About this project
Sacred Fire: Psychological RPG about revenge and loyalty
$65,000
1,435
Sacred Fire is a role-playing game where your success and solutions to conflicts lie in the psychology of the characters, not in weapons, attacks, and damage types.
You do not start as a leader – your right to lead must be earned through self-control, willpower, and influence. Will you embrace revenge or fight for a better world? Will you be strong enough to face the consequences of your decisions?
- Genre: choice-driven, turn-based RPG with multiple endings
- Number of players: Single-player
- Platforms: Windows, Mac & Linux (Steam, Humble, DRM-free GOG)*
- Release date: Spring 2018*
- Supported Languages: English
* Sacred Fire will be ported to PS4 and Xbox One. Work on the console versions will start after the PC release.
KEY FEATURES
- Psychology affects your performance
- Making choices with risks and rewards
- Fight for political influence
- Multiple playstyles and endings
NEW UPDATE: We have just released our new trailer Storm Within with Doug Cockle's voiceover presenting the themes we explore in Sacred Fire:
No magic, no dragons, no high-fantasy. Fight for your future and that of your people in a conflict inspired by Caledonia’s history.
Rome has sought to conquer Caledonia for as long as your people can recall. Only fierce resistance drove the Romans back behind the great wall marking the boundary of their empire. There Rome is watching and waiting for an opportunity to strike.
But walls do not bring peace, and the scars of war run deep. Trouble stirs at Dunadd, the seat of power of your people, as Morrigan, a vengeful queen, rises to power.
You may be young, but you have seen enough of war for a lifetime. Will you unite the tribes and bring an end to strife, or will you channel their rage and crush Rome once for all?
The gameplay of Sacred Fire has two major phases.
In the Story Phase you solve conflicts in dialogues or combat by selecting one of several choices. The goal is not only to survive, but also to win renown and trust of potential allies.
Exploit the fear and anger of your enemies and use willpower to stay in control in this new psychological take on tactical combat.
The second phase is the Fort Phase. This is where strategy and politics take place. Deal with traumatic memories, manage resources and remove relationship states like Envy, Hate or Prejudice.
The ability to change yourself, other characters, and the outcome of the revenge-fueled war is the heart of this new role-playing experience.
Sacred Fire's gameplay teaser featuring Doug Cockle, the voice of The Witcher, received widespread praise and loads of interest from those seeking a meaningful narrative game.
We love RPGs and innovation, so we designed a role-playing experience with:
- combat with emotions,
- relationships presenting a challenge,
- story progress based on politics,
- choices requiring inner strength.
Check out our developers’ commentary, where we explain the new concepts by going through several gameplay scenes:
Our combat ruleset revolves around your character’s inner strength. It blends storytelling and tactics while testing your character’s ingenuity and integrity at the same time.
Your emotions are your weapon and your weakness. Anger adds strength to your attacks – but makes them less accurate and can leave your defense open. And just as your enemies’ fear can weaken their resolve, it can erode your strength as well.
Each turn you choose one of four goals: survive, provoke, intimidate, and gain renown. You can choose to skip an attack to save up energy and charge a special opportunity faster.
Once charged, it enables you to regain self-control, use special moves or trigger a narrative event - a risk chain of probability checks giving you the opportunity to win the fight.
Non-lethal Conflict Resolution
Diplomacy can end a conflict without bloodshed. Winning the respect of an opponent or instilling fear in your enemies can sometimes serve you better than littering the battlefield with corpses.
You will need allies to survive, but relationships are a double-edged sword. The challenge is to read the motivation of others and learn to overcome your own base instincts.
Character Boss Fights
Sacred Fire features 10 major story characters. Each represents an ultimate psychological challenge such as overcoming guilt, resisting envy or winning trust.
Each relationship has a breaking point, a moment where it is tested. It remains strong or fails, based on your choices. Will you be prepared?
These are the characters who can be your allies in Sacred Fire.
There are 2 powerful enemy leaders you have to defy.
After the phase of story choices and tactical combat, you return to Dunadd. Here you manage resources, build relationships and develop your inner strength.
The point is to rise in influence above all the other story characters, so you have the ability to decide the course of action in critical situations and change the story.
In Sacred Fire you create a brand new male or female character. You can customize their visuals, balance attributes and skills, and pick defining personality and appearance traits.
Sacred Fire’s character creation and writing supports multiple playstyles, allowing you to use force, intellect, skill, appearance, or empathy to solve conflicts. This way you can advance the story and win allies in many different ways and have a new experience each playthrough.
Many story situations test your character’s inner strength. You build it by dealing with trauma and by developing strong beliefs. This all improves your chances to stay calm, resist pain or overcome fear in extreme situations.
How do you react once evil touches your life?
Sacred Fire lets you strive to become a War Chief or a Patriot – but neither path is simple and you’ll be forced to question what price you are willing to pay to reach your goals.
Rome marches on Caledonia again. The time has come to stop this once and for all, no matter the cost. Will you have the will to do what is necessary?
The future of your people is threatened. If you must fight, then you fight for a better world and save as many as you can. Can you overcome generations of hate and prejudice?
Thank you for supporting this project. We are excited to offer you these rewards.
We are happy to offer a Limited Collector’s Edition Box Set and a personalized voicemail greeting in the famed Doug’s voice.
On April 8 and April 10 we've added new rewards to most of the tiers (see the updated table below). Read Update #10 and Update #12 for more details.
Credits In-Game (VIP/Producer Credits In-Game)
- Your name will be listed in Sacred Fire in-game credits.
- Backers in tiers from Firekeeper up will be listed in the VIP section of the credits.
- Eternal Firekeeper gets Producer Credits In-Game.
Copy of Sacred Fire + 2 Digital Wallpapers + Renown Trait
- Digital copy of Sacred Fire on Steam, GOG or Humble
- 2 Sacred Fire-themed digital wallpapers with a note from Doug Cockle.
- NEW: In-game Renown Trait Ancient Blood
Backer Forum Badge
- Display your Backer Badge on Sacred Fire forums (VIP Badge for backers in tiers from Firekeeper and up, Producer Badge for Eternal Firekeeper).
Special Personality Trait + Digital Soundtrack + Digital Poster + Golden Eagle Companion
- Get a Special Personality Trait for your character affecting how you react to NPCs, such as being Passionate, Shy or Cheerful.
- Original Sacred Fire soundtrack by Sean Beeson.
- High resolution Sacred Fire digital cover poster with a note from Doug Cockle.
- NEW: In-game Golden Eagle Companion
Second Copy of Sacred Fire + Special Appearance Trait + Private Early Access + Set of Sacred Fire Ringtones
- Get a Special Appearance Trait for your character affecting how NPCs react to you, such as Innocent Eyes, Menacing Figure or Graceful Moves.
- A second copy of Sacred Fire. Share the happiness.
- Private early access for 2 people.
-
NEW: A ringtone, alarm tone and text message tone narrated by Doug Cockle.
- Ringtone: “The world needs you. The choice is yours. Will you answer the call?”
- Text message tone: “A new mission brief is in.”
- Alarm tone: “You may be done with the world, but the world is not done with you. Time to gear up and dive once more into the fray.”
Backer-only Start Screen + Digital Art Book
- Exclusive in-game start screen with beautiful location art and a thank you note, so every time you launch Sacred Fire, you’ll remember that it was thanks to your support that this game was created
- PDF of the Sacred Fire art book
Collector’s Edition Box + 2 Printed Posters + Postcards
- Collector’s Edition Box with a physical Sacred Fire game disc + digital copy of Sacred Fire for one platform of your choosing
- NEW: The Box is hand-signed by Doug Cockle (optional)
- NEW: Choice between Sacred Fire on a DVD or a USB flash drive
- Printed Sacred Fire-themed poster by an artist Corrado Vanelli
- Printed original Sacred Fire poster
- A set of Sacred Fire themed postcards based on in-game art by Rene Aigner
- Hand-written and signed thank you note from the team
Voicemail Message Narrated by Doug Cockle
- “[Name] is away fighting monsters. If you want him/her to hunt you down, leave a message.” (The name is subject to approval by the team)
- The Voicemail Message reward will be delivered to backers in May 2017
Name a Resistance Warrior or Roman Soldier
- Your name or name of your choice in-game as a brave resistance warrior or Roman soldier. The name will be Celticized or Romanized to fit the theme of the game (subject to approval by the team).
- You can use somebody else’s name and make it a gift.
Name a Famous Ancestor or Roman Enemy
- Your name or name of your choice in-game as a legendary ancestor or bold Roman enemy. The name will be Celticized or Romanized to fit the theme of the game (subject to approval by the team).
- You can use somebody else’s name and make it a gift.
Your Face in a Roman Mosaic in The Game
- Have your face immortalized for all ages in a Roman mosaic in the game.
Producer
- You will be listed as a Sacred Fire producer in-game and on the Sacred Fire website.
One of Sacred Fire’s strengths is its unique visual style and focus on character creation. It’s the deepest and most thought out design aspect of Sacred Fire, as it allows you to develop your own playstyle and create your own hero. So our first stretch goal expands this fundamental part of the game and gives you even more self-expression options with focus on variety of:
- colors, outfits and hairstyles,
- faces, scars and paint patterns,
- jewelry and more awesome beards.
The design of Sacred Fire is oriented inwards, exploring the motives, emotions and conflicts of the protagonist. In key story choices, you lead an inner monologue detailing your thoughts and motives, why you made a choice and how you process the consequences.
To support this design, this stretch goals adds narration of inner dilemmas to immerse you deeper into your role. What’s interesting, we have some of the most distinct voices in gaming showing early interest in joining the Sacred Fire team (on our indie budget!), as the male and female voice of your character.
Based on your suggestions, we realized things don’t have to be black and white. While we can’t promise full voice-over for our varied cast, we can use it in character defining moments to make your favorite Sacred Fire characters come alive and immerse you deeper into the story. This stretch goal ads partial voice-over for the 10 main story characters: the 8 potential allies and the 2 powerful villains.
We hope we will be able to add localization stretch goals later in the campaign to bring Sacred Fire to more players in their native language. We will factor in the count of backers from different countries into our selection of languages. We are also exploring the fan based localization option as a few translators have reached out to us.
Please share Sacred Fire with your friends to reach our Community Goals and unlock a rare in-game item. Thank you for spreading the word and revealing all our characters in the first 4 days!
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PoeticStudio
- Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sacredfiregame
- Join the Firestarters Guild: https://www.sacredfiregame.com/join/
* Check out our Update #7 for a list of ideas on posting on Reddit.
** Posts about the Sacred Fire Kickstarter campaign on forums where you have a presence and let us know. Thank you!
Sacred Fire Theme
Flight Across the Plains
Rise of Windale
Until now, we have been financing the development of Sacred Fire from our personal savings. To be able to finish the game in a reasonable time, we decided to ask you, our backers, for support.
The target goal we've set will allow us to bring Sacred Fire to you in the quality we envisioned. The more money we raise, the more polish and improvements to the core gameplay we can bring.
Risks and challenges
Sacred Fire is innovative in its approach to storytelling, psychology of characters, and visuals, thus requiring a new RPG ruleset. The good news is we have tirelessly tested and iterated our design with experimental prototypes and now have an platform that works and can be built on.
In all of game development projects, the risk of delay is real. We plan ahead and to assure balance, testing is done. The feedback we get from you may stretch our timeline as our main goal is to make Sacred Fire the best it can be. We won’t rush things if more work is required to make sure our backers are happy with the end result.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterQuestions about this project? Check out the FAQ
Support this project
Funding period
- (28 days)