Game News Role Reversal: Artifact Red-X Kickstarter

Tags: artifact red-X

Although I'm sure everyone's getting a bit sick of Kickstarter campaigns rather than actual game releases, the bizarrely named Artifact Red-X has an interesting proposition. It's essentially reverse XCOM where you take control of an invading alien force hell bent on the domination of another planet. It plans to have both overarching base-building and campaign planning coupled with micro-managed squad based battles.

It all sounds great, but the Kickstarter campaign is a little odd; offering a physical tabletop game to coincide with the computerised version of the game reeks a bit of lack of focus and pie-in-the-sky grand ideas.

Regardless it's a game I would love to play if the project comes to fruition, so here's hoping.

 

A board game where You invade Earth as aliens? This has been done before, and well. It would be better if they focused on the PC game.

 

That was signaled in the Kickstarter Watch thread:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/kickstarter-watch.70894/page-93#post-2666398

 

The game looks cool, but the asking sum is way too little to make what they're promising and very little has been made already.

 

Hey
I saw this thread and I had to reply.
I am the creator of the KS project Artifact Red-X. First its good to read such honest comments.

Allow me to add to this post - first the video is pretty bad..i do apologize, Im making a new one that goes over the gameplay and im getting a pro voice over person because some dont like my Australian accent.
While im writing the script, do you have any points you want me to get across?

The boardgame
Tthis is being made by Itar's Workshop so we can focus on the game. itar's Workshop have experience making these games. We will be providing the theme while they work out the details.

The amount of 25K.
If this was a AAA or AA or even an A game in terms of content, then hell yes its WAY too low BUT its a much much smaller game, also the focus is going to be gameplay and not graphics - replayability is the most important aspect of a good game and most of the development will be in balancing and adjustments. Also the game features have been spread over the stretch goals & since yesterday multiplayer has been moved forward. The creation of the models, UI etc will primarily be made in house by us, while polishing of the assets (texture corrections etc) will be done with an outsourcing company we have dealt with in the past (this a big chunk of the cost). Because this is for us a 'side project' where we get our bread & butter from other IT projects (both game and non-game related) so we will put in our time and fill in the gaps where needed. The 25K is the BASE AMOUNT for this game and it goes up to 200K. We love strategy games soo much, we just want to make it. The support from kickstarter will help us reach these goals and is not the sole supporter for the project.

In addition the engine has been built (see the video in update #3 for more specs) but it was originally for an RTS game which we shelved to work on this instead. Its Direct X 11 and has all the technical features of a final game. It is built on a muiltiplayer base, so that it is already ready to be a multiplayer game.The reason why 'it is not further along' is because firstly, upgrading the engine from DX9 to DX11 was done over the last few months and has not left time to convert it over. Also spending the enormous amount of time to create the assets without knowing if the project would be accepted by the KS community is a huge risk that we couldn't afford - maybe the reverse is true but now its too late as we are live.

Lets break down the screenshot you have on this post - this is the real time base/Planet screen.
As you can see, the bases and alien cities will be icon-like or simplistic 3D shapes. When you launch missions, the Air transport ships will fly from your base and head towards the target - in real time. All the icons and the HUD elements are quite simple to create, animate and program. UI like this would take a couple of weeks to make and some ongoing tweaks but its very low cost. Remember easy to identify and ALL ABOUT GAMEPLAY not how pretty it looks.

As you can see from the art assets, we are a professional group - we just suffer from the age old 'chicken & the egg' dilemma when it comes to funding.

In hindsight, yes probably should have gotten it further but this is why you see the lead times to produce it in KS.


Did I miss anything?

 

Glad to hear this. The more TBS the better!

 

Also today I was contacted by a publisher, so even if KS doesnt get funded Artifact Red-X may still get released! I cant say who yet..

BTW suggestions for a new name are welcome. I just needed a name to kick it off (it was originally 'working title' lol)

 

Nice job attracting a publisher.

 

If it's Shitcomposer...run a mile bro.

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

yeah, you missed everything interesting. Your gameplay video looks like shit