About this project
LOST EMBER a story-driven exploration adventure PC/PS4/Xbox
€326,103
7,734
Thank you very much for supporting our Kickstarter! If you found out about Lost Ember too late and still want to support us, you can still do that at our homepage at lostember.com/shop!
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Deutsche Version (German translation)
Version française (French translation)
Version en español (Spanish translation)
Versão Português (Portugese translation)
русский версия (Russian translation)
日本語版 (Japanese translation)
中文版 (Chinese translation)
You can also support us via PayPal!
Up until now we financed the development of Lost Ember with contract works and side jobs. Now we finally want to show you what we have accomplished so far and ask for your support so we can start to work on our dream project full-time!
With Kickstarter we hope to raise the funds necessary to finish the development of our game while still staying independent and keeping our creative freedom.
If you don't know what Kickstarter is: you can buy the different editions of the game and if we reach our goal, the game will be developed and you will receive everything you ordered at the release of the game!
You can find out more about it here.
In Lost Ember you uncover the secrets of a fallen civilization as a wolf that has to find his place in the world. With the ability to control every animal you see, you have everything you need to find your way to Machu Kila - the city that shall answer all the questions that your mysterious companion raises.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay in Lost Ember focuses on experiencing the world and the story from fascinating perspectives. Each animal you can play offers new possibilities and opportunities for breathtaking moments. Dive into deep waters, fly at lofty heights, dig underground as a mole or even climb steep cliffs with a mountain goat. We want players to move through our world in their own pace without interrupting their gameflow with combat, too hard puzzles or dying in general.
THE COMPANION / STORY
On your journey you are guided by a companion that used to be part of the old Inrahsi culture and witnessed the fall of his world. As the last soul of the old civilization he wandered the world for an eternity, searching for someone who could help him on his quest.
His ability to show you his memories - echoes of the past - lets you relive what he's been through. These memories can be unveiled at different places throughout the world.
During the game, the wolf and his companion form a deep relationship of friendship and trust.
SWITCH PERSPECTIVES / GAMEPLAY
While the main character is the wolf, players can possess any other animal they encounter in our world which gives them great mobility. Some of the animals featured in Lost Ember are parrots, fish, moles, eagles, capybaras, mountain goats, buffalos and more. Additional animals are planned as part of some of our stretch goals.
These animals inhabit different areas in our world and while some occur in various scenarios, others may only populate a specific region. On their way to Machu Kila, the wolf and his companion cross through a lot of distinct areas with their own flora and fauna.
Lost Ember will be available for XBox One, PC and Playstation 4. If you buy the game here at kickstarter, you will be able to choose your preferred platform at release.
We plan to bring the PC version to Steam and GOG.com. Vote for us in our Greenlight campaign to get Lost Ember to Steam!
Yes, Lost Ember will be playable in VR! We already tested it with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift and let me tell you: it's awesome! We don't consider Lost Ember a "VR game", however, and still concentrate on the game itself and not the VR part. But if you have a VR headset at home, you will be able to switch on the VR mode at any given time and dive even deeper into our world. Whether we'll be able to bring Lost Ember to Playstation VR is still unsure.
Craig Connor (former Music Director at Rockstar North) and Will Morton (former Senior Audio Designer and Dialogue Supervisor at Rockstar North) from Solid Audioworks produce all music and sound for Lost Ember! With a combined experience of over 30 years in the games industry working on games like GTA I-V, Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire and more, they bring a ton of expertise and talent to the team. You can find out more about them at their homepage www.solidaudioworks.com.
We founded Mooneye Studios about 2 years ago after meeting in a game development masters program in university. We all worked in the games and media industry for several years and together as a team on some smaller projects. Soon we realized that we work extremely well together and since none of us wanted to work in a big company with huge hierarchies and no real creative freedom anymore, we took an a bit risky step and quit our jobs to start our own indie studio.
And that's us! :) From left to right we are:
Pascal Müller - Programming - @RichAndBit
Tobias Graff - Programming - @tobiasgrf
Florens Huhn - Narrative Designer - @FlorensWho
Matthias Oberprieler- 3D Artist - @MOberprieler
Maximilian Jasionowski- Art Direction - @M_Jasionowski
To make supporting our campaign as rewarding to you as possible, we thought of a bunch of really cool stuff that you can get in our reward tiers! The individual items are illustrated below:
Well, this one is pretty self-explanatory: you will get the game as soon as it's released for either PC, XBox One or PS4.
You will be mentioned in Lost Ember's credits!
The soundtrack for Lost Ember featuring music and sound by Craig Conner, Music Director for the entire GTA series and more, and Will Morton, former Dialogue Supervisor & Senior Sound Designer at Rockstar North.
Choose between 3 extra skins for your main character. Extra skins are only available during the kickstarter! After that, there won't be any option to change skins in the game.
You will get the PDF version of our artbook with a lot of concept art from the very early days up until the final product. We will explain some of our design decisions and try to give you an in-depth look behind the scenes of the development.
We will design a high-resolution wallpaper exclusively available to kickstarter backers!
A digital map of the game world with an overview over all the different areas from the wide grasslands to the decayed city of Machu Kila.
Get our printed hardcover artbook to browse through the pages and always have it at hand in your bookshelf.
Looking for that extravagant touch? Get our soundtrack on a 12″ Vinyl-LP! You will also have the option to choose a CD version of the soundtrack, if you don't have a way of playing a vinyl LP.
You will get access to the closed beta version of Lost Ember and help us to improve the game!
Revisit the places you found in-game and follow your path to Machu Kila on a poster of our game world!
Your chance to actually be in the game! Find your name on a memorial plate for fallen heroes, that is discoverable by all players and even holds a memory to uncover.
A few very rare legendary animals inhabit our world. While all players can find and possess some of these legendary animals, you will be able to find 3 additional animals that are kickstarter-exclusive!
6 additional deluxe wolf skins that are only available on kickstarter and let your wolf shine in a new light!
The Limited Boxed Edition of Lost Ember contains a key for the digital download of the game in an kickstarter-exclusive case with the soundtrack on CD, as well 3 postcards printed on high quality paper.
A handmade statue of Lost Ember's main character, crafted by the incredibly talented Isabel from www.allerleiunfug.de! This statue will be cast in resin, very high quality and roughly 18cm (7 inches) high.
A DIN A2 (that's 420 x 594 mm or 16.5 x 23.4 inches) poster of this amazing artwork.
Additionally to the regular poster, you will get one that is signed by the whole team!
Be one of the firsts to get your hands on Lost Ember with our alpha access key! Make Lost Ember an even better game by giving us your feedback and ideas.
You will get 2 tickets to Lost Ember's release party at the release of the game! We will celebrate with an amazing party in our hometown Hamburg in Germany.
Your travel costs are not included in this package.
The old Inrahsi emperors were buried in the tombs of Machu Kila. Massive statues still remind their descendants of their grandiosity. You can become one of them! You will be immortalized as one of the statues that we will design with you after your image. The tomb will be discoverable by all players and even be a part of our story.
You will get a premium mention in our credits to let the world know that you were a huge help in finishing our game!
And, because it's not long until Christmas, we thought of a little something to give to all our backers! We will send all of you a PDF with 11 different cards to print at home! So if you think about getting Lost Ember or some of the rewards as a present for your loved ones, you now have the perfect card for it :)
We've planned much more for Lost Ember than we have shown you here! In case we exceed our goal of ~$110,000 (100.000€) we can include even more awesome features. These are the first stretch goals we have planned:
Aside from our regular stretch goals, we planned a few social stretch goals through which you can decide which animals will be added to the game on top of the current 9! Participate at www.lostember.com/animals!
Kickstarter helps us secure funding for the development of Lost Ember while retaining full creative control. "Creative control", you ask? That means we can continue developing freely and independently without interference from the outside.
Now I'm gonna be honest here: with our target goal of $110,000 (100,000€) we still would need some additional funding from publishers or alike. However, the money would get us to a first, full alpha version of the game. It is the minimal budget that brings us to a point where we feel comfortable enough to talk to publishers about deadlines and all the features that we want in our game.
We're certain to be able to get that last chunk of money to finish Lost Ember, as we are already talking to several publishers who all are extremely interested in our game. So Lost Ember will be finished with just $110,000 (100,000€) from Kickstarter. But to get to a point where we could finish the game with full creative freedom we would need about $390,000 (350.000€). With that we could truly make Lost Ember everything we want it to be.
Now maybe some of you ask themselves, for what we need that much money. Well, one big reason is that we not only have to pay us and our office space, but also taxes, payment providers, and Kickstarter, who take 5% of the raised money. We made this little pie chart to visualize this for you.
Because we are a small independent team without a huge marketing budget, we thought of a little something special to spread the word about Lost Ember and our kickstarter campaign: During our campaign we will visit different youtubers, press and other indie developers in a camper van we got from Tobias' mother and uncle and play a pre-alpha demo of Lost Ember with them!
We want to show you how the current game looks and feels to give you a better idea of where it is heading. To make that a little more fun for you, we will make videos of the whole thing and upload them as often as we can to our youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/mooneyestudios.
So make sure to support the campaign to get notifications whenever we release a new video! :) You will be able to follow us and check out where we are constantly on a GPS map at our website at lostember.com/tour and, if we are anywhere near you, feel free to drop us a line and if possible, maybe we can arrange a meet-up and show you our demo in person!
SPECIAL THANKS
Risks and challenges
As we mentioned a few paragraphs above, we still would need money from publishers or partners like the IndieFund, if we get less than ~$390,000 (350.000€). And of course there is always the possibility that we don't get that. But with as many interested parties as we are already talking to at the moment and a successful kickstarter campaign in our bags, the likelihood of this is pretty low. And even if it happens, we can always go back to doing contract works or side-jobs as we do at the moment. That would of course increase the development time, especially if we get significantly less than $390,000 (350.000€), but we can definitely promise you that we'll do our best so that Lost Ember will see the light of day as soon and as magnificently as possible!
Another risk of the development is the release date, of course. We hope to be able to bring Lost Ember to you in early 2018, but there are always unforeseen factors that can delay the release of a game.
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Funding period
- (34 days)