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Let's see what this has been up to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753131002/nighthawks-the-vampire-rpg-0/posts/2286740
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753131002/nighthawks-the-vampire-rpg-0/posts/2288155
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753131002/nighthawks-the-vampire-rpg-0/posts/2294581
Nighthawks Exposed #6 - Nighthawks
Posted by Richard Cobbett
While you start Nighthawks as a penniless vampire, it's not long before circumstances conspire to put you in charge of your own nightclub, also called Nighthawks. It's a poisoned chalice though, as not only is it currently run-down and failing, the added attention it draws to you isn't always welcome. The only reason you can get away with it is proving your usefulness to the local vampire community, while still fending off threats to your position and trying to ensure you still have a sanctuary to come back to each night.
Nighthawks is your base of operations, with several useful elements. The VIP room sometimes contains unwary souls (backers!) who have stumbled in when it's quiet enough to get away with a bit of a snack behind the scenes. Your main bartender, Becca, is a fountain of local rumours that you can investigate. And of course, you have your sanctuary in the basement where you can hide from the dreaded sun.
But what's your part of it? Luckily, you don't have to manage things on a day to day basis. There's a manager who handles most things, who is also your thrall (not a very politically correct term, but nobody's come up with a better one as of yet...). You give him a bit of your blood to stay healthy, he happily works for you. However, he's not the most dynamic of people, so generally looks to you to decide on policy and sweeping changes.
When you take over, you get to completely renovate the place in a few different styles, such as modern and gothic. You also get to make decisions like whether another local vampire is allowed to deal drugs in the toilets, and what uniforms the staff should wear. As seen in the trailer, the current owner is somewhat sleazy and favours making the staff wear 'strategically ill-fitting' uniforms. As boss, you can continue that, take it a bit further, or be the helpful boss who sees Becca half falling out of her bartender outfit and declares "Get that woman a shirt that fits, damn it." It's your nightclub. You get to call the shots.
Success however breeds problems, and the more you build Nighthawks up into a prize worth having, the more others will start to covet it. In particular, you have a rival who believes that you don't deserve to be in charge, and they've got some hefty support from one of the major vampires in the city. If you can't prove that you're the one to run the place, you won't be running it for very long... and that's far from your only big problem.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753131002/nighthawks-the-vampire-rpg-0/posts/2288155
Nighthawks Exposed #7 - Trust and Romance
Posted by Richard Cobbett
So, onto the second-most commonly asked question about Nighthawks, not including variants of "Can I bang Madame Lux?" (Answer: Wait and see). Specifically, if there'll be other romances and sexytimes, and how that will work with a protagonist of no stated sex/gender/identity in general. Time to address that one.
In Short...
Yes, and hopefully in an interesting way!
The Longer Version...
Yes, there will be romances, and there will absolutely be twisted sexytimes. However, it's not quite the set-up of a lot of RPGs, where you just partner off your PC with whoever takes your fancy. Nighthawks is a game about broken people, fiercely individualistic, who aren't used to letting anyone get emotionally close to them. As such, for 'romances', primarily think 'gaining trust'. It's more about breaking down the barriers. Being the person someone can rely on, and share secrets with. Someone who a person who refuses to ask for help can turn to in their time of greatest need, even when it might be shameful or show weakness.
In some cases, that leads to sexytime fun. In others, that's simply not what the character is looking for, and your relationship will head down a different path. Everyone in Nighthawks has their own story, and none of them consider themselves a mere bit-player in yours.
Companions and NPCs
When it comes to specific sexualities, things are somewhat divided. Characters who might be interested in your character will be basically player-sexual and you can decide for yourself where they fit on whatever spectrum you like, be it completely open to any experience, or purely interested in your character, based on your approaches. This is the only real way to still allow the breadth of role-play that we want to offer.
Having said that, your decisions, your character build and so on will play a big part in which Companions might be up for a little 'extra companionship'. Non-Companion NPCs will also be more defined in these regards. We don't want to simply brush over the issues here, or the interesting stories that can come from them. Hopefully in any case, focusing on trust and getting close to characters will encourage you to get invested in their stories in general, rather than just seeing who you can get into bed before the credits roll.
But if not, don't worry. We're going to have some fun with that too!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/753131002/nighthawks-the-vampire-rpg-0/posts/2294581
Nighthawks Exposed #8 - City Of Colours
Posted by Richard Cobbett
Some of Ben's art tests from the early days of the project.
So, we've talked a lot about the game design and writing, but Nighthawks wouldn't exist in any form without the art of pixel-wizard Ben (as lovingly touched up by Ivan - the art, not Ben, at least as far as I know). I'm not going to dig too deeply into the art side, because that's not my field. I can barely draw stick figures. Still, I thought I'd talk a bit about how we came up with the look of the game and what we're aiming for in the full game.
The most important thing is that from the start, we agreed that we didn't want Nighthawks to just be a game of reds, blacks and greys. That looks good in a single shot, but over the course of a whole game you really do start to long for something a bit different. You can still be atmospheric and spooky with light and colour. While we've never agreed on a catchy name for this, I like to think of it as 'electro-goth'. The blue neon outside Nighthawks, the green hue of the streets, and in other areas not in the demo, taking a more comic-book sensibility to location design so that each area has its own palette, its own theme, and cool background details like the Chained Tree of Fountaincourt or [SPOILER REDACTED].
Urban Fantastic
Not all of Nighthawks will be set in the city, due to flashbacks, but even the bits within it need to be interesting. Even though it's a modern city and thus a more familiar location than somewhere like Thedas or Temeria or Taris, or indeed an RPG location not beginning with the letter 'T', it can still be a place that feels interesting to explore and which has its own culture and its own beat. Our four main districts are designed with that in mind. This should be a place that you probably wouldn't want to visit in real life, without vampire powers anyway, but would certainly find fascinating... before being shivved in the back.
The original art is further helped by the fact that our backgrounds aren't purely static, but short 4K movie loops. The idea is to capture a moment in time, but also make it breathe, with rain and lighting effects and smoke and similar. Unfortunately, compression on the Kickstarter video doesn't make this look its best, but trust me, it looks super-crisp and lovely when you see it live. Just a little animated detail really brings the life of the backgrounds out, and we're intending to make the ones for the full game much, much cooler.
Luckily, this is one of those projects where art and design is absolutely on the same page, and I for one can't wait to see what Ben and Ivan do with the rest of the stuff in the design. So far, it's been entirely a case of sending over the descriptions and getting back almost exactly what I had in mind, only way better looking. You know you've got the right artists on board when your longest and fiddliest artistic decision is about your bartender's bra. Not kidding about that. Suffice to say, if you see a character proudly sporting an incredibly frilly one in the final game, you'll know that's almost certainly Ben making A Point.