Dreadline dev disillusioned with risk-averse and profit-oriented AAA industry, wants to “follow his instincts”
Joannes Truyens January 13, 2013 - 1:20 pmSteve Kimura, the former Harmonix artist who formed Eerie Canal and recently introduced his first project Dreadline to Kickstarter, laments the big players of his industry as being risk-averse and focused only on the hard cash.
A game where you play as a group of monsters who travel back in time to murder people right before they were set to die in disasters or accidents anyway. With a premise like that, it’s no surprise that former Harmonix developer Steve Kimura struck out on his own to form indie studio Eerie Canal and develop the cleverly named Dreadline. It’s currently sitting at a tenth of its intended Kickstarter goal with 18 days left on the clock.
It’s an inspired idea backed up by some intriguing art design that reminds me somewhat of Quentin Blake’s work. Dreadline is basically the game Kimura always wanted to make, which wasn’t feasible in “an entertainment industry dominated by giant corporations that are only interested in turning piles of money into larger piles of money in the least-risky way possible,” he tells VG247.
“Following our instincts’ is mostly about having a loosey-goosey plan to follow our best ideas wherever they take us, embracing that uncertainty, and believing that it will result in something more interesting in the end that we might otherwise have ended up with,” Kimura continues.
Kimura’s disillusionment with the AAA industry is what propelled him to try Kickstarter for his own project, one that wouldn’t be constrained by decisions from on high. “It’s really disappointing that you can take teams of super creative and talented people, full of great ideas and loveable idiosyncrasies, and turn their output into a kind of slick and characterless product for the mass market.”
“My days of working at AAA studios are probably over regardless of what happens with Kickstarter. The only thing for sure is that I can’t work forever without making a living somehow, but that my personal work will always be where my heart is,” Kimura continues.
A bold undertaking, but one I can only applaud. Here’s hoping Dreadline manages to live up to its wonderfully weird promise.
