Sony Online Entertainment founder and Everquest creator John Smedley has announced the formation of a new studio called Pixelmage Games LLC, whose first project will be Hero’s Song,  a “2D pixel art action RPG” that launched on Kickstarter PBC this week.

Smedley oversaw Sony Online Entertainment’s transition into Daybreak Game Company last year after the studio was sold off to a private investment group, but he left the company a few months later. Pixelmage Games is Smedley’s first new project since leaving Daybreak last July, and according to an interview with Polygon, he had already been working on the formation of the new studio at the time.

The new studio’s first game, Hero’s Song, is a bit of a game genre grab bag, with elements of action RPGs, sandbox games, roguelikes, and so on. While the pixel art and action RPG gameplay look fairly simple, the overall scope of the game seems to be quite large.

The game’s Kickstarter campaign page promises a hardcore experience where death is permanent and friendly fire is always on. It also says that Hero’s Song will have a deep crafting system that involves “hundreds of different crafting recipes and thousands of resources to find in hard-to-reach places around the world.”

In addition, Smedley says that each game world will be different depending on choices the player makes when creating it.

“You choose the gods of your world, and then you click create,” Smedley explained in his interview with Polygon. “Once you choose those gods, the world is influenced by your decisions. So, if you choose the goddess of the wild … you’re going to get elves as a consequence. Elves are one of the races that she forms. But let’s say that you decide that the dwarven god is more powerful in this world, you could end up in a situation where the dwarves have wiped the elves out, and you won’t even get elves as a choice in your character selection.”

So far, Hero’s Song has already raised close to $30,000 on Kickstarter with nearly one month left in the campaign. Curiously, the lowest amount that backers can pay on Kickstarter is $25, yet the projected price for the completed game is $20.

Image courtesy of Pixelmage Games LLC