THE MAKING 0F... ARCO

How a ramshackle gang of indie developers formed over three continents to produce an epic reverse western

- JON BAILES

Disparate characters, each from a different background and with their own personal aims, banding together for a common cause. This is the premise of Arco's story, but it could just as well be a description of how this indie RPG/western came to be. Set within a reimagined Latin America, each chapter follows a new protagonist from another regional tribe, seeking revenge against murderous colonials, until plotlines converge and the survivors decide to combine their skills. Meanwhile, the making of this game brought together a group of four strangers, all hailing from different lands.

Our tale begins some years ago, in Poland, with Franek Nowotniak. "I had a shitty restaurant job that I hated, and I was desperate to do something else, so I started doing pixel art after work," Nowotniak tells us. That art drew attention on social media, leading to small commissions and then, after about two years, a contract with publisher Raw Fury, to work on the Norse Lands expansion for strategy game Kingdom Two Crowns. "It was a very big jump from spending 12 hours in the kitchen," Nowotniak says, "to being able to sit at home and look at your screen, and they pay you." Having broken into game development, making one of his own was the inevitable next stepso he began to dream up ideas and seek out like-minded individuals.

Today, Nowotniak lives in Australia, which is also where we find programmer Max Cahill. Older than his colleague, Arco was far from Cahill's first game development rodeo. After starting out making games as a pixel artist, he went on to get a computer science degree; in 2011, he worked for Transhuman Design on a multiplayer game called King Arthur's Gold.

"That was my first non-Flash game," he recalls.