Children of Zodiarcs

Children of Zodiarcs is a Japanese Strategy Role-Playing Game published by Square Enix and developed by Cardboard Utopia. I wrote the story and dialog, and helped develop the world, characters and lore.

A group of young thieves pull off a daring heist and escape with a powerful nobleman's treasure. Relentlessly pursued by the authorities, they are forced to make desperate choices that will effect the course of their lives, those that survive that is.

This was a very personal project for just about everyone involved in its creation. In our youth, many of the developers had grown up with games like Final Fantasy and Crono Trigger from legendary developer Squaresoft. Now we had an opportunity to make a game like that for a new generation, and have it published under the Square-Enix banner! But beyond the nostalgia and excitement of being associated with such classic games, Children of Zodiarcs allowed a small team of dedicated designers, artists and programmers a chance to build something more than just your typical commercial product. It's common for a lot of blood sweat and tears to go into the development of a game, especially one that takes a few years to complete... but it's fair to say that an unusual amount of love went into this one, which I think shows in the final product.

When I first began imagining this story, some very serious themes and subjects began to take precedence, ideas that resonated with the real world today. To me, that's always a good thing; it gives a story value outside of simple entertainment. Of course, as a writer, my primary job is to entertain - characters need to be likable and fun, dialog needs to be witty and concise... and since my main subject was a bunch of kids, they had to sound and act like kids. So it was a challenge to bring all that together.

I'm proud of what we managed to accomplish with Children of Zodiarcs, despite our lofty goals. The game scored well with critics, (81 Metascore!) and remains one of my favourite projects to date.