KickStarter Sacred Fire - a psychological RPG about romance, loyalty and revenge - now available on Early Access

[V_K]

What I find interesting is that the the faction hell bent on making Rome pay is not winning. I feel like there may be some hope for humanity after all

If people are willing to look past the cruelty and revenge and wish to leave behind a better world for their children.

I think there may be a more mundane reason for that: the division between the two categories makes it look like it's two different polls. So the natural instinct is to pick the winner for the upper category (which happens to be peaceful), and then for the lower one. And then you realize that it's one poll. At least that's what happened to me.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Say poetic, have anyone in your dev team ever played or even heard of Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome?

 

[poetic]

thesheeep Yes, exactly. The idea we explore in the game story is, that it's not so simple. There are no good sides in this conflict. While we tell the story from the perspective of Caledonians, we do not think their tribal feud, raiding, wolfing way of live is ideal either. This is represented by the royalty faction wanting to crush Rome no matter what. The patriot factions is a search for a solution that will lead to peace, but we do not want to spoil more.

hivemind We studied up the history around the Hadrian's wall from many sources, many of them had a pro-Roman or pro-Celtic agenda. We are not of Celtic/Roman origin, so we have no agenda. While we as indies, identify with the little guy, bashing Rome is of no importance for us. We are also inspired by the Celtic aesthetics and landscape. The theme we want to explore is how to end a war and how to evoke an ideal in a society. So the links of reflection go back for us to our contemporary society, that is driven by natural instinct to consume. Here the natural instinct is to take revenge. So the question we explore is, what is the vision strong enough to inspire people that there is more to life than to live like an animal.

HoboForEternity Thank you, it's very encouraging to hear.

 

[poetic]

Say poetic, have anyone in your dev team ever played or even heard of Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome?

Yes, I did play a demo back then. I remember the first impression was, that the setting, item descriptions etc. was really historically accurate. I never really got into it, though. What was your experience with the game?

We take a much more poetic approach to things, we are not trying to hard to be historically accurate. We do not do something on purpose out of the setting either, but as explained above the goal is to explore a resistance war, where it seems like one side is good, only to realize that simple answers in conflicts can lead to horrible consequences. And that it is really hard to do something else. We explore a solution that leads to peace, but we do not want to spoil the story.

EDIT: Do not get me wrong, we did a LOT of historic research during the years of pre-production, but with the focus on what the human experience, the defining themes for these people were. Not what items they used and how they called them.

 

[poetic]

I think there may be a more mundane reason for that: the division between the two categories makes it look like it's two different polls. So the natural instinct is to pick the winner for the upper category (which happens to be peaceful), and then for the lower one. And then you realize that it's one poll. At least that's what happened to me.

That's great feedback. We will think about what we can do about that. Would it help if it said explicitly that you have just one vote above the 2 polls? It says now "Click a character name to cast your vote." It could say "Click a character name to cast your 1 vote."
Btw. If you misplaced your vote, you can click the 'Go to the vote' label on the bottom to recast your vote.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What was your experience with the game?

Basically Ultima 7 in Roman times where you play as a Teuton.

We take a much more poetic approach to things, we are not trying to hard to be historically accurate.

Username checks out.

 

[poetic]

Basically Ultima 7 in Roman times where you play as a Teuton.

Username checks out.

Wow, sounds cool! Yes, we choose the studio name for a reason

 

[poetic]

I wanted also to expand on the description of the NPCs in the voting pool. It list traits like Diehard, Leader, Genius, Intoxicating and Likeable. We call them elite traits and there is 5 of them and they define your play-style, as they predispose you to solve conflicts in a certain way. Be it force, skill, smarts, looks or empathy. You can pick 2 in character creation and thus create your unique play-style. Here are the descriptions:


Diehard - Your body is relentless, always ready to fight, to endure and to prevail. With this Trait you can go further, climb higher and fight harder, carving your own legend.

Leader - People feel drawn to you, as you have a natural ability to lead, inspire and achieve great things. Although there is no party of NPCs to lead, this Trait gives you power over yourself and others

Genius - You have the gift of insight. Your mind can walk paths no one has taken before. No matter where you start with your abilities, with this Trait, you will ultimately triumph

Intoxicating - You posses the gift of a unique, almost otherworldly beauty. This Trait will bring you Affection and Renown, but also Envy and Hate

Likeable - Authentic and graceful, you naturally attune yourself to others and easily win people over. Winning people over can take you further then any other talent


Btw. this morning was a nice surprise: we made it into the top 20 on Steam Greenlight, with over 3,000 YES votes, we reached #18.
Thank you all it shouldn't take long now, but we appreciate every fan, so if you like what you see, please please vote for us now.

 

[poetic]

Last week the guys from 11 Bit Studios came to our town to talk about the writing of This War of Mine, an indie game about surviving as civilians in a war. If you never heard about the game, you should totally check out their trailer, I’m still having goose bumps watching it:

It’s a masterpiece.

We share with our friends at 11 Bit Studios a similar vision that a good video game should make an impact on people’s lives. Sacred Fire will be an engaging and fun game but it’s designed to make you reflect on what is the right thing to do in a complex conflict and then see how things unfold.

I’m switching back and forth between an utter panic that there’s still so much to do and a feeling that everything will be fine because we’ve been preparing for this for months and people like the game wherever we go. Yes, it’s Kickstarter time! Mark March 8 in your calendars and let’s talk about the most fun stuff: What kind of Kickstarter rewards you would like to see?

I’m so excited about this: We are discussing a bunch of rewards involving Doug Cockle, the voice of the Witcher, who is working with us on voiceovers.

We have a few reward ideas, but we turn to you with an irresistible offer: Tell me what is your dream Kickstarter reward. Would you like to get your own voicemail greeting narrated by Doug? Or how about a nice dinner with our team and Doug? What would be an attractive backer reward for you involving Doug? How much would it be worth to you?

And one more thing. We’re working hard on our Kickstarter project page and I want to get your feedback on it. Let me know if you’re willing to be a part of a small group of fans who will see the preview.

Also, we’re still on Steam Greenlight! We’ve hit the #12 spot recently. But it seems that we need a final push to get greenlit. You can help us here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=843790587

 

[hivemind]

are you sure kikescammer is the best idea?

the fad has kinda died out and I feel the reward ideas with voice-actor bait are a bit too gimmicky and basically relying on the success of another franchise to create any interest, it leaves a poor taste in the mouth
also this

Or how about a nice dinner with our team and Doug?

is kinda cringe, the "you can meet us" kikescammer goals make sense if you are someone with a bunch of autistic fans like sawyer or (((fargo))) but you guys are literally who tier(not even trying to be edgy just offering perspective)

 

[hello friend]

Yeah, I honestly couldn't care less about "star power" or this Doug guy - as long as the voicework is done well, it doesn't matter one bit whether or not you've heard of them before, I get a little vicariously embarrassed seeing you bring it up so much, but I'm sure it attracts some extra people - ultimately it's probably a positive in that sense.

The reason I'm interested in this game is actually the game, whodathunk. Good luck tho

 

[poetic]

Thanks, it good feedback. I see your perspective and as someone who cares only about the game, it's perfectly reasonable. The question still stands - besides the basic digital edition, what does make sense to you? OST, artbook, early access? Physical Collectors edition? Does it matter to you who produces the collectors edition? E.g. Limited Run or another well known label? Different people assign value to different things, and as hello friend puts it the more we cover the better the game can be.

 

[Tigranes]

Don't take my opinions to represent your potential consumers, they probably won't - I don't want a stupid tshirt, I don't want 80 novella, I'd spend 3-5 minutes on (1) do you sound like a professional, is your pitch written properly, are you namedropping properly, is the video made decently, are you promising the clearly undoable, what are the credentials of the developers? (2) how much have you made already, the more you've made the more you're going to get people to pay, (3) what's the selling point, and yes, here I don't really care about Doug guy, I only care that I listen to the video and see you have good voice acting, much more important is the schticks like "you know how you get so excited rolling your character in RPGs then your choices come down to flavour? that's why we made this game", or whatnot.

BTW, look at this thread - a lot of people, myself included, took a few glances at the game/thread but it took a few tries for us to really get it. When we did get it, we thought it was great. So the challenge is how can you get KS site visitors to figure it out on the first go.

Share your KS page drafts with - if not us on a public forum (though some do that), then as many friends and mentors as you can manage, or even blind focus tests.

 

[hello friend]

The best solution imo is to keep stretch goals as cheap and easy to implement as possible, use the surplus to fund your next game - Kickstarter is bringing in less and less money anyhow, gotta plan for the future. Delivering the product as intended to the best of your ability without any noteworthy expansion of scope offers the best odds on the game being good.

As long as you're not too blatant about it. Every backer wants this game to be as good as it can be, and the likelihood of that quite frankly decreases when devs have to play catch-up with promises not originally planned for - if Kickstarters to date are any guide.

 

[thesheeep]

Thanks, it good feedback. I see your perspective and as someone who cares only about the game, it's perfectly reasonable. The question still stands - besides the basic digital edition, what does make sense to you? OST, artbook, early access? Physical Collectors edition? Does it matter to you who produces the collectors edition? E.g. Limited Run or another well known label? Different people assign value to different things, and as hello friend puts it the more we cover the better the game can be.

Well, a physical edition is usually a good idea. But don't make it too cheap (and don't forget about shipping).

A "meet us" ... I feel the same about it like the others. I'm not sure what kind of interest would be in that.

I think what generally works is a (very limited) "design an X", "be an X" with NPCs, pets, portraits, locations, whatever suits your game. Just make sure you limit it in order not to spend too much time on it.

About stretch goals: I agree in that those have to be put up pretty carefully. You do not want to promise anything game-changing here. Just extend. More characters, more regions, maybe more character build options (though in this case, you may not want that as you've designed it very carefully already), localizations.
Not sure about your tech, but linux/mac support is usually a good idea, especially for indies - of course, it all depends on the tech you're using so maybe you have that already or it is out of the question anyway.
I don't think it is in any way bad if you fulfill your goal and "that's it".

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"More Beards" stretch goals will harm absolutely no one.

 

[hello friend]

I think what generally works is a (very limited) "design an X", "be an X" with NPCs, pets, portraits, locations, whatever suits your game. Just make sure you limit it in order not to spend too much time on it.

About stretch goals: I agree in that those have to be put up pretty carefully. You do not want to promise anything game-changing here. Just extend. More characters, more regions, maybe more character build options (though in this case, you may not want that as you've designed it very carefully already), localizations.
Not sure about your tech, but linux/mac support is usually a good idea, especially for indies - of course, it all depends on the tech you're using so maybe you have that already or it is out of the question anyway.
I don't think it is in any way bad if you fulfill your goal and "that's it".

These are not small things - not only does it take a lot of resources (the stretch goal examples, that is, but the pledge goal stuff can snowball when you have to multiply it by the pledges), but it compromises the work done in the preproduction phase. Ideally preproduction should be extended some to work out how the stretch goal changes change the overall design. Adding that time costs more money (not even talking about implementation), unless you're very conservative about stretch goals you may have to start cutting corners a lot sooner than you'd think.

I'd literally make the stretch goals as small as you can get away with without people crying foul, while making them sound big for the people who are oblivious to the damage big stretch goals can do.

Re Linux/Mac support: It's a good guy thing to do, but it's hardly ever profitable. It really is too bad that so few games are developed for Linux, but a game studio has to spare a thought or two for survival, lest they land in a position where they can have no regard for anything else. Planning for the next game has to be a part of plans for this game.

 

[thesheeep]

These are not small things - not only does it take a lot of resources (the stretch goal examples, that is, but the pledge goal stuff can snowball when you have to multiply it by the pledges),

Yes, the things I suggested are small things. If you already have a system designed that supports party characters and NPCs, then you do not need to change any system to simply add another character the player can choose and interact with. On the contrary, it is a stretch goal that you can calculate pretty well (because the work to do is pretty much the same as for already existing ones, which you have already calculated).

Re Linux/Mac support: It's a good guy thing to do, but it's hardly ever profitable. It really is too bad that so few games are developed for Linux, but a game studio has to spare a thought or two for survival, lest they land in a position where they can have no regard for anything else. Planning for the next game has to be a part of plans for this game.

I cannot agree with this at all.
Personally, I almost never buy indie games that do not support linux, if I do not want them very badly.
Especially as an indie developer, where you owe your existence to open source and free software (and that in 99% of cases means linux capable software), you have an obligation to support the platform.
Which can be done donating, of course, but a far more logical move is to contribute to the growth of the platform.

And depending on the tech you choose, this can be any amount of work from very little (if you pick an engine that already is cross-platform) to just too much (like, if you for some reason decided to write your engine yourself using only DirectX and Windows API or picked some single platform engine for whatever weird reason).
If your tech basically already supports more platforms, making sure it also works on another is pretty easy and done in few weeks (and involves only the coding part), which suits a stretch goal fairly well.
And if you cannot spend a few weeks because your budget is that tight... you shouldn't be doing the project in the first place.

And I say that as someone who has already worked on many, many cross-platform projects and porting from platform A to B.
It isn't anywhere near as complicated as some people make it sound, if you put some thought into it beforehand.

Besides, working on linux is heavan as a programmer, while working on Windows is... way less productive at best.
So it actually makes far more sense to work on linux for the most part, and just from time to time check nothing has broken on Windows, even if 95% of your sales are on Windows.

 

[poetic]

Thank you all for the feedback, I appreciate it.

Tigranes Thank you, this is great stuff: (1) do you sound like a professional? Are you promising the clearly undoable? | What are the credentials of the developers? (2) How much have you made already? (3) What's the selling point | do choice impact / change the playing experience? I agree this has to be addressed in the KS transparently. And your last bit: "So the challenge is how can you get KS site visitors to figure it out on the first go." is exactly what was keeping us up at nights. Luckily we had a few test runs and we see the reactions what works what doesn't talking to you guys and on other forums, we wrote pitches to Square Enix, and Steam Greenlight, and get feedback, so we are getting better every time. We are preparing new videos for the KS to address this exact point.

hello friend I agree it's very important to be careful not to over-promise. Weather a stretch goal idea is cheap or breaks the budget comes down to pre-production, team talents and the production pipeline.
- so for example adding a new companion NPC is a no go - not because of the art, but because how in-depth we take the interaction and how the story is written with the current cast in mind. Adding a new NPC would break everything that has been made so far. Also adding more build options is a no go, as every scene is written to support all 5 builds archetypes. On top of that both with NPCs and builds, we feel we have covered what we wanted to cover.
- adding extra character customization options in general is actually quite cheap for us, as we have a very efficient pipeline setup how to give off-the shelf assets our 'look'. But it costs a bit of my precious time.
- adding more locations, music, voice-over costs real money, but the time is spent by our artists and doesn't slow down my game development.
- adding more platforms: we use Unity, so we are in a good position to support Mac and Linux. Coding is not the issue, but it's still a lot of testing, launching and support to think of.
- adding more languages: this is the easiest to calculate, and we have already offers from agencies on the table. In the end it depends on the interest of the fans from that country, so we already track where the fans are coming from and will continue to do so.

thesheeep Agreed, the let's meet idea is out of the window. Yes, we are in a position to do a physical edition, and we will do it as a Collectors Item - so not cheap and shipping accounted for. We have also a few non-invasive "name an X", "be an X" ideas. We are Linux and Mac friendly. Let's hope the community will support us when we run into weird compatibility issues while testing.

"More Beards" stretch goals will harm absolutely no one.

Ha, spoken like a wild man! You are in luck, as explained above, we have a beard factory in our production pipeline. Not saying it will actually be a stretch goal, but there are already a few beards to choose from.

 

[Lhynn]

Looking good, not much more to tell other than its a game id like to play.

This may have come up before, but does it have save/load mechanics or a single persistent save?

 

[poetic]

Lhynn Thank you, that's great to hear. Sorry for the delay, we are busy working on the new videos for the campaign.

The save question is a very good one, and as far as I remember it hasn't come up before. Long story short - our current implementation is one persistent save per character.


Sounds like a very basic design decision, but it has a very profound impact on the experience the player has with the story. This is how we think about it:

- the single persistent save per character approach, prevents you to spoil your own experience by obsessively reloading after each failed probability check (and we have tons of them). You are more immersed and can get the satisfaction of turning a streak of bad luck, or fixing mistakes. The down-side is, if you want to get a different experience you have to play from the start, and that can mean replaying parts of the story, you are not interested in again.

- the save/load mechanic can lead to breaking the immersion as your actual experience with the game, is dominated by trial error reloading, waiting for the lucky roll. The advantage is you can explore different story branches or outcomes of your choices faster (if you don't lose track, what save is what scene).

Our goal is immersion but also to be respectful of players time.

As mentioned above our current implementation is basically one persistent save per character. We support this with design principles like avoid any grinding, keep the story flow high, allow to make up for mistakes, mend relationships. If you die you restart the last scene / fight / conflict.

But to support better story branches exploration, once you reach a story ending, you can chose a node from the story map you want to get back to, lose all the progress and explore a different story branch. This is how the story map looks like:

Or you can create a new character and play from the start. Of course you keep your achievements, ending scene / epilogue / result screens summing up each character's 'runs' leading to a story ending.

But we need to test this more, as these are really crucial design decision impacting how you experience the game.

 

[HoboForEternity]

cool. remind me of virtue's last reward time jump thing, or radiant historia.

that map/chart has its downside tho. you know how many scenario exactly that can happen. it kinda spoil the surprise.

 

[poetic]

It's a good point. The map shows only branching points for scenes that you already passed, so you never know what's next.

I like when the game tells me I have found 2 / 4 secrets after finishing a level. I know there are 2 more to look out for on my next run. And I also know, when the game tells me I found 4 / 4 , there is no point replaying and searching for more.

Furthermore, not all branching points in Sacred Fire are based on click A or B in a dialogue. Sometimes the player doesn't even realize this could have had a different outcome, so it's good to communicate that. And then you go in a look for the Easter egg.

 

[HoboForEternity]

It's a good point. The map shows only branching points for scenes that you already passed, so you never know what's next.

I like when the game tells me I have found 2 / 4 secrets after finishing a level. I know there are 2 more to look out for on my next run. And I also know, when the game tells me I found 4 / 4 , there is no point replaying and searching for more.

Furthermore, not all branching points in Sacred Fire are based on click A or B in a dialogue. Sometimes the player doesn't even realize this could have had a different outcome, so it's good to communicate that. And then you go in a look for the Easter egg.

i like surprises so i have to disagree with your "found 4/4" thing, but then again it is just a minor personal pet peeve. the game is shaping up to be alot better than i expected. start the campaign at the right time i will make sure i thorw some money your way.

is there a story related stuff for the player's timeline jumping ability like VLR/RH/steins;gate or it is a completely meta feature purely for convenience? either way is fine, i am just curious

 

[poetic]

HoboForEternity I understand, and thank you for your support. It's a meta feature for convenience. The story stays in the realm of reality.

This is for everyone reading the thread

UPDATE: We launch on Kickstarter on March the 15th. (old date March the 8th)

Thank you for your interest.