Genre: Fighting, Real Time Strategy (RTS), Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Tactical, Indie
City of the Shroud
Pre-Orders Now Available, New Gunner Abilities and Animations, and Insomnia 58!
City of the Shroud is available for pre-order! We are hosting pre-order sales through BackerKit, where you can grab a Steam key with early access to in-development builds, as well as some of the digital and physical goodies, including the signed novel, from our Kickstarter campaign. Click the link below:
Pre-order sales help us to build a bigger, better game for everyone - plus, you get access to gameplay content before everyone else and can help guide the development of the game.
In other news, we have made some major progress on the art front, so I wanted to share some of the fruits of our labor! We’ve completed the Gunner’s animations and have put them in the game, along with all of her abilities.
Attacks in CotS use a combination of animation and visual effects to show each ability. During June, we were still in the process of getting animations and VFX set up, but now they’re pretty much ready to go. Since we have the Gunner’s animations fresh off the… animation software, I’ll run you through some of the new ones (and some of the ones that make way more sense now)!
They’re not all tuned yet, meaning the timing on some of the movement and visual effects may be a bit off, but I figure: why wait?
Dynamite: throw a stick of dynamite that deals damage to adjacent tiles after a set amount of time. The danger indicator is new too (and placeholder)!
Buckshot: The opposite of Snipe - deal more damage the closer you are to the target. Can be combined with Scramble and Parting Gift, which deals damage to adjacent tiles when you move away, for an in-your-face playstyle.
Aim Down Sights/Scramble: when the Gunner has certain buffs active, like Aim Down Sights or Scramble, she will take on a unique idle animation until the effects wear off.
Staggering Shot: deals damage and removes a dodge buff from the target, dealing bonus damage if it does (dodge buffs negate an opponent’s yellow gem attacks).
Vault: Jump backward one tile and deal damage while you do it! Great for getting out of melee range and making the opponent pay for it while you do. Works well with Magnetic Mine.
And finally, Spray and Pray: shoot 21 times, spreading the damage across all tiles adjacent to the target.
We’re really happy with how the animations turned out and can’t wait to let backers play with them!
Those of you with keen eyes may notice some slight graphical improvements to the game as well - hopefully you like them!
We’re about ready to roll out the new character class abilities for testing to our Noble-tier and higher backers. We have a bit of tweaking to do before we do (we want you to be able to just get them instead of having to fight random battles until they drop, for example), so as soon as that’s all ready, we’ll be rolling out a new test branch on Steam.
Last but not least, City of the Shroud will be going to Insomnia 58 from August 26 - 29 at NEC in Birmingham, UK.
If you’re going, come by and say hi - we’ll have a (hopefully VERY) updated version of the game on display!
I also want to give a big thank-you to Charlie, creator of Flow Point, and Liz of Sock Thuggery for showing City of the Shroud at Games by the Sea at Develop, where they were showing off local indie talent! We weren’t able to go to the event this year ourselves, but our friends stepped in to help us out. The game went over really well, and “lots of people played it for a really long time,” which of course is a good thing!
Finally, here’s a sneak-peek of something we have coming down the pipe soon:
Thank you all for the support, and we can’t wait to get the game out to you!
PS: We’re thinking about setting up a Linux testing build to see if we can add it as an official platform. Wish us luck, and please let us know if you’d be interested in checking out whether it works!
City of the Shroud's Kickstarter Is In Its Last 24 Hours!
City of the Shroud’s Kickstarter is approaching its final 24 hours!
The game is funded and working towards unlocking New Game+ and Survival Mode! If you’re interested in supporting the game, this is the last chance before the campaign ends! (And every backer gets a Steam key so you can follow development builds on Steam after the campaign!)
Now that we're fast approaching the Kickstarter's (funded!) conclusion, we’ll be diving straight back into working on City of the Shroud. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us along the way. We couldn’t have done it without you!
Now let's see if we can hit those stretch goals! :)
Only 72 hours left on Kickstarter!
There are only 72 hours remaining on City of the Shroud's Kickstarter!
Backing not only helps us hit stretch goals and put new modes into the game, but it gets YOU access to development builds on Steam immediately following the campaign!
City of the Shroud's Kickstarter Funded in 9 Days!
City of the Shroud has been funded on Kickstarter in 9 days!
We relaunched our campaign with a brand-new video, page, and an updated build; we added early access builds via Steam to every backer tier and a Steam key as soon as the campaign finishes; and we even took the game to EGX Rezzed at the same time as the launch. All together, we hit 80% in the first 3 days, and closed the remaining 20% 5 days later, and have announced our first stretch goal: New Game+!
We learned a lot on our first attempt, and that knowledge combined with the support of our (new/bigger) community let us hit our goal in a very short period of time. Going into the new campaign, we had an existing group of backers in addition to our initial group of supporters, as well as awareness from our Steam Greenlight campaign (Greenlit in 3 weeks!) and our recently set-up Steam page.
We also got in touch with some advisors who gave us tips on how to improve the page and our campaign. As a result, the page is much shorter, snappier, and focuses on the key elements of the game - it's to-the-point. The video was revamped to focus on what makes the game special and show more of the gameplay with context - since the game's combat system is so different from what players expect at first glance, pointing out its unique elements along with showing footage has worked much better than what we had before.
Of course, at least some of the credit has to go to this awesome in-engine render of a Mage taking out a Brute:
We deliberately scheduled the Kickstarter to coincide with taking City of the Shroud to EGX Rezzed, where the game had a really good showing. Players backed the game on the spot, then told their friends to come play the demo and do the same. The brand-new artwork (at the top) certainly helped draw attention as well.
Now that the campaign is funded, we've announced our first stretch goal: New Game+! If City of the Shroud can hit $17,500, we will add a replay system so that players can keep their equipment and team setups while being able to go back and play through alternate paths in the story. That alone wouldn't be super exciting, so we'll be adding in a supped-up AI to battle that will put players' real-time combo skills to the test.
And finally, we've been working on something special. Say hello to a preview of our updated wheel UI:
The UI update will be released in the Steam builds to backers once the Kickstarter is over.
We're very happy about how far we've come and the success of the Kickstarter, but there's still work to do. Stay tuned for more updates!
City of the Shroud Hit 80% in 3 Days! Backers Get Early Access Builds Immediately After the Campaign
City of the Shroud hit 80% in 3 days on Kickstarter! You can check out the campaign here:
We're totally blown away by everyone's enthusiasm for the game and the support they've shown.
Since we're already approved on Steam, we're giving every backer a Steam key and access to developer builds as soon as the campaign is over.
If you're thinking of picking up City of the Shroud when it releases, this is a great way to grab the game early, help us improve it during development, and get some sweet bonuses while you're at it!
We hope you join us in bringing the game to life!
Join City of the Shroud on Kickstarter!
City of the Shroud’s Kickstarter campaign is now live! Help us raise the funds for the remaining 3 character models by backing us at the link below:
Every backer will get a Steam key with early access builds as soon as the campaign ends!
We hope that you’ll support us at launch - first-day backers have a powerful ripple effect that influences the entire campaign, so your support is amplified!
We’ve got a bunch of other fun backer rewards, including t-shirts, hoodies, and other add-ons. Be sure to check out our Kickstarter page for details.
