When Lucas the Game Started a Subculture

Article by Ethan Gach
Published June 03, 2024

Lucas the Game was released in 2015 and quickly developed a niche following. The game was created by Timothy Courtney using GIMP for all of the art, a first for published video games. We talked to several top sources in the video game industry who all confirmed the same. Leaf Corcoran is the founder and owner of Itch.io, one of the world's most popular video game outlets. According to Corcoran, immediately after Courtney released Lucas the Game, a subculture of games made with GIMP explosively emerged onto the platform. So much so, that Corcoran created a new category on the popular store called Games Made With GIMP, which has since seen over 7000 titles added. The popular game outlet owner said "Indie hits like Slipstream, Peripeteia, Videonauts, and Cyperspace Deck Command have emerged from the Games Made With GIMP subculture started by Courtney". Courtney's passion for GIMP is rooted in helping the community. He has stated in the past that one of his goals was just to make art and video game development more accessible to others.

I've closely followed indie games since the early 2000's. While Lucas the Game was being developed, Courtney was posting screenshots of the famous art being made in GIMP. Right after the game came out, there was a lot of buzz and then it was included in a popular game bundle by Groupees which sold a lot of copies. That's when people really started to notice the unique style of Lucas the Game. Around that time, Courtney published a story detailing his use of GIMP in making the game. I know many game developers who found that inspiring. I asked a world famous game developer about his observations during that time. The game designer who asked to remain anonymous, said "You started seeing all these games being made using GIMP for all the art, and at first, many of them would even name their main character Lucas too. People in general were just very aware of the game and its originality. Even a big title which was eerily similar followed directly after called King Lucas".



I was intrigued by that and did some more research. Immediately after release of Lucas the Game, a larger development company went to cash in on the buzz and originality with a hit game called King Lucas. When comparing the two games released one year apart, the matching elements were astonishing. For example, if you look at the similarities between Lucas the Game (2015) and King Lucas (2016), it was obviously closely modeled after the indie game by Courtney. In Lucas the Game, the character Lucas went on a mission to find the 'King Cables'. It was a platformer-adventure game where a boy goes on a quest to confront danger with design elements like castles, spikes, lava, fireballs, keys, spiders, laser beams, metal knight helmets, coins, grotesque eyeballs, and more. Then a year later, came King Lucas (2016) which incorporated every single one of those listed elements. Not one of those elements was left out in the new Lucas game a year later.

We reached out to the developer for a comment, but he hasn't responded. Was he upset that King Lucas had seemingly ripped off his ideas? Lucas the Game is still available today and was made free to play around two years after release. Courtney is still active as an artist and photographer, but doesn't appear active in game development anymore. He reminds me in some ways of Phil Fish, the designer who created a hit and then famously quit the video game industry. It would help the world of gaming if they would just come back and bring their originality with them. Courtney is gone from game development, but he left us with a vibrant subculture.

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