Arkedo Studio is a small-time French publisher/developer with big plans for the indie gaming scene. They just released their first game on Xbox Live Indie Games called “Jump!” — What? You haven’t heard of it? Well you can mosey on over to our review to read all about it. — Needless to say, the developer has big plans for the service in the very near future.

I was lucky enough to be able to speak with Camille Guermonprez, the founder of Arkedo, to discuss all things that are happening within their company, big and squid-like, from profits to Natal development:

Geoff Gibson: Your studio, Arkedo, has typically only done DS games. Why have you started distributing on Xbox Live Indie Games?

Camille Guermonprez: DS games take us approx. 18 months to make. We are trying to make 18 games during this lapse of time, now!

More seriously, that’s almost true. I have the chance to have around really creative people, from very different horizons, and it gives us the possibility to make these kinds of experiments. Having to make a game a month really gives us energy.

Geoff Gibson: I noticed that Jump! is entitled with something called Arkedo Series 01. What’s that about?

Camille Guermonprez: Well, that’s precisely our concept: make a Series of games. One a month, to be precise.  There are two team, working in parallel. They work for 6 weeks, then slack. Then I remember about them, so they work again for 6 weeks

In terms of design, as I said, it allows us to experiment quite a lot. We can cope with having one of our games not succeed that much, but still if we want to make it because it’s a direction we want to try, we can.
In terms of business, I hope that the public will keep on associating Arkedo with quality. Hopefully the Arkedo Series will bear that label, too. The XBL Indie is a great place, but the quality of the games and apps is not consistent. We have to find a way to stand out, and believe that our way of doing it at least has a merit: we are trying

Geoff Gibson: What was the inspiration behind Jump!?

Camille Guermonprez: PitFall, Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg, Jet Set Willy, Bombjack , Rick Dangerous, the first Super Mario Bros… We left a few eggs in the game! Those should not be too hard to spot.

Geoff Gibson: Has Jump! Sold well enough to re-coup any costs associated with the game? Is, in your opinion, Xbox Live Indie Games a viable distribution channel to make a profit?

Camille Guermonprez: Not yet, but it makes sense. The game has been out for a fortnight only, and has sold approx. 1.500 copies, yet, for a 10% conversion rate. For the most lazy amongst your readers, it means that we had 15.000 downloads.

Geoff Gibson: Do you have any plans to distribute more games on the service?

Camille Guermonprez: Yup, definitely. Arkedo Series – 02 SWAP! is currently being peer reviewed. And we are already hard at work on our next 2 ones.

Geoff Gibson: Can you share with us any information regarding games in development now?

Camille Guermonprez: Considering the very short amount of time we allow ourselves between each new release, I believe that we can allow ourselves to let you be surprised with each Series, no?

Geoff Gibson: Will you ever consider moving up to the Xbox Live Arcade distribution channel? Why or why not?

Camille Guermonprez: Sure! Maybe a compilation of some of our Indie Series, maybe a bigger project (we are also working on a Natal concept for the XBLA).

Geoff Gibson: I want to thank you for taking your personal time to answer these questions. “Jump!” seems to be an instant favorite amongst the XBLIG crowd and we wish you luck on your future endeavors!

Thanks a lot

So there was definitely some interesting stuff. Here’s hoping that SWAP! is as much fun as Jump! was and also that whatever they are planning with Natal is not only fun, but also intuitive and unique.