Jagged Alliance Flashback on kickstarter

[Monte Carlo]

* is overcome with nostalgia *

 

* cries *

[Forlorn Hope]

I wonder if the guys at Obsidian played JA?

[Serrano]

I'd be surprised if no one in the studio had, it was a very popular series.

[Forlorn Hope]

Yes. However, Obsidian hasn't backed it yet. Hopefully they will!

[Forlorn Hope]

New update. Weapons: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2079547763/jagged-alliance-flashback/posts/470796

[LordCrash]

Update #7 : Community Coverage and More

May 1, 2013

 

 

Dear Backers,

 

A short update this evening

 

Amazon Payments Issues

Last night we experienced some issues with Amazon payments, resulting in 4 hours where people were unable to support our campaign. Unfortunately we won’t be getting those hours back, but we’re happy it didn't happen within the last 48 hours of our campaign. If you get an error again please just give it an hour or two and try again.  

 

Reddit IAMA 

We completed the reddit IAMA yesterday evening and we’re very pleased with all of the questions we got on both Space Hulk and Jagged Alliance. 1½ hours just flew by, you can see all of the questions and answers HERE. We’ll be doing more of these sessions during the campaign. 

 

Community Coverage

There have been a lot of feedback and support from the community both on our Kickstarter forum, Facebook, Twitter and especially on the comment section of our Kickstarter page. We even have our very own support group called Jagged Bloodcats, and a fanmade teaser video to raise awareness for our Kickstarter. THANK YOU !!!

 

You can see the Video

and read more about the Jagged Bloodcats initiative HERE

 

We also just started the Backer Bonus initiative and the next unlock is right around the corner:

 

 

We would like to get your opinion on what the next sector should be, so post your suggestions in the the comment section of this update or at the Kickstarter forum and we’ll put them up for voting in our forum.

New T-shirt

We’re also announcing that we have decided to add our lovable commando hamster as a new T-shirt option. We even added a few more elements to the image. See below:

 

 

Before we end we would just like to mention our friends from Onipunks, who are currently running a Kickstarter for their game C-wars, which is presented with the headline: What happens when Cyberpunk apocalypse roguelike meets RTS in pixel art? C-Wars. Go check them out if you have a few extra $ to spare and love pixel-art HERE

 

As the final note, we’d like you to share your thoughts on what kind of updates you would like to see us share in the near future. Character customization, weapon customization, Art style walk-through or maybe a more detailed introduction of the team - Let us know in the comments!

 

Until next time ^^

 

 The Full Control JAF Team

[LordCrash]

Update #8 : Diorama and Competition

May 2, 2013

 

 

Dear backers,  

 

We’re slowly moving forward and are still confident that we’ll reach our goal once the campaign concludes. However, we still want to raise the awareness of our campaign through more social sites, as the majority of backer have currently come from press, Kickstarter and people searching for our campaign.

 

 

If you’re a great redditor or top tweepster feel free to share your tips and suggestions in the comments section.

 

Diorama

Yesterday we asked you what kind of updates you would like to see from us in the future and we can assure you we’re working hard at planning and producing content for upcoming updates and press releases for the duration of the Kickstarter.

 

For a while people have been asking us to show more of the game in terms of gameplay and therefore we have decided to make a 3D diorama version of the ruins sector we’re planning, which will give you a real feeling of what we want the game to look like. You will be able to rotate the camera 360°, the distance will be fixed.

 

Below is a very rough concept of the stage:

 

 

The scene will show your mercenaries having fallen into a trap and now caught in a firefight with enemies inside the hidden ruins.

We decided upon this little scene, as it would give you a visual slice of how the game could look like.

We plan to follow the project as it progresses, making small dev diaries, focussing on different aspects of the diorama for each video.

We’ll be covering Props, Character, Assembling all the different pieces and finally releasing the diorama for you to explore.

We understand that it’s important to people to get an actual feel for what the game will look like, so we’ll do our very best to get a great looking diorama in place.

 

Team Video

You’ve also been requesting to learn more about our team and we can gladly announce that we will shoot the video tomorrow and release it one of the following days.

In the video you will get a short presentation from some of the core members of the team, get to see a portion of their work and what they are currently working on. Thomas will share his thoughts on the team and we will all give you a warm goodbye. Hopefully you won’t be able to spot the community guy

 

Competition

As a follow up to yesterdays update, we would like to shoot of a competition, which everyone should be able to participate in!

 

A Killer Hamster Meme

 

Here’s our attempt:

 

 

You can copy the image from this post and alter it in anyway you want, as long as you leave the JAF logo in there. Send your attempts to competition@fullcontrol.dk and we’ll choose the best one and post it on Reddit, Twitter and Facebook.

 

It’s a competition, so of course there’s going to be a prize. We’ll let you write a one-liner for a mercenary in the final game

 

We’re looking forward to see what you come up with!!

 

Have a lovely evening!

 

The Full Control JAF Team

Edited May 3, 2013 by LordCrash

[LordCrash]

Update #9 : Weapon Customization and Special Friday Pledges

May 3, 2013

 

 

Dear Backers, 

 

It’s Friday and we are ready for another update. This time we’d like to share our thoughts on an important aspect of the game - weapons. 

 

We also have some special pledges that are ultra limited in our “Friday Special”. First come, first serve and they will not come up again. So hurry hurry!!

 

Weapon Customization

To give you the high level rundown here, there are things we definitely want to do and then we also have some ideas in our mind that we want to hear your point of view upon. As a basis, we will run with Jagged Alliance 2 for stats and balance. Then look at 1.13 for balancing fixes and additional features. This approach gives us a good and sound baseline to start with.

 

We have the following on our must have and to do list:

• Different classes of weapons similar to Jagged Alliance 2 (e.g. Pistols, Machine Guns, Shotguns etc.) 
• Skill tree for classes of weapons based on usage
• Customization via attachment points 
• Ammunition with different properties 
• Weight and inventory space has influence on the gameplay (e.g. AP and movement speed) 
• Dual wield small weapons 

 

And we have some ideas to discuss:

• Using a weapon will slowly damage it to the point where it's destroyed. The more you use a given weapon, the more damage it takes. 
• You will be able to repair damaged weapon at your base at a cost (not only at the base actually, but if a weapon is nearly done, than you'll need to do it in the base). 
• Selling worn weapons gives you less money than a new weapon would. 
• As you use the weapon you gain skill in using said weapon to give you more damage, accuracy etc. But at the same time there is an negative effect on unlearning other skills. This counters building ultra powerful characters with 100 in all skills and then destroying the enemy. So balancing out your team suddenly matters more 
• For the base building we want to have a shooting range, where you can both test out weapon customizations to see the effect before committing to it. And at the same time you can spend time+money on training your mercenaries.

 

 

More Details

Adding attachments will decrease or increase your weapon stats. The choices you make will determine things like weapon range, weight, repair expenses and most importantly, damage! Weapon customization and development is not about crafting weapons from the ground up, but taking the weapons you find or buy in the world and tweaking those by changing or upgrading their parts. Only by recruiting a character such as a gunsmith will you get access to the meat of weapon customization and repair options.

 

All weapons are grounded in reality, so that means no science fiction, no lasers, no nothing that goes beyond shooting hard lead out of a barrel or rocket propelled explosives. We will cover a wide variety of weapons that are divided up into these classes:

• Pistols
• Submachine guns 
• Rifles 
• Assault Rifles 
• Sniper Rifles 
• Shotguns 
• Light Machine guns 
• Grenade and rocket launchers 

 

Weapons manufactured up to the point of when the Jagged Alliance: Flashback story takes place are eligible to be included.

 

Weapon Attachments

Attachments for weapons are diverse and the amount of attachments depend on the weapon and its number of slots. Slots included on most weapons are the top (scopes), muzzle (silencer, fire suppressor), under barrel (bipod, handgrip) and stocks but the amount of slots can also be expanded via modifications such as rails. Please note some weapons will have a lot of room for customization, while others will not (A pistol with grenade launcher attached wouldn't make too much sense most times, eh?).

 

 

Using modifications such as rails it's possible to open up for even more attachments, like flashlights, laser sights etc.

 

Weapons and changes to them can easily be tested in the shooting range, this allows the player to test a weapon build before leaving to conquer the rest of the map or solving optional missions.

 

The list also does not include melee weapons which is part of the CQC training skill characters will need, which opens up for (silent) lethal, and non-lethal takedowns.

 

Ammunition

Flashback will feature several different types of ammunition for weapons, some will not be available to all weapon classes, some will be extremely expensive and rare (will require difficult raid missions of drug lord strongholds for example. You never know what a warlord has stored in his safe, do you?) while others wear down weapons after use (see Depleted uranium ammo). Taking inspiration from the 1.13 community mod, these are some of the ammunition types we really want in.

• Normal bullet - effective against soft armor and unarmoured enemies. Useless against heavy armoured enemies. 
• High quality bullets - Higher quality ammunition that boosts a weapon's effective range and damage. 
• Rubber bullets - handy shotgun ammo for incapacitating soft armoured and unarmoured enemies. Don't expect to shoot anything else with it. Useless against heavy armoured enemies. 
• Depleted Uranium - Powerful bullets that severely damages weapons used with it, effective against all enemies. Incredibly expensive and rare. 
• Stealth bullets - Standard bullets with some gunpowder removed to reduce weapon sound. Effectively paired with silencers for very quiet incursions. Less powder means less damage. 
• Grenades (HE, Fragmentation and gas) - High Explosives is effective at destroying vehicles, while fragmentation is against soft armoured and unarmoured enemies. Has little effect against heavy armoured enemies. Gas is effective against all enemies not wearing gas masks (be sure you wear one when moving through areas of gas too). 
• Heavy explosives (C4) - Available as radio controlled or timed explosives. 
• Antipersonnel and Anti-vehicle mines - High explosives will kill or destroy anything that moves close. 
• Rocket propelled grenades - For use in RPGs, available in HE or Fragmentation versions. Highly effective against light vehicles and all types of enemies. 

 

Special Friday Pledges

As mentioned earlier we’re adding a unique pledge every Friday and today we’re actually adding both a unique Tier and a limited bundle.

 

$400 Tier: It’s all in the bag Tier: So bring it home and enjoy the rewards, you’ll get: The all previous rewards + A mercenary one-liner + An enemy response + You get to make a name for the enemy name pool + You get to write a NPC Quote. (ALL ONLY THIS TIER) (10) Limited

 

$850 Tier: The magnificent Tier: There can only be one, so you’re rewarded with: All previous rewards + A statue of you or your likeness in the game, with a description (ONLY THIS TIER) (1) Limited

 

 

Backer Sectors

As you all know we’ve been running a poll on our website to figure out what the next sector should be and it ended up being the “Abandoned WWII Outpost / Bunker”

 

 

We’ve shot the team video today and I apologize in advance for not having a steady hand!

 

The video is being cut and processed as we speak and we hope it’ll be ready this weekend. Just needed to get the shots in before everyone escaped the office for the weekend.

 

Have a nice weekend!

 

The Full Control JAF Team

Edited May 3, 2013 by LordCrash

[sorophx]

is it the same team that made Back in Action?

[Forlorn Hope]

is it the same team that made Back in Action?

No. Full Control is a team from Denmark.

[LordCrash]

Update #10 : Joining Kicking it Forward and Diorama progress

May 4, 2013

 

Kicking it Forward

The “Friday Special” statue went really fast yesterday! Congratulations to Nicholas for having his beautifully bearded face and body forever and ever immortalized in the game.

 

Yesterdays update stirred a lot of discussions - great! A quick followup on that is, that we are still operating on concept art and pre-production. Nothing is set in stone and we are listening.

 

We believe in a strong story coupled with hardcore turn-based combat being the right mix. So that is our vision for this project if that is unclear in any ways.

And - this is important to say - we are making an entertainment product and not a simulator. We are with Flashback concentrating on the story part, the role playing of mercenaries having personalities and the game being fun to play. We are not! going down the ultra-realistic path and trying to make a tactical combat simulator. Flashback is not the Arma of turn-based RPG action.

 

So if we in the story have a plausible reason to have experimental and ultra limited uranium depleted ammunition as part of the story - then its going to be in there. It is not science fiction - but still fiction.

 

The inventory and the overall user interface has to be a joy to play as well. While we believe in inventory management being part of the game (who can carry 10 MG’s including ammo?), there is still value in having things like weight that you carry around being an influence on your movement speed, stealth and how fast you become fatigued. But it simply has to be fun to use as well, so for example being able to pick up items on the screen directly without having to move over to them - totally makes sense to do.

 

This might rub the wrong way for some and be the right direction for others. We simply wanted to make this clear up front, and with the modding possibilities there are other people than us that can work the game into that direction - or stick with some of the JA2 mods.

 

Kick! Kick! Kick!

We also believe in Kickstarter being a great alternative for working with the fan gamers and to finance otherwise forgotten games and genres.

 

That is why we are happy to announce us joining the Kicking it Forward initiative set up by Brian Fargo and inXile.

 

This means that we pledge 5% of the revenue of Jagged Alliance: Flashback sales back into future Kickstarter projects. We have chosen to primarily use the money to pledge towards turn-based tactical/strategic digital games.

 

You can read more about this on http://kickingitforward.org

 

Hamster Galore!

Wow there were some great hamster memes made by you! We had great fun looking them through, so thanks for everyone participating.

 

We will pick the winner tomorrow! So still a chance to throw your hamster meme towards us!

 

Diorama Progress

Javier has been throwing some spare time into working up a nice AK-47 into the art style we are going for in the game.

 

And here it is, the first ingame model for Jagged Alliance Flashback!

 

The art style we are considering can best be described as a form of stylistic realism where the environment along with props and characters will still keep their overall proportions and details, but the textures will be mixed with a hand painted look.

 

We want the game to be more vibrant, and the use of colors will play a larger role in establishing mood in the environment.

 

 

As we produce more and more art for the diorama of the lost ruins firefight, we will share these with you!

 

Have a nice weekend!

 

The Full Control JAF Team

[Vortex]

Give JA some love, they certainly need any funding help they can get )

[Vortex]

Just after i posted that got a 10k backer!!! Coincidence???? I think not

[Forlorn Hope]

10k backer for the win!

[LordCrash]

Update #11 : Competition Winners and More

May 5, 2013

 

Dear Backers,

 

A short Sunday update

 

It’s weekend and and we’re slowly but surely closing in on $150,000. We have received quite a few meme submissions and we’re so happy with them that we have found it hard to pick just one winner.Therefore we have chosen to pick 3 winners in total

 

The winners will receive the $125 reward and we’ll post the meme on various social sites to promote our campaign and make people laugh.

 

The Winners are *Drum roll*

 

 

 

 

Congratulations to the winners ifsim, GermanMG and Lachlan, and thanks for all your submissions We’ll definitely be hosting 1-2 more competitions before the end of the Kickstarter Campaign.

 

Team video

The video is still being put together and due to the fact that our community manager is a community manager and not a cameraman, we need to retake a few shots to reach the quality we’d like it to have. Feel free to bash him for it in the comments :D

 

Additional pledges and changes to Collector’s box

A few people have been mentioning that’s they’d like to both have mercenary quote/ enemy response and a collector’s edition we decided to add a Tier to give them the option to do so.

 

New pledge Tier:

 

$220 Aim for the eyes Tier: Yeah, that should do the trick so you get: All previous rewards + You get to choose to either write an enemy response or a mercenary one-liner. (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (30)

 

New Collector’s Box content

We’re adding a paper map to the mix as well as upgrading the paper map to a cloth map in the $500 tier.

We’ll also be adding a Jagged Alliance: Flashback credit card holder to the the tier.

 

We’re looking forward to a new and exciting week with loads of comments, good suggestions and quality feedback. More detailed updates on the way and we are brewing up some big news to share with the press.

 

Have a nice Sunday!

 

The Full Control JAF Team

[Monte Carlo]

There is no 'P' in Hamster.

[mkreku]

There is now.

[Labadal]

I though kickstarter didn't allow competitions like that for ongoing projects?

[Hurlshort]

I though kickstarter didn't allow competitions like that for ongoing projects?

 

Is there a reason why?  It sounds like they are just offering extra rewards for the winners.

[Sensuki]

After the Shadowrun Returns controversy I am hesitant to back anything that has a licensing agreement with a publisher.

[Vortex]

JAF Team Expansion and Modding Details

Update #12 · May 7, 2013 · 11 comments

 

Dear Backers,

We have 2 pieces of great news for you today. So lets get right to it!!

Chris Camfield is joining the Flashback Team

We are super happy to be able to welcome Chris Camfield to the Jagged Alliance: Flashback team.

Chris has worked on the implementation and design of several Jagged Alliance titles and ended up as lead designer on Jagged Alliance 3 that sadly was never released.

He will be joining the team as an advisor while keeping his day job at XMG Studios. Chris’ role will be to help us on essential pieces of implementation knowledge.

WHY were things implemented in a certain way in JA2. Not only HOW. The how could be deducted by most programmers by looking at the open sources.

Understanding the core mechanisms and how they were designed to fit together is essential knowledge to hitting the right balance once we add factions, better AI and other potential improvements/changes to the mechanics.

Establishment of Modding Advisory Team

In addition we are announcing having established a modding advisory and co-design team.

Currently this team includes R@S, creator of the Blue Sun Mod for 7.62 - High Calibre and DepressivesBrot from the 1.13-Crew.

We are also in contact with additional high profile modders to expand the advisory team even more.

Their role will be to work with us to identify essential modding hooks, directory structure definitions, design the templates for modding files and some proof of concept tests.

Having these great modders on board gives us the ability to not fumble the ball on mod support, and will make it easier for everyone to later potentially port their existing mods.

Details on Modding Support

Modding is a wonderful thing and has kept Jagged Alliance 2 alive for many many years. It is also something that takes time to implement right.

If we do not hit some of the higher stretch goals, then we can still support basic modding and hope for adding more options down the road.

Together with the modding advisory team we will prioritize the modding capabilities, that we from initial feedback have grouped into 3 areas.

1) Tweaking of configurations
For example being able to go into xml files to turn on/off line of sight via a boolean, or change the base movement cost per terrain.

2) Adding additional content
Having the ability to add a new mercenary, a new weapon or that “used condom” that you’ve always thought missing as a trash item.

3) Adding additional features
Coding new functionality like wind direction having influence on accuracy while shooting or alternatively altering existing calculations for damage models.

Exactly what is going to be moddable is something that is decided upon during detailed design and ongoing through development with the help of the modding-community.

Our initial thoughts are that we are able to support the first two options here with the minimum budget of our Kickstarter-target. This doesn’t mean the third option is skipped right away. If there’s some spare time in the end, we’ll take care of it as well or will try to introduce this option after the release of the game. In addition to that we are also in talks with other modders who wrote awesome tools for other games and as they will have access to the Alpha version of the game, they will be able to start writing their tools if they feel there’s need to do so.

We have to see how far we can push this with Kickstarter and our own money. Right now, we have to be a bit selective as we don’t know where we will end up yet. This also means that functionalities that have not been planned will drain resources from other parts of the game, and this is not our intention, as we want to deliver a game worth the name Jagged Alliance.

We hope you understand this point, because most of us have been part of a modding community at one point or another, it's important to us! And we will give our best to support it wherever we can and with whatever we can.

We are really excited for the new forces joining the team!

The Full Control JAF Team

Edited May 7, 2013 by Vortex

[LordCrash]

Update #13 : JA Intro Video and Community Efforts

May 9, 2013

 

 

Dear backers,

 

It’s holiday today here in Denmark but as you can see we are not resting. We want to get our Kickstarter back in gear and gain some more speed.

 

Therefore we put this Video together to show people who don’t know the Jagged Alliance franchise what was so great about the game and what Jagged Alliance: Flashback will be like.

 

So yes, for those who know the game in every little detail, this won’t be something new. Getting new fans of Jagged Alliance is one of the areas we will give some focus.

 

More game details for the rest of you will be given over the next days!

 

 

 

 

 

Community Efforts

The community is hard at work and have several competitions and initiatives going to promote our campaign.

 

The success of the campaign will be determined by getting more backers. So every community driven effort counts. We are very happy about every little push you give.

 

BIG thanks from here!!!!

 

Steam

Steam Group

You can join the new steam group created by the community, in order to get a shot at receiving free steam key for the game once the game has been released, the more people in the group the more keys to give away!

 

Bear’s Pit initiatives

Merc One-liner

"Write a Merc One-Liner and Win a $220 Pledge", sponsored by galf and open to all JA:F backers (and only backers). All you need to participate is a bit of inspiration and a screenshot of your pledge sent to gdalf's inbox. If you already pledged more than $220 you can always gift the goodie bag to a friend. Let's not make gdalf feel like his effort and money went unappreciated, ok?

 

BIG BAD BEAR meme

The "BIG BAD BEAR meme thread (with an occasional hamster snack)" creativity contest that we're running in order to provide social network memes for those who need to plug the game (or just have a laugh). Even FC tried their hand at this http://imgur.com/yJi4X3e

 

 

We’ll have another update ready for you tomorrow and also some new Unique Tiers

 

Until next time!

 

The Full Control JAF Team

Edited May 9, 2013 by LordCrash

[LordCrash]

Update #19 ·Stretch Goals, Competition and a Tribute Sector

May 16, 2013

 

Dear Backers,

 

After having reached an impressive ~ $25,000 yesterday, making it our second best day to date, we’re hard at work to keep the ball rolling.

 

Stretch Goals

Although we made an update on Stretch Goals a few days ago and have reached $200,000 + opening up the Stretch Goals Box, we would like to add it to this update for all eyes to see. We know there’s still some ways to go before we reach the initial goal ,but we’re A.I.M.ing for a race to the finish.

 

 

New $425,000 Stretch Goal:

The new stretch goal will be a small tourist island off the coast and have approximately 10 sectors. The player will be able to travel there by boat and there will be two fishing ports located on the island. Additionally, there will be a small resort located on the island, making it popular to tourist. Players can gain an economic advantage by visiting the island as well as being able to discover so called “easter eggs” along with special unlockables. 

 

Bear's Pit JA:F Events and Contests

As promised we wanted to give the Bear’s pit competition a mention, so here’s their hamster happy meal.

 

SPREAD THE WORD CAMPAIGN

Anyone can be the next San Cristobal bartender/gas station owner just by helping with spreading the word about JA:F Kickstarter: Rewards $125, $200 and $650

Follow this link for more info

 

WRITE A MERC ONELINER AND WIN

Also our generous friend gdalf just spruced up his $220 reward for best merc/enemy one-liner by announcing STRETCH GOALS! Yes, he's going to add even more goodies to the pack, just join the fun and give us your line! 

 

Follow this link for more info

 

Tribute Sector 

 As a thanks to our friends at Obsidian, we’ve decided to make a special sector in their honor. The 5000 backer sector will be an Obsidian mine, where a secret cult of scientist resides and are trying to develop a new formula to become immortal, called “Eternity”. We thank the community for coming up with these awesome suggestions :D As Jesper is still hard at work finishing the diorama the visualization of the sector will have to wait, but we’ll get it up as soon as possible and also come up with the 5500 sector. 

 

Diorama Screens 

Javier has been hard at work on an RPG for the diorama, here’s the result:

 

 

Full Size Image

 

That’s it for today, we’ll be sending out the press release for the diorama tomorrow, so you all get to see it

 

It’s great to have so many new backers here, hopefully you’ll all share the news about this Kickstarter project to friends and family, we need your support for the final push!

 

Until next time!

 

The Full Control JAF Team

Edited May 16, 2013 by LordCrash

[Hurlshort]

It's pretty cool that at $42 I get my name thrown in the NPC naming pool and get to write a line.  That's a great price.

[Keyrock]

Man, this one is going to go down to the wire.  I hope they get the push they need to make the goal in this last week.  The shout out from Obsidian Entertainment definitely helped a bit, they could use some more love like that.  If only a site that gets tons of eyeballs would run an article on them.  I dropped IGN an email about this a while back, but I'm sure they're much to busy doing articles about Call of Duty 27: Modern Warfare 16: Ghost Squad: Elite Soldier: Hidden Ops 6: Black Edition: Space Zombie Nazi DLC and whatever crappy TV show was on last night to give Full Control some love.