Sauropod Studio strives to go out of the beaten path to create innovative and genre-bending PC and console experiences. Their first game, Castle Story proposed the idea of blending classic the real-time strategy genre with voxel sandbox game mechanics. The result was a colorful record-breaking crowdfunding success that still has a vibrant community five years down the line.
Sauropod’s team is unafraid of tackling complex technical challenges that push the gaming genre forward. For example, Castle Story featured a groundbreaking system for pathfinding in large dynamic voxel worlds, essentially allowing the game’s characters to effortlessly navigate their way across ever-changing worlds spanning up to one million square meters. Sauropod’s lead programmer later presented this innovation to a roomful of peers at the Game Developer’s Conference, the year’s biggest industry event.
Their sophomore game, Mirador, has been recently announced. It continues Sauropod’s goal of pushing well-defined genres into new territory. Mirador proposes to do this by blending cooperative dungeon delving adventures with community-based content creation. Essentially, allowing Team Sauropod to build the game’s content hand-in-hand with the community.
Sauropod Studio is one of the founding members of La Guilde, a community effort of uniting the province’s independent game studios to share experience, knowledge and ensure that the voice of even the smallest developer can be heard. La Guilde is a non-profit co-op whose member studios now count above a hundred.
Sauropod Studio is a 21 person strong collaborative effort where every team member can express themselves freely and grow into or out of their respective skill sets. New arrivals will discover a friendly and relaxed work schedule that is free of crunch, and in which each person’s contribution is valued. Sauropod cozy offices are located within the trendy Mile-End neighborhood of Montréal, next to industry landmarks such as Ubisoft and Gameloft. This brings home the point that small, creative teams can rub elbows with the giants.
