Cold Fusion: Secular Equilibrium

Cold Fusion: Secular Equilibrium predicts a grim future awaiting mankind.  Environmental disaster, uncontrolled technology, and war have left the earth barely hospitable.  You will explore a world where mankind struggles to survive, recorded history is scarce, answers are hard to find, and people aren't always who they seem.

Foreseeing Earth's troubling trends and inability to support its population,  American space exploration teams developed cryogenic sleep as a way to distribute mankind throughout the galaxy to colonize new planets.  The technology had been perfected in 2027, but this proved too late.  The project died along with the rest of civilization.

Civillian physicist Thadeus "Thomas" Manhattan was selected for the cryogenic sleep chamber's experimental maiden voyage, and from his vantage point in orbit he was the only man to witness the demise of earth from beyond its reach.  First he saw the blasts, then the radio went silent.  Though he couldn't hear them, Thomas Manhattan felt the screams of pain as he gazed helplessly back at the only home mankind would ever have.

Now unable to return home until radiation levels recede, Manhattan is entering cryogenic sleep for an unexpected extension.  He doesn't know what is awaiting the future of mankind, himself, or the planet.  What he will discover will change everything he believed about the world he left behind, and leave him with the ultimate decision of how it will proceed.

What makes Cold Fusion different from any other game?

• An old west motif creates a steampunk inspired dystopic setting.
• Multiple-solution format supports diverse play-styles and replay value, and multiple potential endings dependent on the players choices.  These will be REAL separate endings.  Not a "different color explosion" ending, and not a "which button you pushed in the last 30 seconds" ending we've seen in some recent games.  Who is in your party, who lived and died in your adventure, even what items you decided to bring along will affect your end of game options.
• Enemies will detect and pursue the player, confrontation is not always the best option.
• All enemies are in-map. Combat is a tactical choice and there will be no random encounters. Cold Fusion is a puzzle/mystery game at its core, and random encounters would interrupt the player's thought process.
• Survivalist skills of the player will be tested, poor decisions will result in real, permanent consequences to the player and their party.  For example: Using a found whiskey still correctly can yield liquor, however mistakes can create poison or possibly explosions.
• Leveling system is based on equipment and skills growth, not battle experience.  This is to encourage the player to scavenge areas and make survival choices.
• Player interactions with NPC's significantly influence gameplay.  To do  what it takes survive, you will need a silver tongue, fleet foot, deep pockets, or an itchy trigger.  The choice is yours.
• Party members are the choice of the leader, but be warned that in this harsh and lawless world, you will not be able to bring everyone with you and situations may force the player to choose between being a friend and being a survivor.

Game Specification

We want this game to be available to all players, so we've done our best to keep system requirements at a minimum.  The resolution is low by modern standards - which helps to mimic classic console graphics.  Our goal is to make it possible for anyone with a base model PC or laptop to play!

• Available on all Windows OS.  Sorry, no mac or console support
• Classic 640x480 VGA graphics, 24-bit color
• Playable full-screen or in-window.
• 500MB or more hard drive space recommended
• 256MB or more of RAM recommended
• Digital download or CD versions will be available
• Single-player
• No save points - you can save at anytime during game-play
• Estimated release date December 1st, 2012 

Illustration Samples By Diego Candia

Diego Candia will be creating the custom cutscene artwork for this project.  The end product of Cold Fusion will include hand illustrated cutscenes.  The scenes will fully voiced still frames, making each an in-game mini graphic novel.  Here is some of Diego's work from previous projects:

see more at www.diegocandia.com

Game Concept Screenshots!

Please note that these may vary slightly in the final cut.  The content and theme will not change, but the map appearance might.  These are only mock-ups.  To those familiar with RMXP and Ruby scripting, we will be using original and user-created mapsets (such as in screenshot 1).  We will NOT be using the stock display or engine, and will absolutely NOT being using the RTP tilesets.  You are paying for an original and unique game, you will be getting nothing less!

Fighting is always an option, but talking or escaping is as well.  Start the fight yourself and take your opponent by surprise, or try to escape and risk discovery. Cold Fusion supports your play-style!

Explore immersing and complex maps, uncover secret locations, and find your way through the unfamiliar new world.

Stumble upon mysteries and work to solve them - if you believe the task is worth the reward. There won't be any arrows pointing you exactly where to go, so the sleuthing is up to you.

As you can see, we're really exited to get building this expansive and intriguing world.  There will be several optional story divergences and plenty of side-quests to reward the thoroughly investigative player.

Voice Talent

All cut-scenes in the game will be fully voiced.  These actors will be directed by the creator and script supervisor to ensure that the performances are in harmony with the personalities and motivation of the characters.   While voice talent casting is still pending auditions, a few actors we would prefer have already been solicited.  To save costs, we will be recording at our local Western Washington University audio lab and editing the voice samples in-house.

Original Music Score By Will Phillips

Will Phillips (AKA Willy Mojo) is an electronic composer with 10 years experience who is currently working with Elite Sync Lab.  We picked him because of his dynamic flexibility and excitement to work with small independent operations. However, there is nothing I can say that will speak to his talent as well as his music, Listen to Will's amazing compositions for yourself:  http://soundcloud.com/will_phil601/sets/compositions-71/

Why do we need your contribution?

Members of our team are capable writers, programmers, scientists, RPG fans, steam-punk artists, and graphic designers.  Unfortunately we are not musicians, we are not voice actors, and we are not illustrators.

Our creative image for the final product will be rich with hand illustrated and professionally voiced cinematic cut-scenes and full-length musical tracks which express the ambient dramatic emptiness and tension of the post-apocalyptic world.  These will require a world-class illustrator, a talented musical composer, and a top notch crew of voice actors and recording artists.   These are the details which differentiate amateur projects from professional independent productions.

Your backing will provide the funding to hire these talented individuals to provide a more immersing experience. These funds also pay for the recording equipment and software used to record and polish our voice talent.  Because we are just a few people who love video games and don't have access to the huge budgets, production studios, and advertising media of the huge corporations which dominate the market, we can't accomplish a game of this quality without support from the community.  Funding beyond our requested amount will increase the frequency and quantity of cut-scenes and allow conversations and events previously planned as in-game cinematic to be fully illustrated and voice-acted. It will also allow us to expand our quantity and diversity of original music.  All to improve the quality of experience for the players!

Most importantly, we are asking for you to help fund our dreams.  We are new to the world of game creation, and want to take part in an industry which is overwhelmingly dominated by the big corporations (though we are huge fans of valve and steam) and we believe that is most cases fans make the best games in the world, not companies.

Boring Business Stuff

Let's get one thing straight - we are not in this for the money.  The amount we are asking for covers the expenses of our creative team, recording equipment, and distribution overhead.  It does not pay for the 6 months of full-time effort that Cold Fusion will require.  We are currently only seeking support for this, our first project.  Once Cold Fusion is ready for distribution our goal is to earn enough from sales of this game to fund future gaming projects unassisted.  Our marketing strategy of the finished product will be focused high-impression ads towards the single-player PC gaming community.  We will specifically hit heaviest advertising via Facebook and Google Adwords towards users with interest in similar titles such as modern post-apocalyptic RPGs, and a variety of classic RPGs and classic gaming consoles.  We will also be relying on a social media campaign to spread word of mouth among the gaming community.  We will be distributing digital downloads and hard-copy orders from our a private website and will be seeking steam support - however this can't be verified in advance.  We also seek to distribute hard copy editions of the game via local distributors, conventions, and trade shows.  We are telling you this so that you know we aren't just jumping straight into this project without any forethought.  We have budgeted our need appropriately, and we do have a plan once the game is finished!

Kicking It Forward: http://kickingitforward.org

Kicking It Forward (a voluntary progam not created by kickstarter) is a promise by kickstarter project creators to return 5% of any profit made from this project to other kickstarter projects.  We have a lot of faith and fun with kickstarter so we will be doubling that pledge and returning at least 10% of all profits to other kickstarter projects once Cold Fusion is complete, to give other indie developers a chance to pursue the same goal!  It's an easy promise for us to make because we already opt to support other projects and probably would have done so anyways.

Thank you very much for your contribution to Cold Fusion: Secular Equilibrium, you are helping make indie gaming happen!