Kickstarter

Lithic is a Prehistoric Fantasy Real-Time Strategy game for the PC much in the vein as God-games such as Populous and Black and White. Players will be able to build the origins of a society in a universe where magic is abound yet untamed, and the environment is as much the enemy as other creatures are.

The aim of Lithic is for the player to take control of a prehistoric tribe and guide them to learn skills and culture to be able to help send a Creator Spirit back to the ethereal plane. The player controls their tribe through the eyes of this Creator Spirit. The tribe will need to learn skills from basic hunting/gathering and communication through to culture and religion. The player will have to deal with the possibility of encountering other tribes and wild prehistoric creatures, as well as the challenge of the environment.  

Knowledge, Tech-Trees and Permadeath

Lithic will have several features that we know will set it apart from other RTS games.

The AI will control a large amount of the standard everyday tasks that the tribe needs to function, such as sleeping and eating. This means that players won’t have to micro manage tribe members and can be more focused on long term goals and events.

There will be tech-trees for each individual tribe member rather than one for the whole tribe. The player will need to not only focus on the learning of skills but the passing of that skill knowledge to other tribe members. A death in the tribe isn’t the end of the game, but that tribe member is permanently dead, as is all the knowledge they held.

The final version of Lithic will have the following features:

• Expansive single player story campaign
• Randomly generated Skirmish Mode - Procedurally generated skirmishes give the player infinite replay value. 
• A new dark fantasy world to explore - with 3 different playable environments, each with it's own unique challenges
• Five Races to Play - Each one a unique experience and visual design. Four races will be available initially, the Ix-Aan can be unlocked during gameplay.
• Intelligent technology advancement, new technology is learned when related tools are used or relevant tasks are performed.
• Cultural development - Art, traditions and ritual all evolve depending on in-game occurrences.
• Procedural language system -Your tribe develops language as needed, evolving better communication and allowing for more complex tactics to be employed.
• Influence system - control your tribe through subtle compulsion or through direct possession.

A dark expanse, pin-pricked with tiny blinking lights. Each blinking light a star thought into the universe by a Creator Spirit, ethereal beings from another plane, bearing near unlimited power. Each star is the glowing heart of a solar system, each planet lovingly crafted by a single Creator, shaped and populated by their will.

A force thrums through every planet, tree, river, every grassy plain and frozen tundra. Simply called Magic by the Creators, it sits dormant. There's a destructive promise in it’s silence, the calm before a storm. The storm is held in check by the Creators, their mastery over it allowing them to indefinitely hold Magic's primal rage at bay.

A planet, Khampos, sings with magic's silent melody. Magic here feels stronger, louder. Of the planet's many denizens, a race of reptilian humanoids calling themselves the Ix-Aan has risen above those it shares the world with. In becoming self-aware they have found strange forces in their surroundings and beings of greatness hidden in unreachable shadows. A voice whispers to them, speaking a language they comprehend but couldn't utter themselves. It tells them of the Creators and their benevolence, it tells them that these Spirits may even share their power with those pious few who worship them as gods.

A ritual has been prepared, the purpose is simple: free a Creator from its shadow prison so it can lead the Ix-Aan as a god-king and allow them to drink in its glorious power. A stone dais has been carved from obsidian, crude decoration covers every inch of it, depicting huge, grinning humanoids standing proud above a sea of prostrate Ix-Aan – visions of their so desperately wanted future. Atop the dais stand a circle of tall Ix-Aan, their scaled hides painted more extravagantly and their loose robes brighter than those of the other, shorter reptilian creatures now amassing around the base of the dais. Hundreds, no, thousands of the Ix-Aan encircle the obsidian platform, their excited chattering and barking almost deafening.

The tallest of those atop the dais raises a long clawed hand and silence falls. Its scaled lips peel back in a macabre smile at the utter obedience and willing of its subjects. An altar carved of the same obsidian as the dais stands in the centre of the circle of tall-ones, upon it sits a small curved piece of sharpened stone, no more significant than any other flint cutting edge. The tallest, grin still present, moves towards the altar. Taking this as a signal, the circle closes around the tallest, raising fisted talons, uttering guttural hisses and barks in unison - a primitive chant, a song for the gods.  

The tallest reaches the altar, the smile fading from its face to be replaced by grim determination. The stone blade has appeared in its hand, it doesn't remember picking it up. It knows what must come next. The gathered mass falls quiet, the anticipation palpable amongst the circle of tall ones, the silent elation spreading to those Ix-Aan surrounding the dais. With baited breath, the tallest raises the blade and, without hesitation, drives the edge into its chest.  

Nothing.  

For the longest moment nothing could be seen or heard by any of those gathered. Then, as they came to their senses the tall ones discovered that it wasn't a lack of sound or light that caused this sensory black hole, but an unstoppable onslaught of blinding light and blaring sound. The tallest slumped over the altar, the last of its lifeblood seeping from the self-inflicted wound above its heart. Its glazed eyes saw nothing, it heard nothing, felt nothing, not even as a brilliant beam of blue energy swept down from the heavens itself, bringing those present to their doom and in the process, perhaps dooming the universe itself.

There are 4 base tribes in Lithic with the Ix-Aan as an unlockable tribe on the game’s completion. Each member of the tribe will have individual personality traits that will affect their behaviour in game. Certain tribes are pre-disposed to certain traits over others and a player will be able to select traits for the Alpha member of each Tribe. 

The Hob-Aan 

At around 4-5ft tall the Hob-Aan are a volatile race that re-produce at an alarming rate. Their personality traits tend to be aggressive and modest. They live in large packs and are prone to fighting amongst themselves. Their short life span leads to a recklessness that can be both a blessing and a curse in combat. 

The Hu-Aan 

Closest in relation the modern-day human, the Hu-Aan are a tribe that work really well together. They are pre-disposed to the selfless trait and this allows them to excel in hunting and combat as well as easily spread knowledge amongst each other to learn new skills. For the Hu-Aan the symbol of the circle is important and advanced Hu-Aan will build round houses in circles to house their tribe. 

The Lit-Aan  

The Lit-Aan are fey-like creatures in the world of Lithic. Speed and dexterity are their strengths but they are a selfish and proud race who often refuse to share their knowledge with each other. The Lit-Aan are led by a female Alpha and dwell around the base of trees. Their dwellings are highly decorated with feathers and other trinkets, with the males of the tribe often seeking to out-do each other. 

The Ur-Aan  

Standing at 8ft tall and covered head to foot in fur, the Ur-Aan could be mistaken for a fearsome foe. They are in fact gentle giants, preferring to gather rather than hunt. Slow yet strong when coerced into battle these tribe members can easily bring down their foe. The Ur-Aan live in family groups and pass knowledge between each other during mutual grooming sessions. 

The Ix-Aan 

The accidental antagonists of Lithic, the Ix-Aan are a race destroyed by their own quest for power and knowledge. Those who are left wander the world, barely sentient, looking for the nearest food source. The Ix-Aan work differently to other tribes in the game as they are almost machine like in their actions, performing tasks until they are forced to do something else. The Ix-Aan will be an unlockable race in the final version of Lithic. 

Other inhabitants 

As well as the main tribes of Lithic, the game will play host to various animals and creatures. We have drawn upon animals that actually roamed the earth millions of years ago. These animals will be sources of food and other resources for the tribes. 

There are also various Elementals in Lithic. These are flora and fauna that have had Creator Spirits from the Ix-Aan’s disastrous ritual thrust into them. These elementals will provide fearsome foes for your tribe but with great reward for those who are successful in beating them. 

The environment in Lithic is designed to be as much as a living component within the game as the characters and animals are. Lithic is about survival and the environment in the game is an enemy as much as the most vicious elemental is. 

There will be three different types of environment designed for the completed version of Lithic. These are Temperate, Arid and Tundra. The temperate world is currently what you can see in the screenshots and is what will feature in the first Early Access version of the game. 

Each environment will have its own resources and challenges giving a new game experience to the player each time. The environment will be made up of various ‘zones’ which will impact gameplay in some way. There are no ‘dead zones’ as such in Lithic, each one will have a use for the player. Examples of zones are habitation, resources such as food, encounters and discovery. Encounters are events such as enemies which can result in rewards for the player and their tribe. Discovery could be the discovery of special items or knowledge from the previous Ix-Aan tribe. How the tribe interprets these items and knowledge will be dependent on how the tribe has developed and choices the player has made previously in the game. 

The sound in the game is being drawn on from traditional tribal music. There is a lot of percussion and basic drum beats making up the starting music of Lithic, but like the game itself, the hope is to show a progression in the development of the soundtrack as well as the game advances. We feel that the tracks themselves will speak louder than anything we have to say so please listen to two of the composed tracks below.

Lithic is being developed in Unity 5, which gives us the power to make a high quality game, both visually and mechanically with only a very small team. It's an incredibly flexible engine and making use of some of the various plug-ins available on the asset store we've been able to speed up development considerably. 

Unity 5 also allows us to use Physically Based Rendering, which when combined with software such as Allegorithmic's Substance software allows us to very quickly get great looking textures into the game. Without getting too technical these textures can be randomised in several ways to give plenty of diversity between objects using the same texture. This has been put to great use with character models, allowing us to give them a really wide array of different looks ensuring that every Tribe-member is visually unique. 

We are looking to raise £10,000 for Lithic. We have already invested a large amount of personal funds into this project and this money will help us to bring Lithic to an Early Access release, with one playable race. 

The budget will mainly cover the cost of fully implementing animation within the game. It will allow us to develop the final assets that we need to get our game world looking as fantastic as we can get it and it will allow us to create the fully playable world that we desire. 

We also plan to invest some of the money into sound development for the game. In particular our sound designer Benn wishes to hire a choir and money from the Kickstarter will allow him to do that.

We understand that this budget looks small compared to what other video game developers out there are asking for but this is due to our own funds that have been invested already in Lithic. Below you can see the breakdown of the budget and how we intend to use the money raised by the Kickstarter. 

The stretch goals for Lithic are somewhat different to how other video game campaigns may present them. 

We know what we want to achieve with the final version of Lithic. We will not be adding extra items to our feature list, but instead the stretch goals will allow us to release a more complete version of Lithic when we go to Early Access. 

Up to £50,000 - for every £10,000 raised above our initial budget we will be able to implement another race in Lithic Early Access. In what order we do this will be up to our backers. No matter how much money you’ve donated to this Kickstarter you will get a say in what race comes into the game next! 

Up to £90,000 – For every £20,000 raised beyond £50,000 we will be implementing another environment into the game world in Early Access. Again we will be looking to the backers to decide what order we create these environments in. 

Above £90,000 – At this point we will not be releasing Lithic in Early Access. Instead everyone who has backed us and received a copy of the game will have access to Lithic in Beta testing. We will be able to bring Lithic to completion.

All reward estimated deliveries are for the initial £10,000 target. Delivery Estimates may change if we reach any of the stretch goals. Please see above.

Chalk Tier £5 You get an exclusive Lithic Desktop Wallpaper. You also get an exclusive wallpaper of Mac, our company mascot. What better way to spend a fiver?! Estimated Reward Delivery: November 2015

Bone (Early Bird Tier) £12 Early Bird Tier – Everything on the Bone Tier but for cheaper! Exclusive 200 available for the first 48 hours of the campaign only, once they are gone they are gone. Estimated Reward Delivery: November 2015

Bone Tier £15 A digital copy of Lithic, plus the Chalk Tier. Estimated Reward Delivery: November 2015

Limestone Tier £20 An exclusive badge on our Flintlock Studios’ Forum, a Thank You Credit in Game and All previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier.
The Thank You Credit name is subject to approval by the Flintlock Studios team, no brand names, derogatory terms or profanity. Estimated Reward Delivery: November 2015

Sandstone Tier £35 
A digital copy of the soundtrack to our game plus all previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier. Estimated Reward Delivery: November 2015

Granite Tier £50
PDF Lore book of the history of Lithic and All previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier. Estimated Reward Delivery: May 2016

Flint Tier (limit of 100) £75 2 Tickets to our exclusive launch party to be held in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK (transport not provided) All previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier. 
Attendees to our launch party must be aged 18 or over. The launch party will be held during an Alpha Newcastle evening. Exact Date to be confirmed. Estimated Reward Delivery: May 2016

Quartz Tier (Limit of 50) £100 Exclusive Lithic stone, a piece of actual Yorkshire! All previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier. Estimated Reward Delivery: November 2015

Jade Tier (Limited 20) £250 Hard copy of the lore book Plus come have a drink with us at the launch party. This tier includes all previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier. Estimated Reward Delivery: May 2016

Obsidian Tier (Limited 10) £500 Awesome Skype meeting with the devs to chat about Lithic and whatever you like plus all previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier.
Skype Meeting will be one hour long and will be with Lead Developer Tom and Lead Designer Jon. Exact date of meeting to be arranged with backers of this reward. Estimated Reward Delivery: January 2016

Lithic Tier (Limited 9) £1000 Work with the Devs on creating and naming an in-game elemental. All previous rewards excluding Early Bird Tier.
All designs subject to approval from the Flintlock Studios Team. Elemental name is subject to approval by the Flintlock Studios team, no brand names, derogatory terms or profanity.  Estimated Reward Delivery: January 2016

Ethereal Tier (Limited 1) £2000 Awesome meeting at the studio with all of the team, we will play some table top games with you, and then take you out around the local area in the evening. Transport within the UK mainland and overnight accommodation included. All previous rewards. Estimated Reward Delivery: May 2016

Flintlock Studios is made up of a team of 6, all of whom who are dedicated to making Lithic happen. As we are such a small team everyone jumps in on various tasks depending on what needs to be done, although we have our focuses that you can read about more below. 

We are very close to getting Lithic to an Early Access State. We just need help to get over that final hurdle. We’ve invested a lot of time and money ourselves into this project to get it to where it is now. We’ve spent time building a community and we hope that this community will now help support us to reach our goal. We know Lithic could be considered a niche game but we want to prove that with your support, a small indie start up like ourselves can produce a beautiful and exciting game. 

Lithic has been in active development for around a year. In that year there has been a large proportion dedicated to research and development, before the game as you see it now came to fruition. The majority of things you see in Lithic have been influenced by real animals,  real plants that existed in a prehistoric period. Although ultimately a fantasy game we want Lithic to have a believability that will have any player truly immersed in the game. 

Over the coming months we want to develop Lithic to an Early Access State. Lithic is currently on Steam Greenlight which we feel will be successful, everything so far has pointed that way. 

We can’t put a definite deadline on when you will receive the game as it depends on how much we raise through this Kickstarter. We can say with confidence it will be within the next 12 months and as soon as this campaign has finished we can send all the backers an update with a more accurate date. 

You may want to learn more about Lithic. We have a series of Development Blogs that can be found on our website. Many of these will explain further how certain mechanics (such as the tech trees) are going to work, about the tribes and also covering some of the lore of Lithic. To head over to our blog or follow us on social media, click the buttons below.