Explore a fantasy Iron-Age inspired Europe, with Mystical Handcrafted Locations and Ferocious Enemies, playable solo and in Couch Co-op
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Hi all,
After 35 days, 8 updates, 4 stretch goals (including hard mode!), 3 Prologue updates and 904 AWESOME backers, we can finally say that Unsung Warriors got funded! This has all been made possible by everyone that supported us. From the deepest of our hearts: thank you so much!
We're both incredibly excited to start working on Unsung Warriors again. In the coming months, we'll be gradually reducing our current other activities and increase our dedication to Unsung Warriors. By fall, we'll be working most of our time on the game's development. During the development of Unsung Warriors, we intend to send out updates every other month.
We'll be using Backerkit as a fulfillment manager. Soon you'll receive a survey, where we'll be inquiring about the needed info to fulfill the rewards. We'll be leaving the surveys open for as long as we can so that you can update information if necessary. When we're close to fulfillment, you'll receive a notification that the information is about to be locked in. Those that backed a €300 tier or higher will also be contacted individually about their contribution.
We'll also be opening a late backing store. A technical issue with credit cards by Dutch banks has prevented a lot of friends and family (and probably even more people that we don't know of) from properly backing us. With this store, we want to give them the opportunity to join in on the crowdfunding as well.
It's been a wild ride. We posted updates, engaged in conversations with people, approached media, fixed bugs in the Prologue and generally tried to push forward the project of Unsung Warriors. We were constantly fueled by people that believed in us by either pledging or trying to help in some other way. We can't say it better than we did 2 years ago: you have made two guys feel proud of their creation. Thank you for that, we're excited to have you stick around for the rest of this adventure.
Talk to you soon!
Mikel & Ramon
Hi all,
We have just finished the next stretch goal of animated cutscenes! Mikel will pick up his digital brush and show parts of the story in the full game with the animated cinematics you know from the Prologue.
For the next stretch goal, we would like to add 3 difficulty settings - Easy, Medium, Hard.
The difficulty setting can be chosen from the start and can be changed anytime you like. Story-wise the game will not change by selecting a different game mode, but we might implement a few secrets for the hard mode difficulty.
Hard mode will increase the combat difficulty by giving enemies a higher attack power and faster attack animations. Another idea that we want to test is to disable the automated mana recharge and refill only when the player does damage to enemies. Additionally, savepoints will also restock your mana.
This change would encourage the player to be a bit more considerate with how and when they use their magic. If our tests prove that this is a fun alteration, we will include it in the game.
Easy Mode is meant for players that are new to the genre or prefer playing the game for the story and visuals, rather than the combat and the platforming.
Another currently ongoing crowdfunding to look out for is Oddventure. The game is a crazy turn-based RPG about the misadventures of Charlie, a girl trapped in a cursed fairy-tale world. The game has a demo, which reminded us about Undertale, but with its own style.
We definitely recommend you to try their demo and consider backing their campaign!
So much for this update, as we're currently in the final 48 hours. Please consider backing, and know that you can also help by spreading the word of our campaign. For example, you can retweet our messages or post in a community you're part of. Together, let's crush those last stretch goals!
Cheers,
Mikel & Ramon
Hi!
Alex here. I'm a story consultant for Unsung Warriors. What does a story consultant do you ask? I help write quests, character backgrounds, dialogue and lore for the game.
Firstly on how we do this. One of my tools to give structure to the story is through so-called sticky note sessions. During those, we write arcs of the story and motivation/traits of characters on sticky notes and place them on a wall.
We then check if the relations are logical, and openly discuss which arcs and motivations should be added, removed or changed. It’s a really helpful way to shape the story because it stimulates a discussion between the three of us, while forcing us to look at the same structure (as opposed to everyone having a different structure in mind).
I also want to talk about how we made the story and what to expect from it, without giving too many spoilers of course.
First, there's a silent protagonist, very much like Link in Zelda. This means we rely on characters you meet to tell the story and have most of the emotional moments in the game. However, don't expect long monologues or sprawling dialogue choices. Instead, the gameplay actions you take have an effect on the outcome of the story. Dialogues are short and optional whenever possible so you can choose whether to engage with the deeper story or not. Level design and gameplay are also used to give the player hints of the story and lore without blocking them.
Even though he's silent, the protagonist still has an important story to tell. Einar is cursed at some point in the game, slowly corrupting him. This gives us a ticking clock to push the story forward as Einar searches for a solution.
But there's more going on than just Einar's personal story. The necromancer, our bbeg (big bad evil guy) has bigger plans. Sitting down to write the story together, we wanted to create a bbeg with a real motivation. He's not just pure evil, even though it may look like that initially. Many people in the world support his goal and we think you'll eventually understand why. His motivations dates back to the creation of the world and the start of all life, which lore-hunting players can eventually reconstruct when they finish the game.
I probably need to stop now before I start giving actual spoilers. Ok, perhaps a small sneak preview. These two characters are both part of the same quest:
If you have a theory about what is going to happen, we'd love to hear it in the comments.
Another campaign that may be right up your alley is Astral Ascent, a 2D platformer rogue-lite on PC and consoles with four worlds to escape, if you can beat the Zodiacs, 12 mighty bosses! The game has a gorgeous pixel art-style, engaging combat and comes with a playable demo! We definitely recommend you to check out their demo and consider supporting their campaign.
That's it for now. Please keep spreading the word, and if you have any feedback, don't hesitate to reach out!
Cheers,
Alex, Mikel & Ramon
Hi all,
We're about two weeks into our campaign and we are still loving every minute of it. Every comment we read, every backer we welcome and every bit of coverage we get: it all helps us in trying to make Unsung Warriors even better! In this update, we'll be telling a bit more about certain stretch goals.
Already two of our Stretch goals are funded! Firstly there's Arena Mode, and secondly there's an Extra Playable Character.
The Extra Playable Characters (for player 1 and player 2) are female warriors. So each player can now choose to play as either male or female. The characters will play exactly the same, just like Einar and Egil do. Also, there will be no story consequences related to this. The female characters will be silent protagonists as well, but in the Prologue you can actually talk to the first female character, to get a brief glimpse of her personality.
The new stretch goal is (drumroll)... Animated Cutscenes! Like the prologue's intro, these cutscenes can establish gameplay and story scenarios efficiently. They can be used to introduce new characters, emphasize certain plot points, or be shown as a reward for the player(s). They won't show at the beginning of the full game though, as we have something different for that in mind (sinister laugh)...
Our intention is to interrupt gameplay as little as possible. We'll only use them at key moments in the game.
Now that you're into the action platformer vibe, you might also want to try out Blu. It's a 2.5D ninja Metroidvania inspired by Dead Cells, Prince of Persia and other classics. We've played the demo and the gameplay, as well as the strong storytelling, made us yell "sacré Blu" from excitement! They're in the last days of their campaign, so don't miss out on this!
We definitely recommend you to check out their demo, and consider pledging if you like what you've played!
Know that you can help out our campaign greatly by spreading the word. In case you've backed us, you may have had your name engraved on the wall of our Prologue. We are totally endorsing people showing their engraved name to their audience, for example as done in the following video.
That's it for now. As always, don't hesitate to reach out with feedback and comments.
Cheers,
Mikel & Ramon