Artizens: A Little Indie Game That Could Bring Big Change

Artizens is an upcoming indie game that has a lot of ambition. The dev team ran a Kickstarter back in January and it kind of exploded, nearly doubling it’s $30,000 goal. However, there are still a lot of people that haven’t heard about it.  I’m here to tell you why you should be excited about Artizens, and where I hope it’s going to take the gaming industry.

Of course, as a game, the gameplay is REALLY important, and Artizens takes some pretty heavy inspiration here.  The game seems to largely play like a 2-D version of Capcom’s Monster Hunter series, which is wickedly popular in Japan and is slowly gaining ground overseas.  It’s a simple concept, kill giant monsters, obtain materials from said monsters, use said materials to craft gear, use said gear to fight bigger monsters, rinse, repeat. With the studio planning on releasing expansions well after the release of the game, that could make this little indie title a very big game.  The other main tenet is the “better with friends” model. Artizens allows up to four players to tackle any mission in game, letting you get help from friends and making it a more social game.  No word is out yet on how difficulty scales when new players are added to the missions.

The game is also going to be skill based, you will gain skill ranks when you succeed in a mission, and lose them when you fail. The missions you can accept depend on what your skill rank is. There are going to be multiple mission types. Most of these will involve hunting monsters,  but there may be some where you have to defend a person or structure, or go save a citizen who is lost in the wilderness and being hunted by a monster. Also, the devs have warned that the game will be extremely difficult, so make sure you’re up to the challenge.

Artizens real reason to cause excitement, however, is in character customization.  The game will allow you to take any piece of gear you craft and draw the way it looks.  Supposedly, you will be able to do this in whatever illustration program you prefer, and the game will supposedly also come with a simple one.  You can also draw the appearance of your character.  This is a huge step in gaming, making it the first game where you truly have full customizability over how your character looks because you can create it yourself.  For those among us who can’t draw, don’t fret about having “stock” gear. There will supposedly be an in-game marketplace where people can buy and sell weapon designs, so you can use your in-game currency to get a neat looking sword or an awesome cannon for your character.

This is a huge step for gaming, and I really hope this game takes off and gets a lot of press. I’d ideally like to see a character customization option like this in every single game I play. I think this idea would really be a benefit to immersion in the gaming industry, and it would also help people be able to play the character they want to. While I get many narrative driven games require a standard character, it would still be great to be able to make my own armor and gear in multiplayer.  The only problem with this comes from the inherent need for moderation, because obviously it’s going to lead to a lot of people creation some…. unsavory gear.

Artizens should launch into its alpha phase, which so far is exclusive to its Kickstarter backers and their friends, sometime within the next couple weeks.  Stay tuned to GameSkinny, as I’ll be posting my impressions on the alpha as soon as I am able. In the meantime, go check out the Artizens canvas and draw your own Artizen!