Hey there, Enthusiacs. As chance would have it, I recently made acquaintance with Kyle Postlewait, who is a game developer and creator of Big Kitty Games.  We had the opportunity to chat about his studio and Solace Crafting, the project on which he’s currently developing.  I found he has a refreshing take on game development as a whole, and on the role-playing genre of games.  Check out our interview below!

Judge Greg: Could you please introduce yourself?

Kyle Postlewait: I am a Seattle, Washington born game developer living in the countryside of Japan with my wife and four cats. Primarily a game designer and programmer after that, I’ve always been a jack of all trades which has helped me a lot in tackling the many challenges of game development. I’m horrible when it comes to marketing and so am grateful to be here.

JG: How did you get your start as a game developer?

KP: I couldn’t wait any longer for someone to make the game I always wanted to play. I knew it wasn’t out there, but I couldn’t figure out why someone else wasn’t making it. One day it clicked that no one was going to make it if I didn’t, and I ended up spending five years teaching myself game development with help from people all over the world.

JG: What inspired you to create Big Kitty Games?

KP: I believe it’s important to encourage good sportsmanship and moral choices wherever possible; I was never into excessive gore or unnecessary violence. Then again, my favorite games are all about destroying evil with swords and sorcery, so I wanted to start a studio that would seek out the middle ground of rated content. Not too soft, but not too hard. I’ve also had some really poor experiences with companies rushing their products or marketing false claims, and wanted to make sure things like that never happen on my watch. I think community and fun are a lot more important than expensive graphics and hope to bring in a lot of unorthodox community content like voices, spells, and quests through community contests. I get the feeling a lot of companies would cringe at that, but I really believe a good community is what makes a good game.

JG: What can you tell us about Solace Crafting?

 KP: The primary goal has always been to set a new standard for crafting and harvesting in games. It takes a very different approach to crafting and character development that really lets players use and be whatever they want. I never liked how games increasingly limit players based on their choices. We’re supposed to be unique legendary heroes, and I hope we get to see some really interesting characters from our player base when we go live.

The game worlds are procedurally infinite because there’s no level cap, while difficulty increases exponentially the further you travel. We’re able to see over 9,000 square kilometers around us so we can spot mountains, floating islands, and any important landmarks like pyramids or cave entrances letting us choose what we want to go and investigate. The math is being set up so that most players can make it to about level 50, but there’s nothing built-in that stops players from going beyond that. I’m sure some players will push quite a bit past that.

JG: Could you provide some context for the lore of the game?

KP: Everything starts when a prodigy of astral travel in a parallel universe is manipulated into starting the slow and complete destruction of the galaxy. That starts on your planet but an accident throws us into a different dimension and we’re challenged at first to survive, and then to find a way to save existence. It builds on the concepts that everything is connected, that our souls go through many different lives, and that mankind is susceptible to forces we can’t yet see and measure with modern science. Everything is viewed from a fantasy perspective, but I have long term plans for some hard science fiction settings as well.

JG: Was there any specific inspiration for Solace Crafting?

 KP: It’s more my attempt at answering all the questions I gathered over thirty years of gaming. For years now I’ve been writing down why I think games are fun and what I felt could be improved on. For example I never understood why all our weapons and armor come from dead monsters, why warriors can’t learn magic, or why a blacksmith can’t learn to knit a sweater. I also found myself going to back to the same few RPGs or building games over and over because they were a form of creative outlet for me, and I knew I wanted to find new unrestrictive ways of letting people get creative. It took a long time to put freedom, creativity, and fantasy all in the same boat, but it really took off once I understood what it was I was trying to do.

JG: How do you use role-playing in developing a gaming experience for a game like Solace Crafting?

 KP: I think that the most lasting experiences we take from video games are the ones that are much more personal, such as a story or a character we relate to or take interest in. In Solace Crafting most of the features are really designed to help players create and role-play their own character and choices, which I think opens the door to a much more involved gaming experience. I don’t want players to just follow one of several paths; I want to help them uncover their own path with as little tedium as possible.

JG: Have you found that the ever-changing umbrella placed on the genre of “RPG” games has changed player expectations for such titles?

KP: I think it’s really had a numbing effect on the term that people try to remedy with more words. Most games on Steam now will have five or six tags with them and RPG is about the least descriptive of them. To me player choice should really be a primary aspect of an RPG, but often we’re really just following someone else’s story. I think unfortunately most players nowadays only really take it to mean that there’s some sort of leveling mechanism involved.

JG: How have you found the use of procedural generation of game elements for Solace Crafting?

 KP: Procedural content is a lot more exciting to me than purely hand-crafted content because you never know what you’re going to find, but a good balance of the two is definitely important and pretty difficult to execute. For example town buildings are hand-crafted, while their layout, their citizens, available quests and rewards, and a whole lot of seemingly preconceived content is actually procedurally generated different for every player. Secret locations are never the same, monsters of the same type can be generated with very different skills sets, and so on, so it helps to keep things interesting.

JG: What game engine is being used for Solace Crafting, and how has the experience been using it?

KP: I’m using Unity3D and the experience has been great. Above all the online community has been absolutely priceless in helping with anything I’ve ever needed. All in all the amount of ready to use third party tools, industry veteran advice, YouTube content and so on are way above any other large scale development platform that I know of. I was only ever interested in thinking big, so a lot of other engines were really never an option for me.

JG: What does the future hold for you once Solace Crafting is complete?

 KP: I don’t know if Solace Crafting will ever stop being updated. The way that it generates and maintains worlds is designed to accept new content readily and I hope I’m fortunate enough to be able to continue to add content to it for at least the next few years in the forms of equipment, buildings, races, new worlds, monsters, achievements, and so on. Should the time come to start putting effort elsewhere I’ve got pages and pages full of notes on a couple other games I’d love to create for the industry.

JG: When you’re not managing a single-person game development project, what do you like to do with your time?

KP: Outside of my day job, I live a similar lifestyle really; I love to craft and adventure. I woodwork, I garden, I cook dinner for myself and my wife most nights, I like to get creative. I love the mountains and forests that I’m surrounded by and am looking forward to hiking after the weather warms up a bit more. Though I admit I’m always thinking and talking about game development no matter what I’m doing. My wife is very kind to continue putting up with it all these years.

JG: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the Enthusiacs out there?

 KP: I’ve seen enough people follow their dreams to success to know it’s something we’re all capable of. It might take some of us ten years, it might happen overnight, but I really believe there’s something we’re all very passionate about whether we’ve found it or not. Whether or not my Kickstarter is a success I’m just doing what I love and know that someday soon it’s all I’ll have to worry about anymore. If someday I’m capable of inspiring any one person the way I’ve been inspired by so many others I’d be very happy.

JG: Thank you very much for talking with us.  Can you tell us when you anticipate Solace Crafting will be released, and where can people find it?

KP: My Kickstarter campaign should start in May or June, and I should only need three months give or take a few weeks after that to get a solid Alpha build out to backers before going public on Steam. If, tragically, my Kickstarter campaign fails, I’ll be aiming to release a less complete version on a similar schedule to get the ball rolling.

JG: Where can people go to learn more about you and Solace Crafting?

KP: Twitter is where all the latest information goes first, but the website www.solacecrafting.com has much more detailed information on it.

We’re also on Facebook and more recently Instagram as well.