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EALA Vets Form Haunted Temple, Announce XBLA/PC Turn-Based Strategy Game
by Chris Remo [PC, Console/PC]
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June 4, 2010
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A group of development veterans most recently worked at Electronic Arts Los Angeles has formed independent developer Haunted Temple Studios, whose first project is the Advance Wars-inspired Skulls of the Shogun for Xbox Live Arcade and PC.
Comprised of four team members and announced on the game's official site, Haunted Temple was spearheaded by artist Jake Kazdal, who first become known for his work on Space Channel 5 and Rez at Sega's United Game Artists.
Kazdal moved to EA LA, where he contributed to numerous games including Steve Spielberg's stalled LMNO project as well as Command & Conquer 4 -- whose team was told it would be largely laid off after the game's completion.
"I hate to say it but EA LA laying everyone off was the best thing that ever happened to me!" Kazdal said in a 1UP interview. "To be able to cherry pick some of the best developers I had ever worked with to work on my own game was just the most phenomenal thing ever."
The other three members of Haunted Temple are designer and programmer Borut Pfeifer, programmer Ben Vance, and audio developer Sam Bird, all of whom worked on either LMNO, Command & Conquer 4, or both.
Skulls of the Shogun's official site describes the game as "an invigorating cocktail of 1960s-flavored sorcery and strategy," aiming to push the turn-based strategy genre forward by maintaining an elegance in gameplay with evolutions to interface, graphics, and tactical options.
Haunted Temple hopes to complete the game on Xbox Live Arcade and PC within six to nine months, and is considering other platforms, including iPad, in the future.
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Nice. :)
It remains to be see whether console accessibility > PC strategic depth, but this sounds like a great start. Best of luck to the team!
I think those concerns are a lot less pressing with turn-based strategy as compared to real-time. And since the team's primary touchstone is Advance Wars, a console series, they probably won't feel particularly limited either way.
Looking forward to it!
It's real encouraging to hear about veterans in the industry that didn't just "roll over and die" after they got dealt a bad hand. I really hope these fine fellows make it big.
Looking forward to seeing how this game turns out. Even if not for my own selfish reason lol
Essentially the large company paid for the development, the smaller company reaped the rewards by not having to invest in time or money but rather having a person already familiar with establishing the process.
And to get back on track, Turn-based strategy has a lot of history in development. The question is what are they keeping the same and what is going to be new. There are A LOT of developmental hurdles that are side stepped when you don't necessarily have to keep everything active at once. (Updates--whether its to frame or to a server.)
So personally I'd be looking at the art, game design, and scope of the project. There are a lot of companies that are focusing on RTS or some derivative as a free to play model, but there are none that I know of that are focusing on turn based development. I can see a lot of cross platform and service capabilities here. Looks ripe, good for investment owing on the business and development plans.