Killing, My Friend is a first person 4 player co-op arcade shooter with over-the-top movie realism and stunts of 90's action movies.
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82
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$3,317
pledged of $175,000 goal
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Killing, My Friend is a first person 4 player co-op arcade shooter with over-the-top movie realism and stunts of 90's action movies.
About this project
Start you career in action movies as Hollywood's newest action star! Pick your costumes, weapons and equipment and unlock more as you progress through your career. Film epic action sequences in exotic locales against a seemingly never-ending stream of bad guys. But watch out, your director likes to improvise on the set and may throw new challenges and goals to up the ante and make your scene the most over-the-top and over-budget action sequence ever put to film. If you survive to the end you just might reap the rewards...
Killing, My Friend is a co-op shooter in the same vein as games like Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty Zombies or Mass Effect 3 multiplayer but with gameplay and aesthetics similar to Double Action: Boogaloo and Action Half-Life. Using ‘movie realism’ and stunts of classic 80’s and 90’s action movies, players attempt to survive to the end of the last wave while also competing against their fellow actors to earn the most Fame (points). And to earn that Fame, the players can perform stunts like dives, slides, rolls, wall running, and more to get bonuses while getting the most stylish kills. Killing, My Friend features a unique stunt system layered on top of traditional FPS gameplay with combos and bonuses that are easy to do but hard to master.
Play in either first person or third person. Player choice is king in Killing, My Friend.
Characters, costumes and weapon models will be fully customizable including items that are unlockable during gameplay (No micro-transactions!)
Players play both cooperatively and competitively all during the same game. To survive you must cooperate, but to win the match you must do it in the most stylish way.
Localization will include: German, Finnish, Spanish and Russian either with either subtitles or VO.
- Killing, My Friend uses the Unreal Engine 4 and features a more comic or toon style aesthetic.
Read the IndieDB links in the section below to learn more about the planned features for our game. And check out our original announcement trailer from back in July:
Thanks in advance for your time and support.
Over the last year we’ve written up some short previews of how the game will work and the features we have planned for Killing, My Friend. We’re linking them here to show backers and potential backers exactly what Killing, My Friend will be all about and how far we’ve come. And we have a few more articles in the hopper to upload during our campaign too so keep an eye out!
The Director and the MacGuffin
Special FX and Co-Op Gameplay Features
More coming soon…
Hard-Boiled Software is a new independent game developer from the minds that brought you Action Half-Life and Double Action: Boogaloo. We're now bringing our talent and expertise to the indie game market. The team at Hard-Boiled Software have experience shipping and maintaining popular mods (and even a few AAA titles) and building communities. We have a great mixture of industry vets, mod scene pioneers and new talent with a passion for the action movie sub-genre we pioneered.
Action Half-Life became a game that spawned more than its fair share of imitators and innovators: Blood Opera, The Specialists (It's even inspired another Kickstarter! ) From there the project grew and eventually became one of the most popular Half-Life mods of the era. AHL has maintained a very loyal and rabid fan base that lasts to this day.
More recently the mantle of the action movie genre was picked up by the Double Action Factory who went on to produce Double Action: Boogaloo the latest in the action movie stunt genre. And with over a million downloads on Steam they introduced a whole new generation of gamers to action movie shooters.
Our goal for Killing, My Friend is to take our 15+ years worth of testing, research and just plain passion for playing the original Action mods and their close cousins The Specialists and Double Action: Boogaloo and apply it to a modern stand-alone game. And we want to take that unique action movie shooter experience out of multiplayer PvP and into Co-Op. If Action Half-Life or Double Action: Boogaloo is Die Hard as a lone hero against all odds, then Killing, My Friend is a buddy picture, say, Lethal Weapon. Or perhaps A Better Tomorrow Part II... Yeah, that.
Our stretch goals reflect both actual development goals and features we’d love to see be a part of Killing, My Friend. Each goal not met will either be added as free updates after we release (like PVP) or may be scrapped altogether to keep within our projected schedule. And each goal is also a reflection of how much it will realistically cost us to reach these objectives within the time frame we’ve set out.
This Kickstarter campaign should be looked at as both an opportunity to seed Killing, My Friend with some much needed funds and to accelerate production on the goals below.
It’s familiar territory, but with a twist: Are you a long time Action fan, a recent Double Action: Boogaloo convert or perhaps a long-time fan of Left 4 Dead? Maybe you played the heck out of Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer co-op, or you are just a fan of shooters in general, there’s something you’ll find familiar to you about Killing, My Friend. Cozy even. But we guarantee you’ll also find something new and unique with Killing, My Friend gameplay as well.
Familiar FPS controls: Whether playing with a mouse/keyboard or a controller, first or third person, we’ve used current popular shooters control systems as a template to make it easy to pick-up and play.
Easy to play, hard to master: This has been our design mantra from the beginning. Anybody can jump in and have a good time. If you have FPS skills, they will apply here. At least to keep you alive. But to pump up that high score, you’ll have to learn how to maximize Fame with stunts and killing with style.
Never the same game twice: The Director, who is both the Director of the ‘movie’ and the AI director, calls the shots. You’ll have keep on your toes. If you do too well, he may get bored and make the game harder to spice it up, or throw new goals at you to complete to keep it interesting. Or he’ll fret over your poor performance and fire the extras and make it easier. However it goes down, no two games will play the same.
Co-Op gameplay married with competitive gameplay: At its heart Killing, My Friend is a co-op shooter. But there’s another layer of gameplay mixed in with the stunt system and Fame scoring. You can’t just steal the limelight or upstage your friends or you won't survive. You’ll need their aid to make it to the end .But you can look better doing it.
True First Person Characters: (aka ‘body awareness’) character models. There won’t be floating arms here. Your first person movements will be the exact same as seen by other players in third person. There are no rigged 1P arms for your movie star, the entire character body is modeled and view-able at all times. So you’ll be able to look down and see that awesome costume you picked out, even in first person.
Four Player Spit Screen: Yes, you read that right. Couch co-op. What better way to play with your friends than with them all in the same room!
Below is a rough timeline of our development plan. Although very difficult to give specific dates, here's our general plan for release, starting with STEAM EARLY ACCESS in Q4 2016.
We anticipate the Full Game Release should take an additional 6-9 months after the Early Access release. However the Early Access version will be a fully functioning vanilla version of the game. Costume customization, weapon customization, Permanent Mods, extra maps and other bells and whistles will likely come during early access. But you’ll be able to play as our four Heroes in a solid build as we add those features during Early Access.
The "Gruber" Statuette is being sculpted and produced by former AHL developer Chris Moore aka Moore+. Check out his store: http://www.webecomemonsters.com/
NOTE: The items you see for sale here in the add-on store are representations of what the product is intended to look like but there may be some changes. Since we’ll have to wait to be funded before we contact vendors for the physical items, there may be some slight differences between what you see here and what the end product looks like.
For us, this campaign is more than joining with the community to fund a great game. It's about a passionate group of developers bringing together a community of gamers. Gamers who first and foremost like have fun playing a game they love. And discussing action movies. So to encourage people to get involved and share their enthusiasm for Killing, My Friend, we have created a set of achievements and goals for you to collectively complete. As you all work together to complete them, your combined efforts will unlock cool content in the game and fun rewards for Backers. And help us get closer to our goal of funding the game.
Below, you will find a list of achievements. Each achievement accomplished earns a point. Below the missions is a list of Goals and the points required to unlock them.
Make sure you use the hashtag #KMFGame so we can track all your participation!
The Goals listed below are not just about getting the word out.They’ll bring some fun additions to game and add value to every backer tier.
Our team is international and spread so far and wide the sun never sets on Hard-Boiled Software.There are currently team members in the US on both coasts and parts between, also Germany, India, Finland, and Australia.
We have lined up some really great talent to help bring Killing My Friend to life. Here's a few samples:
JEREMY CARTER – The Director
Jeremey is a cofounder of the Superego Podcast, occasionally popping up on the Thrilling Adventure Hour, The Dead Authors podcast, the Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project, Comedy Bang Bang, and the Super Serious Show. Anywhere Superego is found, Jeremy will be there. He is on a raw dough diet. Known to zone out. Jeremy loves animals, superheroes, action figures, Stratocasters, and once got drunk with Dave Grohl. He has performed with ComedySportz and was a founding member of the five man sketch group Der Monkenpickle. Jeremy has appeared in numerous Channel 101 shorts, particularly: Ultraforce, Buckle Up! and Time Belt (where he was given the opportunity to play Adolph Hitler as Ricardo Montalbán). He performs at various venues in the greater Los Angeles area.
Here's some samples of his work on Killing, My Friend:
Follow Jeremy @ShuntMcGuppin
Sam Garner - Composer
Sam has composed for a variety of video games, ranging from top down shooter action games to creepy ambient forest games. He has also worked with clients all over the world. Sam had the privilege of having several of his cues recorded by the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, one of the premier student Orchestras in the nation. Sam composed music for a short film featured on CBS news, and also composed music for another short film that won TXU’s “Light Up The Red Carpet” contest. In addition, Sam wrote music for a TV show that airs in Nashville, Tennessee. Sam is currently composing for several new exciting games soon to be released.
You can hear his work on our announcement trailer above and the theme song from our latest trailer. Here's the opening music for our Hong Kong level:
And speaking of our theme song from our latest trailer, we have something to share about what makes it so awesome: It was sung by none other than Lady Sylvanas (of World of Warcraft fame) Vangie Gunn!
We were Greenlit in a whirlwind 11 days by the Steam community! Check out our Greenlight page here.
Join our Steam Group here: Killing, My Friend
PRESS
Check out some of the coverage we've already received:
Rock Paper Shotgun - Killing, My Friend is for Action Heroes
Co-Optimus - You Can Die Hard In Killing, My Friend
Linkers - Killing, My Friend. Un co-op al estilo matrix y en primera persona
The Action Elite - Action Movie Videogame
It's hard to make ends meet as an independent developer. The entire team has been working on Killing, My Friend like we did our mods in years past: part time and during every waking moment of free time. Now we really need some outside help to afford to make this game a reality.
To be clear, the basic amount we're asking for this campaign is strictly to cover the costs to continue and allow us to reach our goal of making Killing, My Friend and share it with all of you. Outside of paying off debts incurred up until this point and any taxes and fees, the majority of the funds will be put directly into development of Killing, My Friend, including allowing two of our team members to remain full time working on the game. And the graph above illustrates the breakdown.
Our team already has experience working online in different locations and different time zones. It's been the bread and butter of the mod scene. And it's our specialty. What the funds will do is give us the ability to work with professional tools and talent that will allows us to keep the timeline we've laid out.
Risks and challenges
Making a game is never an easy undertaking, and lately Kickstarter has had it's share of examples. All developers have to deal with a variety of risks. Here's how we're dealing with them:
FINANCIAL RISK: We have invested our personal money into Killing, My Friend to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, and we are fully prepared to do whatever is necessary to reach completion. This is a project a long time coming and one we intend to see through to the end. We wouldn't be asking for your support if we didn't already have our own skin in the game. Which brings us to the real risk:
SCHEDULE RISK: The completion date for the game is an estimate based upon our experience running similar game projects in the past. Should some features take longer than expected to implement, there is a chance that the completion date will slip. If we feel this is necessary for the good of the game, we promise to be transparent about any date changes and keep you, the backers, informed along the way. Even better: we plan to release the game on Early Access part way through development, so even if final completion date moves, you'll get hands-on with the game before then.
FEATURE RISK: And to keep us on schedule we have a detailed game design doc we intend to stick to. That said we will be listening to design suggestions and feedback of our backers during the alpha and beta testing so some of the features described here may end up being cut from the game because they just aren't fun, or some may be added to fill a gap that is discovered during testing. We intend to make the game described here but some changes may need to be made along the way. We will try to keep those at a minimum. There will be no feature bonanza because we got funded above our goals.
Thank you for backing and helping make our dream game great. We hope you'll join us on set!
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Have a question? If the info above doesn't help, you can ask the project creator directly.
Rewards
Funding period
- (30 days)