Help us define a new class of table-top games by connecting miniatures with touchscreen tablets!
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Help us define a new class of table-top games by connecting miniatures with touchscreen tablets!
About this project
PlaneQuest: Champions provides an exciting new interactive gaming experience on your iPad, Android, or Windows RT tablet.
Our TabletTop Miniatures (TTMs) have special conductive bases that let you move in digital worlds and fight and interact with digital characters in real-time!
Do you love traditional table-top miniatures but are you tired of the clunky limitations of the game experience?
Do you love tablet-centric games but sense there's untapped potential waiting to be unleashed…?
With PlaneQuest, we're bringing miniatures and video games together to define a new genre we're calling TabletTop gaming.
Here are the first TabletTop Miniatures used to play the game - they represent 1 Champion from 5 of the planar races.
You get all 5 of these miniatures in the EARLY BIRD SPECIAL and the PRE-ORDER SPECIAL rewards! The Full Champion Pack!
[*Notes:
- TTM models are indicative only & subject to final manufacturing implementation.]
Blurring the line between the physical and digital worlds: our TabletTop Miniatures feel like they're part of the digital game environment for the first time. The figurine you're holding appears to cast realistic shadows - as if it's standing in the same digital game world as the enemies.
Gesture-driven interactivity: Each Champion plays very differently with unique gestures required to drive that character. Hot pressing (holding your finger down) on a non-player character brings up a range of options for talking to members of each exotic race you encounter.
Move through large environments: You hold your character with one hand, whilst using the other hand to pan around - and hence walk or run - through large environments. Move through wondrous forests, destroyed towns, castle corridors, and eerie catacombs.
Tag-team action!: Adding or removing miniatures from the TabletTop is catered for in the design of the game and lies at the heart of PlaneQuest game dynamics. Lifting a miniature up, or placing it down on the tablet equates to phasing in, or phasing out, of the current Plane of Existence in the game (in the game, this is called Flaring in and Flaring out, due to the burst of scintillating light produced when a person moves between dimensions). This feature lets users swap Champions in real-time to take advantage of the different strengths and special abilities of each character (though this action comes at the cost of health and power). Mastering each character is the key to successful advancement through the game.
If you love figurines and collectibles as much as we do, order your own large 7-inch Premium Figurines of the Archon, Draken, and Tigron Champions to display at home.
The Draken
The Archon
The Tigron**
These rare, limited edition resin collectibles faithfully lock in incredible detail and convey every nuance of each character. Given the potential of TabletTop gaming, by ordering one you'll be owning a valuable piece of gaming history!
[*Note: Premium Figurine models are indicative only & subject to final manufacturing implementation].
In PlaneQuest, you control a team of Champions in an exciting style of gaming that includes manoeuvure-driven combat, fascinating exploration of exotic parallel worlds, character levelling/power development, and non-player character (NPC) interaction.
Journey from one Plane of existence to another liberating Celestial Keeps in a quest to save the Multiverse.
We're working on a fascinating storyline and great game mechanics that will see you control these Champions to infiltrate each Celestial Keep and attempt to overthrow the resident Darkon. Freeing more Keeps, Archons, and Planar races increases your Liberation tally and helps swell the army you'll need to win the game.
All the keeps on the different planes must be liberated before the final assault on the High Plane can begin.
Pre-order your Miniatures or Premium Figurines and help us unleash PlaneQuest: Champions!
If we hit our funding target, we're aiming to get the TTMs and the game to you in May 2014. At which point Celestial fanfare will ensue!
PlaneQuest will be supported on the iPad, mainstream Android tablets, and eventually Windows 8 & Windows RT tablets such as the Microsoft Surface.
PlaneQuest: Champions is being developed using the Unity3D game engine.
Here are some of our objectives for future iterations. Each iteration will expand the scope of the game and bring even more exciting TabletTop Miniatures into existence for you to play.
Large Table-top PC support
RISE OF THE TABLETTOP!
- After the basic game is developed, we'd like to ensure support for large table-top devices such as the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon 27-inch table-top PC. This will open up incredible experiences on large touchscreen surfaces.
Dual-player / Co-op Mode support
PLAY WITH A WINGMAN!
- We'd like to work towards dual player support to let you play with a friend in co-op mode on separate tablets.
Our team consists of experienced industry professionals and up-and-coming talent in product & software design and development. We're based in the centre of Brisbane's creative precinct amidst a profusion of creative and technical talent. We're also part of the city's thriving indie games industry.
Our team members have worked for games companies like THQ Australia and Blitz Games.
Find out more about our key people on our website here.
CEO, Anna Rooke, Creative Enterprise Australia
An album of beautiful original music composed and produced by our Music Composer & Sound Producer, Ricardo Pujol, is available as a Reward.
You can listen to a sample track called, Magic Quest here. Enjoy!
Order your own copy of the complete PlaneQuest album in the Rewards on the right.
Please "Like" us by clicking the small button under the main video at the top of the page. Posting to your Facebook wall, or Tweeting about this Kickstarter campaign will help us out a lot too. Thank you for your support!
Risks and challenges
We have spent 10 months building the prototype, working on gameplay, improving the technology, designing the miniatures, conceptualising the game, and testing key features. With this in mind, here are the following challenges and how we are qualified to overcome them:
Manufacturing
The production moulds for our miniatures are very expensive. Production is further complicated by the fact that our bases require special conductive materials. We have relationships in the manufacturing sector from established and reputable companies. We will build on this to ensure we can negotiate the strongest deals from the best suppliers. The production industry is very competitive in this area, which will work in our favour to bring you high quality TabletTop Miniatures. They'll look superb.
Game Production
Game production is expensive and time consuming. It is further complicated by the innovation inherent in this game. We are implementing many new features that currently do not exist in other games. However, in developing the prototype we have learnt a lot and have plans for a wide variety of compelling gameplay features that we can bring to you providing we manage to raise sufficient capital to cover development costs. We are confident that we can deliver a solid game whose scope will increase with each new funding milestone achieved.
This game is also being developed in Unity3D, which means development costs will be minimized whilst still being able to draw upon a large and expanding base of game developers and designers based both in Australia and abroad. Brisbane alone has a large community of independent game developers that we are able to tap into. We are also based in the centre of a creative precinct and so talent is abundant.
In short, we have the passion, competence, and industry connections to deliver. All we need is your support!! :-)
Learn about accountability on KickstarterFAQ
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The TabletTop Miniatures (TTMs) will come painted and fully assembled including being integrated with a special conductive base design that is unique to each TTM. They will be injection-molded plastic, however, the Premium Figurines will be resin.
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We will support all mainstream Android tablets that are not first generation devices. Which is to say PlaneQuest should run okay if your tablet has at least a dual core CPU, a 9" screen with 1024*764 pixel resolution, and a 10 point multitouch conductive display. It needs to have the Android 4 Operating System or above. This will help ensure the game plays smoothly. If your device is old, PlaneQuest may still run on it but ot depends on the capabilities of the specific device.
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From the Teachings of Nemal:
“Our world, the Earth, lies on but one plane of existence.There are many others.
Parallel realities that overlap one another yet remain separate. Disconnected. Undetected.
Most people have no way to see or experience these other planes.
Except that is, for special individuals of each sentient species born with a gift.
A gift that lets them see into adjacent planes and phase shift between them, walking between them as we common folk might walk between rooms of bewildering strangeness and variety in some immense mansion.
With their wandering comes immense insight and often, power.
These individuals come to be known as visionaries, mystics, saints, and prophets in their own worlds. The greatest amongst them become Champions.
It has always been this way.Let me tell you of The High Plane. The most magnificent of all the planes of existence and the home of the Archons - the winged Celestials of many religions. The Archons are not deities, or sublime beings, but beings of great nobility and gravitas and law.
Legend has it, they did not always live in peace. That some few but powerful amongst them sought to bend the beings of the lower planes to their will. To dominate and subjugate, rather than to guide and nurture.It is said that there was an immense planar civil war - a battle that lasted eons and spanned all the planes, spilling across realities, over and through each adjacent world. This was an unimaginably massive conflict that saw huge armies mustered on one plane, only to rampage and foray and conquest across formerly impassable boundaries to ravage other worlds in unbounded tides of war. In each plane, strange armies would appear, spearheaded by Darkons to surge and seethe in thrust after thrust towards the High Plane.
We are told the good Archons fought back in kind, mustering strong armies to stem the fell tides of bewildering might and horrifying diversity.This is but rumour for none still live that witnessed those days. However scars and words remain that point to the what transpired - the fossilized battlefields, the superstitions, the legends of wondrous otherworldly creatures. I tell you that I have divined the following truth, that two of the greatest sentient species were led by each side - the one misguided and the other persuaded - into our world: the Sauren, whose great beasts litter the planet as dinosaur fossils, and The Draken, whose powerful steeds humans speak of in fireside fable and read of in ancient lore as Dragons.
It is said that here on Earth the war ended - the outcome of which was a restored peace that led the way to the planes of existence as we know of them today.
What happened to the small group of Darkon is not exactly known. Only that they were defeated - most think banished rather than destroyed. Evidence of this are the hidden palaces - The Celestial Keeps - scattered across the Lower Planes, which presumably only exist to act as bastions and watch towers against the return of the Darkons and their raised hordes. Pray beyond deepest hope that this does not happen…” -
We are registered for Kickstarter UK (only the US and UK are currently supported by Kickstarter) and so everything shows in pounds irrespective of the country you're seeing it from. Unfortunately Kickstarter does not support the ability to show pricing in dollars if you're in the UK, otherwise we would have done so.
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They will stand 4.5 to 5cm high including the base. The exact height depends on the character and the depth of their stance.
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Adding or removing miniatures from the TabletTop is catered for in the design of the game and lies at the heart of PlaneQuest game dynamics. Lifting a miniature up, or placing it down on the tablet equates to phasing in, or phasing out, of the current Plane of Existence in the game (in the game, this is called Flaring in and Flaring out, due to the burst of scintillating light produced when a person moves between dimensions). This feature lets users swap Champions in real-time to take advantage of the different strengths and special abilities of each character (though this action comes at the cost of health and power). Mastering each character is the key to successful advancement through the game.
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Each character will have two modes of distance based attack - e.g the primary mode for the Sauren's weapon is to fire plasma bolts in bursts; the secondary mode is to fire more powerful but slower Plasma Balls.
Each character also has a unique special ability - for example, Sauren champions can briefly phase in rampaging, nigh-unstoppable dinosaurs (like a Triceratops) from their home worlds. Additional abilities will be obtained during the course of the Quest. Power up attack: champions gain power from defeating adversaries and overcoming obstacles. A power-up indicator will appear around or next to the TTA, indicating that the power attack is available. When activated, unique attacks are triggered for each character.
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We are using Hot Press actions to bring up options: when you hold your finger down on a non-player character (NPC) on the screen, a host of options comes up that you can select. This includes talking to a character.
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Each character has two quarter-circle indicators in front of the base that represent health and weapon power remaining. If the health is reduced to zero, a "Fallen" cutscene is played for that character. Game dynamics depend on the budget we have. Ideally, the fallen comrade would be retrieved and revived by another Champion "flaring in", clearing the area, and then taking the character away for restoration. This involves Hot Pressing (holding a finger down on) the fallen character, and selecting "Bear away".
In practice though, most people will flare away before their character perishes and flare it back on when there is an opportunity to restore health.
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Funding period
- (45 days)