Digitally Downloaded interviews Ossian Studios CEO Alan Miranda to talk about the just released iOS RPG The Shadow Sun.
More information.What inspired you to develop a high quality RPG for the mobile platforms?
Prior to Ossian developing TSS for iOS, we made fantasy RPGs for publishers or other developers (BioWare, Atari, CD Projekt). Unfortunately, in each of those cases, something that was completely out of our hands went awry, like delays and cancellations on the publisher side. For any developer, that’s extremely frustrating and potentially devastating financially. That’s why being able to make a game that we could bring directly to a fanbase appealed to us so much.
So back in December 2009, it seemed to us that there was an absence of high-quality Western RPGs on iOS, made by experienced RPG developers. We saw that as an opportunity for us to jump in and start making one instead of trying to make a PC RPG in an already crowded marketplace.
Where did the idea for The Shadow Sun come from?
Having worked on numerous fantasy stories for our previous games, we knew we wanted to create something deeper and more intriguing than a story backdrop of a war or an obvious menace like an undead horde overrunning a kingdom.
So we put our heads together and developed the idea for a shadow that was slowly creeping across the face of the sun. It seemed like a great premise for a world in peril - an epic backdrop for the fantasy stories we wanted to tell. It was mysterious and Lovecraftian in its otherworldliness.
As The Shadow Sun is a Unity-based game, are you considering porting it to consoles as well? Which consoles would you like to see it on the most?
After the iOS version comes out, we’ll be looking at other mobile platforms, such as Android. Past that, it’s hard to say. The game was originally designed with a certain set of iOS criteria in mind, and we would have to evaluate very closely to see how well that could be ported to consoles or the PC/Mac. But the Unity engine does give us that option should we so choose, which is great!