato: Will you be able to play as male and female characters with the ability to customize  both of them, or is it a set character only?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: You will be able to play either as male or female. We’re also figuring out how many different presets of each there will be, but don’t expect to change every part of the body with sliders. Besides, let’s be honest: even though I may spend hours adjusting my character’s look, it ends up hidden under my armor anyway.

                

Couchpotato: The game is described as an open world RPG with co-op so will the single player side be enjoyable as it usually suffers in Co-op games?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: I don’t think that the experience will suffer in Solo. These are always very different experiences. Solo is better for immersion, as you can get fully absorbed into the world. Co-op is more of a social thing. Whenever someone talks to you, you are reminded of the real world, so immersion is necessarily affected, but the interaction with other players makes up for it.

The way I see myself playing this game is that I’d be playing mostly solo, and every now and then, I’d invite my girlfriend to just sit on the couch with me and play with me. Or I’d have a single player character on one save and another that I keep for multiplayer.

 

Couchpotato: One interesting concept of your game is the idea of playing as an simple adventurer. Who thought of the Idea, and can you share a few examples?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: We are many RPG fans at Nine Dots, and we pretty much all had this shared frustration at the absurdity of always being the Dragonborn, the chosen one, the hero from the prophecy, the Herald of Andraste, etc.

Being a huge Elder Scrolls fan, I was describing these things in Skyrim that always irked me greatly, what I’ve perceived as wasted potential for a more immersive experience. The fact that you can hold 5 full plate armors in your inventory (which happens to be invisible). The fact that you can cast powerful spells simply by pushing a button. The fact that I didn’t need to sleep or eat, and yet beds and food are in the game. The fact that I could swim in glacial water (while wearing a full set of armor).

So in Outward, your inventory is limited by your backpack, and your mobility is reduced if you’re wearing it. To cast a spell, you have to do the ritual, not just press a button and the game does it for you. You will feel the necessity to eat, drink and sleep.

 

Couchpotato: Lets talk about the games combat as your kickstarter page says it will action-based. Can you give a short example to our readers on how it work in the game?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: The enemies will be able to do what you do. So if you can block, so can they. You won’t be able to just spam an attack on them until they die, or if you do, you will become exhausted very quickly and you won’t be able to go through the whole dungeon. You need to be smart and find a way to lower their guard. If you’re a mage, maybe you should summon a spirit to distract him. If you’re a melee fighter, you will need to break his block or counter one of its blows. If you’re more crafty, maybe you’ll set a trap and lure him there. The most important aspect I think is that it should always take more than one step to victory. You need to put everything in place, and then you strike once you’ve gained an edge.

 

Couchpotato: I noticed you mentioned the game will have Dynamic quests with permanent consequences. This really intrigues me so can you share a few examples once again?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: The idea is that if someone was kidnapped by bandits and you’re told to save the victim or pay the ransom, if you don’t go, they won’t wait for you. Either someone else will do it for you, or the person will be killed. You won’t have a checklist of stuff to do in your journal, all waiting indefinitely for you to do it. It doesn’t mean that every single quest will be timed like this, but when a point in the story is described as urgent, it really is.

                

Couchpotato: Another concept of your game is the survival system/mechanics. Does this mean you can die due to various status effects like hunger, dehydration, and cold weather?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: Rather than to die outright, you will suffer the consequences of a defeat scenario. Let’s say that you pass out due to dehydration. You might wake up in a nearby village, owing money to the town healer for rescuing you. This will also mean that you lose time, which could also lead to failure in your quest, since it can be based on time.

We also want to add a hardcore mode, in which every time your character is defeated, you have a 20% to die, permanently. (I’m so going to play that mode)

 

Couchpotato: How long is the games campaign, and will it have different endings based on your various characters legacy's?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: We want a normal playthrough to last about 20 hours, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve done everything. For the completionist, I expect that it would take at least 4 playthrough to really feel like he’s seen most of what the game has to offer.

I don’t know yet if there will be major differences in the endings of each of these branches, it will depend on our budget and on how the writing goes.

 

Couchpotato: Well time to ask the usual question about funding if there's a chance the goal won't be reached. What happens then? Did you have a back-up plan?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: To put it simply: Do I have a back-up plan? Yes. Is it more likely to work than a Kickstarter campaign? I don’t think so.

 

Couchpotato: That's all for now thank you for answering a few of my questions. Do you have anything to add before we finish?

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal: Thank you for having me! One thing I can add: To everyone, don’t underestimate the impact you can have. By gravitating around a project, teling your friends, commenting in forums and on press articles, by sharing and tweeting, by reaching out to your favoring youtuber or journalist, you can start a snowball effect or contribute to it. Every time we try, we get an additional ticket to the lottery of fate. Everyone has to push together and then it moves forward. It takes a bit of luck, but if we don’t try, we’re guaranteed to fail.


Well I hope you enjoyed reading another one of my crowd-funding interviews as I have more to be published in the following months. In the meantime here are a few links.

Box Art

Information about

Outward

Developer: Nine Dots Canada

SP/MP: Single + MP
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: RPG
Combat: Real-time
Play-time: 20-40 hours
Voice-acting: Partially voiced

Regions & platforms
Internet
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· Released: 2019-03-26
· Publisher: Deep Silver

More information