The Age of Decadence Interview

RPGWatch has a new interview with Iron Tower Studio’s Vince D. Weller, discussing the basics of their upcoming indie RPG the Age of Decadence.

Rune: The game has been in development for a long time – I’m not even sure when I first heard of it – when do you think it will be done?

Vince: We started putting some concepts together (what you may call a pre-production phase) in March 2004. We played a bit with a homemade 2D engine, ran into some issues, switched to Torque in 2005. Took us about a year to learn the new engine; “full scale” development since 2006.

As I’ve just mentioned, a full demo will be released soon. When it’s out, we’ll be in a better position to comment on the release date.

Rune: With the long development time are you worried that you may always have just one more thing to do?

Vince: If you’re implying that the reason the game is still in development is because we keep adding things, you’re mistaken. The goals and features haven’t changed since they were defined years ago. Gameplay polishing does take time, however. “A game’s only late until it ships, but it sucks forever”, and all that.

We have only once chance to impress the gaming public, and 5+ year isn’t a lot for a part-time project, especially by 4 people with no previous experience (i.e. the development time includes learning the trade through trial & error). In comparison:

Civ 5 has been in development for 3 years, 52 people team. Fallout 3 was in development for 4 years. Gothic – more than 4 years. NWN – around 5 years, Witcher – more than 5 years, fairly large team, but the quality is undeniable. Arcanum – 2.5 years. KOTOR – 3 years. Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 – god know how many years.