Now that we’ve announced The Wind and Wilting Blossom, we thought we’d write up a post on what we need to finish to get to the planned Kickstarter. As mentioned, we are focused intensely on completing our Demo that we will release prior to the launch of the Kickstarter.
The Demo will contain the following:
- 3 Regions (out of the planned 7)
- 1 Playable Leader (out of the planned 8)
- 2 Weapon/Unit Layout Unlocks for the Leader (each leader will get 3)
- A handful of Leader Weapons to show off some variety
- 6 classes (out of the planned 16)
- Roughly 75 Events (out of the planned 250)
The Demo will not contain the following planned features:
- Netsukes (Augmentations)
- Netsukes are items that your party will collect and equip to provide unique benefits to one or more members of the party
- This feature is still in development, and we feel that the value added to Demo is negligible, because reaping the true benefits of Netsukes requires more gameplay than we present in the demo
- Terrain mapping battles
- We have a system designed to map battle locations to the particular area/biomes featured on our Region maps, which will result in a node battle in a forest triggering the forest battle map, this is designed and loosely implemented (Coastal areas only) but the full implementation will come at release – this is discussed at length in the post from our programmer called Terrain Colormaps
- More battle map variations and objectives
- We will include many more battle maps in the full version alongside new battle objectives such as Collect a particular item in a tile or Protect an NPC
- Many other improvements and polish such as:
- More VFX
- More/improved SFX
- More music
- More battle areas
- And much much more
It’s important to note that just because we are focusing most of our efforts on the demo doesn’t mean that work isn’t being done on the full project. Many of the steps we’re taking to complete the demo are necessary to complete the game. Once we’ve completed the demo, it will be tested extensively among the team and other friends and family until we feel comfortable putting it out in the wild. Of course, we’ll be monitoring the demo for several weeks post launch, with regard to outstanding bugs or important issues we feel it’s critical to address before we launch the Kickstarter.
In addition to finishing up the demo, we are still building out the Kickstarter page itself. It will include a section on Lore, Contents, and Gameplay Features, as well as some previews of those features (likely in .gif form) so you can see the game in action. We are also considering what stretch goal elements we’d like to implement which will likely include more classes, leaders, and weapons. We also have some “out there” ideas that we are considering.
Now that you know what we’re planning with the Kickstarter we thought you should know why we’re planning a Kickstarter in the first place. Our (very small) team includes folks who have worked on indie PC releases, free-to-play mobile games, and even the AAA title Middle-earth: Shadow of War. While none of us are currently employed in the games industry, we’ve gathered enough experience to know how to design, build, and launch a great game. We’re passionate about finishing this project and sharing it with other gamers like ourselves, and have always seen this as the proverbial “labor of love” since we first began very slowly working on it several years ago. Would it be great if we achieve some measure of financial success here? Absolutely! But our primary goal in starting this company, and project, in the first place was to build a game we’d enjoy playing. All that said, here’s why we’re running a Kickstarter campaign:
- We need some SFX expertise. If you’ve viewed our gameplay trailer, you already know we’ve got some fantastic original music – but we still need to add, and polish up, our sound effects.
- We want to make our soundtrack even better by purchasing more virtual instruments for our composer’s palette.
- The mere existence of this campaign represents an opportunity to start doing a better job of getting the word out.
- Keeping the proverbial lights on – hiring lawyers, filing business licenses and tax paperwork, and fronting money for even little things like company email addresses and software licenses starts to add up when we’re doing all these things in our spare time (and for no pay!)
- Most importantly, we see this as an opportunity to reward early fans of our work!
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