Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore Kickstarter Update #7, $70,433 and Counting

The latest Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore Kickstarter update includes a team Q&A with Marian Arnold, the lead character artist on the project. Here’s a snippet:

What are you working on this week?

Everything. 😉

Thousands of Kickstarter support tasks, and in the small amount of time between them, I prepare new 3d models so that we won’t run out of updates anytime soon.

What other projects have you worked on?

I was introduced to the world of 3D graphics by working for an architectural visualization company for some time. Pretty boring stuff, really. But being a Role Playing Addict all my life, I always wanted to make these kinds of games.

So when I decided to enter the games industry, my first choice to apply at was the company which had created my beloved (Das Schwarze Auge) game series, which are better known in the US as the (Realms of Arkania( games. I was hired on the spot, really. That was in 1997, and I started as an artist at Attic Entertainment Software, where I met Guido the first time, shortly before he relocated to the United States. We worked together on a strategy game called (Herrscher der Meere,) or (Souvereign of the Seas( as it was called outside of Germany.

Shortly after, Attic sent the entire development team to Belgium to co-develop (Das Schwarze Auge 4: The Lady, the Mage and the Knight,( created by a fresh, and then-quite unknown game company named Larian Studios. Attic went out of business and I stayed on with Larian to turn our experience into the completion of (Divine Divinity,( a game many of you may be familiar with.

I stayed with Larian until the release of (Beyond Divinity( in 2004, where I was also involved in a number of smaller productions for casino games and Belgian Television.

When I returned to Germany, I worked as a freelance artist for Virgin Lands, a German Art Studio that also emerged from the Attic Entertainment playground. Here, I did work on the first (Spellforce) game.

I returned to Larian for their next project, (Divinity 2: Ego Draconis( but left the company by the time my daughter was born. It was the perfect opportunity for me to take a long-needed break, while working on small projects on the side.

That was when Guido approached me and told me about his vision for this new game. He explained that we had to work for quite some time without payment in order to create a prototype, and he wanted me to think about it. I didn’t need to think, I said Yes at once.

Some EA manager once told me, that game developers are so easy to exploit because this whole industry is driven by idealism. Well, that just about nails me.