Outworlder

Outworlder is a collection of roguelikes with an interconnected world, narrative, and item pool.

Players find themselves on a strange planet with an ancient gateway that can seemingly connect to countless other worlds. While they build up their own homestead, they’ll travel the expanse, uncover the mystery of why the galaxy fell apart and, just maybe, how they can begin to reconnect it.

Who am I?

Kyle Barrett

14+ years in the industry as a game designer, and former Game Design Department Lead at Lucasfilm Games,
Solo Indie Dev with 5 titles, 2 of which are GOTY nominees within their categories.
Over 300,000 indie copies sold across iOS, Android, and Steam. This is primarily through critical reviews, featuring, and word of mouth (no publisher, adspend, or marketing).

I’ve worked in the industry across all types of genres and platforms, from Star Wars to Hour of Code + edutainment apps. I have a passion for making single input, easy to use, but systemically complex mobile titles that look and feel great. I’m looking for a creative partner on my next chapter of indie development.

What's the Game?

On launch, Outworlder will have 3 worlds. Each world is its own complete game, worthy of an independent release, with a unique story and gameplay that ranges from mecha beat 'em ups to roguelike dungeon crawlers. Story progression is primarily depicted in the style of a point and click adventure on each world's homescreen, which will update as you play.

There is also a central narrative that connects all worlds and progresses through a central hub that players develop over time. As players build up their home and play different games, they’ll find relics and armors that can be added to a collective upgrade pool and used across all the worlds. You can discover a bullet-deflecting artifact while dungeon diving on one planet, and then use it on another world where you’re battling in a mech suit.

The current plan is to add worlds triannually, with each additional game introducing new collectibles and game-changing mechanics for everything already in the collection.

Ultra Blade

4.5 /5 Rating

2023 GOTY Nominee

App Store Editor’s Choice

Blast Waves

4.5/5 Rating

App Store Game of The Week

Immortal Rogue

4.4/5 Rating

2019 GOTY Nominee

App Store Game of The Week

What are the Worlds?

NOTE: All games are one-touch, mobile-first experiences with gamepad + keyboard support available for additional platforms.

Game 1: Ultra Blade 2 (90% complete)

Survivors-like with an emphasis on skill and frenetic hack n’ slash.

Rescue wayward adventures and join their guild in the last city. Take on quests, and gradually uncover the roots of how their world was poisoned.

Players complete quests and unlock a virtually endless combination of magic weapons to take on new runs and challenges.

What’s left to build? Minor environmental asset hookups to sell the “poisoned world” aesthetic and homescreen story beats.

Game 2: Mecha Rogue (70% complete)

Fast-paced roguelike mecha shooter in the vein of Metal Slug. Uncover an ancient weapon and help a ragtag resistance reclaim their world from an oppressive alien regime.

Launch, rapidly acquire new equipment, and salvage parts from your kills to add to your own customization options.

What's left to build? Homescreen story beats, mech customization flow (art is done), and zones 2-4 need to be configured and tuned.

Game 3: Veil Runner (50% complete)

A match 3 space battler where matches divert power to specific weapon systems and generate resources to activate abilities. Players run blockades and ambush the mysterious Triarchy forces that have restricted space travel.

Note: The testflight demo also includes several other prototypes at similar levels of completion that could jump the line for the third game depending on playtester feedback/initial interest:

1) A roguelike autobattler where players take on the role of a necromancer, reclaiming the world for its original inhabitants.

2) A classical turn-based, top-down roguelike where players customize their backpacks and item pool, hoping to reach the wizard’s tower and break a curse.

3) A turn-based shoot 'em up against endless monster hordes in the vein of peggle.

Why this Game?

Creatively Speaking: I don't just want to build a game, I want to build a universe. My previous works have all shared implied connections, themes, and gameplay systems. This is an attempt to now explicitly connect those ideas, build platform for new projects, and to create something that is entirely greater than the sum of its parts.

Practically Speaking: With the coming wave of games from Ai-empowered developers, building and releasing smaller indie projects will become less and less financially viable. I want to build one, high value proposition product that exponentially benefits from each new piece I add to it over time. Hence the emphasis on roguelike items and systems that can be injected into each game every time I add a new world. Additionally, combining multiple genres into one package is a great way to break roguelike fatigue, increase LTV, and cross-sell different types of players into experiences they might not otherwise try.

In terms of audience, I have the 300k+ sales and my work has been favorably received on sites like TouchArcade (RIP) and Pocketgamer. I’ve retained fans across multiple titles, and generally get the sense that there is a real hunger for original premium touchscreen experiences that aren’t just ports from other platforms. Ultra Blade and Immortal Rogue in particular regularly rank in their categories and retain decent player counts while only receiving minor updates.

Release Window

This year, 2026. I need 3-4 months to finish the 3rd title depending on which one is picked.

Ai

Character portraits like the ones to the right were done with my sketches + Ai assistance, and will be replaced by an artist before launch. Everything else is hand drawn and coded by me or a hired artist.

Asks

Primarily, I’m looking for a creative partner who believes in this vision and can help me launch and sustain the next phase of my indie development career. Someone to help me create a compelling collection that I can expand on for years to come.

While a standalone release + dlc model is viable as each world can work as its own standalone product, a more ideal scenario would be getting included in a subscription service that already rewards player engagement and continued updates.

I’ve been gradually building up a codebase and roguelike engine for years, which I believe gives me a competitive advantage in that I can easily create modifiers and connections across wildly different projects and experiences in ways that make other devs sweat when I talk about it.

In terms of $$$:

I don't need up front funding to finish development.
In terms of a direct platform/service deal, I'm looking for an up front fee for the game, and am open to exclusivity windows + milestone deliverables.
If we're talking about a wider release across multiple platforms (Mobile/PC/Console), then I'm looking for localization, marketing spend, QA, and platform relations support while I handle 100% of production.

Testflight Demo link:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/skyYT8b5

Thanks for your time and interest,

-Kyle

kylewilliambarrett [at] gmail.com