http://deathfiregame.com/
A single-player party-based fantasy role-playing game that combines deep characters and solid storytelling with turn-based combat.
Spearheaded by Guido Henkel, co-creator of the original “Realms of Arkania” series and producer of “Planescape: Torment,” “Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore” is a party-based computer role-playing game with turn-based combat that hearkens back to the Golden Era of fantasy cRPGs, supported by a team that was instrumental in crafting many other classic RPGs.
If your heart sings at the memory of classic computer role-playing games, such as “Realms of Arkania,” “Wizardry” or the “Might & Magic” series, this project is for you!
If you have never experienced the excitement of these games, well, this project is for you, too, because we are prepared to build a role-playing game that will captivate you, challenge you and surprise you all the way to the end.
“Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore” is a party-based computer role-playing game with turn-based combat that hearkens back to the Golden Era of fantasy cRPGs. Built upon the power of the Unity 3D engine, “Deathfire” utilizes a first person view that gives the player the feeling of being there. A solid role-playing engine that utilizes over forty visible character attributes, along with countless invisible ones to track behavior. They make up the heartbeat of the game, and allow us to analyze and adjust gameplay on the fly, and react to the player’s actions, shaping the story around these actions and decisions.
Character interaction is another key ingredient in “Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore,” as the player will encounter many denizens of the game world and will be able to recruit numerous ones to follow along as non-player characters in the party. Ripe with personality, opinions, phobias and their own little peccadillos, these characters will enrich the game and create unique gameplay twists—as well as many memorable moments, for sure. (Don’t forget to share them with us, when they occur…)
With a variety of large outdoor and indoor environments, the game will offer a rich game setting with party-based gameplay and turn-based combat that allows for tactically infused battles.
Doesn’t that sound like the game you’ve always want to play? Well, it sure is the game we want to play, and that’s why we started building it, and have been working on it for the past eight months.
Just to give you a quick overview of the key specs, here is the game for you in a nutshell
Single player, first person Party-based play (four player-, plus two non-player characters)
Six races and eight classes to choose from
Over 34 unique character traits, plus base attributes
Party characters interact with each other
Turn-based combat
Indoor and outdoor environments
Complex puzzles and evolving quests
Combine items to build weapons and traps
Interactive game world
Recipe-based crafting and enchanting
Involving, adaptive storyline with many key players and twists
Factions for intriguing political set-ups
Tons of monsters to battle
Dialogues—yes, you will be in awe at our cool and intelligent dialogue system
Cheese toast (This is an inside joke for those of you who have played the “Realms of Arkania” trilogy. If you have not, do not worry, “Deathfire” will give you the opportunity to become a member in the ranks of those initiated in the joke.)
We are trying to keep this Kickstarter page as lean as possible so we can focus on the essentials of this campaign, but over the past months we have chronicled many of the developmental steps of the project up to this point in a Developer Diary. These diary updates covered many aspects of the conception and production of the game so far, and they will continue in the future to give fans a constant glimpse behind the scenes and a sense of where the project is going.
By now you have undoubtedly heard the tenor how Kickstarter has revolutionized the game industry and how it makes it possible for creative people to finally get their own projects off the ground. You may have heard it so often, in fact, that you’re getting a little tired of it, but here’s the scoop: It is true…
The team behind “Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore” has been involved in the creation of games for over 30 years. Let that sink in for a moment…
That means, since the dawn of computer games, actually. Collectively, we have been working on games for about 140 man years—though such a summation hardly makes any sense— on many different platforms, with many different publishers and with many different licenses, but the bottom line is, the only way to be able to put creative decisions before commercial ones is to develop a game independently, and we are asking for your support to help us do just that.
We may not wield a AAA-budget, but at the same time, we are not going to waste the money on huge trade show booths, legions of bloodsucking lawyers—unless we put them in the game and allow you to chop them to pieces—and a mahogany row of executives with seven-figure salaries.
We are the game developers without a yacht. We are the people who actually make the games, and we are willing to put our best foot forward, and work with you to bring you the most engaging role-playing experience we can.
As you can see from the way we have covered the development of the game on our blog (http://deathfiregame.com/category/development-diary/) over the past months already, we will continue to give fans and backers a constant close-up look at what is happening, allow them to share in the decision-finding process with us, and become part of the overall process.
Over eight months of work have been put into this game, testing the core engine as a proof of feasibility, developing some of the components that make up the game, and creating a solid amount of art and design in the process. All of this has been created by a skeleton crew of four with each of us pulling double-duty and personally carrying the financial burden.
We have recently added new members to the team and with your support we will be able to scale the team up some more with developers who will bring not only their expertise to the mix as well, but who will then allow us to ramp up production and get things done more quickly. Our plan is to add one more Unity programmer, one additional designer/writer, and another artist/animator to the team full time, while we will contract out music and sound effects, as well as other, very specific tasks.
The money we are asking for in our main goal will help us put together a team as outlined above. There won’t be any spare money to float around and we will have to be very careful with our investments, but at least it will be enough money to complete the game and keep food on the table for everyone.
“Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore” has been designed with expansion in mind, and through stretch goals, we can expand the vision and scale of the game almost seamlessly.
Therefore we are planning a number of stretch goals that will increase the scope of the game. One of our proposed stretch goals will add the player option for tactical Third-Person Combats to the mix, allowing the player to decide whether he wants to switch from a first-person camera to a more removed third-person view for the game’s combats. Another one of our planned stretch goals will add Towns to the game, complete with locations such as Healers, Armorers, Weapon Smiths, Taverns, Temples, and so on. One additional goal we have planned will add an Overhead Map to the game, complete with Overland Travel, Hunting and Gathering. At this point we will no longer have a linear game, but will also add additional main story lines to the game so that you can really go out and explore. Expansions to the crafting and enchanting system could also be part of the game at this stage. It also deserves noting, however, that upon reaching this stretch goal, our development timeline will have to be adjusted by an additional six to eight months, in order to accommodate the design, creation, and implementation of all the additional content and, more importantly, the testing that will be required.
Another stretch goal we have in mind will expand the game to also include a fully editable Journal and Quest Logger.
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At this time, however, let us not put the horse before the cart. Let us get closer to the main goal first, before we lay out more detailed plans for stretch goals. We would not want to be remiss, however, that with enough funding, the potential is there—and accommodated for—to turn “Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore” into a full-blown world, similar to the immersive and open experience you found in games such as the original “Realms of Arkania” trilogy, the “Wizardry” or the “Divine Divinity” games. The sky’s the limit… as long as we don’t run into fire-breathing dragons.
