Telos is now called Arms of Telos

Why change it?

As a small indie, it’s hard to own a generic word like Halo or Destiny – I simply don’t have the resources. Also, I try to keep up with online chatter about the game and it’s hard to single out discussion about the game when people use the word, as intended, to discuss philosophy etc. I need something I can make my own. It also makes it easier to own that online real estate. The new domain is ArmsOfTelos.com. I haven’t decided if I’ll try to move the subreddit yet (which simply means ditching the old one and starting over), so let me know what you think I should do. In case my personal tweets annoy you, I’ve created a game-specific twitter account at @ArmsOfTelos that I’ll use exclusively for tweets directly related to the game (but work in progress dev tweets will still be mostly on my personal twitter, so the official twitter might not be too active until the game is out).

What’s behind the name?

Telos will be the name of the fictional nebula that the game takes place within – “arms” refers to the nebula’s gaseous tendrils that envelop the battles. “Arms” also refers to the variety of weapons and equipment that players will use to out-strategize and out-compete each other. While I’ve only gotten a few of them done so far, I have dozens of different weapons and equipment planned, so this was an important aspect that I wanted to highlight. Where did “telos” come from in the first place?

I first ran across the term “telos” while doing research for the game – I was looking for reference material for asteroid habitats and ran across this incredibly inspiring Carl Sagan tribute video:

The video puts visuals to Carl Sagan’s voice as he narrates text, from his book Pale Blue Dot, describing what he believes is humanity’s “telos” – the long term goals and aspirations of humankind, to survive beyond earth and to become more than we are today – to fulfill our true potential as sapient beings. I heartily recommend you watch it.

I fell in love with the word. It touched chords with me on a personal level – this is my dream game; I’ve been wanting to make it for years and I’m very grateful to have that chance. I started Overpowered Games just over 4 years ago. At that time, I was teaching myself how to develop games working on something I called SpaceJunk – you could even describe it as a precursor to this game. But I knew that, at the time, I wouldn’t be able to fulfill the vision I had for the game – I wasn’t ready. So I shelved it and, over the past few years, focused on smaller projects to build up my skills and resources. I’ve been self employed this entire time and the struggle has been exhausting. I turn 28 today and the sacrifices to my social life, and perhaps my health in general, have piled up – it’s made me question my life’s path in general. I knew I couldn’t keep this up, so last year I decided to give myself one last chance – this is it – and I’m going to make the most of it.

Forecast moving forward

First I want to apologize for the lack of development updates. While public updates have slowed, development itself has not – I have several videos worth of content that I’m excited to share. It’s purely a choice about priorities – and for the time being, I’ve prioritized my time for development progress over marketing. This will most likely shift back to a more even balance in the coming months.

It’s always been my intent to create a long term experience – something that people play for years. As an indie with limited resources, that means it’s especially important to cultivate and depend on a healthy community. Instead of trying to do a big release with a lot of fanfare, I’m going to attempt to build this up slowly in small waves of early access. Getting the community involved earlier has the major benefit of being able to evolve the game based on ongoing playtesting and feedback. The hope is that before it hits more mainstream audiences, it will have months of solid playtesting behind it – that it will be a better game because of the small, dedicated community that helped shape it early on.

I’m close to being ready to start the process of growing this community. The game doesn’t have all the features, content, or polish that it needs as a more complete game, but I think it has enough to get things started – a small, but strong foundation to build upon. My goal for this milestone has been “by the end of the year” but that might slip a bit into early 2015. Throughout development of this game, I’ve been also working on another game for a client so I can pay rent. I had expected that client work to wrap up earlier and give me a few months to work on Arms of Telos full time for the rest of the year, but the client work has expanded and continued to divide my time. This is not necessarily a negative – it means I can keep a roof over my head longer – but it does delay me being able to work full time. I don’t have much savings, so that full time push won’t be for very long – it actually helps that it will be coming later, as it gives me time to save up a bit more and the game is closer to being able to possibly support me full time, at which point I wouldn’t have to go back to part time development (oh, what a wonderful dream).

So if you’re interested in being one of these early pioneers, stay tuned – over the next few months, I’ll be getting ready for this first wave. It’s very exciting, but it’s also very stressful and I thank you for the continued support – it’s what keeps me motivated and energized.