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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:

AOG is Chugging Along!
about 9 years ago – Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 07:32:25 PM

We've been pretty busy over here and have made a lot of progress!  Age of Grit is gradually starting to coalesce. A big chunk of the game's back-end systems has been taken care of. The dialog system is working well and the questing system should be finished very soon. These are two critical systems that lay the groundwork for much of the game's complexity. We are also making strides forward with the combat sequence.  The combat UI is underway and the ruleset has been fleshed out and is being fine tuned.  We'e implemented the system for building ships from within the game--which is important for the modular design we are going with for the airships. 

We're also hard at work on NPCs. We've finished a bunch of NPCs already and we're chipping away at more each day. I spent much of the last week or two finishing up all the NPC briefing documents. The art team uses these documents to create the artwork needed for each NPC. Usually I will try to finish the briefing docs as they are needed by the art team, but now they are all completed for all the NPCs in the entire game. This a huge milestone--there are hundreds upon hundreds of in-game NPCs that I needed to write out detailed descriptions for. It is one of the major writing tasks on my plate, finishing it means I can now focus more time on other areas of the game.

Our Backerkit fundraising campaign will soon be coming to an end.  We haven't seen as much success as we've expected, but perhaps that's because our main push was during the last few months when the crowfunding season typically tends to slow down.  Next week we are going to give it one last push to try to raise some extra funds through add-ons and preorders. All of you have already done so much and we're so incredibly grateful, but if you'd like please check out some of our add-ons and see if you're interested.  We'd greatly appreciate it and every dollar help make the game a bit better.  All funds raised through Backerkit will go towards more artwork for the game--predominately more airships designs.

As always we thank every one of you for all your help and support!

If you have a moment go check out the Kickstarter for On My Own.  It's a 2d pixel art based woodcarft/survival game.  Looks pretty neat and they are only asking for $2,500 in funding.  Go help them out if you can!

Airships
over 9 years ago – Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 07:11:44 AM

Howdy everyone!

Age of Grit is gradually beginning to coalesce. We are focusing the brunt of our efforts on the combat sequence. Things are coming along nicely and we should have a good battle demo to show off early 2015. We're doing a redesign of the battle UI, reworking things to be more intuitive and just generally more awesome.

The battle mechanics under the hood are taking shape as well. From a while now we've had a rough outline for how we wanted the combat rules to work, but now we're getting into the nitty gritty.  It means a of testing and tweaking to make sure battles feel just right.  Everything needs to be weighted and balanced properly.  For a bit of research I've personally been playing some Fallout 2 recently. A great classic, but a lot of people complain about the combat.  It can be a clunky system for sure, but I for one always liked the intensely strategic feel it had.  You carefully calculate every action, considering a whole host of factors.  One misstep and you might accidentally blow off your buddy's head with a burst of machine gun fire.I think there's a lot to learn from the early CRPGs and just classic games in general--both from the things they do well and the areas in which they could have improved.

We have some great airship assets we've been cooking up! This is my favorite part of game development--seeing cool new stuff like this when I check my email in the morning!  Here's a couple ships we hope you'll enjoy:

A BIG thank you to everyone who filled out their Backerkit surveys! Due to the additional funds we've received through Backerkit we have hit our second stretch goal--Age of Grit will now feature comic book style cut scenes!!!  This will be a huge benefit to the game's story. I really like when games focus on telling the story through the actual game mechanics, but from time to time a good cut scene can really enhance the story and add a bit of a cinematic feel to the game. Cut scenes add variety to the story telling and add a unique style and flavor to the game.  As a kid my main motivation in beating a particular game was usually to see whatever awesome cut scene awaited me at the end of the game. More than once I was deeply disappointed, but sometimes the payoff was worth it

If you haven't filled out your survey yet, please go to our Backerkit page put in your Kickstarter email, and you'll be sent another invite. If you've already filled one out you can also go to there to edit your responses, up your pledge, or add on some extra rewards. Some of the add ons let you make your mark on the game--name an airship or even write a line of dialog for the game. As always your generosity is deeply appreciated--every dollar from Backerkit will go to making Age of Grit a little bit better. You can also point your friends to our pre-order page if they missed out on the Kickstarter campaign. 

We appreciate each of you for all the help and support! We wish a merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!

Rocket Ranger Reloaded is down to its final hours and still has a little ways to go.  It's an awesome looking reboot of a classic arcade game, and has a great steampunk vibe to everything.  Head on over and if you like what you see please throw 'em a bone!

BackerKit Surveys Heading Your Way!
over 9 years ago – Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 04:53:06 PM

We've been making a lot of progress!  Currently the main goal we're working towards is a combat demo--an early build of the game demonstrating the ship to ship combat system. You'll be able to play out a few randomly generated battles and get a decent feel for how the game will play. It'll also give us a chance to get some good feedback from all of you. Once we've hit that milestone it's on the beta--which will include things like towns, missions, NPC dialog, and the upgrade system.

Over the next few days we will be sending surveys out. You'll get an email from BackerKit asking you some basic questions to gather the information we'll need for your reward. Things like your name for the credits, a good email we can reach you at, a physical address if your pledge tier has physical rewards associated with it, etc.  

It'll just take a moment of your time.  There's no need to register, create an account, or anything like that. Please fill out your survey and get it back to us as soon as you can--we really appreciate it!  It will really help out the project; we'll be able to spend less time with administrative stuff and more time making Age of Grit awesome.

You'll also have the option to choose add on rewards or increase your pledge if you so desire. Every extra dollar helps us make Age of Grit a little bit better!  And we're still aiming for our next stretch goal at $16k: comic book style cut scenes!

Thanks everyone for all the support.  Most of all thanks for believing in us and in Age of Grit! You guys are the best!

Villains
over 9 years ago – Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:45:51 AM

Hey everyone! I hope all is well! We are hard at work at Age of Grit and things are coming along quite nicely. It's a lot of work but we're having a blast!

We will be sending out Backerkit surveys next week. It will be a fairly simple survey we'll use confirm your reward level and gather some of the information we'll need to fulfill your rewards. For example, the survey will request shipping addresses from those who selected tiers physical rewards. You'll also get a chance to upgrade your pledge to a higher tier or select add ons for extra bonus rewards. Some of the add ons are really quite fun--I think a lot of you will really like them! If you missed our last minute add on (the ability to name an in-game manufacturer) it will be available through Backerkit as well!

We are still counting all additional funds raised towards our stretch goals. We have had some generous Paypal donations and we're just coming up on our next goal at $16K. With a little help from some of you I think we'll be able to soar past that $16K goal!  That means cut scenes for Age of Grit!

Thanks again to all of you for all the support!


A great game deserves great villains! Villains can simultaneously be one-dimensional, stereotypical bad guys on the surface, but then reveal themselves to be really complex characters when the story progresses and you look a little deeper.

Look at Darth Vader (ignoring the unbearable prequels of course). When you first see him in A New Hope he just seems to be some evil robot man who loves choking people. He certainly does a good job serving the role of a cool scary bad guy, but at first that's all he seems to be. 

Fast forward to that scene in Return of the Jedi where he's dying and asks Luke to take his mask off so he can for once see his son with his own eyes--the very son he just sacrificed his life for. The same son whose arm he chopped off in the previous movie.  We now see a very multi-dimensional, complex character--a flawed, very frail, very human man who, despite being such an evil jerk most of the last three movies, has a lot good buried within in him.  Even though he's the villain, Darth Vader undeniably has a lot more depth than any of the good guys.

Villains by definition are flawed people. That's part of what makes them so interesting. Often they can teach us a lot more than the good guys do. A villain's exaggerated flaws might cast light on something within ourselves. We all have a little Darth Vader inside of us--we just might not realize it until after we've watched the Star Wars trilogy.

Other villains--like the Emperor for example--are just pure evil and never find or even seek redemption. There's a place for really dark villains like that. They reveal something of the true nature of evil and give the good guys something powerful to overcome. Villains like this can really scare us. When I was a kid playing FFVII and first saw Sephiroth amongst the flames of the town he just destroyed with that evil bad guy music playing--I was in awe of how scary a bad guy he was. At the end of the game when I went to go fight him I was petrified. Was I really about to fight Sephiroth!!!  It made finally killing him and beating the game all that more satisfying. 

Whether complex and conflicted characters, monsters of pure evil, deranged psychopaths, or simply just jerks--villains are the engines that drive a good story. I truly hope you'll enjoy each of the many villains you'll meet in Age of Grit!

THANK YOU!!!
over 9 years ago – Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 09:46:45 AM

It's over!  We did it guys!  Congratulations--because of each of you Age of Grit is now going to be made!  We are so extremely grateful for each and every one of you for believing in this game! Thank you thank you thank you for EVERYTHING!  :D

We are pretty tired from the campaign--it was a blast but exhausting to say the least!  No rest for the weary though--now the real work begins!  We will update you as the game progresses--each step of the way.  Our first milestone will be a playable combat demo, which will feature a fully functional battle sequence. We'll send it out to all of you and you can tell us your impressions and give us some feedback.  And after that its on to the beta!

Slacker Backers

We were just a hair from reaching out next stretch goal--comic book style cut scenes for the game! For a limited time we are still accepting pledges via Paypal!  So if you didn't get a chance to pledge you can still do so. Any extra funds we raise on Paypal will go towards our stretch goals--so we might get those cut scenes after all!

And if you didn't get a chance to take advantage of our last minute add on don't worry.  In a few days we'll be offering a few post Kickstarter add ons for those who are interested.