Lince Works is developing Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows, a dark 3rd person stealth game about an undead warrior with the power to control the shadows. The Steam Early Access release is planned for early 2015.
Aragami – Shadow Assassin by Lince Works on Sketchfab
Hi team how are you ? Can you tell me what’s the story behind Twin Souls ? How did this game come to life ?
We’re glad to be on Sketchfab today. So actually we wanted to create a game that combined the essence of stealth classics like Tenchu with the modern approach of recent gems like Mark of the Ninja and Dishonored.
Some of us at Lince Works have always been big fans of the stealth genre and spent countless hours playing Tenchu, Metal Gear Solid or even Syphon Filter on the PS1. Anime series, samurai movies and literature also contributed to our interest on creating Twin Souls.
Specifically, the idea behind Twin Souls and the use of shadow manipulation was born in 2013 when some of the Lince Works developers co-created Path of Shadows, a student game made for learning purposes and portfolio. We liked so much the idea of a badass Shadow Assassin that in 2014 we started the development of Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows as its spiritual successor, improving and working on the original game concept.
Would you say that the world of indie games is a challenging one ?
The journey to release a game being an indie studio is quite long. Making a game being a big studio is already a huge challenge, but being indie adds even more complexity, as indie developers usually have to wear different ‘hats’ at the same time. You’ll usually find 3D programmers who act as team leads, or concept artists who do level design. With lower funds and resources, indie developers must resort to more innovative strategies both technically (unusual aesthetics, pixel art or low-poly models) and in terms of marketing (alpha/beta sales, early access, development logs).
You made a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, how does it help you through this adventure?
The Kickstarter campaign for Twin Souls ended unsuccessful at $31,000 of $70,000; but we learned a lot from our mistakes (we even wrote a post-mortem article). Basically, videogames are usually designed, developed and released without any kind of external input or feedback. With the rise of indies and crowdfunding, the player (the final consumer) has become a fundamental part of the development cycle. The Twin Souls Kickstarter campaign was a defining point on the project development and made us rethink (and redesign) every pillar of the game, from game mechanics to art.
Some Sketchfab community members study video game development at school, what would you recommend to them ?
My summary would be: Get some game development formation if you can (or learn by yourself from online resources) and, the important part, make games. Just create the smallest game possible like a Flappy Bird clone for example, and keep creating bigger games as you become better. Team up with other people with similar interests and participate in game jams to meet other game developers and gain experience.
Thank you for your time guys, and all the best with Twin Souls !
– Jc
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