Steve: Can you describe the evolution of Folk Tale? How did you come up with the game’s core concepts?
Simon: It’s been a really organic approach, a luxury afforded to us by starting as an unfunded indie collaboration with no-one but ourselves to answer to. As Project Lead, I’d never dream of taking such an approach under a publisher contract when there are deadlines to be met. We started with a vision of what we wanted to achieve and set about creating a detailed world in which Folk Tale would happen, without defining fine detail. The demo was identified as a huge pitch we’d need during fund raising, so we’ve used it as a play pen for communicating not only game mechanics but the visual style of the final game. Normally you wouldn’t cram green shire, desert, volcanoes, swamp and snow into a single level, so its something we need to communicate when demo beta testing begins. As the world became more populated, it enabled me to refine the mechanics, throwing out early plans that weren’t working, and introducing new ones that felt more natural.