Guardian Alien Concept Art
When we started developing Land and Sea - it all began with Brent's line, "I have a vision of a game and fiction universe around an alien invasion from the oceans. I don’t' want it to be like Independence Day - I want it rooted in science and to be realistic."
Boy, was that a tall order.
Land and Sea, from its onset, was to be not just published fiction, but a board/miniatures game, comic books, and even a digital offering. The more we worked on it - the more we were convinced this universe filled some neat gaps in several markets. More importantly - it was fun.
I've been in the gaming industry since the 80's. We agreed on the IP (Intellectual Property) parameters. It would have to be supportable by a game, novels, comics, video, etc.. Looking at the game market there has been a gap in good solid military RGP's since Twilight 2000 - with the exception of Delta Green and Shadowrun. This could serve as a vehicle for that kind of RPG universe and a new kind of gameplay experience.
Brent tossed in the idea of players running or being part of bands of freedom fighters. He said, "Wouldn't it be cool to be able to pull up a map of some coastal city and use that as the basis for a RPG session?" It WAS cool. Memories of watching "Red Dawn" as a kid came to my mind. And I know gamers, they love blowing stuff up. Of course to create that backdrop we would have to formulate the alien incursions into the cities. That meant more discussions.
We wanted to break the mold of Hollywood's perception of the government and military when it came to alien invasions. No, they weren't hiding information on aliens. Nor would they be inept. The government and military response around the world, for the most part, would be intelligent. It was a whole different view than traditional mainstream alien incursions.
We began numerous brainstorming to feed off of these concepts before we rushed in and got locked into thinking that might not work for the IP (Intellectual Property). "We" consisted of the core team at Creative Juggernaut. It was clear from the start that this was a universe that required a lot of perspectives -- military, political, the resistance, the news media, business, etc. To truly understand the world of Land and Sea we would have to put the readers and players into it in a variety of different ways.
More often than not, when a new multi-media universe is presented for game players it glosses over the past history to get you to the playing point. So when you play, let's say, Twilight 2000, there's some intro text that explains "There was this big war and here you are now." RPG and boardgame players accept the premise of the universe or they don't. I proposed something different -- "Let's take them on the journey, as readers, to get there." So rather than start our universe with "There's been an alien invasion two years ago," we would start with, "Something strange is happening around the world," with the reader drawn into the events triggered in the invasion itself. The novels, which are how we introduce the universe to players, are going to take you through the invasion - from beginning onward. The end of the first trilogy of books is the start of the game playing universe and where our future novels will build off of.
We mapped out a much larger arc for the game and novels as well. Land and Sea was not a one-and-done bit of entertainment. The universe was going to grow and expand, in new and fascinating ways. The ride is a long one, but one well worth it. We hope you'll join us for the journey!