SARCIA is an indepedent video game series that exemplifies the beautiful merger of art and gaming. It even adopts the format of a stylistic TV series. Each month, a new episode will be brought to the public with an expansion of the storyline. I connected with Michaël Lavoie, the man behind this visually stunning vision and crowdfunding campaign, to learn more.

Well, as far as I remember I always wanted to create my own and personal Universe. I created so many stories in my head since I was a young boy that I lost count of them a long time ago.

So as I wanted to do share this Universe with the whole world, I took the means to do it. As I think that the Video Game media has so many things unexplored yet I wanted to create an interactive way to share my Universe with others, so what better way than the Internet and the exploding Indie Gaming public?

Very young, I started to create video games, I did not ''want to work in the video game industry'' I just wanted to create my things. At the age of 12 I found out that awesome software called RPG Maker 2000. This software was very user friendly and it let me create very simple games. But as time goes on I was never really happy with the result, I always wanted it to be more original, more personal, like I saw it in my head. So, when I finished High School, I went to a 3D animation school and I learned it during 3 awesome years.

While these 3 years passed, I always worked on my universe on the side, always thinking of it. And many of my school works were, in fact, based on this universe, like some sort of tests to see what it would look like. During this time, I also lost a bit of interest in video games and instead developed a very high appetite for movies, so I was thinking maybe I could do an animation film instead!? So for my final school work, I did a very short animation teaser of what my Universe was at that time in my head. Which is pretty close to what it is today again in fact. 

So what brought me back to the video game media? Simple, a few months after that, I discovered some awesome independent video games. (Sword & Sworcery, Knytt, Knytt Stories, Braid, Limbo, etc...) and I read an awesome article (Superbrothers' Less Talk, More Rock!) and I found out that video games still have some very awesome features that just began to emerge. So I thought, why not try to bring my two favorite media more together. I decided to bring some of the movie media into video games! It is not a new idea, It is simply an idea that is not developed enough in my sense and SARCIA is the result of all this.

I think that Video Games are highly about immersion and imagination. When you play a video game, you immerge yourself in an alien world to you. You live a unique version of a story, your version of a story. This is what the first episode of SARCIA is all about. I give you a world to explore, a frame to experience, it is the player that will make his own vision of it.

You've had a pretty long and winding journey to this point - I commend you for your dedication. Now at this stage, what has your experience been as a crowdfunding pioneer in the world of indie-gaming and self-publishing - how are your supporters responding?

My experience for the moment is pretty good. My Fuelers now are mainly friends and people that believe in me and I had a pretty good start thanks to them. I could not do this without their support. They saw what I can do for my Universe, how much work I put in it and how passionate I am about it and I am glad that they chose to support me. I owe them a lot.

Also, about the time that I started my RocketHub Campaign, I presented the project to some indie game developpers forums and the response is highly positive so I cannot be more happy about that!

I think it is very nice that in our world today, creatives are no more obligated to pass by an editor to publish themselves. It is probably one of the most beautiful features of the internet in fact. The ability to share information, games, music, movies almost instantly to the whole world is kinda one of our greatest invention in humankind history. It brings our minds all close together to a same place while being so far away physically from each other.

We're proud to have your beautiful game as part of the RocketHub community. Do you have any advice for Creatives looking to launch a similar project?

The best advice that I could give to Creatives is surely to make people talk about your project. Don't be shy to share it on forums of people you think will like your project. Creating an official website and a Facebook page for example are also good means to get talked about. Also, if possible, giving regular news about the project is very interesting for people that like your project. People love to see the Creatives at work.

Another advice for creators is, listen to your public. When your project goes out, listen all the comments, and take out the most interesting points. Your work will surely get better. Communication between the creator and his public is always a good thing I think.

Perfect advice and project. Thank you Michaël.

You can grab your copy of the game and the first installments, here. I already did.

-Vlad