1.1m Stretch Goal Met and RPG Stuff
over 8 years ago – Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 01:08:56 AM

1.1m Goal Reached!

Looks like the 1.1m stretch goal has been reached and we'll be supporting Linux and Mac versions of the game! Thank you all so much for making that possible! :-D We're working on bringing the demo onto OSX, but no concrete release date for it just yet. We’re hoping to having it some time next week if all goes well.

1.4m Goal Changes

We've altered the 1.4m stretch goal to something a bit more manageable from a game development standpoint. Before, it was vague and misleading regarding “RPG Elements”. That lead to a bit of confusion and unease with our backers, and to be perfectly honest, deep system features like that are pretty dangerous as stretch goals. We have an awesome vision for the game and setting a bunch of features we deeply believe in to a stretch goal stifles our own creativity since we can't fully plan for things.

Now, the 1.4m stretch goal is something much safer for us to scale if we don’t make the goal. It’s to add content in the form of more maps such as Groves, floors of Citadel Station, and Cyberspace content. This will make it better for us to properly execute on our core vision of the game, while still being able to offer some more awesome content if we hit the stretch goal.

So the RPG Stuff...

As I mentioned before, we have a pretty good vision of where we want to take things and what RPG systems we’ll be leaning towards within our budget. Also, RPG systems can imply a lot of things, so I'll go over some core concepts that we're following with the overall systems design.

• Stats are boring - Instead of letting the player feel stronger with stat boosts and level identification, we’re more in favor of ability and skill depth. As the player progresses, they will get more abilities/weapons, which will take skill to master (player skill, not skill points)
• Things should make sense - We want to have vending machines, but they're mainly for food/drinks that the player can get to help heal themselves or provide a slight boost to their abilities. You won't hack a vending machine to get a gun, since why would a vending machine on a space station have a gun?
• Upgrades are good in moderation - Throughout the game, the player will find upgrades to their abilities and find better weapons. We're not going to get crazy with this one since the point of the game is to have fun, and not noodle around in your inventory. If something is tedious, don't expect us to do it.
• Multiple ways to solve a problem - We're going to assume our players are smart and want to find creative solutions to problems/enemies. We'll provide the tools/weapons/abilities, and the player will decide how they want to solve the problem given their playstyle.

I know that isn't very detailed, but it's still early in the game’s development, and things can change. Those rules above are what we're confident in delivering. At the end of the day, we always ask ourselves “What would Looking Glass do?” and strive to carry on their tradition of innovation and quality while being as faithful as we can be to the original game.

 - Jason

Giveaway #2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
over 8 years ago – Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:03:14 AM

Hey everyone! It's Jonathan (audio) here again with a quick update!

We are now hosting another giveaway! This time, we have partnered with NVIDIA to bring you all a chance at a GeForce GTX 1080!

 

"NVIDIA’s new flagship GeForce GTX 1080 is the most advanced gaming GPU ever created. Powered by the new NVIDIA® Pascal™ architecture, this breakthrough GPU delivers industry-leading performance, innovative new gaming technologies, and immersive, next-gen VR."

Enter the Giveaway! [Facebook.com]

Alternate Link

You can save yourself the MSRP of $699 by helping us promote our Kickstarter campaign through this giveaway. I've been using a GTX 960 this whole project, and it runs great; but this card is a new level of rad.

Learn more about the GTX 1080 here! [GeForce.com]

PS4
over 8 years ago – Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 12:30:33 AM

Hey everyone, this is Jason again. I have some really exciting news to share. I fear the the subject title gives away the surprise… but I’ll go into more detail on things. :-)

When we launched this Kickstarter, supporting PS4 was a possibility, but we hadn’t started talking to Sony just yet about it. We were all focused on wrapping the demo up and prepping the Kickstarter. We already had strong contacts at Microsoft from prior projects, so supporting XboxOne was less of an unknown. After we saw the overwhelming demand for PS4, we reshuffled our priorities and focused on talking to Sony about making that happen. After a few weeks and lotttts of emails, we are officially on track for bringing System Shock to the PS4! No stretch goal for it. We’re adding it in as a thank you to our backers that put their faith in us.

Supporting more platforms will cost us more time/money since ensuring a game functions smoothly and relatively bug-free is different from platform to platform. The more we’re able to raise, the better the game will be. Please tell your friends about us, share this news about the PS4 support, and help us make the amazing game you all want :-)

 - Jason

System Shock Remix Album: Celldweller & Blue Stahli; New Backer Missions
over 8 years ago – Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 01:00:36 AM

Hey everyone! Jonathan (audio) here again. I am really excited to talk more about the System Shock remix stretch goal; it’s been my passion project during development. Just a recap: the $1.9m stretch goal for the project is to have the soundtrack from System Shock 1 remixed by a roster of fantastic musicians to be released along with the game. There is also an achievement (more on these later in the update) in which we will implement these remixes as an alternate soundtrack for the game, perhaps in an unlockable mode. We've still got a little ways to go, but if you help get the word out, I'm confident we can get this remix album goal met and begin getting some awesome remixes sent to your earholes! Now let me get the thrill of telling you a little about two of the artists that we will be working with when this stretch goal is reached: Celldweller and Blue Stahli.

Celldweller

Klayton, the multifaceted producer behind Celldweller, not only creates artist albums that have garnered an intense cult following, but is well known in the media industry for his music appearing in hundreds of major Film, TV, Video Game & Trailer projects, from Killer Instinct Season 3 to John Wick, Lucy, Robocop, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows to Dead Rising 2 & 3, Deadpool and more.

For more information on Celldweller, visit: http://facebook.com/celldweller

Blue Stahli

The music of Blue Stahli is a roller coaster ride derailed mid-journey, landing on another track, only this time rolling backwards. Just when you think you know what Blue Stahli has in store for you, the floor drops out from under you and sends you straight into a cacophonous amalgamation of sounds you never imagined could be combined. Sometimes aggressive, artistic, and full of piss’n’vinegar, other-times vividly cinematic and wildly epic. He covers a huge variety of sound in his music; check out his Antisleep albums for a taste of what’s in store. :)

 The sole member of Blue Stahli, Bret, comes from a background of fetish burlesque troupes, drag queen fronted punk bands and believes that he is visited in his dreams by the ghost of William S. Burroughs. Blue Stahli’s music has been heard in Film/TV/Game Projects like: Taken 3, X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Star Trek, Expendables, Call of Duty, American Horror Story and more.

For more information on Blue Stahli, visit: http://facebook.com/bluestahlimusic

And for those of you who aren't already fans, Celldweller and Blue Stahli have put up some free tracks for you guys to listen to! Go ahead and download them here:

 

New Backer Missions (Achievements)

Feedback

Dev Spotlight - Stephen Kick
over 8 years ago – Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 12:38:48 AM

Hey Backers! My name is Stephen Kick and I’m the CEO and Founder of Nightdive Studios- I’m responsible for the day to day operations around the studio and making sure our developers have everything they need to do their job to the best of their abilities. I’m also part of the team that negotiates the licensing rights to the many games in our catalog, meets with our many partners, and ensures that we revive and re-release as many classic PC games as possible. 

My Career

I remember looking at college applications during my senior year of high school and not being particularly motivated to spend another 4 years in school. It didn’t help that at the time I really didn’t have an idea of what I wanted to study but like many people my age I found myself completely infatuated with gaming. After seeing an ad in PC Gamer for a school in San Francisco that offered degrees in Game Art & Design, I decided I’d go and give it a shot. After completing my 3rd or 4th 200 page game design doc I decided I’d have more fun working on Character Art and refocused my efforts. After graduation I quickly found a position as character artist at a local indie studio, and shortly after that employed at Sony Online Entertainment. I worked on a few MMO’s including Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures and PlanetSide 2 before deciding to quit and spend about a year traveling.

My journey took me through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and finally Panama over the course of 9 months. During that time I revisited a few of my favorite classic games, Full Throttle, The Curse of Monkey Island, Fallout 2, and many others. It was when attempting to install and replay System Shock 2 that I discovered there was no legal way to purchase the game, or play it on modern operating systems. The fact that one of the greatest PC games of all time was no longer available concerned me, so I set out to discover what had happened to the franchise. My quest led me to discover the rights were being held by an insurance company in the midwest, and after speaking with their legal counsel, I negotiated a deal that would grant me to rights to redistribute the game. On February 13th 2013 I launched System Shock 2 on GOG.com - and Night Dive Studios was born. This November will mark our 4th anniversary, and with almost 100 games published on Steam and multiple development teams currently working to bring back forgotten classics, we begin our most ambitious project yet, a faithful remake of the original System Shock.

My Life

I grew up an only child in a small town in Massachusetts just South of the New Hampshire border. Consoles weren’t allowed in the home so when my family purchased a personal computer, my life was forever changed. My first two games were NHL 95 and LucasArts’ Dark Forces, but many more would follow. After work my dad would come home and we’d play adventure games together for hours. We’d solve the puzzles, print out screenshots, and paste them in our own detailed guides that read like journals from some mythical quest. Video games were rapidly consuming my attention and often times in class instead of homework I’d be planning the perfect base layout for a future MP game of Command & Conquer: Red Alert, or using Red, Blue, Yellow and Green Crayola markers to lay out my strike pattern for an upcoming mission of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six.

I remember going to my local Electronics Boutique for a midnight release of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and being the only person there, going home, installing the game and becoming so distraught at the poor performance that I spent the next 3 weeks mowing every lawn in the neighborhood to save up and buy my first 3D accelerator, a 6MB beast that blew my mind. It made the newly released N64 look like a kid’s toy. When Quake was released I started getting into creating custom levels and my interest in game development started to grow. When I wasn’t gaming, I was playing sports. I played soccer, basketball, lacrosse, ran cross country, and competed in track and field. If gaming hadn’t been such a strong influence on me there’s no doubt I would have pursued a professional career in athletics.

Other Thoughts

My favorite part about this journey I’ve taken has been hearing from you, the fans of classic games who have reached out and shared their love for the medium. Everyone has such wonderful stories of how they were introduced to video games and your appreciation for what we do is what makes it all worth it. Our goal from the very beginning was to scour the depths of PC gaming history and recover and restore lost classics for all to enjoy once again, and with your help we’re able to take it to the next step. I can’t thank you all enough for your support!

 

 - Stephen Kick