Redemption’s Guild VR is a KickStarter hopeful that wants to bring a cooperative multiplayer experience to virtual reality. Seeking $33,000 from backers, the game will support HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. We had the chance to chat with Michael Lepard to learn more about the project.
MMORPG: Give our readers a bit of background of the team members behind Redemption's Guild VR.
Michael Lepard: There are currently 7 people on the team, plus some other help we get along the way. My wife Taylor is a co-owner, she also does voice acting, helps with designing the games, and creates amazing music for our games. Our other co-owner is Derek, he does all the story-boarding and lore behind our games. We have two amazing investors Frank and Phillip who have helped our visions become a reality, we also have our Lead Programmer Jacob, Vlad our 3D artist, and then me, Michael, and I am the owner.
MMORPG: What inspired you to create a game, let alone a VR title?
ML: Our co-owner Derek and I have been brainstorming and working on ideas together for many years now. We are both passionate gamers who spent most of our free time playing video games. So after years of talking and coming up with exciting ideas we decided to jump into Unity and see what kind of mess we could create. This was about 3 years ago. We built our first prototype of Sapphiria, our story driven fantasy game, but due to a family tragedy and some other situations production came to a halt. We stopped working on Unity and Sapphiria just didn't feel right to us at the time. Fast forward a few years, Virtual reality Headsets are coming out, and I decide to pick one up. I decide to start up Unity and build another small prototype for Sapphiria from the ground up for Virtual Reality, this is when we knew we needed to create Virtual Reality games.
MMORPG: What special knowledge and skills are required to create VR games?
ML: Patience, and a whole lot of taking your VR headset on and off. Only thing that becomes a bit more difficult is that people have a tendency to find ways to throw things, run into things, and go into areas they shouldn't because of the wonders of being in another world. This makes testing and quality control a nightmare.
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MMORPG: What sets RG apart from other RPGs in general and VR games specifically?
ML: Comparing Redemption's Guild to other standard 2D RPG games, I would say our mechanics set us apart. I will give you a few examples: Take our Elementalist for example, to use an ability you actually need to place your hand over your tome (spell book) and then when you slide your thumb over the touchpad a menu pops up, allowing you to select your spells. Then you just point, aim, and fire away! It really is quite fun. Another example is our alchemist, which we plan on releasing after launch. This class allows you have a vial in both hands, then with the touchpad menu, you will select which "ingredients" you want to mix together. Once you mix them, just go ahead and throw the bottle! We really wanted to dig in deep into all the different ways to make the classes fun. Now, comparing Redemption's Guild to other RPG, this one is really simple. There is no comparison. There are no Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games for VR that we are aware of, and even if there was, we think our classes, progression, and customization options will set us apart and make us unique.
MMORPG: What is your timeline for development? What happens to RG if KickStarter fails?
ML: Our timeline really depends on the Kickstarter, if the Kickstarter is successful we plan on putting the team to work overtime to release this game as soon as possible. I unfortunately can't give you a good timeframe, as I don't want to let people down if we can't hit the release date. However, if the Kickstarter is unsuccessful we have many backup plans. We could release the game to early access with limited features, or just release the full game like we had planned, just much later. We will have to see what happens to the Kickstarter to see how this will all play out!
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MMORPG: How do you convince people with "KickStarter fatigue" to back a project like yours?
ML: Good question. We have actually had a couple people tell us they were tired of Kickstarter and weren't going to back us. So we reached out to them, exchanged a couple of jokes, then within a few hours they backed us. We try to make light of this whole thing, we are a company trying to bring fun games to great people with their help and designs. Because people can see how we interact with others and joke around, I think we break down a lot of walls with our fans.
MMORPG: Add any other comments you'd like.
ML: Thank you so much for allowing us to be a part of this amazing website, I am an avid MMORPG.com reader and I love all your articles, been reading them for many years now. Keep up the great work!
