Tynan Sylvester

Who Tynan Sylvester is

Tynan Sylvester is a game designer, the founder of Ludeon Studios and the creator of RimWorld. His own site introduces him in those terms and adds that he started Ludeon and built the first version of RimWorld by himself in 2013 with no outside funding. Ludeon's own About Ludeon page, which carries no publication date, calls him the studio's founder and sends readers to his blog and to his book, Designing Games.

That book, which his site describes as an instructional game design book and as an attempt to understand the emotional heart of games in a way useful to designers, was published in 2013 by O'Reilly Media according to the same page. The page also states that he was a level and systems designer at Irrational Games in Boston, primarily on BioShock Infinite, and that he wrote several game design articles before RimWorld existed.

Quick facts

Sylvester's own site states that he started Ludeon, built RimWorld's first version by himself in 2013 with no outside funding, and that the game has since sold over 4 million copies across five major expansions; the page carries no publication date for those figures. He announced the studio name in a blog post dated 19 June 2013, writing that Ludeon was then just him. RimWorld's official site dates the game's first public release to 4 November 2013. Steam lists Ludeon Studios as developer and publisher with a release date of Oct 17, 2018.

How did Tynan Sylvester start Ludeon Studios?

In a post dated 19 June 2013 and titled Ludeon Studios is born, he wrote that he had been working on an indie project called Eclipse Colony and had just started creating a studio identity to attach it to, named Ludeon Studios. He wrote that the company was just him and that it was a stretch to even call it a company, since he still needed to do the business paperwork of registering it as one. He added that he expected a playable version soon and had run playtests that went well.

Ludeon's own pages state the role rather than the date. The studio's About Ludeon text describes Ludeon as an independent game developer that likes deep PC games and story generators, and refers to founder Tynan Sylvester in passing while linking to his blog and his book. Neither that page nor the studio's blog says when he took the title or how the company was registered, so the 19 June 2013 post remains the dated starting point.

What games has Tynan Sylvester worked on?

RimWorld is the game tied to him on the official pages. The game's own site states that RimWorld is developed by Tynan Sylvester and Ludeon Studios, describes it as a sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller, and says the game has been improved since its first public release on 4 November 2013. Steam's page for the game lists Ludeon Studios as both developer and publisher and gives a release date of Oct 17, 2018.

Before Ludeon, he worked inside other studios. His own site states that he did contract level design for Epic Games' Unreal Tournament, Digital Extremes' Warpath and Groove Games' Close Quarters Conflict, and that he had earlier created many Unreal Tournament levels, several of which won cash awards. It also states that he started a total conversion mod for UT2004 called Elemental Conflict and led a team developing it for about 14 months.

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