Indie games, in general, have a reputation to be small but charming games – something quirky that lasts with you. In other words, nothing too ambitious; especially if its a solo developer behind the wheel as a opposed to a small team. Sean Lindskog has entirely subverted that reputation his space-based action RPG/strategy game, Salvation Prophecy.

The game initially caught our eye with its announcement trailer which boasted huge space and terrestrial battles, strategy elements, a deep storyline, multiple factions and on and one. Our jaws dropped upon finding out that it was the work of just one man with the only other contribution coming from freelance artists. Naturally, we wanted to find out if Salvation Prophecy was anything to get excited about – as good as it looked, you can’t help but think that Sean may be a bit too ambitious.

IGM: First up, we’re very keen to know a little bit about your experience in game development, especially as Salvation Prophecy is such an ambitious project. So could you divulge some of your past for us?

SL: Sure. I started out working at EA. That was a weird gig for me because I came from coding text internet games called MUDs (“Multi-User Dungeons”). MUDs are the furthest thing away from flashy EA sports games. So it wasn’t really my scene. I was like, “What do you mean you can’t cast fireballs at the other soccer players?” But I learned from some smart coders, and they had an arcade in the lobby, so it wasn’t all bad.

I left after a year to go work on Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online. That was pretty cool because I grew up playing D&D and reading Tolkien. Back then, if you wanted to know how many hit points a green slime or a giant octopus had, I was your guy.

From there, I went Indie to work on Salvation Prophecy. There’s so much cool stuff coming out of the indie scene these days. I wanted to be part of it. Plus, I figured why keep a stable job and paycheck when I can have the glamorous life of an indie game dev – near starvation, financial disaster, and an unending impossible workload.

IGM: Where did the desire to create such a vast game come from – did you ever think you had bitten off more than you could chew?

SL: It was a case of temporary insanity. Luckily, by the time I realized how ludicrous the idea was, I was already too deep and there was no turning back.

I guess Salvation Prophecy is a big project for an indie. But I really wanted to create a space epic. To make the game I wanted, I needed to borrow bits from different genres. I love space traders and pure space sims, but I always felt like these games only captured part of the magic of a sci-fi experience.

IGM: We’re curious as to how deep the lore of the game is. You’ve created races, planets, factions – a whole universe it seems. Is this something you’ve been creating for years in your head like George Lucas did with Star Wars, or was it put together when planning the game itself?

SL: I started with a blank slate. I wanted a break from fantasy. One of my favorite games growing up was a space game called Elite. If Salvation Prophecy gives anyone a tiny fraction of the wonder and enjoyment I had playing Elite, I’ll be happy.

I spent many late nights sitting outside, pen and paper in hand, working out the history and time-line for the game universe. For much of the development, I lived in a small cabin in central Canada. I couldn’t afford rent in the city. I got chased by a bear once. Last year I had some foxes who would come and visit me while I was outside writing. I think they wanted my sandwich. Being surrounded by such a beautiful and natural place brought out some of the mystical aspects of Salvation Prophecy.

Even though Salvation Prophecy is primarily an action game, I wanted to flesh out the history, the factions, why they’re at war, what their motivations are, and how they came into being. I think this adds a richness to everything.

IGM: Quite outstanding about Salvation Prophecy is the game’s many art assets which were created by freelancers. What kind of direction did you give them – was it specific or did you allow them creative freedom?

SL: What’s cool about my artists is that they’re from all around the world. I’ve never met most of them face to face. Sometimes on Skype we’d make fun of each other’s accents.

It was totally collaborative. I described what I wanted, and sometimes made some embarrassingly crude drawings. The artists made heroic efforts to not die laughing at my sketches, and then made everything look cool.

I remember working out the design of the Wyr faction, who are these crazy science robots. I sent a picture to my artist of some freaky steam-punk goggles, and said “the Wyr look like THAT!” Strangely enough, he knew exactly what I meant, and nailed the character artwork. Artists’ brains are strange and wonderful places.

Concept Art: Drone Unity colony buildings

IGM: We can see that the game is presented very well and it’s what ignited our attraction to it. Perhaps our biggest fear is the gameplay which is hard to grasp without having played the game. There’s such a vast amount of options so it seems so we’ll break this down. Firstly, what do the different playable characters offer in terms of playstyle variation? Does your selection vastly change the game or is it more subtle?

SL: So here’s the big picture on Salvation Prophecy. It’s a single player space epic, with a focus on action and big battles. You spend much of your time in frantic space and planet combat, with some exploration and a touch of strategy mixed in at the higher ranks.

The factions play very differently in planet battles. Take the Salvation character – they’re really finesse. They can die fast, but move quickly and can reflect bullets and drain energy from their enemies. On the other end of the spectrum are the Drone Unity, big hulking killer robots with a shoulder mounted rocket launcher and a big metal “shred claw” that can eviscerate anything that comes too close.

Space battles are mostly the same for all factions. I spent my time there on just making space combat fun and intense.

The game has some dialog, which is different for each faction. I had a lot of fun writing from the perspective of radically different characters – the fanatical Salvation, the angry, cold logic of the Drone Unity, the wacky insanity of the Wyr, and the rugged humour of the Free Nations marines.

Salvation, Drone Unity, Free Nations, and Wyr

IGM: Space battles seem to be a big component of the game. Can players build their own ship and pick their own battles? Is each battle all about firepower or are there more strategic options to victory perhaps?

SL: Your ship has a bunch of upgradeable components. These have a huge impact on how your ship handles in a fight. This is all gameplay stuff – there’s no graphical change on your ship. Ya gotta do what you can with an indie art budget. But there’s a detailed breakdown on the ship panel interface.

In combat, it’s all about ship power and pilot skill. Once you rank up to become faction commander, there are some strategic elements introduced, and you can pick your invasion targets.

Screenshot: Space combat

IGM: Moving to the various planets players can visit – are these scripted encounters or can a player land on any planet they see at any time. What kinds of objectives will players carry out while on foot?

SL: It’s an open world, so you can go anywhere at any time. But the game is mission driven, so you probably won’t spend much time aimlessly roaming around. The backdrop is a galaxy at war, and your presence in battle is essential to the victory (or defeat) of your faction.

I went for an open world approach because it makes the game world a live, chaotic, and dangerous place. Battles are raging across the galaxy at all times, even if you’re not part of them. You might fly into an enemy fleet on it’s way to attack a target. You might observe a battle between two AI-controlled enemy fleets. You can be docked in a station when it suddenly comes under attack. The battle plans are dynamically generated, based on what planets the factions control, and how they want to expand. You can lose the game if your faction is destroyed, so the danger is real.

On planets, you will be invading enemy colonies, and exploring in search of ancient runes. In the late game, you also need to defend your own colonies from attack, when a new menace bursts onto the scene.

Screenshot: Ship panel

IGM: On top of these more direct, combat focused aspects of the game, you have also included a more strategic part of the game by allowing players to build colonies and troops, as if an RTS it would seem. How does this feed into the rest of the game and what kinds of decisions will players have to make in these parts?

SL: As faction commander, when you choose an invasion target, this generates a mission. From there you launch with your fleet or troops as normal. So the strategy layer drives the missions and combat.

It’s not a hardcore strategy game. But you will need to make decisions on how to spend your resources, what units to build, and how to expand your faction’s reach. For example, you might try conquering the highest resource planets, or instead focus on eliminating a weakened enemy faction.

IGM: You’ve mentioned that a lot of the game is based around battles, either in space or on foot. However, is there a way to avoid all or some of these battles, or is the game entirely focused on these battle scenarios?

SL: It’s a combat-focused military game. You can skip the odd mission, say if you’re busy hunting down a bounty. But the game is about war, and you are a soldier and commander.

The only exception is when you go searching for the runes foretold by the prophecy. These are solo missions to alien planets. You’ll be dealing with alien monsters and ancient beings to recover these runes, which takes you away from the primary battlefields. But even this relates back to battle, as the prophecy foretells of an apocalyptic invasion that will devour all of Earth’s descendants.

IGM: We’ve noticed that you have badges for players to earn, do these have any other function to the game other than simply making the player feel good?

SL: The mission badges are pretty straight forward. You get them if you’re a serious bad-ass on the battlefield. They have names like “Turret Killer”, “Blade Master”, and “Pyromaniac”. They earn you extra cred. Cred can buy you better combat gear and ship components.

Plus, it makes the player feel good.

Screenshot: Mission badges

IGM: It seems that Salvation Prophecy could be overwhelming to new players so how do you plan on easing them into the game?

SL: I dislike long boring tutorials. I dislike reading game manuals even more. With Salvation Prophecy, you can just jump in and start playing. The game will teach you as you go along.

The military ranks of Salvation Prophecy helped with this. With each new rank, a little more of the game is revealed. So there’s no heavy learning curve at the beginning of the game. Instead, new gameplay elements are gradually introduced with each new rank.

At rank 1, you’re just a soldier grunt. At rank 2, you earn a fighter ship. At rank 3 and 4, you start getting new kinds of missions (bounties, alien planet exploration) which require you start navigating by yourself using the galaxy map.

Also, the space ship and character controls are mapped similarly, so it’s easier to switch between them. Example – you use the same button to fire or target select with either the space ship or character.

IGM: How much more of the game do you need to work on and do you have an estimate of when we might see it on our monitors?

SL: Salvation Prophecy is a fairly experimental game. It combines a lot of genres to create a space epic, rather than relying on a traditional game formula. It’s the kind of game you could keep working on forever. But I am going to release it very soon, learn from the players on what worked and what could be better, and hopefully build on this for a future game.

It’s been forged into a pretty interesting game experience, and I’d love to hear what people think.

Screenshot: Rune keepers puzzle

More information on Salvation Prophecy can be found over on the game’s official website.

Each week, Featured Freeware profiles a trio of freeware titles that we consider worth your while.

A new Browser’s Best, Xbox Live Indie Spotlight, Indie Sales and now this, it’s a Tax Day miracle. Happy Birthday, Merry Kwanza and all that. My words are mostly saved for the game’s below but let me preface the goodness by saying that all three of these are gems and should at least be given a spin, after all they’re free.

Action Fist (5.53 MB): A 2D action platformer with some style and plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor, this is a must play for anyone into the old arcade side-scrollers, with platform gameplay mixed with Metal Slug action. Lots of power-ups and bosses to use them against with frequent enough save spots never setting you back too far.

The game uses a color-coordinated weapon switching mechanic which is encouraged by better damage against your enemies with the correct blasts, it takes a bit of getting used to at first but as you progress you’ll figure it out pretty quick.

The title features both single player and co-op modes and can be played on Kitty, Easy, Normal or Hero mode.

Drone (10 MB): Wow, we’re only two-thirds in and this may be our best featured freeware yet, David W. Wilson’s Drone is a fantastically deep top-down tower defense game with real-time strategy, simulation and RPG elements thrown in as well. When you get into the game I suggest you hit the tutorial, if not all the options and available pull down menus may be a bit overwhelming at first, the tutorial is quick and breaks the basic functions down for you quite understandably.

900 hours have been sunk into the title (so far) and it shows. The amount of polish along with the sheer addictiveness of the game makes it a must play. Add onto that the several hours of gameplay you get from this initial release of the title and you wonder why the guy isn’t charging, more please.

Zombie Movie (6.9 MB): Yup, best FF ever (out of the now three count ‘em). As we finish our trio with a refreshing top-down zombie shooter that puts a couple of twists on the now over-crowded genre.

EDM Games has a caveat for your undead killing, you gotta stay on camera. A helicopter with a demanding director hovers above giving more points to the player who kills the totally real killer zombies near the shadow of the copter. Not only do you get less points if you stray too far away from the shadow, you’ll eventually get fired, if you do your job well enough you’ll probably get eaten, but you’re greeted with something pretty sweet upon your death: a ton of stats. Zombies killed, pickups grabbed even how many you got under the choppah.

At times your bastard director thinks you’re having too easy of a time with it and throws all sorts of different crap you’re way. Using the med packs wisely and not letting too many zombies crop up becomes critical as well as the constant worry of maximizing your points. I’m not sure if you can complete an entire film shoot, I never could, but if you do it’s certainly no small feat as the game throws the kitchen sink.

Did you know we are running a kickass forum contest where you could win one of two copies of the hilarious, robot-ninja infused multiplayer game: Plain Sight? Well now you do… check it out at our forums!