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A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!

 Post subject: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 5:48 am 
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"You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower on the imminent release of Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire

Hi everyone. :)

It's GR00V3R here. Hope this 68th anniversary of D-Day finds you happy and well. Hopefully you remember me from back in the dawn of time when I used to write articles for Bell of Lost Souls, not to mention annoyed peeps with my suggestions for tweaks to various army lists. I've been very quiet for the past 6 months or so because Membraine Studios has been rather busy working with the Exodus Wars team at Steel Crown Productions (that is, netepic [Tom Webb] and the others). We've been making a computer game that we think you guys will really, really want to play. :)

Announcing Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire—a 3D, turn-based strategy computer game capturing the core gameplay of miniatures wargaming!

ABOUT EXODUS WARS: FRACTURED EMPIRE
Fractured Empire will put players in control at a Brigade level, manoeuvring infantry and armour companies, as well as massive super-vehicles like the mighty Marcovian Behemoth, as they jockey for position on the futuristic battlefields of the Exodus Wars universe.

Gameplay trailer and pitch video are on the Indiegogo campaign page (http://www.indiegogo.com/EWFracturedEmpire)
Screenshots on imgur (http://imgur.com/a/ZRQcc)

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP
As you can probably appreciate, this—our very own Great Crusade—has proved to be a very expensive undertaking, so we're running a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo (http://www.indiegogo.com/EWFracturedEmpire) to make the Fractured Empire computer game possible. To date, Membraine has invested close to $47,000 into the game, and we have about 40 per cent of development work complete. In shortly, we really need our crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo to succeed so we can finish the game.

Yes...this is a call to arms, friends. We REALLY need your help. :)

Particularly in this early stage of the Indiegogo campaign, we REALLY need the members of this awesome community to please back us by purchasing a Perk. Doing so will of course help directly by funding the game's development—but it will also help ENORMOUSLY by showing the broader crowd funding community that OUR community supports and wants this game to happen.

But I'm not done begging yet. Oh no. There's more begging to come, because we also really, REALLY need you guys to TELL EVERYONE YOU CAN THINK OF about our campaign by posting to Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Campaigns like this live or die by the number of "nodes" you reach, and that they in turn reach, so if you could tell your friends about our campaign, that would be invaluable help to us. :)

And hey—if anyone knows Nathan Fillion or some other tweet-lovin' celebrity, please feel free to rope them in! ;)

WRAPPING UP
On behalf of netepic (Tom) and myself (Mark), we hope you want to play this game as much as we do, that you'll purchase a Perk on our Indiegogo campaign page (http://www.indiegogo.com/EWFracturedEmpire) and that you'll tell all your friends about us. And we of course hope you'll join our budding communities on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/membraine) or on Google+ (http://plus.google.com/u/0/100150835472420901422) where you'll find all the news about the game's development as it breaks. You can also follow us on Twitter at membraine_ftw (http://twitter.com/membraine_ftw).

Thanks for reading. This subforum will be our home-base, so if you have any questions or comments to share, please post and let us know. :)

UPDATE: jaNDo has called my attention to a typo in this original post. $54k spend corrected to $47k, inline with the correct figure on Indiegogo. Apologies for any confusion caused. :)


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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:00 am 
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Question: is combat dice based?

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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:39 am 
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you need more info on what the basic money will go on. Simply saying 'it's to finish the core game' is not enough. Give us a breakdown of the expenses. If I'm going to invest, I want to see evidence you know what you're doing.

at the minute it looks like a familiar game, but there's little info about campaigns, solo play, multiplayer (live? streaming? email based?). Why should I buy this instead of a train ticket to bristol? How much wll the final game cost? how will it be distributed?

There's very little info about core resources, scale of games (there's the video, but how typical is that. Will units really be starting so close?) Screen shots of other situations are enough, no need for multiple videos.

Has Membraine studios finished anything else? show us it or refer us to it. Past completion, let alone success is a valuable rarity in these kind of projects.

I like the idea, and I will spread the word, but I really think you need to tighten your pitch up a lot first.

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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:09 am 
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Apocolocyntosis wrote:
Question: is combat dice based?


Discussions about how we should implement the core mechanics of the EW game (eg "Dudes...do we show a bucket of dice being dropped, calculations or what?") are an on-going exercise. Personally, I like the idea of seeing your dice bounce around the battlefield...but what do you guys want to see?

I'll start a thread about it. Then you can all tell us. :)


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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:55 am 
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I have to say that this looks and sounds really cool, and just what I have been looking for. I am a turn-based strategy fan but the choices have been drying up following the success of Warcraft and Starcraft. I agree that a bit more heritage info would be good - both Membraine studios and the options in the game itself.

Oh, and I would pay $5000 NOT to have dinner with Tom!

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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:57 am 
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CyberShadow wrote:
Oh, and I would pay $5000 NOT to have dinner with Tom!


that sounds do-able. guys, can you add a 'don't have dinner with tom' option to the campaign?! easy five grand!

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 Post subject: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 9:09 am 
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The real question for me is..... will I be able to play it on my iPad?


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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 9:15 am 
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Matus wrote:
The real question for me is..... will I be able to play it on my mac or iPad?

No! Why would a Blessed thing be played on a Heretic Device like that!!?!?!?

;D :D ;)

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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 9:31 am 
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Matus wrote:
The real question for me is..... will I be able to play it on my iPad?

They've already said it will be for Mac and then iOS at a certain funding point. For some reason iOS support has a greater priority than easy modding :-\ .

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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 9:43 am 
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madd0ct0r wrote:
you need more info on what the basic money will go on. Simply saying 'it's to finish the core game' is not enough. Give us a breakdown of the expenses. If I'm going to invest, I want to see evidence you know what you're doing.


Thanks for the feedback.

I hear you. Our detailed project schedule and budget is something we'd prefer to keep close to our chest, but I'd like to give you the information you're after. To what level are you looking for a breakdown?

Due to the nature of our team, we have specific money set aside for key areas of the game (e.g. music, sound effects and voice acting). Showing the budget for these areas wouldn't help much, plus the budget is tightly coupled to the crowdfunding campaign itself.

The rest of our budget could be considered "time and materials" for game design, art, code, network infrastructure, testing, etc. We have grouped these items for scoping purposes (e.g. Air Support and Air Units, iOS support) and could potentially share the estimated budget for these items at a rough level (e.g. rounded to nearest 5k) - but our research didn't indicate that most contributors would be interested in that information.

This "time and materials" budget is planned in the form of a sprint backlog - not something we're willing to share publicly.

madd0ct0r wrote:
at the minute it looks like a familiar game, but there's little info about campaigns, solo play, multiplayer (live? streaming? email based?). Why should I buy this instead of a train ticket to bristol? How much wll the final game cost? how will it be distributed?

There's very little info about core resources, scale of games (there's the video, but how typical is that. Will units really be starting so close?) Screen shots of other situations are enough, no need for multiple videos.


What I take from this comment is that you want to know more about what the game is offering. I'd summarise this as: [b[]The pitch is selling the concept rather than the game.[/b]

Am I understanding you correctly?

madd0ct0r wrote:
Has Membraine studios finished anything else? show us it or refer us to it. Past completion, let alone success is a valuable rarity in these kind of projects.


We have one published game to date (Orbital Defence for iPhone, 2009, which you'll find under Games on our website: http://www.membrainestudios.com). For the last 2.5 years we've been working on games in our free time (up until now we've all had 9-5 jobs) and shopping them around to publishers.

Before the end of the campaign, we're planning to polish up one of those demos and release it for free - purely to show the world what we're capable of.

madd0ct0r wrote:
I like the idea, and I will spread the word, but I really think you need to tighten your pitch up a lot first.


Thank you. Your feedback has been amazing, I personally really appreciate it.

If you'd like to talk in greater detail, you can e-mail us via the website (or directly: info[at]membrainestudios[dot]com).


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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:07 am 
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Quote:
To date, Membraine has invested close to $54,000 into the game

What was that for, to licence an Engine?

Impressed by the concept.

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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:24 am 
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Evil and Chaos wrote:
What was that for, to licence an Engine?

Impressed by the concept.


Great to hear that you're impressed!

The money spent so far has been mostly on the design and development of the game, rather than specific assets such as an engine or music... although we have also spent money on the engine among other things.

Time is money, as they say :)


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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:34 am 
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The money spent so far has been mostly on the design and development of the game

You hired outside designers? I thought you guys were doing this yourself?

As with the others above I'd like to see a rough breakdown before putting any money towards the project.

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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 11:56 am 
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Evil and Chaos wrote:
You hired outside designers? I thought you guys were doing this yourself?


We have not hired anyone; we just enjoy food and shelter :)

We've paid fees for the engine, some terrain and doodads, music and other expenses (business, legal, PR, marketing budget, etc.). Our time also has a cost, both direct (in terms of salary) and indirect (e.g. opportunity cost, facilities, etc.)

We've been working on Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire for a while - it's amazing how much games cost to make, even when you're indie!


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 Post subject: Re: A call to arms for Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire!
PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 12:43 pm 
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Actually, I think I'd be more interested in seeing the hours logged...

@jando: basically, my feeling is you've already claimed to have used a large amount of money, and are nowhere near 50% complete, when the kickstarter is only going to double your money (at best). I'd be worried about throwing my money into a bottomless pt.

And yeah, the pitch isn't really pitching YOUR game, more the concept. Why should i pick you?

Don't worry to much about reply to me here (for a start, I won't have a credit card again for a few months, (moving country)) but if you tighten the pitch up enough you'll have a much easier time dealing with the larger community.
One finished game should be on there with big flashing lights around it, along with the promise to release the demo by day X.
That'll be a good way of proving to potential customers you can actually state and keep to a schedule.

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