and I'm here to share the latest and greatest gaming news
in all of the land.
♪ [hip hop]
♪ ♪
Welcome back to another episode of
Elijah Sandiford.
[clears throat]
Don't forget about me, E-Thor. I'm here too.
Right. Where even are you?
Here!
Where is here?
I'm here because this week's episode is all about
this new smash hit Viking survival game called
I thought I'd come and help out, you know,
since I'm a Viking and all.
Oh... kay... sure. You can help.
♪ [melodic fantasy]
♪ ♪
For those of you who might not know of
where have you been?
Under a boat?
[cracking]
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
It's a runaway success.
Five million games sold in just over a month.
♪ [epic]
I'm talking huge numbers for a PC game
that's still only in early access beta testing.
What is a PC?
Personal cauldron.
But what might be most unique about this game
is that it has been made entirely by an indie game studio
called
only have five team members.
That's one team member for every million games sold.
♪ ♪
I sat down with some of the key team members behind
to talk about the indie game making experience
and what makes the game's success
different from all the others.
Can you introduce yourselves and your role in making
I am Henrik Tornqvist,
co-founder of
And I'm Sebastian Badylak,
producer at
mainly working with
[game music and sound effects]
[fire crackles]
[chopping]
♪ ♪
Talk to me about the inspiration behind
What's the game about?
Well, I think a lot of the inspiration comes from the
classic single player adventure games,
Zelda
to combine the adventure
style of
with survival elements.
And we wanted to do it with the Vikings.
A lot of games usually come from big studios
that have big budgets.
And here you are coming from
and you have a small little group.
How was that process coming up with
and seeing it grow to be so successful?
We kind of knew that we had a pretty good game on our hands,
but the amount of success has been incredible.
That was something that we couldn't
anticipate at all, actually.
It's kind of not the first time that a small team does something
incredibly big like this, at least, only looking at Sweden.
I mean, we only a couple of years ago we had
also become the top seller on Steam.
That was also made by three people.
Prior to that, I guess
a big thing coming out of Sweden from just one person initially.
So I think it doesn't really matter
how many sort of people you put on a project,
it sort of depends on what you're aiming for.
And I think in these days, creating a game
has never been easier. Anyone could, you know,
download the latest sort of game engine and start making a game.
That doesn't necessarily mean that it will turn out good or
turn out into this massive success.
But the point is that anyone can try out an interesting idea
and it doesn't really require tons of graphics
or high fidelity audio visuals to achieve that.
As long as you can demonstrate something interesting
gameplay wise, I think you have a fairly good shot at
succeeding in one way or another.
Any advice to someone my age that wants to make video games?
I'm inclined to say something really cheesy, like
never give up your dream.
But...
..studying game development at a university gave me
the opportunity to meet other like minded people
and kind of start creating things together.
So I think that is pretty key, actually.
For me I guess I'd say,
if you want a concrete piece of advice,
it never hurts to study programming.
If you know programming, it tends to be
easier to work in the industry.
I'm not saying that you have to do that, but
that would be my piece of advice.
Any sneak peeks or Easter eggs you can tell me about?
We're currently planning the first update,
the first patch to the game and that will focus on
the building, building houses and cooking food.
So that's the first thing that's coming out later this year.
But as for any specific Easter eggs or anything like that,
we don't know. But we love... we love putting in
specific special stuff in the game.
So, yeah, it --
there will surely be some new Easter eggs in the future.
That I can guarantee.
Thank you to all the fans. [laughs]
I agree. It was nice talking to you.
And yeah, definitely a big thanks to all the fans
creating interesting content on
It's been a super fun time and
we're looking forward to more of that.
After talking to Henrik and Sebastian, I can only dream
of what indie game studios have to offer in the future.
With the success of
be possible for smaller studios with big ideas.
Have you ever wanted to make your own video game?
Let me know at cbckidsnews@cbc.ca.
Until next time, for
Wait!
For
Game over.
♪ [epic]