Marvel and DC aren’t the only ambitious shared universes out there. D. Brad Talton Jr. takes us on a tour of the fantasy home of Level 99’s games

Inside the World of Indines

Words by Eric Watson

Shared universes have been tearing up the box ofiice for the last decade, but it’s not exactly a popular avenue for board game publishers to explore. American indie designer Level 99 Games has carved a successful niche in the last few years thanks in large part to its World of Indines, an animeinspired fantasy world designed and nurtured by the studio’s president D. Brad Talton Jr. The latest game in the Indines universe, Empyreal: Spells and Steam, recently hit Kickstarter, with a release planned for later this year.

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

“I originally created the World of Indines for a homemade roleplaying game back in college,” says Talton in an interview over Skype. “Some of the characters were actually player characters played by my friends. Hikaru and Khadath – the two characters on the cover of BattleCON: War of Indines – were player characters in our campaign.”

BattleCON was Level 99’s first published board game. It’s designed to implement the strategic timing and positioning of 2D fighting video games like Street Fighter. Players choose from a large roster of diverse characters, combining standard moves with their characters’ signature styles to unleash combos and stuns. The game wasn’t initially designed as an Indines title.

“I originally wanted to license a bunch of different universes for BattleCON, the same way we’re doing Exceed right now,” Talton explains. “But this was my first game. I wasn’t able to get a licence from, say, [Street Fighter studio] Capcom.”