The Tattered Weave is a browser-based virtual community where you make friends with the elusive kith, craft items, and play games to earn prizes — all while exploring a world riven by chaos.
At the heart of the Tattered Weave is a story — the story of a world recovering from a Cataclysm. A thousand years ago, the Unmaker ripped the world to shreds, leaving only Hope, a small remnant of the world shielded from the destruction by an ancient hero.
Now, the world is coming back together. Mysterious creatures called Kith have emerged from the chaos that surrounds Hope. They say that the people of Hope are not the only survivors of the Cataclysm and that other remnants exist somewhere out there, waiting to be discovered.
Rather than the end of the world, this is a story of the beginning of a new one, one that will be shaped by your decisions in the game. Actions will have consequences, and you can determine what sort of world forms from the pieces of the old.
The Tattered Weave is a virtual community that will offer players the opportunity to create a personalized avatar, befriend the mysterious Kith, play games, and interact with other players. Below are the major features we're including at launch. Unlocking stretch goals will add more features to the site.
Kith are intelligent creatures who are looking for allies to help them learn and change. Each Kith has one of 13 dynamic personalities. You can shape your Kith's personality through your choice of food, toys, games, books, and more. Their forms grow as you teach them, and you can unlock special forms through quests and events. You can see more about the kith in our teaser video.
Each account has an avatar with 12 skin tones and 4 poses that are not gender-locked. Drag-and-drop wearable items allow you to change how you layer your apparel, giving you loads of creative freedom in your fashion. This avatar is your face to the rest of the site, and we're building in lots of functionality with the forums. See the avatars in action in our teaser video.
You can change the fate of world and its characters by participating in major story events. Each of the characters in the game has a unique personality and varying relationship levels with you. As you help the characters more and more, they become friendlier, which gives you sway over their actions during events. Meet the characters yourself in two of our teaser videos.
We love games, and we're planning to pack Tattered Weave with minigames. We'll be making a wide variety to ensure that we have something for everyone. Through these games, you can earn rewards that can be used to collect items or complete quests. See the games in action in our teaser video.
Crafting is a major component of the Tattered Weave. Our first crafting system is cooking. Cooking allows you to whip up some delicious delectables, which can affect the personality of your Kith. We have a second crafting system, tailoring, as a stretch goal. With tailoring, you can make fashionable clothing to your precise taste and then wear it on your avatar. More crafting options are planned for future releases, such gardening where you can grow your own plants to use as ingredients.
Interactivity is a major part of the Tattered Weave. You can meet and make friends online through the forums, which offer handy formatting, customizable subscription options, notifications, and spoiler tags. You can also communicate directly through messages, which are one-on-one conversations that have the same formatting options available. Learn more about the forums in our teaser video.
Had enough of the bells and whistles and want to see what's under the hood? Sure, let's take a look.
Coding
We have brought in Lightsky to provide the coding expertise. Lightsky has a great deal of experience designing sites like Tattered Weave. They have created a robust system of databases to keep query and waiting time for players to a minimum. We'll be testing this extensively through alpha and beta periods. Backers gain access during Closed Beta and can help us kick the tires to make sure this thing runs like greased lightning.
Servers
We'll be using the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) as our server. Amazon EC2 is a flexible service that provides resizable computing capacity in the cloud and is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. When the site traffic grows, the server automatically scales with it. So as Tattered Weave gets bigger, you won't notice any slowdown in the service.
Compatibility
We designed the Tattered Weave to function with any major Internet browser. No special program is needed to play; no app has to be downloaded. You can access it on your desktop, tablet, phone or other mobile device that is capable of using HTML 5. This includes all our games.
Beta
With a site this complex, we have to do a beta before a public launch. We anticipate Closed Beta beginning around June 15, and backers can be a part of it. We'll be inviting backers to join the Closed Beta in waves in the order in which they backed. So early backers will get higher priority.
This Kickstarter campaign will cover the costs for one year of server space, paying the artists who contributed to the Kickstarter, and any fees that we incur running the campaign. We're expecting Tattered Weave to be popular, and we're going to need a lot of server space. Server space can get expensive in a hurry, but it is crucial to a successful virtual community. The lion's share of the Kickstarter funds will cover the server costs.
We are allocating $4,650 for server space and $750 to pay the artists who are contributing to this Kickstarter. The remaining $500 will cover the Kickstarter and credit card processing fees. Any funds raised above our project goals will be spent adding more art and more functionality to the web site.
Tattered Weave is a production of Mythmakers. We're a team of writers, artists, and coders that like chasing dreams.
Eric Menge is an author, publisher, and game-designer. He has written for Wizards of the Coast, AEG, and Raging Swan Press. Under duress he will admit that he is also an attorney, specializing in contract and technology law.
Diane is a queer girl who, once upon a time, was saved by a story. Now she hopes to help others in need of a story that tells them they matter.
Steph Stober is a freelance illustrator who never quite grew out of cartoons and comic books. Most of her time is spent drawing and spoiling her two rabbits.
Tattered Weave is too big for the three of us alone. Above are the artists and writers who are helping us make this project possible.
We would also like to give a special thanks to our guest artists, listed above, who contributed their talents to the Kickstarter campaign.
You can follow the development of Tattered Weave as we post announcements and videos to our site and social media.
Risks and challenges
Mythmakers has already overcome most of the risks and challenges for this project. We have been creating Tattered Weave for several years, and the site is nearly complete. Diane has worked closely with Lightsky so we have a solid platform for the site. Steph has brought together a talented group of artists who have created hundreds of pieces of art. Both of these investments are already in place and are not dependent on this Kickstarter.
This Kickstarter will provide us with the funds to host the site for the players who join us. The biggest foreseeable risk is that some parts of the site may take longer to finish and have some bugs. Backers can join the Closed Beta testing of the site and help us make it even better. Should any delays arise, we will inform all our backers as soon as possible and keep you informed with the status of the site.
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Funding period
- (30 days)