The Indie Revolution and Unholy Resurrection of 32-Bit Genre with Ryan Peyton

“In short, it’s my theory that indies will continue to break free of its 16-bit stasis in the coming years, away from platformers and 2D, and into the 3D realm. In the indie world, I look at 2013 like it’s 1996 — game developers now have access to hardware, platforms and tools that allow them to break away the shackles off 2D and build 3D games, and now with a much more manageable budget. We’re also experiencing similar growing pains like our PlayStation and Saturn grandfathers. I’ll talk about the development of République and how we’ve taken inspiration from games like the original Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid games. I’ll also put to other games that support this theory, like Broken Age, Hawken, The Witness, Spy Party, Fez, Kentucky Route Zero, etc. I’ll end my talk by applying this theory to the next five years and predict where indie games will go.” – Ryan Peyton

Ryan Payton is founder of Seattle-based Camouflaj, the studio behind the upcoming game RÉPUBLIQUE. He began his career in Tokyo as a producer on Konami’s METAL GEAR SOLID 4, and was then recruited by Microsoft to return home to Seattle and direct HALO 4. After three years at Microsoft, Ryan surprised the industry by announcing his departure to establish his own independent game studio, Camouflaj.

One year ago, Ryan and his team launched an ambitious Kickstarter campaign for RÉPUBLIQUE, seeking $500,000. Pitching the game as an iOS-focused, story-driven “stealth survival” game that combines the qualities of the original Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid games, Ryan and the team raised $555,000 through the popular crowdfunding site. Currently the 17-person team at Camouflaj is deep in development of RÉPUBLIQUE, using the Unity engine. The game is scheduled for a late summer 2013 release.