This article appeared in the Free Press on Wednesday, November 20 2002. As far as articles go, it seemed to misquote and muddle some of our intentions. Its posted here for history's sake.

From Left, Holowka, Cheater, Sailer, Smith and Decter-Jackson will enter their new computer game, Dungeon, in a competition next March.

Dungeon creators dream big

City firm pins hopes on game
By G.C. Cabana-Coldwell

ON the island of Verlorn, the people of the dark fortress city of Greuel live in slavery and abuse, ruled by an evil tyrant known only as The Sorcerer. Nahr Regnum, a renowned swordsman and crusader against tyranny, comes to Greuel hoping to right the wrongs inflicted by The Sorcerer. Taken by surprise, our hero is brought before the dark master. Is The Sorcerer responsible for Verlorn's unexplained Plague? Will Sigilweave help Regnum bring down The Sorcerer? What is Magic and how can the lost art be learned in time for its strengths to annihilate the Order of the Grim Rose?

Or is Verlorn doomed?

Move over Lord of the Rings, here comes the fantasy world of Dungeon, a computer game that is very real to five Winnipeg gamers who have created a company they hope will take their production to the next level.

Dungeon is the game child of Noah Decter-Jackson; business manager of Winnipeg's Complex Games Inc., an independent game development company. The outfit may be small, but its dreams are big – get version of Dungeon on store shelves and market their Multiplex software engine. And they've got only months to do it. Decter-Jackson is the first to agree Dungeon is but one of millions of small-screen Role Playing Games (RPGs) in existence. But for him, it's been the only game in town since he was in junior high school. That's when he met Adrian Cheater, a gamer who had created a three-dimensional software engine called Multiplex. The pair decided to pool their talents, eventually bringing in programmers Alexander Holowka, 19, Mike Smith, 21, and Frano Sailer, 21, to round out the Complex Games team.

My passion has always been game design, says Decter-Jackson, 23, who created the two-version Dungeon game. “In most games, you just act; there are no real consequences to your actions and nothing too emotional in them. The single player version of Dungeon is a realistic consequence model of a reality game. You have choices to make about things that will affect you directly and 'others' in the game perhaps indirectly. There are no 'wrong' choices; just different effects on things around you.” Cheater, 23, and Decter-Jackson created their Complex Games company in March 2001. The idea was to develop and market the Dungeon game and the Multiplex software. But they soon leaned that creating a company and operating a full-time business are two different scenarios. One looks great on paper, the other requires two things they didn't have – a business plan and money. The business plan part was easier.” says Decter-Jackson.

“After I researched and created one for Complex Games, I gave it to a few experts to tear apart. Then I just rebuilt it. But getting the $50,000 we figured we'd need to rent office space and to pay each of us some kind of salary was tougher. Banks and venture capitalists weren't really interested in us because we were small; government provided lots of helpful information, but no money. So we used 'love money' – contributions from family, friends, and anyone who was interested. Now we've got six months to make this work.” And bringing a computer game to market is work, says Cheater. Unlike authors who can self-publish their literary tomes, computer games and related software need a publishing company in order to hit the marketplace. “Finding a company that wants to publish your game is just as important to gamers as finding a record label is for a garage band,” says Cheater. “That's why we were so geared towards the Independent Games Festival Competition. As one of the finalists, you get to meet and greet game publishers and get your face and your game out there.” Its that exposure, he adds, that can get game development companies a publishing deal.

Held in San Jose next March, the Independent Games Festival Competition is an annual trade show for gamers, programmers and producers. To enter the competition stream, Complex Games submitted the current version of Dungeon just before the August 2002 deadline. This year's 70 entires will be adjudicated and paired down to 10 finalist games; each game making the cut has to be resubmitted in January. Although Complex Games won't find out if Dungeon has made the semifinals until December, they've used the last few months to fine-tune and tweak components of the reality game. Like any fledgling company, Complex Games has endured its share of growing pains, says Cheater. “We've hit a couple of minor snags, but we've worked through them. You know, what you want to do versus what's realistic.”