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Age of Grit - A Cowboy Steampunk RPG

Created by iqSoup

A cowboy themed RPG adventure aboard a steam-powered airship! Steampunk meets Firefly in a vast, immersive, Wild West inspired world!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

An Update for the Ages!!!
over 8 years ago – Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 09:42:11 PM

Things are really going great with Age of Grit and we're making a lot of progress! Insert steampunk "full steam ahead" pun here!

Our art team has been pumping out some really gorgeous work. We got new characters, towns, airship assets, ui--and it's all looking awesome! See for yourself as you feast your hungry pupils on the following:

 

Our battle demo is just about ready.  We're working pretty dang hard but having fun doing so and morale is certainly high!  It's honestly just such a fun game and a fun world to work on!  Some days I'll feel worn out but then I get another awesome flamethrower image from one of our artists and right away I'm energized again.  Sure, my fingertips are worn down to bloody nubs from keyboard fatigue but my steady intravenous Mountain Dew drip keeps me going!  The long days can certainly at times be hard, but all great things require sacrifice!

Our goal is to have a solid demo it in your hands by the end of September. This will be a demo of the game's combat system and will include multiple battle you can try out. We've put a lot of work into the battle system and have really tried to balance everything out for a fun but challenging strategic experience. But there's still more fine tuning to do and we hope you can help us out with that--your input and suggestions will be invaluable! 

We also have a pretty good working prototype of the game's travel and in-town sequences. They still need some tinkering but it's progressing along nicely. Both AOG's dialog and quest systems are operational and looking nice. Soon we'll combine the travel and town sequences with the combat sequence and at that stage we'll have a solid alpha build of the game with all the main systems will be in place. We'll then focus our work on fine tuning the mechanics, polishing various elements of the game, and creating content--NPC dialog, quests, ship upgrades, gear, cut scenes etc.

When we've reached a level of content and quality that we're satisfied with we'll release an official Age of Grit Beta. This will be a complete but scaled down version of the final game with all the game mechanics and systems in place but just less content--less quests, less upgrades, a limited geographical area you can explore, and for the most part it will lack an overarching main story. You guys can all play around with it and have fun stress testing everything! We'll get your input, make necessary changes, and then it's onward to the final release. 

A huge thanks to everyone for your continued support! You guys are all great--we are so fortunate to have such an enthusiastic and supportive fan base! We are all so excited to get AOG into your hands!

Inspiration
over 8 years ago – Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 01:43:08 AM

It's my sincere desire that Age of Grit will have it's own creative and unique world. Original characters, interesting places to visit, and adventures that feel new and fresh. But we'd be doing a disservice to the game if we didn't draw some inspiration from some of the wondrous existing works of cowboy-inspired fantasy. There's some legendary examples of stories that take place in a Wild West inspired fictional universe. We want to lap up as much cowboy awesomeness as we can--like a camel lapping up cowboy flavored water from an oasis of cowboy awesomeness deep in the vast lonely desert of video game development. Man, camels are great...btw has anyone seen Ishtar?   

Star Wars was heavily influenced by the Old West. Just look at all them ponchos!!! You have classic cowboyish characters like Boba Fett as a bounty hunter gunslinger, Darth Vader as a villainous lawman dressed in black, and Han Solo as the quintessential western anti-hero. Han shooting Greedo could've been straight of an old cowboy movie. In fact, there's a very similar scene in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."  Throughout all of Star Wars there's an unmistakable presence of a Wild West spirit of adventure. There's even a scene where a tauntaun gets sliced open with a lightsaber and used as a sleeping bag! Well...I guess that never happened in any westerns...but come on...that was pretty cool. Come to think of it that lightsaber probably gives off some major heat--maybe they could've just huddled around the lightsaber and the poor tauntaun's corpse didn't have to be horrible desecrated. Point is while many consider Star Wars a great science fiction movie, I think it's also one of the best Westerns ever made.  

Then of course there's Firefly, which moves even further down the cowboy spectrum. Oh Firefly, how I love thee so. What a masterpiece of cowboy awesomeness. If I'm not mistaken Firefly getting canceled was one of the signs of the coming apocalypse. As I've mentioned in the past, I like to think in a lot of ways AOG is a steampunk version of Firefly--a ragtag crew of cowboy types flying around, looking for jobs to pull, getting in gunfights, and having adventures. All the characters are great in Firefly, but Malcolm Reynolds is such a perfect cowboy lead. He's got a serious "don't mess with me" cowboy side, but then he's also very sarcastic and light-hearted.  

The classic Spaghetti Westerns from the 60s and 70s form the basis for much of what we currently think of as the Old West. While obviously more historically grounded, the classic westerns are still fantasies in their own right--taking an adventurous fairy tale sort of twist on what the actual 1800s were like. Above all, films like "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "A Fist Full of Dollars" have some really great cowboy characters. They glorified the notion of an anti-hero protagonist, but also had comical characters and some pretty cool bad guys as well. We don't want to just rehash old stereotypes, but I hope we can inject some of AOG's characters with a bit of the coolness some of those classic Spaghetti Western characters embodied.  

There's been many other great movies, books, comics, and video games that incorporate Wild West elements into a fantasy world. We'll do our best to creatively innovate but also draw inspiration from some of the great pillars of cowboy awesomeness.  

How about you? What are some of your favorite cowboy inspired fictional worlds? What are some cowboy tropes you'd like to see in Age of Grit?

Lemons
almost 9 years ago – Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 12:30:10 PM

Howdy y'all! Hope your summer is going well! Here in AZ we are already melting at over 100 F temperatures. You walk outside and your skin just spontaneously combusts. It's very inconvenient if you don't like your skin constantly bursting into flames. 

We've made a LOT of progress, but we've also had a few setbacks recently. It is only to be expected--the path of game dev is a rocky one indeed. But when life gives you lemons, make a giant unstoppable killer lemon robot who will do your bidding. I'm pretty sure that's what Tony Stark did in the latest Avengers movie.  And a giant unstoppable killer lemon robot we have made indeed.

The biggest setback has been losing a few key members of our team--most notably our awesome UI designer, who had other commitments he had to attend to. These things happen and we wish him all the best! This, however, left us with a difficult decision--find an artist who can try to mimic his art style or start over with a brand new artist. We decided to go with the latter and fortunately we managed to find Jocelyn--who is insanely talented. She took things in a bit of a different direction--things are still very steampunky, but there's more of a dirty, grimy, beat-up, Fallout 2 kind of vibe now. Excellent.

some of Jocelyn's gorgeous work
some of Jocelyn's gorgeous work
another sweet UI element
another sweet UI element
a whole mess of awesomeness going on here
a whole mess of awesomeness going on here
 

We also lost a few programmers--mysteriously all within about a week of each other.  An extra-terrestrial force at work?  You decide!  Everyone just had expected personal or professional priorities arise at around the same time and could no longer continue with the project.  Cue sad trombone sound effect.  It was a bummer for sure, but we were able to find some really awesome replacements. Do I use the word awesome too much? We were able to find some really radical replacements. The coding team is now really solid and racing forward with development. Everyone is super professional, reliable, and very experienced with game development.  The recent bumps in the road have been a bit stressful, but in the immortal words of Lucky Dragon Fortune Cookie Manufacturing Concern: "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." Our team is now stronger than ever and Age of Grit will be better for it. Among many other things, art requires adversity. I believe thanks to these setbacks we now have a smarter, leaner, and more determined giant unstoppable lemon robot than we ever had before. And I really mean that.

Expect a demo soon! I don't want to give a specific date because, well we might miss it. But we have a fairly close internal deadline for the demo and we are working long and hard to make it happen.  Many keys have been typed, many mouse buttons have been clicked, and many cans of Mountain Dew have been drunk.  But it should be coming down the pike shortly.  You know, a pike.  It's like a spear sort of of thing from medieval times.  In Civilization you get it just before you develop gunpowder.  It is called a pike--for some reason stuff comes down it I guess.  It's like a stick that has a sharp stabby end.  Here is an image I found on Google.  It's coming down that!!!

We got Greenlit on Steam!!!
almost 9 years ago – Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 02:57:07 PM

Just a quick update to share some awesome news!!!  Age of Grit has been Greenlit on Steam!!!  Yeeeehaw!!!

Thank you all for making this happen! We are so excited over here--this is an enormous step forward for the ultimate success of Age of Grit! 
Naturally, we will continue to pursue other means of distribution--such as the Humble Store and GOG.com. But Steam has by far the biggest marketplace for games, so this will really help Age of Grit reach a large audience upon release. Again, thank all of you for supporting us and making this happen!
Also a big thanks to those who have helped out with our last push on Backerkit! We will be locking down pledges in the next few days, so if you want to change your survey responses, select a new add-on, or upgrade your pledge right now is your last chance to do so.  Preorders will still be available--so you'll still be able to support the project by sharing it with your friends.

One Last Push for Backerkit!!!
about 9 years ago – Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 09:29:14 AM

We are having one last push to raise some extra funds through our Backerkit campaign. A huge thank you to all those who have selected extra add-ons or upgraded their pledge. Thus far we haven't raised quite as much as we we're hoping for, but the every dollar helps make AOG a bit better--so thank you. Of course every single one of you has already helped out so much and we're so grateful for the support!  

There's still a small group of backers who haven't yet filled out their Backerkit surveys. Whether or not you decide to choose any add-ons, please fill this survey out. It will really help us a lot when it comes to keeping everything organized and fulfilling backer rewards. We have just sent out one last batch of emails to those who haven't filled out their surveys. It should just take a minute to complete. If you're not seeing the Backerkit email please contact us (either here on Kickstarter or at [email protected]) and we'll get things sorted out for you.

If you've already filled out your Backerkit survey no worries! We haven't locked down anyone's answers yet so you can still select some add-ons or change your responses. Just go here and you'll be able to log in to change your survey responses or select an add-on or two. 

All funds raised through Backerkit will go towards more art assets for the game. When it comes to towns, airships, and NPCs we want to have as much variety as possible.  The greater variety the richer the world will look and feel.  The more funds we get the more additional assets we can afford. 

Through our Backerkit page you can choose from a few different add-ons. We hope you guys have fun with some of them. Here's a break down of the add-ons available:

  • Name an In-Game Gear Manufacturer. You can name a gear, weapons, or airship manufacturer in the game. 
  • Name a Ship. An in-game ship will bear the name of your choosing! 
  • Write a Message for a Steampunk Thinking Machine to Say In-Game. This one is my favorite! One of the NPCs in the game will be a rather finicky steampunk thinking machine. YOU get to write one message for the Cognitive Engine to say. It could be something poignant, funny, or just strange. Be as creative as you'd like! 
  • Extra Copy of Age of Grit. An extra copy of Age of Grit to give to someone else you might think would like the game.

We will lock down the surveys in about a week.  After that please contact us directly for help updating your survey responses.

If you can, please share our Backerkit page (https://age-of-grit-a-cowboy-steampunk-rpg.backerkit.com) with anyone you might think would be interested in Age of Grit!   Non-backers can click "pre-order now" and from there can pledge at various tiers and select add-ons as well.

Thank you all for your support and for helping out with this one last push for a bit of additional funding! You guys are the best!

We are making a lot of progress with AOG's development. We've been hard at work making all kinds of art assets--stuff for the towns, NPC portraits, UI elements, airships etc. 

some of the town assets we've been working on
some of the town assets we've been working on

Personally I've been doing a lot of quest writing (which is a blast btw), planing out a lot of the UI, as well as finalizing the AOG's combat rule set. Combat systems are easy enough to conceptualize, but when you get down into the nitty gritty they can be quite difficult to balance everything properly. The combat needs to be really fun and engaging--and a lot goes into that.  It must be challenging yet not frustrating, easy to learn yet hard to master, strategic yet intuitive and so forth. We've just about got it to a point we're happy with, but we'll still need a lot of help when the beta comes around to thoroughly test things out and balance everything to perfection.

Halycon 6: Starbase Commander is a rogue-like sci fi game.  It looks incredible and could be really awesome once released.  Definitely has an FTL sort of vibe going on--though it seems to expand far beyond mere ship to ship combat.  A lot of the general ideas are actually quite similar to those behind Age of Grit.  The world looks awesome and the devs say they'll be a big focus on character development and story.  Check 'em out and pledge if you can!