It's sort of become my "thing" -- getting behind an idea long before it gains a big following. At some point over the past couple of years, I began stumbling upon all of these great little ventures, the sparks of things that would eventually become something grand. There's nothing quite as satisfying as finding the bare bones of a plan, spreading the word about it and seeing the world respond in a big way. While much of the world discovers video games shortly before they are released, there are those of us who have had the privilege of watching them go from a few sparse images and text into a fleshed out, enormously popular experience. On May 9th, I had one such opportunity.
I don't remember the first time I heard about Arcadian Atlas, but I do remember how. I came across developer siblings Becca and Taylor Bair through an Internet breadcrumb trail, a friend of a friend of a friend type deal. As far as the general public was concerned, Arcadian Atlas was little more than a few illustrations and a titled home page promising a strategy game inspired by "Final Fantasy Tactics." But, honestly? That was enough to get me excited about it. Watching this tiny team put their ideas into action was awesome, and one benefit of finding something this early in the process is that it's relatively easy to talk with the developers. You end up with fun little conversations like this one from last summer:
While I was enthusiastic about "Arcadian Atlas" from the first time I read about it, I was not prepared for the scale its development team was prepared to take it to. They launched a well-organized crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter early last month with the lofty goal of $90,000. The first few days of the campaign looked promising as over $40,000 was pledged, but the initial buzz died down for a few weeks, a terrifying thing for hopeful backers. For those unfamiliar with Kickstarter's all-or-nothing system, projects are only funded if they reach their entire goal within the allotted time. I joined hundreds of other people in spreading the word about "Arcadian Atlas" all over Facebook and Twitter. In the final 48 hours, something worked. The project received an enormous surge in those final two days, rocketing from around $70,000 past its goal to $95,000. The fans cheered, the developers (probably) cried and everyone looked around wondering what would happen next.
The funding story of "Arcadian Atlas" seemed to be everything an indie developer could hope for-- a large initial fan base (nearly 2,500 backers before the game was even made), enough funds to go into full-time development, and even a few celebrity backers like Ken Levine, creator of "Bioshock." When I caught up with Becca a few days after the campaign ended, she told me, "My job and life changed a ton. I am able to work on 'Arcadian Atlas' all the time now instead of just in the evenings and weekends! It definitely takes some getting adjusted to."
The next step for the team, aside from development itself, is to keep pushing for a few "stretch goals." If you'd like to get involved, then there's still time to back early by following this link or finding "Arcadian Atlas" on Twitter or Facebook.
