Ex-Telltale & Klei devs form indie studio Campo Santo, Olly Moss involved
Campo Santo is the new indie team formed by members of TelltaleGames and Klei Entertainment. The team includes revered digital artist Olly Moss, which should come as interesting to art fans out there.
The studio's formation was announced on the official Campo Santo blog. So far, the team consists of Mark of the Ninja lead designer Nels Anderson, Walking Dead writers Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, as well as Moss.
In the blog post, Vanaman writes, "Deciding to found and then actually CREATE a video game studio has felt like a mix of buying a winning lottery ticket and taking a brash detour that results in a near miss with a pedestrian. Impulse followed by action followed by sitting in your car hyperventilating. The outcome is thrilling at best and disastrous at worst."
Vanaman added that there are two reasons to *not* make games that the studio is keen to avoid. He continued, "Firstly, games hate to be made. They really would rather not be made and once they catch wind that they might be in the process of being made they break, stall, and use all of their static inertia to produce something that’s really not fun to work on, let alone play.
"Secondly, the video game business — the thing that ostensibly allows a band of quixotic programmers, artists and designers to try to wrangle the stubborn monster mentioned in my previous point — is insane. It doesn’t have a very clear understanding of its (readily apparent) nature of risk-taking the way most risk-taking lines of business do.
"Beyond the risk, and the way it shapes the industry ecosystem, there are very few business oriented end-games that appeal to the types of people who like making interactive experiences. Sell the company? But we’re just now successful enough to make what we want! Create a hit franchise with multi-million-dollar sequels? Come on, can’t we make something new? The Venn diagram of why businesspeople start businesses and why developers choose to make games has a strange middle, indeed."
He added that the current teams roster is thrilling and that it will give rise to interesting new ideas. Camp Santo's first project will be backed and made in collaboration with Mac design studio Panic Inc, based in Portland, Oregon. The project's details are to be disclosed soon.
Are you intrigued by the studio's roster? Let us know what you think below.
Via IGN.