SHAKER: An Old School RPG is 1st-person, party-based, fantasy/sci-fi RPG brought to you by award-winning veterans.
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7,505
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$244,932
pledged of $1,000,000 goal
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SHAKER: An Old School RPG is 1st-person, party-based, fantasy/sci-fi RPG brought to you by award-winning veterans.
About this project
CLOTH MAP TIER! You asked for it, and you got it! We have added a new tier which includes the cloth map at a lower level.
PREVIOUS UPDATES: Combat, combat, combat in Update #6, Gameplay, Party, Character, Crew & Professions in Update #5, More Story, Shaker Corporation & Concept Art in Update #4, Tech preview in Update #3 and Story Reveal in Update #2.
PRESS! Shaker: Old School RPG is receiving tons of press! Examiner, VentureBeat #1, VentureBeat #2, Gamasutra, Joystiq #1, Joystiq #2, Edge, Shack News, The Verge #1, The Verge #2, RPG Codex, AusGamers, VG247, The Escapist, Rampant Games, Eurogamer, Gamezebo, Inside Social Games, Overclocker's ClubThank you for your support! We're thrilled at all the comments, questions and pledges you've sent our way!
Shaker: An Old School RPG is a first-person perspective, fantasy/sci-fi game set in a Bridge world between the future and the very distant medieval past. Taking the role of operative James Connelly (you may also customize your lead character), an employee of Shaker Corporation, you are called upon to set right a deadly chain of events that began millennia ago. You and your crew of 3 operatives will be deployed to Antera, a medieval, fantasy world in the distant past. There, under a feudal guise, you must unearth the very beginning of a horrible chain of events and avert it, or the universe we know today will cease to exist in a mere 100 years.
Your work is well underway when Shaker - which had promised regular contact - inexplicably goes silent on July 24, 2526, stranding you for good. For the full story, see Update #3.
Shaker's core technology is a device that allows it to see 100 years into the future and as far back as all past human memory allows. A team of analysts goes over the data, and Shakers are deployed into the future or past to straighten out potential disturbances. In its history, Shaker had already averted wars, plagues and countless regional skirmishes. For a detailed Shaker breakdown, see Update #4.
On July 1, 2526, the entire galaxy was not there when Shaker looked. It was not an anomaly or machine failure. It just no longer was. For the first time, genuine panic (of measurable, statistical significance) struck in Shaker's offices.
Beginning the game as James Connelly (you can customize him to your liking), create a crew of three additional characters before being deployed to Antera, a medieval world whose mysteries hold the key to the beginning of a deadly chain of events.
CHARACTERS: Create and customize a group of 4 characters (including Connelly, who you may customize, too). All have skills, professions and specific biotraits (similar to races) which you can perfect over time. See Update #5 for detailed info on Characters.
THE WORLD & COMBAT: Antera is a fantasy, medieval world richly rendered in 3D. Your crew of 4 recruits 2 locals to work with you, establishing your final party of 6 characters. Hundreds of quests and turn-based combat form the cornerstone of a great RPG with a rich storyline. See Update #6 for Combat and Update #2 and Update #4 for information on story.
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NON-LINEAR STORY: Shaker features a true non-linear story with multiple endings and many more than one route through the game. It is classic RPG storytelling. Who you meet, when you meet them, what you do for them (and to them) affects the entire course of your game.
STRETCH GOALS: Classic RPG favorites like alignment, rank, age and randomly rolled temperament will be added along with multiple beginnings, new NPC races complete with their own quests, motivations and areas. We will also add a super-hardcore mode featuring permadeath, a no-save option and handcrafted barely beatable bosses.
Legendary, award-winning RPG designers and game industry veterans Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall are teaming up to create Shaker, a richly rendered classic, old-school RPG reminiscent of the true masterworks in the genre (but with the graphics of today)!
Brathwaite got her start on the classic Wizardry® series of role-playing games, having worked on every award-winning game in the series, before moving on to work on Dungeons & Dragons®, while Tom Hall's visionary design on Commander Keen™, Anachronox™ and DOOM™ set the standard for character development, world design and over-the-top immersion. We want to get back to our roots and create an old-school game worthy of 30 years of RPG fan devotion.
Loot Drop is an indie game development studio founded in November 2010 and home to 30+ year game industry veterans Brenda Brathwaite, John Romero and Tom Hall and many other talented people devoted to making great games. We are 100% indie and dedicated to staying that way. We have never taken VC or angel funding and have resisted two buyout offers so we could stay this way.
Our developers have designed and worked on ground-breaking and award-winning titles respected throughout the world including games in the seminal Dungeons & Dragons®, Wizardry®, Ghost Recon™, Ultima™, Bard's Tale™, Commander Keen™, DOOM™, Quake®, The Sims™, Mortal Kombat™, MechAssault™ and Jagged Alliance® series.
More than anything, we love games, love our people and believe in fun! We are incredibly dedicated to game design, game art, game audio and game programming. In fact, there are five members of our team who have done nothing but make games for over 30 years! We are both players and seasoned developers of RPGs. Among our favorite RPGs are Ultima™ IV, Chrono Trigger™, Chrono Cross™, Wizardry® VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, Planescape®: Torment™, World of Warcraft®, Diablo™, Ultima™ III, Beytrayal at Krondor™, Final Fantasy® VIII and Legend of Zelda®: Link to the Past™. Our team is experienced in RPG design and dedicated to making Old School RPG the best it can be.
Over the course of 12 months, Loot Drop's experienced team of game designers, programmers, artists and sound designers will craft Shaker: An Old School RPG. Creating an RPG involves designing and programming many new systems from the ground up - magic, combat, quests, creatures, NPCs and character development among them - as well as concepting, rendering, writing and realizing an artistically and narratively rich and beautiful world. To do this properly with an experienced team over the course of a year costs $1M.
What happens if we go above and beyond our base funding goal?
All our stretch goals add up to an epic kick-axe game experience, but none more so than the $1.9M mark. If you're kind enough to help us reach this amount of funding, we'll create Shaker: An Old School RPG and its sequel. Enjoy two games set in the same universe. For details on the expanded story, see Update #2.
Like
you, we watched the Kickstarter wave move across the game industry and
cheered the success of our friends. On Twitter, Facebook and even inside
Loot Drop, people asked us when we were going to do our own
Kickstarter, and more often than not, those
people wanted an old-school RPG. Thank you so much for your encouragement!
Kickstarter
gives us and other independent game developers three amazing abilities:
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Power of Purse & Persuasion: While traditional publishers backed away from old-school RPGs years ago, fans have remained loyal as ever. Kickstarter allows us to go directly to the people who love and support RPGs to fund the games we want to play from the developers we want to support. Finally, we can answer, "Right now!" to the question, "When are you guys going to make another RPG?"
Ability to See Through Walls: Traditional game development involves heavy NDAs (complete with their own bag of holding). Kickstarter gives us an opportunity to knock down those walls and expose the game development process. How do decisions get made, why do they get made, and who makes them?
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Power of Suggestion: Most importantly, Kickstarter allows players to really have a say in critical development decisions. So often, designers ask themselves, "I wonder what most players would want here," but are unable to ask because NDAs block them. Through Kickstarter, the walls come down. Through a dedicated community forum, you'll contribute to the game, letting us know what you want in an old-school RPG. Your voice will be an important one when the development team calls on you to answer important design decisions.
Risks and challenges
Like boss monsters in a dark dungeon, RPGs are a challenging genre to make. A devious mix of many systems - combat, magic, character development, quests - they require expertise, both in design and in development. This is, of course, on top of what it takes to design and develop a game in the first place! Kickstarter backers need to know that they can count on our proven experience to deliver what they pledge for.
Collectively, Tom and Brenda have shipped over 70 commercial games, of which 18 were RPGs. Our passion for RPGs has been a wonderful, long love affair in dungeon after dungeon, battle after battle, one boss monster at a time. For Brenda and Tom, the love affair started back in the late 1970’s with the original Dungeons & Dragons. Since that time, they’ve worked on some of the most heralded RPGs of all time. Brenda worked on the award-winning Wizardry, Dungeons & Dragons and Realms of Arkania series while Tom worked the Dark Designs GS trilogy with his future id-mates, then went on to Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM, before returning to RPGs with his award-winning Anachronox.
We have literally devoted our lives to making, studying and playing games. It's all we've ever done, and all we intend to do. We're grateful for your support now and throughout our careers. We have a proven track record of designing and shipping award-winning RPGs.
Thank you for the opportunity!
Learn about accountability on KickstarterFAQ
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YES! By default, you start the game as James Connelly and create three other crew members to join you in your journey. However, you are free to edit Connelly as you see fit.
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Funding period
- (32 days)