Traega sets up shop in Nashville

Nashville is known for music more than games, but one new indie is hoping to turn Music City's creative energy toward game development. Traega Entertainment today announced it has set up shop in Nashville and intends to release its first project, a tactical RPG with card collecting mechanics, sometime next year.

"Traega was created to build quality games with depth and a lot of freedom," founder Dax Hock said. "I love to be challenged and to have the choice to play the way I want. These values will be at the core of everything we create, even with smaller scale games, like the one we are building now."

Hock has AAA aspirations for Traega, and even though his own development experience is limited to a few years of QA work for Funcom, his team includes a number of more established developers. Some of the more experienced among the team include senior programmer David Ollman (Ashes of Empire, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks), director of technology Martin Livesey (Company of Heroes 2, Star Wars: Rebellion), and head of marketing and biz dev Michael Micholic, who worked at Ubisoft in various brand management roles for franchises including Rayman, Far Cry, and Prince of Persia.

"I want to foster a culture of collaboration," Hock said. "Despite our individual roles, each of us have a hand in influencing all aspects of the game. My goal is to create something that we all want to play, something that we can all be proud of."