A few people have told us “Hey man, good Kickstarters have GIFs!”
Well, we’re more than happy to oblige… so – we made a bunch of super cool GIFs to help explain the gameplay. All of these are taken directly from the actual, playable prototype of the game – so they aren’t mockups, they are actual current gameplay. Hopefully they help explain exactly how the game works better than words.
Check them out HERE.
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Hey there! We hope everyone’s having a great weekend. So far we’ve been getting wonderful comments about the art – now let us show you how we’ve created some of these heroes.
The Fae are the nature-inspired, the original inhabitants of Callasia. Most of them have distinguished animal characteristics, like Krysbur and Cobbs.
Krysbur has a pretty simple development history. I think bears are cool, and I wanted one in the game. They came back with some sort of bear-human ideas, and I was like, “No. I want a bear. Like a real f-ing bear. With like a necklace of skulls or something. I want to play as a big kick-ass bear” – and they brought forth this art. I was pleased. They named it Krysbur – for “Chris Bear” – if you want to back at the hero-naming level… you can give him a better name. 
Cobbs, on the other hand, is purely a creation of the artists, who wanted a “lizard man” but wanted something different than what they always see in games… so they took their inspiration from an actual salamander. I have no idea why they named it Cobbs – sounds like a Space Marine name from Aliens, to me. Again – if you think you can name him (her?) better… throw down some money!
Meanwhile, we’ve also drawn inspiration from classic mythical fantasy creatures such as the centaur – like Izmuth here. In truth, we had a lot of history with centaurs from the Awakening series – where we always wanted to have more centaurs, but for the longest time our publishers kept telling us “Nobody likes centaurs!” and we were all “What the hell? Centaurs are cool!” Well, it’s our game now, and without a publisher, we can put in as many centaurs as we want, and make them as badass as we want!
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It’s been an exciting first 24 hours of the Kickstarter, and we’re thrilled that we’ve already got some people backing us. Thank you so much!
One of the things we realized when we started is that we’re… well, we’re not famous. There is no Chris Avellone, Lord British, or Warren Specter on this team. We’re not rock stars of the game industry, and we’re not going to get that kind of “instant support and recognition” that these kinds of people will bring to a Kickstarter. Instead, what we actually are is a team of solid, hardworking veterans who have shipped over a hundred games between us. And we’d like to introduce ourselves.
One thing that *is* pretty cool is that we’re a really international studio, and have been for the last decade. We have people working all around the world, predominantly in Southeast Asia. In fact, when you look at all of the Boomzap team combined, we are one of the largest independent employers of game developers in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines!
And within the Boomzap team, the Legends of Fire & Steel team includes some of our oldest and most experienced staff. Adrian, who leads the code development, is a 12 year veteran of the industry, and one of the most experienced game coders working in Malaysia. TG builds maps and designs the game from her home in Ipoh, supported by Mop and Nelson who are both working from Metro Manila. We also have Filipino artists Edwin, Uncle Jun, and Soc – who have over a dozen years of digital art experience between them. Animation and effects are being done by Nanas and Shiro in Indonesia, as well as Zarif in Malaysia. Music and sound is being made in Singapore by the Lee twins, led by Shaz in Malaysia, who has over 14 years of game audio experience.
Leading the team are me (Chris) and Allan – the founders of the studio. We are both huge, huge strategy game fans (with a special love for Crusader Kings and Civilization). Allan has programmed and tech-directed dozens of games on PC, Mac, iOS, Wii, and Android over the last 15 years, and has taught at a number of game development programs in Singapore, as well as serving as the IGDA organizer there. I live in Yokohama and have been actively working as a designer, producer, and director in the game industry since 1992, with credits on almost 50 games, including producing the original Far Cry.
We’re not famous, it’s true, but that makes us no less experienced. We are passionate, hardworking professionals who have been doing this a very, very long time, and are finally working on our dream game. We are committed to make Legends of Fire & Steel as awesome as possible, and we hope you’ll join us in this journey by funding our project and spreading the word!
Our Kickstarter campaign for Legends of Fire & Steel has officially started! Please help us reach our funding goal of $50,000 in 30 days.
Watch the video below to know more about the team and this project. Read our story on our Kickstarter page and find out the awesome rewards that await our very generous backers.
Kickstarter Page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/boomzap/legends-of-fire-and-steel
LOFS Website: legends.boomzap.com
LOFS Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/BoomzapLegends
Official Twitter Hashtag: #BoomzapLegends (Follow us @boomzap)
Your support and feedback will be much appreciated. Together, let us make this game something truly special.
