Interview: Klei’s Cheng Talks Life After Shank
Gamasutra: It's been an interesting journey for Klei Entertainment and Shank. After the studio's publisher, Nexon Vancouver, shut its doors in 2009, the team went right to work on a 2D brawler with a distinctive visual style. The title appeared in 2010's Independent Games Festival and took off quickly from there — signed by EA Partners for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC, with renowned God of War writer Marianne Krawczyk on board.
Fortunately, it's a tale that's becoming more and more common these days: Indie developers quickly finding full-scale publisher partners and making a splash before the eyes of the everyday gamer. But it's also a new arena: what's it like for indies to come up against the Metacritic machine for the first time? What changes and what stays the same for developers when an independent game gets really big?
