Owlcat Talks Publishing Indie RPGs Rue Valley and Shadow of the Road

Best known for their Pathfinder and Warhammer 40k games, RPG developer Owlcat is turning its attention toward publishing for other narrative-focused indies. The first two games on the list are Rue Valley by Emotion Spark Studios and Shadow of the Road by Another Angle Games.

Owlcat’s head of publishing, Andrey Tsvetkov, spoke to Game Rant about what drew the studio to these titles and how they fit in with the vibe of the Owlcat catalog. Generally, he explained, Owlcat seeks out the kind of narrative-rich games that fit with the kind of thing they might’ve developed themselves.

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The Shadow of the Road

Shadow of the Road, developed by Polish studio Another Angle, has attracted a lot of attention for its fascinating setting. The game takes place in feudal Japan, but with steampunk and magical elements. That, however, wasn’t even present in the demo that made Owlcat fall in love with the project, explained Tsvetkov.

The primary focus of
Shadow of the Road
is the characters. It’s the character arc of two samurai friends, who start their journey as ronin that just lost their master, and they encounter other characters on the way … To be honest, when we were reviewing this project, we played a demo–and that demo had almost nothing with magic and steampunk, all the stuff was meant to be in the later parts of the game. It was just briefly touched and highlighted in the demo and specific moments. It was basically a
story about people
.

Shadow of the Road would’ve been a great title if it was just a historic Japanese title about samurai and the characters they meet on their journey. It’s when the Shogun entrusts the samurai with the care for a young, talented person where the magical and steampunk elements of the game are introduced. When the game incorporates magic from the Shogun and steampunk from the English, it adds layers to the game.

But for Tsvetkov, it was the character interactions that fascinated him the most. These are what helped it feel like an Owlcat kind of game, as the publisher’s first party games are known to have deep and defined characters. Ultimately, feeling like an Owlcat game is part of what the studio is looking for in its indie partners.

Descending into Rue Valley

Rue Valley, from Serbian developer Emotion Spark, has been compared favorably to one of the biggest indie RPGs in recent memory, Disco Elysium. The game dives into issues of depression and mental health, told through the framing of a time loop surrounded by colorful characters, emotional stories, and unexpected secrets. Though the comparison is pretty obvious, Tsvetkov felt the themes of dealing with depression hit him close to home, and he believes many gamers will feel the same.

When we saw this, the concept was so great–we played a short demo of it before signing this project up–it was so well written. They were still trying to figure out what the art style would be, how the visuals would be. It was fascinating. For many years, it was believed among RPG players that if you’re creating an RPG, it should be all about stats, progression, classes, etc. We were delighted that, I believe our colleagues from Emotion Spark were
delighted to see the success of
Disco Elysium

, because this was the first case like this on this scale.

An example of the way Rue Valley separates itself from the mold of traditional RPGs is in its character creation. Instead of choosing stats, players define their personality. Cold-hearted loners or melodramatic loudmouths can be affected by Rue Valley’s version of status effects, which include things like being more outgoing when drunk.

Owlcat embarked on a new strategy for an open alpha test for Rue Valley. Subscribers to Humble Choice have, at time of reporting, access to the alpha for the game. This was one of the first times Humble offered its subscribers a form of early access, and was made possible by the long history between Owlcat and Humble.

What Owlcat Looks For in an Indie

These two games aren’t the only indies that Owlcat is looking to publish, though. Owlcat is on the road to becoming a major publisher of indie narrative-driven games, and has a stack of pitches from August’s Gamescom to look through.

The first thing Owlcat inspects isn’t actually the game, but the team. Emotion Spark and Another Angle impressed Owlcat as teams that had clear visions, core developers with the ability to deliver, and independance. Owlcat doesn’t want to be a co-developer, but is content to mentor younger studios in their space.

These teams had
really strong visions of what they wanted to do
, because the important thing about every team out there, they should have the core people who know what they’re doing and the thing that they’re doing, it could be exciting in the actual product that they are creating from exciting and they should have the capability of delivering it. So we saw that in those teams they have a strong vision of what kind of games they want to create.

The ability to deliver is also very important for Owlcat. Tsvetkov doesn’t believe the idea of releasing a game “when it’s done” is viable in the industry, and some games like Beyond Good and Evil 2 demonstrate the problem he sees very well. So it’s important to Owlcat that the teams they work with are capable of finishing a project in a timely manner. Fully aware of the challenges indie developers face, however, Owlcat is happy to share their expertise and advice.