A video game developer born and raised in Sarnia is celebrating the release of his company's first game on the market.
Maple Powered Games President Kerry Vandenberg said Monster Harvest was developed with a core team of four people and a few outside contractors.
"It took us over two years to make the title, but it was always a dream of mine and I think everyone on the team's to produce a video game and now it's become a reality and we're just ecstatic," said Vandenberg.
He said the team is operating remotely right now.
"We did have an office set up previously, but when the coronavirus hit, we switched to being totally remote and it ended up working better for us. As you can imagine, we're working on computers all day anyways, so we ended up keeping that format."
Vandenberg, 31, is a graduate of Gregory Hogan and (the former) St. Christopher High School in Sarnia and said he left the city for a few years, but is happy to be back at home.
"I didn't expect that I would be able to build something so complex in Sarnia, but it turns out I think Canada has one of the most thriving video game industries in the world and there were a lot of people that had the same dream as mine."
Monster Harvest is currently available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch and has been translated into ten different languages.
"We're working now to bring it to PlayStation 5 and a few additional systems going forward. The game is a monster collecting and farming RPG (role playing game) hybrid, so it takes inspiration from some of the classic games that I grew up with, such as Harvest Moon and Pokémon."
Vandenberg said the game is "text heavy" so he recommends it for anyone over seven years old.
"Essentially, a lot of the game play revolves around your player managing a farm. But, instead of fertilizers we have a magical substance called slime that allows you to mutate your plants into "planimals" that you can use to battle various monsters and get better items in the game."
Vandenberg said sales are going so well that they're currently working on a content update to double the amount of hours in the game.
"I work on the game with my wife, she's my best employee," he said. "We founded the company together and it is wonderful to work with your spouse every day. So, I would recommend producing video games as a career for anyone out there and if you're in Sarnia, don't let that limit you. It can be done, it just takes a lot of planning, and a lot of hard work, but it's work that you'll enjoy."
