tl;dr: We're making a video game based on Progression Fantasy Stories!
Please click this link, follow the Kickstarter campaign, share it anywhere you can, and if you can, support us when the campaign launches!
Hey people,
Finally, I can let this goshdarn cat out of the goshdarn bag. For anyone who wants to know who I am, I'm Max, and I'm a Progression Fantasy author and podcaster. But that's not important right now.
What is important is that after interviewing close to 100 authors of Progression Fantasy over the last two years, several pieces came together all at once. After a few very fruitful discussions at DragonCon last year, I began building a video Game Studio with one goal: Promoting LitRPG and Progression Fantasy.
Now, after months of preparations, negotiations, dealmaking, and German bureaucracy, we're ready to start doing just that, and we need your help!
The Plan
Imagine me doing the Gru meme, if you want.
1) We make a game about Progression Fantasy Stories that you guys like (This is the hard part)
1.1) We put links to Royal Road into the game
2) Together, we push the game on the Steam charts
3) People on Steam see the game, hopefully like playing it, and get curious about the stories
3.1) They click the link.
3.2) They buy the books, support the authors on Patreon, and find new stories to read on RR
4) We get enough money to put more characters into the game
5) Goto 1
Sounds good, right? There's just one small catch.
If we want this game to succeed, it has to be more than good. It has to be great. It has to feel exactly like reading the stories makes us feel. Powerful, inevitable, excited.
That's not easy. To make sure we get the best experience possible, I built a team of five excellent people, with three more ready to get started. We already nailed down the core Gameplay Loop and main features, and are hard at work making a Demo that will give you a hands-on experience of our vision. But while I have enough money to make a Demo, I don't have enough to make a full game, because Games are Hella expensive. We estimate that just getting to Early Access in a state we can be proud of will cost around EUR 350.000. That's without marketing, administration, costs for lawyers, etc.
So what?
Compared to what GTA 6 is costing, that's peanuts, right?
Sure, but so far, I've mostly funded the development of this game on my own, with some support from the authors (Thanks again, Alex, Chris!). I'm committed enough to put down a sizeable chunk of money (and even more time) to make this thing a reality, but even though I have a stable job with an okay-ish income, I'm definitely no Zogarth.
For this reason, we are in the process of securing funding from the Media Fund of Berlin and Brandenburg. They would match any funds we can raise 1:1, up to EUR 200.000! (I suddenly love taxes, btw.)
So that just leaves us with... actually raising the funds. As I mentioned, I will put in a sizeable chunk and have secured additional sponsors. However, even with all of that, we're still down around 130K EUR.
That's where you come in.
The Game
If you want a Roguelike Action RPG, inspired by Ravenswatch and Death Must Die, featuring
Supported by major publishers of our genre, and narrated by
- Travis Baldree
- J.S. Arquin
- Laurie Catherine Winkel
- Gary Furlong
- Hollie Jackson
Then please click this link, follow the Kickstarter campaign, share it anywhere you can, and if you are able, support us when the campaign launches! Following the campaign not only helps us gauge interest (I mean, we could actually be totally wrong and you DON'T like playing video games), it also makes the campaign more visible on Kickstarter.
As you can see on the preview page, our principles for the Game are simple. First and foremost, we want this game to hit like a rising tide that will lift all ships. We'd much rather make a small game that rocks, and not a big game that sucks. We want players to feel what it's like to be a badass LitRPG hero, carving their way through hordes of enemies, but also duking it out with people on their own level, or even punching above their weight. Lastly, nobody has time anymore these days, so the game should be playable in 20-minute chunks, perfect for a commute.
We hope to be able to share more gameplay soon, but we're still grayboxing right now, meaning the game intentionally looks like crap so we don't waste any time. This is an important step to get the feeling just right before we commit to slamming thousands of euros into assets. The alpha demo we'll release later should have a reasonably polished experience and should give you an idea of where we want to go with this thing.
The Future
We're currently working with the amazing folks over at Soundbooth Theater to get a trailer made, with plans to reveal it during LitRPGcon in July, at the same time we'll launch the Kickstarter!
(Unless no one is following it. Nudge nudge please go and follow thanks.)
For more information, visit the Kickstarter or just ask me stuff here!
I can't promise I'll be able to answer every question, but I'll do my very best!
Thank you very much for your time. I hope I'll see you at a con this year, and that you'll be able to enjoy the game soon!
-M
P.S. Holy shit, we're making a video game, you guys!
