Alexis Kennedy’s career as an independent game developer has been innovative and groundbreaking. He’s created an entire franchise, named Fallen London, which he began developing in his bedroom, taking his new company at the time, Failbetter Games, to a multi-million-pound independent in seven years.
Fallen London is a browser-based narrative game, built with Alexis Kennedy’s own interactive platform, StoryNexus. The game takes place in a classical gaslight-style London of the 1880s, which finds itself a mile down from the surface, stolen there by bats.
Ten years after its release, Fallen London has had an unbroken following of two million and has spawned further games, such as Sunless Sea which deals with lonely survival on islands in never-ending night in the Fallen London universe. Visit This Page for related information.
Sunless Sea was a Kickstarter project, which raised 100k GBP, and it was the company’s first PC game. It launched in 2015 and was a critical as well as financial success, selling nearly half a million copies.
Alexis Kennedy, during this time, also guest wrote for established companies, such as BioWare, the BBC, Random House and Channel 4.
After a seven-year run building Failbetter, Alexis Kennedy left the company and spent a guest-writing year at larger studios. Projects included Dragon Age at BioWare, research and development at Telltale Games and a story pack called Horizon Signal for Paradox Interactive’s Stellaris. Go To This Page to learn more.
In 2017, Alexis Kennedy founded what was to be a Best Microstudio per the 2019 Develop Star Awards along with co-founder Lottie Bevan: Weather Factory.
Weather Factory’s first release was Cultist Simulator, written by the developers in a year’s time and widely considered a significant and brilliantly written piece. It won several awards and two BAFTA nominations. Cultist Simulator is based in the occult, Lovecraftian world where gameplay is learned through aggregate clues and discovery.
Weather Factory is already at work on its next game, BOOK OF HOURS, set in an occult library. Alexis Kennedy is also a speaker on the game design form, discussing the relationships between narrative and game design. Cultist Simulator is available for mobile at the App Store and Google Play and on PC at Steam, itch.io, GOG and the Humble Store.
See also: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ALEXISKENNEDY/990785/
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