![]() ‘We got to the point about two years in where even despite some very generous grants, it still wasn’t quite enough to be able to make the game that we wanted to make,’ Pearce said.Īrmed with a travel grant from Film Victoria, Pearce attended the Game Developers Conference (GDC), an annual industry event held in San Francisco, to meet with prospective labels. ![]() Grants from Film Victoria and Epic Games – the latter for making the game in Unreal Engine – helped to partially fund Modern Storyteller’s work, but the situation was clear: Pearce needed to find a publisher to see the project through. This approach, however, was precarious, with Pearce likening the period to that of a plane constantly running out of runway due to funding pressures along the way. Within weeks, Goss became Modern Storyteller member number two as The Forgotten City’s Technical Lead.įor the first two years of development, the plan was to self-publish The Forgotten City. FIND THE BUTTON CITY BEDRICJ MODImage: Modern StorytellerĪnother dilemma was that while the mod clearly proved Pearce had some degree of technical knowledge, he didn’t have the complete skill set required to develop a game.įortuitously, he met Alex Goss, an ‘extraordinary programmer’ at a party. The Forgotten City still carries some stylistic similarities to Skyrim. If The Forgotten City stood any chance of existing beyond Bethesda’s bounds, it needed to remove everything linking the game to Skyrim: including any mentions in promotional material.ĭue to the nature of the arrangement, Pearce was careful to avoid mentioning Bethesda or Skyrim and couldn’t elaborate on the details other than a US-based lawyer specialising in intellectual property helped to secure a limited consent agreement making The Forgotten City possible as an independent entity. One early roadblock of major concern came in the form of disentangling Pearce’s own intellectual property from the mod. ‘The entire thing feels like a sort of a high-wire act there were so many gusts of wind that could easily have just toppled the whole thing. ‘A lot of things have gone right – for to get to the point it is at the moment,’ Pearce said. Many moments of good fortune resulted in The Forgotten City seeing the light of day, which Pearce readily acknowledged. But I had this burning desire to make games and this was the only way I could do it.’ ‘Walking away from an established career and a good salary to make videogames – which is an inherently risky proposition – that was the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to do. Plenty of obstacles remained in the way, but Pearce saw a path forward, formed the independent studio Modern Storyteller, and commenced making a game professionally. More than 90% of respondents indicated they were interested in a standalone game. To test the viability of putting more work into The Forgotten City, Pearce conducted a random survey of 200 people who had played the mod. ‘I didn’t have a budget, I had a full-time job, was already quite busy, and I didn’t know anything about making standalone games.’ ‘At the time, I hadn’t really given any thought, mainly because the obstacles in the way just seemed insurmountable,’ Pearce said. ![]() Pearce didn’t take the idea too seriously until he had a beer with League of Geeks co-founders Trent Kusters and Blake Mizzi, who encouraged him to look into transforming the mod into something that stood on its own feet. The Forgotten City mod caught the eye of major videogame publications at the time, suggesting it was worthy of being its own game. Frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer autoplay clipboard-write encrypted-media gyroscope picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> ![]()
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