Quill O' the Wisp: a bit of backstage
Our team officially came together back in July of 2009, founded by Duke and Abisso. "Quill O' the Wisp" is a combination of "quill" and "will o' the wisp", which sums up well our intention to write stories with a mystical and charming supernatural twist.

The initial plan was to add people to the team, fill all the required roles and become independent developers of our games. But this turned out to be quite difficult, mainly because of the freeware nature of our project. People never lasted long on the team, and so we opted for outsourcing as the main method of gathering assets for the game.

Since then, a lot of people gravitated around Forge, usually for a short time, and contributing just some sprites and animations here and there. This has helped making the game progress, but has made management incredibly hard and time-consuming. Also, it generated confusion about who was a team member and who was just a temporary collaborator. Our initial idea was to continue to use QOTW as the team name to produce other games in the future; but not all the people willing to work on Forge (even if stably), were similarly interested in such other projects. So even the most stable collaborators ended up being listed as outsourced artists.

To make things worse, Duke Davidson had to step down during 2011, leaving Abisso to head the project, and the official team with just one member. With so many things to take care of, and the urgency to release something the players expected for so long, the clear definition of what Quill O' the Wisp was going to be got postponed.

With the release of Chapter One, however, it was time to put some order into this mess. The result is this: from now on (8th of March, 2013), Forge Team and Quill O' the Wisp will be two separate teams.
The first one made up of people stably involved in Forge's development; the second used by Abisso as a pseudonym, for the moment, and possibly as a team name again when working on different projects.
This decision won't produce many visible changes in the end, as Forge will still be presented by QOTW, and the people working on it (Forge Team) will still be the same; but at least it tidies things up a bit.
Of course Forge Team will still benefit from outsourced collaborations and will still put special care into looking for members to join stably. Check the end of this page if you want to be one of those.

Forge Team
ABISSO: Project Founder – Scripting, Touch-ups, Creative Input
Abisso’s primary task is programming, though he’s also fallen into the role of project manager. The game has made a jack-of-all-trades of him (sometimes against his will), pulling him into everything from puzzles to dialogue, plot to GUI. In particular, the "spell-casting" interface is his design, which usurped an earlier version that had been too similar to (and more complicated than) the Distaff system in LOOM.

SELMIAK: Webdesigner – Forge Logo, Creative Input
Technically Selmiak is the web-master/designer, but he has become much more than that over the course of the project. He’s helped with various aspects of the game, offering valuable suggestions and even some sprites.

JAMISON ALDERSON: Music Composer
Despite being undoubtedly a really professional composer, Jamison is also a down-to-earth guy. Working with him is especially easy and relaxing, because he grasps requests instantly and is quick to provide songs' prototypes that usually only need minor adjustments to be game-ready. He's been with us since the beginning, always working for free and it's one of the keystones of the project.

MASTER PIXELMOLD: Main Pixel Artist
He's humble enough that he wants to be called just "Pixelmold"; and talented enough to deserve the appellation of "Master". His competence goes far beyond the simple "molding of pixels", and includes creative inputs and versatility. Although he's the newest member in the team, his role in the release of Ch.1 has already proved invaluable.

Outsourced artists and previous members:
DUKE: Project Founder – Story, Design
Duke is our resident LOOM fanatic and this project’s co-founder. Without his impetus, our efforts wouldn’t have begun; and the world would have been doomed to the cartoon cutout that was LOOM2. *shudders* His creative vision and drive inspired our team members, temporary and permanent alike, and allowed us to channel each person’s abilities. While he’s no longer officially on the team, we will always owe him a debt of gratitude for his work and leadership.

ARGYLE: Lead Artist - Sprites, Animations
Argyle is a master of smooth animations and a very good spriter, with an eye for detail. He's been a team member for more than a year, hugely contributing to the game (for free) and to the morale, since he's a really funny guy as well.

MATT WALKDEN: Background Artist
Matt is an awesome bg artist, capable of matching the old pixel-style perfectly; so skilled Duke decided it was worth paying to have his art. Although he's just an outsourced artist, Forge wouldn't look so good without him.


Please click here for a list of previous contributors, whose help will always be appreciated.

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So, you want to join the Team?
As you can see our team is small and lacks people in some crucial fields of expertise. All this time we've been outsourcing requests and although this worked out quite well, it's really time-consuming and makes it impossible to build solid relationships. Having dozens of different people working on a same aspect of the game requires a high level of organization and coordination but it still results in a less coherent final product.
For this reason, we strongly hope to find dedicated and stable people to join the team permanently. You have to believe in the project and in its freeware-ness, of course, but you should be aware that our plan is to work also on commercial products in the near future.
Forge and Fold will always be FREEWARE, though.

We're currently looking for (sorted by urgency):

• Pixel-artists (click to post on our Forums' appropriate sub-board)


• Pixel-animators (click to post on our Forums' appropriate sub-board)


• SFX / audio-engineers (click to post on our Forums' appropriate sub-board)


• Public relations publicists / journalists (click to post on our Forums' appropriate sub-board)


• Video-makers (click to post on our Forums' appropriate sub-board)

If you believe you can be of assistance in any other way though, don't hesitate to post a topic in the General Support sub-board. Better safe then sorry!