Indie Spotlight - Tarot: Theo's Quest
Daniel Totten shares his experience with indie development, a career change, and Tarot inspiration
Adventurers! Theo’s Quest greets us with another Indie Spotlight
Daniel and his husband Matt are Appa’s Papa’s, an indie game studio based in central Pennsylvania. They are releasing their first title Tarot: Theo’s Quest, which is today’s focus! Daniel shares a bit about how he got started and what it was like going from corporate to development full time, and how it became a journey of self discovery!
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About Daniel and Mark Totten
It’s so hard to just start talking about yourself, huh? My name is Daniel Totten. My husband, Mark, and I are Appa’s Papas. Appa is our corgi-Shepard mix and mascot. And yes, he’s named after Avatar: The Last Airbender’s wonderful flying bison (he sorta looked like Appa as a puppy). We are an indie game studio based in central PA, USA, about to release our first title - Tarot: Theo’s Quest. As a company, we value tight gameplay, polished narratives, inclusivity and celebration of diversity, and mental health awareness.
Believe it or not, this title will be the start of a major career change for me personally. Before making games, I was a research scientist (biochemist). Doctorate and all. But getting my PhD pretty much crushed me into powder: I even tried to quit the program in my final year. Completely burnt out and disillusioned, I decided to give up my dream of being a college professor. So, during my postdoctoral studies, I took a coding course online, built a portfolio, and jumped ship from academia to the tech sector. But building systems for other people was, well, the same ol’ same I was doing before. I want to create! Use my intelligence. Build new things. Things that will bring joy to others. With the support of my amazing husband, I was able to quit the standard rat race and begin designing video games full time.
Wanna know a secret? I’m not really into mysticism and the occult. So where did Theo’s Quest come from? Well, I’ve always flirted with Tarot cards (the designs and hierarchy of symbolism spread neatly across 78 cards just fills my little science brain with joy), and I love card games. I also play a lot of Pokémon. I love the battles, but I generally find myself with a team of all attack moves: hit hard, hit fast, and you can’t lose! But there are so many awesome moves that don’t attack…could I put all of that together? This is where Tarot came in: perhaps a witch summons a spirit (similar to a Pokémon, but now we aren’t forcing others to fight for us) and uses cards to apply all the fun stuff (status effects, buffs/debuffs, terrains, etc). The spirit could then do the damage moves separate from the fun battle effects. After a lot of sloshing around in the ol’ noggin’, Theo’s Quest was born.
The Development, Tarot, and Art of Theo’s Quest
This isn’t my first game, technically. SideQuest gets that honor. You won’t find it anywhere, though, because I scrapped the project. Nearly 80% complete. Could play it from beginning to end. But - and this is a big but - the game wasn’t fun. A very hollow Zelda clone, I nearly gave up on making video games before I even started. It taught me a lot, though. Most importantly: it taught me to focus on the core gameplay when prototyping. If you aren’t having fun with the most basic of systems, then don’t even try to make the full game.
I used that lesson for Theo’s Quest. Before evening opening Unity, I used a lot of spreadsheets and notebooks to create the battle system. Mark and I went out, got a unicorn Tarot deck, and played the game PvP. We liked it. A lot! I knew this was it: an idea that would be fun enough for a first game! From there, everything just fell into place: using the Fool’s Journey (the Major Arcana) as a metaphor for the game’s story, framing elemental powers as mental health awareness (to use air, you must avoid negative thoughts; or water, recognize emotions in the form of a memory game; etc), setting the Tarot suits as towns and dueling masters (thanks Pokémon!), etc. Seriously: I feel like I didn’t really make this game. Everything just sort of sprung out of the theme.
Development was pretty straightforward. Truly, the biggest enemy was myself: I put so much pressure on myself throughout this project! I didn’t start to enjoy being an indie developer until about the last third of development. It took a long time for me to adjust to being self-employed. The “go, go, go” nature that we think we need to do for capitalism was hard to shake off. But, for me, the hardest part has been the art. The style went through a lot of iterations, but I eventually landed on a retro-inspired 8 color (with each color having 3 alphas: 40%, 80%, and 100%) limited palette in a claustrophobic 160 x 90 px canvas. It definitely helps to settle on a palette, screen dimension, and artwork “rules”. Now all the years of me playing with MS Paint could finally be utilized! * laughs evilly * In seriousness, though, it was transformative to be able to draw something (even if you don’t necessarily “like” it) and just accept it. As the game progressed, my art got better and better. It ends up being a neat little unconscious journey the player gets to experience: early levels are artistically flat, but as the player goes through the game, the backgrounds get more and more detailed (with shading, more color usage, etc). I left it like that because, well, the point of this game is to enjoy the journey of discovering yourself!
And you know what? I did discover myself through this game. Through all the ups and downs (and, admittedly, these were self-imposed), I learned a lot about myself. About how I work. Why I work. What I want to work on. It helped me dissociate from the rat race - to do something in the capacity and measure that’s within my limits. And unlike academia, I didn’t burn out! Hell, I already have 3 different games lined up! I’m proud of myself - more proud of myself than when I got my PhD. This game represents my new life: one where I can spend it with the people (and animals!) that I love, while hopefully providing warmth, hope, love, and inspiration for others.
Make sure to check out Appa’s Papas website
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