Deserter
When a general turns on the city during a war, Captain Kulvan and his comrades fight to take the kingdom back.
Deserter made collaboration real: a one-month contest game gave an early W15I team a shared deadline, a playable result, and clearer lessons about finishing together.
The situation.
Deserter was made for the Indie Game Maker Contest 2018, set during a war between Tialar and Lipzern. Its public page frames Captain Kulvan and comrades Zoren and Jidon attempting to take their kingdom back after General Stone turns rogue.
The first-party release describes a collaboration between W-15 Interactive, VIGA Manufacture, and Vincent Chu of Fantales Interactive, created in a month. That constraint is central to the case study: the project had to become shippable before it could become exhaustive.
What I did.
I contributed game development and production work inside a team involving W15I, VIGA Manufacture, and Vincent Chu of Fantales Interactive.
My role was to help move the contest RPG from a shared premise to a Windows release under a fixed one-month deadline. It was one of W15I's earliest formal collaborations.
From the game.
Two gameplay captures pulled from Deserter's itch.io release page.
Inside the occupied stronghold
A dungeon scene shows the party navigating the military conflict as a playable space.
Image source: W-15 Interactive on itch.io
Kulvan's party in battle
A gameplay frame shows the turn-based combat the team shipped during the one-month contest build.
Image source: W-15 Interactive on itch.ioHow the work unfolded.
Build under a one-month constraint
Contributed to turning a wartime RPG premise into a downloadable contest entry within the timeframe stated on the release page.
Coordinate across collaborators
Worked within a production involving W15I, VIGA Manufacture, and Fantales Interactive rather than presenting the release as a solo project.
Ship with known rough edges
Released the game while openly acknowledging that a month-long build could contain visible bugs.
What happened.
Deserter released for Windows on itch.io after its one-month production window for the Indie Game Maker Contest 2018.
It remains an important origin point for my collaborative practice and a completed example of what the team could finish together under a hard deadline.
What I learned.
A deadline gives collaboration a shape
A fixed contest window forced the team to decide what the player actually needed rather than keep every idea open.
Credit records matter
A collaborative release is not enough to reconstruct who did what years later; roles and asset provenance should be captured during production.
Honesty belongs in a launch
Acknowledging likely bugs was more credible than pretending a one-month game had no rough edges.
Related links.
Repositories, demos, event pages, posts, and other places connected to this project.