Lordy, lordy, look who's thirty! And by thirty I mean thirty eight thousand buckaroos, and the answer is Swordhaven! We finally got that baby backed! And despite being crippled by the deadly coronavirus for the last 6 days, I celebrate and flail around with all the strength available to me!
Why do you give these cursed boots to us backers?
Because they make you go fast! Like Sonic, the icon of gaming!
red shoes rly? happy coincidence you picked a symbol of international elite pedophilia lol
I'm pretty sure that's the purple spiral, not red boots!
I am going to support this Kickstarter because I loved ATOM, I greatly appreciate the homage to Baldur's Gate – up to the font design in the dialog box – and I am more than happy to give the dev team some extra money.
I am however (still) not totally enthusiastic about this game. I haven't played the demo personally, but from what I saw till now the setting and lore feel a little too similar to countless other “generic fantasy” works. I really hope the final product will contain more original ingredients, something comparable to that wonderful post-Soviet atmosphere that ATOM had.
Thank you for the support! It sure will stand out. In hindsight we did a really shitty job showing it instead of telling, but now that we ALMOST have time and money to make the "distinct" part of the game, it will become clear!
Big fan of the Atom franchise here, I'm doing my part to contribute to the success of the kickstarter campaign for Swordhaven, besst of luck guys!
Thank you!
I just hope it’s going to be playable unlike Atom (and less cringe). Best of luck.
You just haven't updated in a while. ATOM is very playable and very not cringe! Though Swordhaven will be an upgrade in most things.
Backed at 20 Euro. Good luck buddy. With 29 days left I would assume base goal or maybe 1 stretch goal would be viable to get
Thank you! We did it. Hoping for the first stretch goal too, I wanna make a spooky norman manor.
Atomboy, wouldn't it be good to throw a campaign update at least every few days? Some ideas about update topics to keep the campaign more lively:
- Different environments. Village/forest are great but lack variety. Would be great to see a still image of a city environment/fancy building, a mine of the Balta ore (glowing or inetersting in another way?), snowy terrain, mountain terrain, etc. Without too much spoliers, would be good to see more variety.
- Comparison between basic and improved animation, being a big KS goal.
- The type of encounter that could be added with KS funds. Trigger conversation, enemy party setup, customized location, etc.
- Details of an enemy type/creature that could be added, planned abilities, some art.
- A clip with an interaction without voiced line and with the same line voiced. Would have to be very high quality. How some voice acting improves the game, etc.
I couldn't reply in a timely manner, but your post inspired us to do just that. Though I got sick and failed, but I hope what came out was better than the prev updates.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atomrpg/swordhaven-iron-conspiracy/posts/4076845
IN-GAME NOTE INFORMATION
Hello, everyone!
Today we’d like to tell you more about the “Write an in-game note” reward, available for the Duke pledge tier and above.
Nova Drakonia is home to many secrets, plenty of which are transferred from person to person by means of writing. During your adventure there will be many occasions when you will stumble upon a cryptic riddle hinting at some buried treasure, a mysterious book disclosing the location of an ancient jungle temple, a map fragment showing the route to a barbarian village, a manuscript detailing a hidden combat technique, or even something as mundane as someone’s hundred year old grocery shopping list.
With the In-Game Note reward you will be able to pen something like this… or something entirely different! It’s all up to you.
If you are eligible for this reward, it means our writers will contact you soon after the campaign ends. Together you will brainstorm its contents. While general rules of the setting and its lore should apply—you will be otherwise free to let your imagination run wild!
Worldbuilding side by side with our players and backers has always been a priority for our crew, and we hope to do a lot more of it through this reward.
Stay tuned for the next update, where we will delve into more details about Swordhaven’s development and showcase some cool new content!
Yours humbly, Atom Team
This kind of shit never ends well. Don't allow the unwashed plebs to inject their shit writing into your game. That crap was horrific in Pillars.
Pillars is exactly why this is a note, not a dialogue. They just made their backers like... Say stuff for people to read in an oddly colored font. Some were pretty cool as far as I remember, but most I skipped. With the note, however, we invite the guy to make a short, fun thing that will lead the player to a bit of questing or what not. I'd use mine for a shaggy dog story though in the iconic stylings of Norm McDonalds, rest his soul. These are the best!
They should just do the typical graveyard thing where all the morons who want their name in the game get it on a tombstone.
We thought about that, but then again, notes sounded better in our brains!
Don't go overboard with crafting please
That remains to be seen, though I really hope we won't.
Atomboy, how do you plan to balance crafting with items you can find in the world or buy from stores? Will crafting be limited in what you can do, e.g. you can't just build a new weapon from scratch or perhaps only early game weapons? Or will crafting powerful items require unique/extremely rare resources? I ask because often enough in games that add crafting it either ends up as a pointless chore or is overpowered enough to devaluate exploration rewards. What is your vision for the role crafting should play?
Several people with differing worldviews are making crafting rn, so it's more or less the middle ground. There is rarity to some crafting items, but there are no unique ones. You will be able to make weapons from scratch. Rule of thumb right now is that a crafted weapon made of a certain metal is 10% better than the worst ready-made store bought weapon made out of the same metal but worse than a very good for-sale weapon of the same metal. Like, a crafted steel dagger has +1 damage over a store-bought steel dagger, but -1 damage compared to a Really Cool Steel Dagger. But a really cool steel dagger is a rare item rarely for sale. It's kind of balanced that way. However, we're planning on making craftable weapon mods too, like lighter grips, heavier grips, leaner blades, fatter blades, I haven't even started thinking about balancing those. All in all, seeing how you can also craft meds and potion buffs, crafting will be a good thing to have, but I'll try to save it from being OP. More of another path a player can take.
Backed at €20
. Good luck!
Thank you!
I should really try the demo since they're looking for feedback. How long is it?
3 hours for me, up to 7 for others who provided feedback!
Played it and quit after 90 minutes because I didn't want to spoil myself... filled out the questionnaire though. This thing looks like it's going to be great. There are a few rough edges and QOL issues, but what a great slice of gaming.
I definitely felt the BG1 and general classic CRPG inspirations.
Really glad you liked it! More to come!
Pledged! I know you guys won't have trouble getting over that finish line, but I thought I'd throw my support in here near the end. There is no ATOM Team project I haven't bought, and there likely never will be, so I might at well get in right on the ground floor again. I will almost never give money to a kickstarter project these days, but you guys have earned my trust.
Thanks man!
Pretty poorly led Kickstarter campaign. They could have gathered much more money, much faster. Look at other mambo-jambo JRPG trashy looking games from first time Devs that have ongoing Kickstarter. 200k € in first 10 days. Swordhaven managed in 30+ days less then 40k €. How? Good question to ask
Also
Atomboy is nowhere to be seen for 2 weeks during Kickstarter. What happend? Trying to help
I got pretty sick and that partly derailed my attempts at marketing. Oh well, c'est la vie. Also, as that one colorful JRPG has shown, the META just ain't on our side. Eh, still pulled through though, allegedly.
I wouldn't be overly dismayed about how they've handled Kickstarter. To me that signals they are actual Devs and not marketers. They aren't going to live and die by how this Kickstarter pkays out. These people have made successful games before.
Not marketers is right... And some day it might just become the end of us. But dang, the whole experience of trying to promote has lead me to uncovering the big secret at least. One would think this is all you have to do:
Pretty poorly led Kickstarter campaign. They could have gathered much more money, much faster. Look at other mambo-jambo JRPG trashy looking games from first time Devs that have ongoing Kickstarter. 200k € in first 10 days. Swordhaven managed in 30+ days less then 40k €. How? Good question to ask
Also
Atomboy is nowhere to be seen for 2 weeks during Kickstarter. What happend? Trying to help
It's honestly baffling how many Kickstarter campaigns are poorly managed considering you can literally just copy what the successful ones did for free.
But no! The real difference between a quick and easy campaign and a slog (not counting lightnings in bottles) are brand awareness, attached names, and the surprising amount of $$$$$$$$$$$ that needs to be poured into media people and PR firms. We lack all three, but hey, we did it in the end, and it feels like an even bigger victory than the one you pay for getting. Not that paying for a victory is bad, I'd do it without even thinking if I had the JINK-JINK.
That being said, the fact no marketing exp, horrible bowel shattering diseases and many backstage hurdles like this one build of unity glitching our save system for a week more than a thousand people found us and supported us means we have like, top notch quality people on our side. Folks who read the codex, folks who take interest in new crpgs on their own (because god knows we are limited in our ability to inform the world about our doings) folks who follow us on their own because they liked our previous games, people like that. That's the best kind of people we wanna hang around fo sure no cap ongod fr fr onliinohio in other words u guys go harder than baby gronk. Now I will finish my healing process and get back to it!
