Hello everyone! I’m Travis, co-founder of Seeker and Creative Director of KinForge. Thank you all for the fantastic response to the first look at our game! It’s always a harrowing moment when you go from quietly working on something to revealing it publicly and it's invigorating to see so much excitement and interest around our baby.
For this first post, I thought I’d delve a bit into how KinForge came to be, where we’re at in development, and where we’re going. That’s actually a lot now that I write it down but it seems like good context so let’s just dive in.
When my co-founder, Oksana, and I founded Seeker, we did so with a goal to create games that brought people together in meaningful, positive ways.
We’d both spent significant time recently working in PvP games which can be toxic and draining to both players and developers. My background, and the kind of games I love making and playing, focuses on cooperative play. Much of my career has been spent creating MMOs where you’re working with other players to overcome challenges. The kind of games where camaraderie and friendship are baked into the DNA. Where you are telling stories of shared adventures years later. That’s what Seeker was founded to create.
Early character concept art for KinForge - not final.
We also wanted to create something that was hopeful. Our world can be a pretty dark place these days. KinForge is rooted in the real world and we don’t shy away from the issues we all face daily, but the story is one of hope and redemption. One where you are given the power to fight back and make a difference.
That said, we also love the adrenaline rush you get from overcoming difficult challenges so we didn’t want to create something cozy. The threats are real and it requires both tactical skill and strategic planning to overcome them.
Early Corruption concept art for KinForge - not final.
We also wanted to create something fresh. While KinForge pulls inspiration from games we love, it’s unlike anything you’ve played before. It has elements of creature collection, but YOU are the hero, not the creatures. You aren’t capturing and summoning creatures. You are bonding with them to internalize their abilities. It has elements of ARPGs, but the multiplayer is much more cooperative, akin to an MMO. You can play solo, but to take on the biggest challenges, you must work together, combining your team’s different skills and abilities to become greater than the sum of your parts. It has aspects of rogue-likes, though at a campaign level rather than the rapid cycles of many of today’s versions. And, at the heart of it, you have the KinForge itself which allows you to craft and combine the powers you get from the Elementals you find to create ability loadouts that are uniquely yours.
We started developing KinForge about 2 years ago and have been playtesting it with players behind closed doors for over a year now. The response has been fantastic and I’m excited to start opening things up now and getting more of you in over time.
Again, thanks for all of your support for KinForge! We’re a small team of developers and your enthusiasm has meant the world to us at such an early point in our development process. Stay tuned for more updates in the new year. In the meantime, make sure to sign up for our FirstLook list to get dibs on exclusive community opportunities as we develop the game, and follow us on socials for more behind the scenes looks at the game in progress.
Talk to you soon,
Travis McGeathy
Co-Founder, Seeker Games
Sign Up for our FirstLook list!