We got covered by Kotaku by Nathan Grayson!

The article stayed above the fold for many hours and strong traffic is still coming in. So here we are, approaching 75% and 1,000 backers. How great is that?



With 8 days still to go and other big sites picking up the Kotaku article, we are trending way past our base goal. Kicktraq even lists us in the top 10 on their Video Games Hot List.

So if you like the premise of Sacred Fire, now is a good time to support us and help us reach all the customization and voice-over stretch goals.

[REDDIT]

With 10 days left, we are working hard to prepare a big ending for the campaign and preparing more update and perks to spicy up the rewards.

The first thing is, based on feedback from our backers, we have revealed our stretch goals in our last update:



One of Sacred Fire’s strengths is its unique visual style and focus on character creation. It’s the deepest and most thought out design aspect of Sacred Fire, as it allows you to develop your own playstyle and create your own hero. So our first stretch goal expands this fundamental part of the game and gives you even more self-expression options with focus on variety of:
- colors, outfits and hairstyles,
- faces, scars and paint patterns,
- jewelry and more awesome beards.



The design of Sacred Fire is oriented inwards, exploring the motives, emotions and conflicts of the protagonist. In key story choices, you lead an inner monologue detailing your thoughts and motives, why you made a choice and how you process the consequences.

To support this design, this stretch goals adds narration of inner dilemmas to immerse you deeper into your role. What’s interesting, we have some of the most distinct voices in gaming showing early interest in joining the Sacred Fire team (on our indie budget!), as the male and female voice of your character.



Based on your suggestions, we realized things don’t have to be black and white. While we can’t promise full voice-over for our varied cast, we can use it in character defining moments to make your favorite Sacred Fire characters come alive and immerse you deeper into the story. This stretch goal ads partial voice-over for the 10 main story characters: the 8 potential allies and the 2 powerful villains.

REDDIT

To help us reach these stretch goals, we have also prepared a list of short videos https://imgur.com/a/qoylG to post on reddit, for example at /r/gaming/ or your favorite gaming reddit. Just select a 'Submit a new link' and into the url field enter the video link (on imgur right-click the video and select copy video address) and add a short fun description in the title, for example "Have fun smashing an axe in political debates in Sacred Fire".

PRAISE FOR SACRED FIRE

Sacred Fire caught the eye of another game writer and we got a nod from Rhianna Pratchett:



I invite you to have a look at what my peers find so interesting and decide for yourself. Check out our campaign now.

We are getting close to 800 backers! Thank you!

[What should be the first stretch goal at $60,000 in your opinion:]

We are back with another in-depth update on combat in Sacred Fire



It feels really good if your hard work gets recognized by your peers. So we are happy to have leading RPG designers and writers fighting on our side to make this campaign a success!

Larian’s Swen Vincke, Chris Avellone and even Robert Kirkman's Skybound tweeted about our campaign rallying the fans to support.



With more than 750 backers, as we are approaching 60%, we are starting to think about revealing our first stretch goal. We have a few value-adding production expansions of Sacred Fire in mind, but we want to hear your thoughts: what would add the most value to you?

What should be the first stretch goal at $60,000 in your opinion:

1) More character customization: more variety in male and female outfits, faces, hair and pain styles, more jewelry for female characters and more awesome beards for male characters.

2) Localization: based on countries of our backers as of now, reaching the stretch goal would bring a translation to German, French and Slovak language.

3) More voiceover: the base goal includes Doug Cockle as the Narrator adding voiceover to the intro, key story branching moments and the endings. With the stretch goal reached, we would add voiceover to the inner voice of your player character. Supporting our inward design, a male and female voice actor would narrate the inner dilemmas of the key story choices.

Thank you for letting us know and if you like any of the stretch goals, please keep spreading the word about the Sacred Fire Kickstarter campaign.

We reached 50% with almost 20 days to go! Thank you all, this is going really well!

While we all may have grown accustomed to stories about Kickstarters that blast past their initial goal on day one and reach more and more stretch goals, we truly appreciate what we have here. This is all I could have hoped for, a steady stream of backers who help us spread the word because they like the look, the characters and the innovation in Sacred Fire.

We have also published our first update focused on design, explaining how Sacred Fire connects story and gameplay, by adding challenge to choice making and connecting story branching to renown won in battle.



Thank you for your support. This race is just getting started and we are preparing more juicy updates about combat, character creation, replayability, romances and more.

I'm happy to share with you our new trailer Storm Within with Doug Cockle's voiceover, presenting the themes we explore in Sacred Fire:


A place they can not touch. A force they can not break. A fire to keep the darkness at bay

It also shows previously not seen particle effects like snow, rain, fire and a waterfall, showing the visual quality we are going for with our location art.

Please let us know what you think and if you like it help us make this a reality and pledge your support on Kickstrater now.

[Early Bird rewards will be gone in a few hours]

There is already 500 people who decided to fund Sacred Fire in the first short 4 days. This is amazing!

We are happy to reveal our last 2 characters:



Early Bird rewards will be gone in a few hours

Please, let your friends know and use this last opportunity to upgrade to a higher tier for an Early Bird pledge.

Today I also celebrated my birthday with my family and my friends. It was a great moment to appreciate all the support I have in my life.

Thank you for being part of that.

[If you like what you see, go get your Early Bird reward now!]

We have another 'news from the trenches' update. We got to 30% in 48 hours, so thank you for a good start. Thank you for spreading the word on reddit, it helps a lot.

The Community Goals unlocked 2 more characters:

To see how the game plays out, check out this 10 minutes developers' commentary video:



If you like what you see, go get your Early Bird reward now!

Thank you for your support.

[More than 200 Eraly Bird rewards are gone, please help us make this a reality and go get yours now!]

We posted our first update, Mordhau gave us a shoutout and more are promised. The Commnunity Goals unlocked info about 2 more characters:



We got to 20% in the first 24 hours, which feels good, but we are not out of the woods yet.

More than 200 Eraly Bird rewards are gone, please help us make this a reality and go get yours now!

You guys are doing a good job spreading the word, please keep at it. If you could take various sub-reddits by storm, that would help a lot.

Please support us by upvoting this reddit post, thank you!

[The big day is here and we are live on Kickstarter!]

Hey everyone,

sorry for going radio silent in the last couple of weeks, we were preparing a fun campaign for you guys

The big day is here and we are live on Kickstarter!



We have also a developers' commentary video that defines what kind of role-playing experience Sacred Fire brings. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Thank you for your support, we appreciate every fan.

Check out the limited backer rewards before they are gone.

Hey everyone we have some great news:

We have been Greenlit today, thank you all for your fantastic support!

It took 32 days and almost 4,000 YES votes. We are grateful and happy, it brings us one step closer to releasing the game.

We are also hard at work on our crowdfunding campaign.

We launch on Kickstarter on March the 15th.

We have some fantastic rewards lined up, including a voicemail greeting with your name in the famed voice by Doug Cockle, also known as Geralt of Rivia.

Thanks to you all, our Steam Greenlight is well underway. On day 6, with almost 2,500 votes, we are getting close to being in the top 30. That would be quite a feat for us and our community.

In the meanwhile, we would like to ask what you think about the voting that happens on our site:



More than 500 of you voted at https://www.SacredFireGame.com/#voting for their favorite character to raise the NPCs in-game influence.

You can choose between characters that want to vengefully crush Rome, or those who want to survive Rome and build a nation. This way you can have a powerful, like-minded NPC ally inside the game.

As a player character you are always free to choose your own path. It just makes things easier if an NPC has your back, or harder if you fight alone.

It's also an interesting feedback to our casting/writing. What do you think?

We woke up to a nice surprise today, we are already #75 in the Steam Greenlight. Thank you all for your continuous and unrelenting support.

It's the first time we are making waves, well maybe ripples , on Reddit as well.

We basically need one last push to get to the top 50 where the Greenlighting happens.

Who will be the hero to save the day today?



This scene shows why relationships in Sacred Fire matter - they can be literary the difference between life and death.
Of course not all relationships are friendly and how you manage the hostile ones is equally as important and affects also combat encounters difficulty.

We just made it into the top 100 games on Steam Greenlight. It took less than 3 days - you guys are awesome, thank you all!

Let's see how far we can keep climbing.

We took the Steam Greenlight voting by storm - we currently have 1,050 YES votes and we are thankful for each and every one of them.



We still need some more to get Greenlit, so if you like what you see, please consider helping us to get the word out, either by reaching out to friends, admins, bloggers and influencers, or let the people know on reddit or social media. We appreciate all the help we can get, thank you.

The voting on our Steam Greenlight campaign is going great, thank you all for your support.

Our first update is about Character Creation, as Sacred Fire is all about building a strong personality. You need both inner strength and social influence to guide the story into the direction you want.

Character creation is our favorite part in any RPG. However, more often than not, the choices we make in the character creation screen are often inconsequential in the game once we start playing. We want to get this right in Sacred Fire and have put a lot of thought into how choices in the character creation screen will have a profound impact on every story scene and conflict you encounter.

Our character creation and writing supports multiple playstyles, and lets the player gain an edge with either force, smarts, skill, looks or empathy in every situation. These represent the five conflict resolution archetypes you can mix and match to create a unique character and take your own path trough the story.

The inspiration behind this was Fallout 2, where you had many options how to approach a situation, how to solve a quest, how to acquire equipment or firepower. This is what we support in our writing and design: many ways how to gain an edge, get to wealth, fame, love, influence. You chose what winning means and how to get there.



Besides extensive visual customization (10 outfits x 10 faces x 10 hairstyles x 10 paint styles) you can choose valuable appearance traits.

Traits like a “Melodic Voice,” “Fragile Figure” or “Vivid Gestures” make everything you do more memorable. They also evoke specific reactions. For example, “Fragile Figure” evokes the instinct to protect and you are less likely to be perceived as a threat.

Beauty helps you win people over but also evokes envy. Menace helps you intimidate opponents and can prevent them from attacking.



The personality and beliefs model represents a mature and nuanced take on the “good” and “evil” meters seen in some games. The goal is to bring over the pen & paper role-playing experience where a Game Master rewards you for staying in-character.

For example, processing failure is easier if you have a strong belief that there is happiness possible in life. But the same belief makes it harder for you to risk your life. Forgiving is easier if you believe there is goodness in people, but you may be prone to being played.

Believing you have the favor of a divinity can make you both courageous and arrogant. Ideals may be impractical in times of war, but being selfless helps you gain allies.

Mood plays an important role in how effectively your character controls emotions and uses skills and judgment under stress.

Mood depends on stress and comfort. Danger, pain from injuries, relationship conflicts, and traumatic memories can all raise your stress. Comfort and safety comes from powerful allies, a trusted blade in hand, luxury items and strong convictions.

Having a high mood helps you win both combat and story confrontations, as it makes you more resistant to Fear and Anger. On the other hand, stress and discomfort make you prone to Fear and Anger.



Using fighting, healing, crafting, and relationship skills develops both them and the associated Attributes: Agility and Strength, Intellect and Empathy, Beauty and Menace. The more intelligence you have, the faster they progress.

Living through both success and failure creates positive and negative memories. It’s up to you to save up enough willpower to process the negative memories and use them to make you stronger.

Story choices strengthen or weaken your beliefs. The pros and cons of positive and negative beliefs are balanced. The goal is to give the player the possibility to freely express different beliefs and explore their consequences.

Authority expresses the inner strength of your personality. It’s the sum of memories, beliefs, skills, and attributes. Gain enough authority to level-up and:

- Strengthen your willpower
- Choose traits like “6th Sense,” “Unstoppable,” or “Stoic” affecting gameplay
- Unlock ideas that represent your fundamental beliefs like “You Are(Not) on Your Own,” “Things Happens for a(no) Reason,” or “There is(Not) Enough to go Around.”

Please let us know what you think!

We have been hard at work and have some exciting news - right on track with our roadmap we just launched our regular Steam Greenlight campaign.



Thank you for your feedback and encouragement during our Concept stage. Your reactions were overwhelmingly positive. You’ve become a vital part of this adventure.

“I didn't realize it, til I saw this trailer, but I've been waiting for a game like this.”
-Cypher-D

“Looks (and sounds) awesome. Good luck!”
-Aleonymous

We’ve taken your comments and ideas and used them to further refine our official Greenlight page.


- We’ve added a few juicy gameplay GIFs showing in-detail combat, politics and ambush gameplay

- Added more details about Combat and Choice Making in Sacred Fire. These are important aspects of the game and deserve more information.

- And we are particularly happy about a quote from Arnie Jorgensen, art director of Banner Saga.


So now we’re turning to you again to help us to make Sacred Fire a reality.

Head to Sacred Fire Greenlight page now and vote ‘Yes’.

Every single ‘Yes’ vote is appreciated and important. We are always looking forward to when a new comment pops up and we had a blast answering them. Favorite us or follow, so you don’t miss important updates. And tell your gaming friends on Steam about Sacred Fire.

Thank you!

With the new year here, let me wish you a delayed but sincere Happy New Year. We were busy at work and laid out our road-map and battle plans for development of Sacred Fire:

• Steam Greenlight Concepts, VOTE NOW: let's get into the top 100 Best Rated of All Time. We are already close!
  
• Steam Greenlight, January 2017: let's start making some waves together and get the attention of blogers, youtubers and maybe even the almighty Valve
• Kickstarter, March 2017: get some cool backer rewards, immortalize your name, get alpha and beta access and more!
• Preview release, Summer 2017: get your hands on the first playable version for Firestarters Guild members and ALL Kickstarter backers
• Alpha/Beta release, Late 2017: be the first to enjoy the full storyline in our Beta
• Gold release: Spring 2018: own the sweet polished version of Sacred Fire

Our roadmap is a chain of events, one leading into the other and building its results. A strong Greenlight campaign will be noticed the attention can give us an extra push to build a bigger community before Kickstarter. We can then get into appealing rewards to make Kickstarter more attractive. So then Kickstarter has a better chance to hit the goal in the first days. What next? A swiftly funded project can get more coverage and raise even more funds. The game is able to get more content and polish.  We can even bring in more star talent, as voice over legend Troy Baker, Joel from The Last of Us, has shown interest and is watching our development.

So to get to the Gold experience, your help is essential and we invite you to take part in the Sacred Fire development. Go to our home page and scroll down to Sign-up to the Firestarters Guild to receive all the updates and benefits.

We’ve are currently on Steam Greenlight Concepts, getting close to enter the top 100 of Best rated of All Time. We need one last push, vote for Sacred Fire now. If you use the Steam client, to find us in the Greenlight, you need to choose Browse 'Concepts' category.

Thank you!

Also, who would be a good fit for a female voice actress along Doug Cockle in your opinion?

Today is a great day for Sacred Fire, as we got our first media coverage and it's on PC Gamer of all sites: http://www.pcgamer.com/how-a-debuting-indie-studio-got-the-witchers-geralt-of-rivia-to-voice-its-trailer/



Thank you all for your support!

It's Screenshot Saturday, so here you go, a new screenshot from Sacred Fire. If you feel like smashing an axe to get some order into politics these days!