In this week’s interview with an indie developer, we catch up with Luke Dalcò, founder and creator of LKA.it ttol. He began his career 15 years ago in CGI and documentaries, virtual set, cultural heritage and teaching. The first approaches to the game engine took place in the exploration-related research in the field of architectural and cultural heritage for interactive visualization and studies of archaeological sites. We talk to him about his current project, The Town of Light.
Where did the name Lka.it come from, and how did you go about choosing it as the name of your studio?
The name LKA comes from the video games I played when I was a child. With coin-ops, you could only put 3 letters to identify your high score in leaderboards – I used to use LKA!
When you aren’t developing indie games, what do you get up to?
In addition to other thousands of activities of various kinds, when I don’t develop and I have time, I become a player!
I am most passionate of driving simulators, MMORPGs and FPS. My most treasured titles are: GTR2, iRacing, Half Life 2, STALKER and Vanguard.
Could you tell us a little about The Town of Light? What inspired you to make this game?
The inspiration comes from a visit to the actual places where the game is set and the discovery of the amazing and terrible history of these places. One of those cases where reality surpasses the imagination, believe me!
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What is your main vision of the game, and why will gamers fall in love with The Town of Light over any other game in its genre?
The Town of Light is an independent game, at least in large part, with the difficulties and the merits that this entails.
The elements that I think are distinctive are the historical reality on which the game is built. The environments are faithfully reconstructed, and the story of the protagonist, as invented, has a strong historical credibility that comes from two years of research in the field.
The empathy that is established with the main character will be the other key element of the game, but here I can’t say more!
How did you go about designing and producing the game? Can you tell our readers a little more about your process and working methods?
It’s our first title and we had to structure ourselves along the way. Making a game of this type is not easy at all, especially when you are in a small team where everyone has to cover as many roles as possible. The small size of the team has, however, great benefits for those like us who do not have a lot of experience – organization and communication is very simple and easy, and you can react very quickly to problems and change in race trim. Unity is an incredibly engine that has a very strong community. This is a matter of fundamental importance for a small team like ours.
Real life vs. the same representation in the game. Pretty cool!
How are you finding the indie developer life so far? The biggest discussion we always have with indie developers is how hard it can be from a financial point of view. What is your solution?
From an economic point of view it’s a leap into the unknown, but we like the project so much that we decided to try it! For now we have self-funded the project with our time and our resources and are now moving to find sources of funding, from crowdfunding on indiegogo and seeking investments at the institutional level.
Can you tell us a little about some of the other projects you have in the pipeline?
The next project will be presented at the end of this year, when the work on The Town of Light will be ending. For now we must resist the temptation to tell you what it is about. It’s too soon!
If time and money was no object, what kind of game would you see yourself producing?
Exactly the kind of game that we are producing! For now, the choice was not subject to a certainty of payback and because of this we are moving with absolute freedom. The idea is to produce a title that we like and that represents us at 100%. It’s a big investment to promote the team, to see what we can do. Something is happening and maybe for the next project we will try to enter the European funding that kicked off this year.
Thank you very much for your time, we’d like to wish you the best of luck and hope we’ll see your studio release some great games in the near future! Keep us informed :)
Vi ringrazio!
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For an early look at The Town of Light click here.