Sacred Fire - a psychological RPG mixing narrative and tactics

@Pladio Hey no worries, welcome and thank you for your support

We reached 50% with almost 20 days to go! Thank you all, this is going really well!

While we all may have grown accustomed to stories about Kickstarters that blast past their initial goal on day one and reach more and more stretch goals, we truly appreciate what we have here. This is all I could have hoped for, a steady stream of backers who help us spread the word because they like the look, the characters and the innovation in Sacred Fire.

We have also published our first update focused on design, explaining how Sacred Fire connects story and gameplay, by adding challenge to choice making and connecting story branching to renown won in battle.



Thank you for your support. This race is just getting started and we are preparing more juicy updates about combat, character creation, replayability and more.

poetic said:

While we all may have grown accustomed to stories about Kickstarters that blast past their initial goal on day one and reach more and more stretch goals, we truly appreciate what we have here. This is all I could have hoped for, a steady stream of backers who help us spread the word because they like the look, the characters and the innovation in Sacred Fire.

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I do think it's going pretty well... With you being 50% funded this early in the campaign the odds are very high that the goal will be reached. Unfortunately the middle of KS campaigns is pretty slow unless there's a shoutout or article to give publicity the campaign gets most of it's funding in the final days. With this in mind I'd say posting a concrete stretch goal or two soon might be a good idea... (I know voice acting has been mentioned, which I think could enhance a game like this, but no specific numeric goal was stated.) A specific stretch goal may give your backers an incentive to keep spreading the word now rather than getting complacent.

We are back with an in-depth update on combat in Sacred Fire



It feels really good if your hard work gets recognized by your peers. So we are happy to have leading RPG designers and writers fighting on our side to make this campaign a success!
Larian’s Swen Vincke, Chris Avellone and even Robert Kirkman's Skybound tweeted about our campaign rallying the fans to support.



With more than 750 backers, as we are approaching 60%, we are starting to think about revealing our first stretch goal. We have a few value-adding production expansions of Sacred Fire in mind, but we want to hear your thoughts: what would add the most value to you?

What should be the first stretch goal at $60,000 in your opinion:

1) More character customization: more variety in male and female outfits, faces, hair and pain styles, more jewelry for female characters and more awesome beards for male characters.

2) Localization: based on countries of our backers as of now, reaching the stretch goal would bring a translation to German, French and Slovak language.

3) More voiceover: the base goal includes Doug Cockle as the Narrator adding voiceover to the intro, key story branching moments and the endings. With the stretch goal reached, we would add voiceover to the inner voice of your player character. Supporting our inward design, a male and female voice actor would narrate the inner dilemmas of the key story choices.

Thank you for letting us know and if you like any of the stretch goals, please keep spreading the word about the Sacred Fire Kickstarter campaign.

If I had to pick from those stretch goals, I'd say "more character customization" then. I don't care about localization, as I play exclusively in English, nor do I care too much about voice-overs.

I'll always prefer the stretch goals that either offer more content or improve immersion.

@wiretripped Thank you for reaching out and for your feedback and insights, it's very much appreciated.

We are getting close to 800 backers! Thank you!

With 10 days left, we are working hard to prepare a big ending for the campaign and preparing more update and perks to spicy up the rewards.

The first thing is, based on feedback from our backers, we have revealed our stretch goals in our last update:



One of Sacred Fire’s strengths is its unique visual style and focus on character creation. It’s the deepest and most thought out design aspect of Sacred Fire, as it allows you to develop your own playstyle and create your own hero. So our first stretch goal expands this fundamental part of the game and gives you even more self-expression options with focus on variety of:
- colors, outfits and hairstyles,
- faces, scars and paint patterns,
- jewelry and more awesome beards.



The design of Sacred Fire is oriented inwards, exploring the motives, emotions and conflicts of the protagonist. In key story choices, you lead an inner monologue detailing your thoughts and motives, why you made a choice and how you process the consequences.

To support this design, this stretch goals adds narration of inner dilemmas to immerse you deeper into your role. What’s interesting, we have some of the most distinct voices in gaming showing early interest in joining the Sacred Fire team (on our indie budget!), as the male and female voice of your character.



Based on your suggestions, we realized things don’t have to be black and white. While we can’t promise full voice-over for our varied cast, we can use it in character defining moments to make your favorite Sacred Fire characters come alive and immerse you deeper into the story. This stretch goal ads partial voice-over for the 10 main story characters: the 8 potential allies and the 2 powerful villains.

REDDIT

To help us reach these stretch goals, we have also prepared a list of short videos https://imgur.com/a/qoylG to post on reddit, for example at /r/gaming/ or your favorite gaming reddit. Just select a 'Submit a new link' and into the url field enter the video link (on imgur right-click the video and select copy video address) and add a short fun description in the title, for example "Have fun smashing an axe in political debates in Sacred Fire".

PRAISE FOR SACRED FIRE

Sacred Fire caught the eye of another game writer and we got a nod from Rhianna Pratchett:



I invite you to have a look at what my peers find so interesting and decide for yourself. Check out our campaign now.

We got covered by Kotaku by Nathan Grayson!

The article stayed above the fold for many hours and strong traffic is still coming in. So here we are, approaching 75% and 1,000 backers. How great is that?



With 8 days still to go and other big sites picking up the Kotaku article, we are trending way past our base goal. Kicktraq even lists us in the top 10 on their Video Games Hot List.

So if you like the premise of Sacred Fire, now is a good time to support us and help us reach all the customization and voice-over stretch goals.

Today we had another big day and we are over 1,000 backers strong! With 1 week to go things are looking really good, thank you all! This is really exciting, to be so close to the goal after all the work and preparation that went into the game and the campaign.

We published a big update on Characters and Romance in Sacred Fire.



We launched the 'Bring a Friend' initiative - bring a friend to back Sacred Fire and you both get a special in-game Personality Trait. For more details how to get this special in-game reward see the update.

With 84% funded the goal is withing our grasp.

Thank you for your support.

Pledged. Good luck, and I hope you guys make it. Looks like an interesting approach to rpgs.

Mustawd said:

Pledged. Good luck, and I hope you guys make it. Looks like an interesting approach to rpgs.

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Thank you and welcome on board! It's always great to see people who like the new stuff we do. Cheers.

Mustawd said:

Pledged. Good luck, and I hope you guys make it. Looks like an interesting approach to rpgs.

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I agree, it's the main reason I backed as well. They are using concepts that no well known game dev would try as most devs just do the whole "bread and butter" game these days.

Damian said:

I agree, it's the main reason I backed as well. They are using concepts that no well known game dev would try as most devs just do the whole "bread and butter" game these days.

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Thank you, it's great to see people appreciate the innovation. It's the whole reason I took the plunge and went indie.

We just posted a fun take on our personal indie development story "What do you need to develop a psychological RPG - a recipe."



https://imgur.com/t/gaming/h7l93

Check it out and if you enjoyed it, please upvote it and share it with your friends. The imgur community is huge, so your vote and comments can really help.

Thank you.

The story is now on reddit too.

We've posted a new in-depth update focusing on Character Creation in Sacred Fire.



It got picked up by the official Playstation Blog, so you can read all the character creation details there.

As a reaction to Sony’s interest, we decided to enable you to pledge for a digital PS4 version in addition to the PC version. The work on the PS4 version will start after the PC release.

We’ve just hit 95%!

This is amazing, thank you all! It's an exciting time for us: after 4 weeks of campaigning as a small team, it’s electrifying to finally have the goal in sight.

As a sign of thanks, we’ve decided to add new attractive rewards to most of the tiers. The rewards are added to the tiers automatically and you don't have to do anything to get them if you have already pledges for the tier.

The first reward we add to all tiers with the digital version of Sacred Fire is the in-game Renown Trait Ancient Blood, as you, our backers, are the lifeblood and the first to inhabit the world of Sacred Fire.



Next reward is the backer exclusive in-game Golden Eagle Companion. There is an emotional bond and loyalty dynamic between your character and the animal companion.

And if you like the voice in our 2 trailers, you’ll surely enjoy a ringtone, alarm tone and text message tone narrated by Doug Cockle.

Check out our update for more details about these new rewards.

Great!
Looks like you will make it

@Pladio Yes, things are moving really fast now! This is electrifying, thank you

With 99% we are getting really close, thank you all!

Funded - Congratulations!

Glad to see a dev that posts here get rewarded. Please keep us informed, poetic, now that you have your money

I personally don't have much interest in the game, but I think several folks here pledged and are following it.

I wish that you have gotten a little more for your game but it is what it is. Seeing all these unique games start popping up makes me glad as a gamer because I really dont want every game to be safe. So far on kickstarter this has to be the most "unsafe" game i have seen. People who funded it funded for a new experience and i hope you keep that in mind going forward.