Jagged Alliance Flashback on kickstarter

[LordCrash]

Jagged Alliance: Flashback

 

The Godfather of turn-based action is making its comeback! Experience first hand the events that lead to the founding of A.I.M.

• Launched: Apr 23, 2013
• Funding ends: May 23, 2013

 

 

 

Jagged Alliance: Flashback is our vision of returning a once critically acclaimed franchise back to its roots, it's not a reboot, it's a reset! 

 

Our main goal is to bring back the tactical turn-based action that the original Jagged Alliance games are known for - the game was a thinking man's game, a thinking man with lots of guns!

 

The games were unique in their blend of tactical turn-based action, controlling and maintaining squads of mercenaries, off and on the battlefield. As a player the decisions you made had a direct impact on how you played the game. Additionally, over-the-top personalities, memorable characters and role-playing elements made the games difficult to put away once you were hooked. 

 

Below we have listed some of the major game features we are planning to implement: 

 

 

The game text will be localized to English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish.

 

We will give you a choice of distribution, always including a DRM-free option, for both the core game and future expansions.

 

Our target platform is PC and the game will be available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. 

 

With flashback we want to take you back to the cold war era and let you play the events that lead up to the founding of the international mercenary organization called A.I.M.

 

The story is set in the mid-1980s, on the Caribbean island group of San Christobal.

 

 

Following a coup d'état a socialist regime has been established on the island, a change that undermines the U.S. presence in the area.
Seizing the opportunity, a hard-line fanatic general leads an elite U.S.S.R. military unit to establish a military base right under the nose of the U.S. Under the guise of shipping humanitarian aid, large amounts of cargo and military hardware are headed for San Christobal. A Russian presence larger and closer to the U.S. than Cuba could potentially tip the balance of power and turn a cold war into a steaming hot one.

 

Under secret orders from the CIA it is now up to you to assemble a team of capable mercenaries, restore the democratic government on San Christobal and drive out the U.S.S.R. presence, by any means necessary.

 

 

We are aiming to build Jagged Alliance: Flashback around the core pillars that made the originals great; the deep strategy, the thrilling action and character RPG elements. The core game is essentially split up into 2 layers, a strategy layer and a tactical layer.

 

The content of the two layers are shown below:

 

 

• Base Management is the strategy layer behind all the gun-toting and action, it is your base of operations, where you manage resources and control which missions to engage in.
• It functions as a hub between missions and provides you with a map over the game world, it is also where you recruit, customize and take care of your mercenaries. 
• The base is also used to manage the training of your mercenaries, construction and weapon research/manufacturing.

 

• The Tactical Screen is the turn-based action layer of the game, it features an isometric 3D camera view of the battlefield and it’s where you control your squad of selected mercenaries to achieve objectives and engage enemies face-to-face.
• Gear, character attributes and weapons all affect how a mercenary performs on the battlefield.
• There will be fog of war, which prevents a full view of the battlefield and hides enemy movements.
• The mercenaries can take cover behind objects in the world to gain different levels of protection.
• Mercenaries also gain new abilities as they survive more battles, but when they die - it's permanent!

 

 

We are Full Control - a small independent game studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Over the years we have specialized in the genre of turn-based strategy games and have several productions in our portfolio. In fact, Jagged Alliance: Flashback will be our 9th title, and our 5th turn-base game in a row.

 

Our productions have grown in size and complexity over the years, and we are finally ready to take on these iconic games like our current production Space Hulk as well as Jagged Alliance.

 

In addition we have built up a strong team of highly skilled professionals who have worked on various popular titles, illustrated below:

 

 

Our current project is a turn-based version of the widely popular Warhammer 40k title “Space Hulk”. With a successful Kickstarter project we can run pre-production of Jagged Alliance: Flashback while Space Hulk completes, and then go into full production on Flashback straight away once it ships - saving precious time to bring you the game as fast as possible.

 

 

While we have managed to secure the Jagged Alliance license, we have chosen not to pursue any funding through the license holder bitComposer, as we wanted to maintain and stay true to our vision of the game.

 

Knowing that we couldn't finance the game out of our own pockets, we started kicking around the idea of doing a Kickstarter campaign to reach out to the community for help - So, this is why we are turning to you, fans of Jagged Alliance and turn-based action strategy games, and are hoping you will be part of bringing back one of the most iconic franchises of the turn-based game genre.

 

Our approach for this Kickstarter funded project is transparency. We will give you the naked truth in frequent updates, as you are our backers and are entitled to know where your contribution endes up.

 

By pledging, you are not only supporting our vision of the game, you are also supporting the independent development of this game. We strongly feel that this should be a game by fans for the fans.

 

 

 

$350,000 is actually a small amount for a big game like Jagged Alliance. We can only do this because we have a lot of existing technology in place for turn-based strategy games and because we are using a expandable and modular story design.

 

Since we are building the game based on our existing core technology for turn-based games, every penny donated in the Kickstarter will go to create the Jagged Alliance experience and not re-invent the wheels. Funds will be used to writing the story, making great environment art, adding mercenary characters and animations, building cool levels and programming Jagged Alliance game mechanics into our technology base.

 

Story design wise, our plan is to create a great main story for the $350,000. If we surpass this minimum goal, we already have some tasty stretch goals planned for you. These will bring you additional levels, additional mercenaries and some of the more advanced features in a modular fashion.

 

In short, any funds received beyond the $350,000 will make everything about the game, bigger, better and more badass!

 

 

 

 

If you have come this far, backed us, watched the video or promoted our campaign we can’t thank you enough! In the end Jagged Alliance: Flashback will only be possible with your support.

 

We are incredibly humbled that we have received the opportunity to work on a game that is so deeply rooted in the turn-based genre. We hope that you are just as excited as we are in being part of bringing Jagged Alliance back to its turn-based roots. We really can't wait to get started!

 

Thank you so much for coming by and thanks a MILLION for your pledge!

 

 

We love getting feedback and sharing news, updates and behind the scene shots with all our backers and the Jagged Alliance community, but we also love getting suggestions to our pledges and stretch goals for this campaign.

That’s why we would like to encourage you to follow us on your favorite social site and share your thoughts on pledges and stretch goals on the official Kickstarter forum.

 

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Edited April 23, 2013 by LordCrash

[Keyrock]

Kickstarter: "Keyrock, we want all your moneys."

 

Keyrock: "But you already have most of my moneys."

 

Kickstarter: "We want all of it, we want the rest of your moneys."

 

Keyrock: "No, I am going to be resolute.  I won't give in.  I am going to save the rest of my moneys."

 

Kickstarter: "Jagged Alliance.  Turn-based."

 

Keyrock: "Oh crap..."

[alanschu]

I still find myself hesitant due to lack of full understanding of the teams and the people involved.

 

I mean, I'm pretty much "blind all in" for Obsidian, though inXile at least had enough recognition that I had better assurances that a quality project would be released.

 

 

The Kickstarter scene is still rather fresh, and given some of the changes that have occurred in some projects (some of which I think are still perfectly justified), I still find I need to have a lot of trust in the developer to actually deliver, even though I'm only one of those "epic preorder" kind of guys (i.e. around $20).  I'll have to watch the videos over lunch!

[Keyrock]

Yeah, I'm not pledging just yet, I need to see and read a lot more.  Still, Jagged Alliance 2 was awesomesause coated in awesomesauce batter and fried in awesomesauce oil, with a side of awesomesauce.  Obviously, I'm very interested.

[LordCrash]

At least Brian Fargo and Kevin Saunders backed it at once.

 

Brian Fargo ‏@BrianFargo 1h

I just backed Jagged Alliance: Flashback on @Kickstarter http://kck.st/11y3qKL

 

Kevin Saunders ‏@SaundersKevin 6h

I just backed Jagged Alliance: Flashback on @Kickstarter http://kck.st/11y3qKL

[Elerond]

I put small ammount so that I can easilly follow if this project will even partially fulfil my hopes for this project and if it does not, I can always cancel my pledge  and if it does fulfil my hopes and dreams and more, then...

[ShadySands]

I backed it for $25 even though I never really got into the one JA game I played 

 

a fool and his money and all that

[alanschu]

Yeah, I'm not pledging just yet, I need to see and read a lot more.  Still, Jagged Alliance 2 was awesomesause coated in awesomesauce batter and fried in awesomesauce oil, with a side of awesomesauce.  Obviously, I'm very interested.

 

JA2 is one of my all time faves for sure.  But similar to the Master of Magic one, simply aspiring to be a game in that vein isn't necessarily enough.

 

I'm also the curmudgeon that wants to see more new stuff, rather than just remakes or existing IP/name leverage.  I know it's in many ways a semantic thing, but that's just the way it is for me.

 

It's also a shortcoming, I feel, of crowd funding.  Ask any fan what type of game that they want, and I'd say probably 99/100 they draw comparisons to existing games that they like, and how they want more of that.  Not that I think that that is a fault of the fans... it's just something that I am noticing more and more (it probably always was.  I'm just noticing it more now).

 

I think my expectations for Kickstarter a year ago may have been somewhat replaced, because I didn't fully realize that in order to get fans to contribute to something, you need to gain their interest level and the best way to do that it seems is to go "Remember that awesome game experience you once had?  We want to do something just like that" as opposed to "I know you want us to create an experience you feel familiar with, but we have some interesting ideas we'd like to try!"

 

Would it even be possible for Obsidian or inXile to get close to the money they received if they went out with an idea that was not really comparable to much else out there?  It makes me empathize with developers a bit more, as I find these are the same restrictions that get faced even when approaching publishers.

[Hurlshort]

I might back it come May, but I am fairly reserved about it.  Jagged Alliance 2 is the best game I've ever played, but I mentioned in another thread that I'm concerned they don't have any of the people from Sir-Tech working on this project.  They may pull off a good turn based game, which is something I support fully, but nailing the personality quirks of the original characters is going to be a much more complicated task.  JA2 had an understated writing style that was fairly brilliant, and I give Ian Currie full credit for that.

 

I'm also probably too close to this franchise.  The project reminds me a lot of Shadowrun Returns, but even though I enjoyed the old SNES Shadowrun game, I'm not obsessed with it like JA2. 

[Majek]

I'll back them ... when i get paid. Which is like 1 week before it ends :S HOpefully they'll reach the basic goal by then and shower people with promising information.

[Hurlshort]

I wonder what Bear's Pit think of this project.

[Undecaf]

I should be interested in this, but for some reason I'm not.

[Vortex]

Seems the Bear pit guys pretty excited about this! I already backed.... I hope they reach their goal + more. Kind of bad timing since i personally blew a ton on torment so cant give this all the love it deserves

[Labadal]

I might support this. I'm not entirely sure yet, but if I do, it won't be directly via kickstarter as I'm through with them for good.

[Spider]

I think my expectations for Kickstarter a year ago may have been somewhat replaced, because I didn't fully realize that in order to get fans to contribute to something, you need to gain their interest level and the best way to do that it seems is to go "Remember that awesome game experience you once had?  We want to do something just like that" as opposed to "I know you want us to create an experience you feel familiar with, but we have some interesting ideas we'd like to try!"

 

 

Well, we're in the beginning of the crowd-funding revolution. These are the first steps. People are more cautious and prefer to spend money on things they feel more certain about. I think that once we're used to the idea of crowd-funding, more adventurous projects will be funded.

 

Trust currently is a huge barrier. This project intrigues me (I never got in to the old JA games even though I probably would love them if I did), but I don't have enough trust in this developer to pledge just yet. I hope they get funded so I can buy the game once it's out and they've got positive reviews by people I trust more.

[Keyrock]

Seems like they're off to a decent start.  If they can reach 10% of their funding goal in the first day (almost a sure bet), then this will have a chance, though it will likely be a nailbiter.  If it can reach 20% within the first day then it will almost certainly make its funding goal and then some.

[alanschu]

 

Well, we're in the beginning of the crowd-funding revolution. These are the first steps. People are more cautious and prefer to spend money on things they feel more certain about. I think that once we're used to the idea of crowd-funding, more adventurous projects will be funded.

 

Trust currently is a huge barrier. This project intrigues me (I never got in to the old JA games even though I probably would love them if I did), but I don't have enough trust in this developer to pledge just yet. I hope they get funded so I can buy the game once it's out and they've got positive reviews by people I trust more.

 

 

I guess Double Fine Adventure serves as a counterpoint, though I'm curious if people contributed to that with the hopes that they could get Schafer to turn it into Psychonauts 2?  Actually, I'm curious how much money the project would have received had it been Psychonauts 2? 

 

I think even as more adventurous projects get funded (assuming crowd funding continues to be successful), the big money earners will still be the sequels and the like.  And as much as we may all want to believe the indie guys are doing it all for the love of the craft, I think it's simplistic to ignore the financial motivations for how projects are chosen.

 

I agree trust is important, but I think the game being delivered contributes to that trust, in that there's the trust that someone needs that they actually WANT the game.  Torment 2 by a different name?  Well how do I know I will want to play it!?

 

/jaded

[Purkake]

The previous games these guys have made don't exactly inspire confidence...

[mkreku]

Now THIS is a project that I find it difficult to believe they will pull off. I hate turn based games. Period. Yet I loved Jagged Alliance 2. Try to explain that!

 

I still don't know what it was about Jagged Alliance 2 that made me love it so much. I suspect it was the atmosphere and the writing. The humour was fantastic, and that's one of the most difficult things to recreate/follow up. This is where I think they're going to fail.

 

Btw, I've only liked one other turn based game besides Jagged Alliance 2: Silent Storm.

[alanschu]

Silent Storm was awesome, right up until panzerkleins.... haha.

[HoonDing]

I don't give a lick about this Kickstarter, but Total Overdose was awesome.

[Purkake]

I don't give a lick about this Kickstarter, but Total Overdose was awesome.

Truth.

[Leferd]

In for $25. For the off chance that maybe, just maybe, Great Grandma Gontgarski blesses me with riches from above.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

My wallet really hates kickstarter.

[Spider]

Btw, I've only liked one other turn based game besides Jagged Alliance 2: Silent Storm.

Wasn't wasteland turn based?