About
Saint George is a new breed of fast paced medieval-fantasy platformer that takes it's DNA into authors childhood games and adds modern twists for todays explorers : up to 4K graphics, ultra fluid display engine and wide lands to explore with hundreds of creatures and unique world boss.
Make your way through the kingdom lands infested with creatures and demons... Those unwanted guests have been summoned by an evil entity that was forgotten and living there a long time ago. Almost all citizens of the kingdom disappeared... Find out what really happened and stop this disaster.
To share our vision and show our craft, we wanted to give you more than words and fancy concept arts, we wanted our backers to have the feel of what this game could become.
That's why we worked hard the last eight month to build a working prototype and be able to invite you all to play.
Remember that this is a technical proof of concept: game engine, graphics, gameplay, sfx, texts are still in early stage and are thus works in progress. Enjoy !
We want this game to be a long and memorable adventure, that's why we had to think and propose you this experience in his complete form. This is the full sized world with all the themed zones that are included in the original storyline.
The original and full game counts eight main worlds containing extensive sub levels and a final special place with the very end boss. If we complete this campaign successfully and raise a bit more we could extend our vision with more worlds, richer background elements and a larger enemy / npc / bonus / weapons / boss ecosystem.
The shown above map is the broad vision of the game worlds, themes and levels, all is seamlessly stitched together following a non-linear storyline. Each player can follow his own path till the end, some zones contain valuable secrets or objects that could help you greatly for higher challenges.
Your hero has to explore and fight to evolve, grow strong to pass all the traps and creatures scattered around his journey. We carefully thought about giving many ways to the player to substantially enhance his game experience through quick bonus gathers, limited in a stack system. No crafting, points, mana gems nor interface pop-ups that stops the experience.
Saint George is all about platforms, fights, rewards, encounters and having an intense experience as one could have with old arcade platformers. We wanted to propose an updated take on that, with simple but dynamic storyline, events and visuals adapted for modern machines.
We do love pixels, it's part of our DNA and we were lucky to be part of the first generations to have pioneer pixeling for early consoles. We basically made our foundations at this time. That's why we think it's interesting to take time to elevate the signature qualities and spirit of this era to new times, machines and audience.
This game is a love letter to oldies like Ghost'n Goblins, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Black Tiger, Castlevania, Stormlord, Golden Axe and so many other games that shaped our hearts and still inspire us today. We also are deeply inspired by Studio Ghibli master pieces such as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke.
That being said, more than twenty years of work in the game industry gave us the means to build worlds with a solid, wider and richer scope, dynamic storylines that updates upon your in-game choices, and of course, vibrant and immersive special effects and graphics.
We built and layered the world with many ways to achieve it and discover the game with a smooth learning curve with some progressive challenges:
- Explore : find secrets spots, gather weapons, force, magic spells and get more strength to crush everything that is in your path and face world bosses
- Slash : like good old arcades platformers ! Harder, quicker and linear progression for a fast paced epic run, best suited for experienced players
In our ideal blueprint we want you to complete this game and the story your way, we started recently the first chunks of code to bring you companions with multiple powers. It's a work in progress, the AI is basic, but we would like to design more of them and give them surprising ways to assist you and grow stronger. You can already unlock a tiny one in a secret crate hidden in the prototype.. just sayin' it worths exploring the map !
Enemies and other encounters are an important part of this game, we want them to give you a sense of where you are, be in harmony with the backgrounds and consolidate your immersion. For the same reasons we started adding atmospheric effects like rain, wind resistance, fog and for good measure do a dynamic color grading by zones and events.
We love impressive and powerful bosses with simple yet clever fight sequences, carefully crafted combats. That's why we plan to tailor each boss and demi-boss with unique capabilities, style and combat patterns. They all have an importance in the storyline and you'll learn more about how they are linked together in the lasts stages of your adventure. No spoilers !
In this demo we spotted two giant creatures that are guarding the dark forest (middle part) and the swamps (final part), be very careful as they could be spying on you earlier in your journey...
You'll have access to a handful of weapons in this demo. We are working on to add much more for you to loot and streamline your experience. Each piece has his own set of characteristics: force, speed, reach and special charge, some have zone damage effects, some can be thrown and other have timed damage (curse). Swapping weapon is the key to adapt to different situations and conquer.
Such an adventure could not be completed without some high protein food, spells and magic trinkets. That's why we designed the basics and are working on more sophisticated bonuses that could save you some exploration time. This is a glimpse of what is already in-game and what we are working on... The eye, Phantom and the Ghost Summoner will come later in an update.
All precious objects are concealed in special chests with different sturdiness and value. The most precious one are of course hidden and need extra care and curiosity to get them.
At last, here are our research, sketches, timelapses and longplay in case you can't connect to Steam to get the demo running.
SPOILER ALERT : the incoming longplay video is a complet play of the prototype for demonstration purpose.
We have the privilege to work with an incredibly talented musician and old friend that is specialised in game soundtracks : Frederic "ElMobo" Motte. He worked in a great number of memorable games like Nightmare Creatures 1 and 2.
We talked to him about the project at an early stage and he jumped in ! You definitely should check his works.
The first tracks and sfx for Saint George are in, and we could not be happier, it's epic, melodic, deep... we hope you'll enjoy as much as we did.
We are a small team of french freelance game developers with +20 years of experience in the industry. We are based in Paris with some members in the South and East of the country.
This project is a long time dream shared by the art director, Carlos Pardo and the developer, Martial Reynes. We started the first building blocks four years ago with Wondercat Adventures, an acclaimed iOS and Android runner game that was a test project to work out the game engine and find a solid workflow. We did it, the game was an unexpected success, so we continued fine tuning the engine and working on this game foundations.
You can follow us on Twitter / Facebook / Steam
Carlos Portfolio / Twitter / Facebook
El Mobo Bandcamp / Soundcloud / Twitter
The first ideas for Saint George date back as far as 2010, but pre-production was only started in early 2017 when the core team was complet. The game is based on a portable proprietary engine dedicated to blazing fast 2D render. During Q1 and Q2 (2017) we updated the engine to have a steady workflow with Photoshop CC (for graphics and level building) and Spine (for animation and special effects). The demo available for download todat is our proof of concept, the foundations of the game are now ready for production.
Here is a breakdown of the budget and timeline of the project. This is important to note that no publisher or external funding has been involved. We cherish our freedom of creation and are 100% independent, that means that this project rely entirely on the power of the community. If you have any question, feel free to ask us !
Here are the first stretch goals we would like to add to this project ! More content, more production time, new tracks, new platform support, multiplayer, companions, voice over, additional concept artist, give us your thoughts !
Risks and challenges
As with most campaigns, there is always a risk when backing a project. But to relieve some of the stress that comes with this risk, we provided you a playable prototype build to show you what direction we are going in and what our expertise is.
With most games, there may be delays. But in the case of this game, if there are delays they will be to add more polish to the final version of the game so that both you as the player and we as the developers are equally happy with the end product.
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Funding period
- (45 days)