Game News Forbidden Unit, a turn-based dystopian cyberpunk RPG, now on Kickstarter

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

I think the name is unfortunate, not so much because of the double meaning, but because it's just quite bland.

I don't think it's too late to change it, in partcular if the KS campaign falls through.

We will consider changing the title name in future after KS...
We are definitely open for your suggestions. We'll ask for your opinions about the new name for sure, to prevent us from creating other unwanted sexual allusions.

 

[Prime Junta]

About the names. Not just for the game, but also the crew. Why go with boring interchangeable Anglo names, some of which even have a little ... unfortunate undertones? The time when the protag just had to be a square-jawed 'murican are long past. You're Czech. Why not set the game in cyberpunk Prague and give everybody names to match?

 

[Kev Inkline]

About the names. Not just for the game, but also the crew. Why go with boring interchangeable Anglo names, some of which even have a little ... unfortunate undertones? The time when the protag just had to be a square-jawed 'murican are long past. You're Czech. Why not set the game in cyberpunk Prague and give everybody names to match?

Your communist hate for the greatest country in the world is unwarranted. Besides, nobody would care for the misadventures of Robert Kurva, protag.

:kwanzania:

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

You're Czech. Why not set the game in cyberpunk Prague and give everybody names to match?

Because of several reasons, while the idea might be interesting, execution would be quite difficult and also a bit binding. Futuristic Prague would still have to remind the Old Prague, in order to not being total BS. And the story would have to be written for it... While on the other hand if we place the story in a city without reference to real one, we have more freedom to do what we want.

Also, there has been recently released games, where part of the story takes place in Prague. And while for rest of the world, it is probably Ok and possibly interesting... For us was kind of weird. On first look, it seems like Prague, but at the same time, i isn't anything like Prague. Not mentioning all the Czech texts all over the place, coming directly from a google translator. Well, that was the case in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

However, we do have some references to Prague in the game...

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

Btw guys, is there a chance that any of you have some contacts, or a friend, working for some gaming sites?

We tried to contact over 40 sites, as result, we achieved 1 article about the game...

It seems like using public contacts doesn't work much.

Or if you have a tip, for any other forum (we already are active on RPGwatch as well) or site we could try. It would help a lot.

 

[Jaesun]

Just keep sending out press releases to sites (like Rock, Paper, Shotgun etc...). All you can hope for is they end up linking what they see and publish an article.

 

[daveyd]

It's always tough for unknown indies to get coverage, especially once it looks like the Kickstarter won't reach its goal. I'd suggest contacting Cliqist. They used to exclusively cover crowdfunded games and while they have now branched out to indie games in general, they still do a fair number of articles on crowdfunding campaigns.

Other forums you could try: RPG.net, GoG (since you are hoping to release the game there). And maybe try a few posts on Reddit like RPG gamers

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

Thanks for tips guys. We will be sending another round of emails to major and minor pc gaming sites during the week.

Cliqist seems interesting, we will contact them to get more information and then we'll see.
Good idea with GOG forum and the RPG.net as well!!!

 

[Darkzone]

Thanks for tips guys. We will be sending another round of emails to major and minor pc gaming sites during the week.

Cliqist seems interesting, we will contact them to get more information and then we'll see.
Good idea with GOG forum and the RPG.net as well!!!

Don't despair and keep on working on Forbidden Unit and its KS. Keep your main focus on the KS campaign and honestly go for the cyber character upgrades (besids the text about Linda there is nothing to indicate something like that). If you make good updates then there is a chance that Larian Studios could promote your KS in a future KS update till the 19.09.2017. One shout out from inXile or Larian could take you over the finish line, but you have to show that to make a very good game is your main goal and not some money from KS.
Make an Update about the RPG system that your are using. I would here recommed a connection between the Main Characteristics and Skills.

What i think about your presentation:
Your dialog menues, main screen user interface, character screen, inventory and local map, look (shadowrun/mobile app) generic and cheap in a bad way and it lacks character. I would have gone for the titanium-glass mobile phone look.
The characters John, Wand and Tenk do look like from a special mercenary forces, but Linda sticks out like a colored horse. ( Fuck those SWJ purple and blue hair and hexagon pattern on legs and adjust here bluegray latex colors to the overall gray patterns of her comrades. )
I know that the weapons icons and models are place holder, but it doesn't look sci-fi it looks only shit-fy. A simple AR-15, a Desert Eagle, a Barrett M82 with Laser (green dot) pointer and Laser Range finder would have been better. On the unity asset store you can find all of the named weapons for few bucks or even for free. With other words: Let the guns look like guns (gun metal look) and not plastic toys. I would also think about introducing different ammo types and calibers for this weapons, if i were you. And forget this shit about Laser and Plasma weapons, there are also different other awsome concepts like the Gyrojet and Railguns.
Otus Hobst is founder of the Minority Sound industrial / cyber-metall band, then use industrial / cyber-metall with nice guitar-riffs. (Not necessary with the hardness of death metal.) You have stated in the KS that you are mixing Blade Runner with Mad Max. Then do it!
Every fucking asshole (including me, but i love metal since the 80s) loves the amplifier truck gitar player in Mad Max 4.

You cannot please everyone, therefore you have to target your project to a sufficiently large target group and find out what this target group wants.
Blade Runner and ShadowRun are Cyberpunk (Blade Runner created this genre) and Cyberpunk is 80s sci-fy noir, cyber, guns and dystopian society. This is a very simple formula follow it and it should be good, at least it was good for HBS and its Shadowrun cRPGs.

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

Thank you for comprehensive feedback.

Making an update with more information about RPG system and more detailed information about the game is a good idea... We will try to prepare that soon.
About cyber enhancement, they are part Forbidden Unit world, and you will be meeting Augmented people in there... However, currently, we don't have functionality allowing you to enhance your characters. We would love that, and It's not excluded that we will add it into the game. But it is quite a complex task. What I can say for now, that it is something we already thought about, and we will be considering it in future as well.

Current GUI is not representing the final state. It's more like the direction we want to go, and there still a lot of work on it.

As far as Characters goes, there is actually a reason they are not all looking the same way or using the same type of armor. Not all of them was originally soldiers/spec ops. Especially Linda is very different from rest of the team and she has very different past... John and Tenk were fighting in the same army during the war, that is the reason they using similar gear and armor(at least from the start of the game, player can change it anytime) Another reason is that as mercenaries, they can use any equipment they want, and they are not bound by any rules. But I do understand what you mean.

Guns are really placeholders and the final versions will look very different from what we have now and I can promise they won't look "shit-fy" in the end

 

[ArchAngel]

I really like what I see here and normally I would have already pledged but this KS comes at most terrible financial time for me.
Oh well, hopefully you get to release it in some future and I can grab it then. I wish you best of luck.

 

[LeStryfe79]

I think the names of the characters are cool. The name of the game itself is weird.

What about Mercenary Story? It sounds simple but I think it works.

Anyway, the game looks very promising!

 

[Bocian]

Thanks for tips guys. We will be sending another round of emails to major and minor pc gaming sites during the week.

Cliqist seems interesting, we will contact them to get more information and then we'll see.
Good idea with GOG forum and the RPG.net as well!!!

Contacting some youtube let's players also wouldn't hurt - their subscribers count could also help fund the KS campaign if any of them would make a video about it. Due to massive amount of them, it's safe to assume that at least a few of them would.

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

I really like what I see here and normally I would have already pledged but this KS comes at most terrible financial time for me.
Oh well, hopefully you get to release it in some future and I can grab it then. I wish you best of luck.

It is a pity, but we understand that.
Yet we are happy you like the game
Thank you!

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

I think the names of the characters are cool. The name of the game itself is weird.

What about Mercenary Story? It sounds simple but I think it works.

Anyway, the game looks very promising!

Well, from the different sites there are different opinions about the names in the game and name of the game itself... Sometimes people even like them (but it may be intended in a sarcastic way )

We already gathering some suggestions for the name of the title, so we will keep note of this one as well... Thank you.

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

Thanks for tips guys. We will be sending another round of emails to major and minor pc gaming sites during the week.

Cliqist seems interesting, we will contact them to get more information and then we'll see.
Good idea with GOG forum and the RPG.net as well!!!

Contacting some youtube let's players also wouldn't hurt - their subscribers count could also help fund the KS campaign if any of them would make a video about it. Due to massive amount of them, it's safe to assume that at least a few of them would.

It's one of the options, however, in order for them to create some meaningful content from the game, we would have to put together a more polished version with more continuous content... This could take some month or two... The current version works more like demonstrations of what we are capable to do with the game, but we still have to add more content in order to have like a playable demo version.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Backed. Good luck men.
One way or the other I hope you do secure funding for this.

 

[Tom_ChainlessGames]

Backed. Good luck men.
One way or the other I hope you do secure funding for this.

Thank you, mister!!! We appreciate it

 

[Heretic]

What is the other meaning of "unit"?

 

[Freddie]

One more thing from me.

I don't know this for sure, but since there are couple squad size, turn based games coming out, XCOM 2 War of the Chosen and Gollop's Phoenix Point, which are big names, you may need to press you may need a quite a die hard attitude to get noticed and work up long time strategy. At least XCOM 2 WotC have Firaxis marketing money behind it and click hungry sites knows that articles of that game will attract readers, so you want to keep doing some sort of guerilla marketing before you get noticed by bigger sites.

So contacting youtubers and smaller sites, in which I would include Strategy Core http://www.strategycore.co.uk/. Front page really isn't that active, but forums are and you could ask more directions from folks there.

 

[DeepOcean]

You know, some IP like Shadowrun have the advantage of a ton of backstory developed through the years as backup. You know, while the pitch and the front page are solid on details and you get how more or less how the game you are pitching will look like, it is missing a punch line, some concept or idea that hits you hard and makes you curious to explore the world you guys are creating. We are RPG hardcore faggits and we will be interested on anything remotely RPG, other people not so much.

From the front page, it seems you guys are making a cool RPG but the feature list is interchangeable with alot of other RPGs, it doesn't seem to be popamole but beyond that, we know little by reading it. You know, you guys need to discover what is the unique concept and push it hard, most casual RPG fans will give you two seconds before losing interest and you will need something to sell on those two seconds, a generic feature list won't cut it. There are ALOT of games claiming Fallout and X-COM as inspiration, this doesn't tell much. Maybe it would be a better idea to start with a more fleshed out cyberpunk world with an unique punch that seduces people in and then procede to explain the mechanics that support the game.

Take an example of other kickstarters like The Mandate (the kickstarter was a massive fail in the end but it still works as example), "Russian empire on the space?", "You fighting rebelious secessionist scum on the space?". "Do you have your own crew and space ships like commander Shepard?" or Phoenix Point, "X-COM with mysterious myst turning people into mutants working for cuthulu monsters and that adapt to you?", this works far better with casual RPG fans. You need a punch line that captures the zeitgeist of the game, people first are interested on the premise, then they get curious to know the rest. People aren't willing to spend the time to fully explore every kickstarer game, many assume the worst and don't even bother, you guys need to make a powerful point quickly to be noticed.

There are alot of cyberpunk tropes you guys mention on the kickstarter page but there are alot of people that got so used with those tropes by now that just dismiss them completely, another cyperpunk world with evil corporations isn't exactly news. On what ways your cyberpunk world is unique, at least unique enough for a gamer?

 

[Freddie]

Take an example of other kickstarters like The Mandate (the kickstarter was a massive fail in the end but it still works as example), "Russian empire on the sky?", "You fighting rebelious secessionist scum on the space?". "Do you have your own crew and space ships like commander Shepard?" or Phoenix Point, "X-COM with mysterious myst turning people into mutants working for cuthulu monsters and that adapt to you?", this works far better with casual RPG fans. You need a punch line that captures the zeitgeist of the game, people first are interested on the premise, then they get curious to know the rest. People aren't willing to spend the time to fully explore every kickstarer game, many assume the worst and don't even bother, you guys need to make a powerful point quickly to be noticed.

There are alot of cyberpunk tropes you guys mention on the kickstarter page but there are alot of people that got so used with those tropes by now that just dismiss them completely, another cyperpunk world with evil corporations isn't exactly news. On what ways your cyberpunk world is unique, at least unique enough for a gamer?

Seconded, and this doesn't apply only to RPG's but marketing in general. Take something that is already familiar under inspection, examples by DeepOcean are very good - then find and include your own messages in it.

 

[DeepOcean]

You guise shouldn't give up, look to Copper dreams, Quest for Infamy, Beautiful desolation or STASIS, all successful kickstarter projects within the same budget range and by people that aren't known on the mainstream circles too.

 

[Jasede]

The dev is cool and it's nice they are willing to accept that forbidden unit sounds like the name of someone's hidden penis. Traps have forbidden units, not the military. So the real question is, are traps gay?