About this project
Unrest : An Unconventional RPG Set in Ancient India
$36,251
1,933
The big draw, for me, is the chance to experience new stories about
characters who would be nameless extras in so many big budget
troll-stompers.
- Adam Smith, Rock Paper Shotgun
Featured on Kotaku | PC Gamer | Indiegames.com | Twenty Sided | @BrianFargo
Unrest is a story driven RPG set in ancient India in the midst of an uprising. Play as ordinary men and women struggling for safety, freedom, food for their children, and a chance at peace.
- Explore the drought and famine stricken streets of an ancient Indian city, where a fog of hunger and discontent shrouds the natural beauty of the land.
- Use the detailed conversation system to instill fear, command respect and gain the trust and friendship of others. Understand your enemies and make them see your side of the story.
- The narrative adapts to failure and death - instead of a game over screen, the plot continues and your fate becomes part of it. However, you can still save and load at any time if you want to.
- Make tough and interesting decisions in the lives of people untouched by destiny. The traditional hero’s quest of prophecy, power, and revenge forms a backdrop to your own struggles.
- Combat is brutal, decisive…and always avoidable. Bloodshed might be the easy way out in some situations, but has lasting consequences beyond those apparent on the surface.
- Hand drawn 2D art and soundtrack based on ancient Indian music to help you immerse yourself in the world.
- Full mod support lets you create your own worlds and adventures.
- Unrest will be available DRM-Free on multiple digital stores, without any DLC or micro-transactions. We promise.
- Iron Man mode to make sure you deal with the consequences of your actions. (requested by the backers!)
The majority of the game will consist of exploring the massive city of Bhimra and the surrounding area, interacting with various characters, and trying to achieve your goals either through combat or conversation. The world is full of side quests and optional content for players with a keen eye.
Combat in Unrest is focused on one versus one duels - fast, decisive, brutal and always a last resort. Instead of meaningless combat encounters with dozens of enemies in every area, combat encounters will be few and unique, such as a knife fight for food in an alley, a duel between homeless humans and Naga (and more!) in a style similar to Sid Meier's Pirates. Importantly, violence will have consequences on the state of the world - too much bloodshed and you might just tip the city over the edge.
Conversation is an art - be it debate, negotiation, intimidation, flattery or bribery. The branching narrative of Unrest coupled with the detailed conversation system aims to reflect that by providing depth and freedom to the player.
Every person in the world will have their opinion of you - some might despise you simply because of your birth or caste, some might admire you if you are a priest of the religion they follow, or some may be indifferent to your fate. We measure all these possibilities using 3 values for every character - Friendship, Respect and Fear. This system enables the game to portray a number of nuanced relationships that are not fully conveyed with a single "opinion" value, such as:
- The underling of a merciless king would fear his retribution and even respect his results, but the orders he carries out for his master make him loathe the man. (Very High Fear, Middling Respect, Low Friendship)
- The buddy of a dangerous and brash street thug enjoys his company and fears his violent outbursts, but doesn't respect him as he is impulsive and frequently makes decisions that jeopardize them both. (High Fear, High Friendship, Low Respect)
- The brother to a timid craftsman treasures his company and believes he has great skill and foresight, but knows he can get his own way with his brother even when he's in the wrong. (Low Fear, Very High Friendship, High Respect)
- The son of a powerful man loves his father, respects his experience and wisdom, and cowers before his judgement. (All values high)
- A powerful warrior regards an abusive drunkard in a bar. The man is shouting insults, smells like the stables, and can barely stand on his feet. (All values low)
Years of drought and famine have brought the teeming city of Bhimra to its knees. Five years ago, the royal family lost their lives during a populist uprising, but the council stitched together to rule in their stead has done little to improve the lives of the poor. Change is in the making, and where change goes, risk and opportunity follow.
There is no corner of society untouched by dissent. The peasant caste are worked to their breaking point to glean enough food to keep the nobles happy. The Zamindars who own the land have mutinous serfs on one hand and a bitter, unimpressed council on the other. In the city, the slums are embroiled in daily slaughters between displaced farmers, veterans of old wars, and a species of reptilian immigrants called the Naga. Even the priests are caught up in politics, with bread and alms only given to those with the right allegiance. The Council is holding the streets together with blood and prayer, hoping they can keep things together until fortunes reverse.
In a city teetering on the brink, every action affects the balance - the decisions you make as one will impact the lives of the others. Will your actions extinguish the spark of hope, or will they fan the flames of Unrest?
We need your help in order to commission more art for levels, characters and props, which will enable us to have a larger world and have more interactive objects in the game. This means more depth, sidequests and plot content, and has the benefit of allowing your choices to have a visible effect on the world.
For example, here's how we would plan a section where you can incite a riot in a large district of the city of Bhimra:
- Ideally, we want to show you what the area was like before the violence broke out and the aftermath in order to drive home the consequences of your actions.
- This means commissioning art assets for multiple versions of the same area and drawing different characters for multiple states of the level. Once we have these assets, we can add more dialogue and quests related to them.
- Not having the art assets will mean we have to cut back on the scope of the event, and restrict the player from visiting the area again.
With additional funds, we can also compose more music and sound effects to greatly improve the atmosphere of the game.
- We can adapt the music to the scene instead of a single ambient track per region.
- Unique sound effects for different attacks, items, and certain events in the game.
- If we exceed our goal (fingers crossed), we can afford special souds like crowd & mob shouts, priest chants, and folk songs.
Check out this sample of the Unrest soundtrack:
Isn't your goal a bit too low to make a game?
Our Kickstarter
goal is the bare minimum we need to finish Unrest. So far, we've self
funded the game on a shoestring budget and we are not including the
team's living costs to the goal. This means that while our initial goal
is low, more team members can work full-time on Unrest if we exceed our
goal. We intend to be completely transparent with our backers, so let us know if you have any questions!
We are Pyrodactyl Games, a team of passionate RPG developers, with a portfolio of offbeat and interesting experiments in the genre. We are young enough to be optimistic and hopeful, yet old enough to be experienced and careful.
Apart from the team members above, a few freelancers have helped us in different areas of development. To view the full list, please visit this link.
P.S. We are participating in the Kicking it Forward initiative!
Risks and challenges
The biggest risk in a small team is the programmer leaving without a suitable replacement. However, our leader/programmer, Arvind, has a history of sticking with his projects and has financed the game from his own savings for an year. He will work on the project unless incapacitated by an extreme illness or run over by a vehicle.
If this extremely implausible scenario does happen, the designers & scripters of the team - Malcolm Smith and Ian Nicholls - know the game engine inside out and can deliver the finished game using the current build as seen in the video. The team has the ability to deliver - all we need is your help to make it happen.
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Funding period
- (30 days)