Pledge $1 or More
• Our sincere appreciation for your support, along with a digital hug... act now, while supplies last!
Pledge $10 or More
• An exclusive “Sponsor” badge to be displayed next to your name on our official forums showing off your generous support of ‘At the Gates’, upon request.
Pledge $25 or More
• A digital copy of 'At the Gates' for Windows, Mac and Linux - five dollars off the planned release price!
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $30 or More
• A digital version of our 100+ page manual/strategy guide, including designer notes (to go with your digital copy of 'At the Gates').
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $50 or More
• An invitation to the 'At the Gates' private BETA testing group. Starting January of 2014 (approximately), you will receive beta builds of the game through the Internet and be granted access into our private testing forum.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $80 or More
• An invitation to the 'At the Gates' private ALPHA testing group. Starting July of 2013 (approximately), you will receive alpha builds of the game through the Internet and be granted access into our private testing forum.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $125 or More
• Full access to the 'At the Gates' design documents in Google Drive.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $200 or More ($215 if outside the US)
• An autographed boxed copy of 'At the Gates'. Also contains a 100+ page manual/strategy guide with designer notes. *See “Reward Tier Details” below.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $250 or More
• Name one mountain range AND river AND lake which will be added to the ‘At the Gates’ random map generator. *See "Reward Tier Details" below.
• Your name or online handle will be added to the special thanks section of the credits, upon request.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $500 or More
• Name a CITY belonging to one of the barbarian factions, which will be added to the 'At the Gates' name generator. *See “Reward Tier Details” below.
• An invitation to an exclusive Skype chat Q&A session with the development team. One session is scheduled for a weekend in April 2013 and a second for a weekend in May 2013. Should you be unable to attend either you'll instead have the opportunity ask questions via email.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $750 or More
• An invitation to the 'At the Gates' release party and the opportunity to hang out with the development team. All travel arrangements are the responsibility of the backer.
• Name one SEA, which will be added to the random map generator. *See "Reward Tier Details" below.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $1,000 or More
• The development team will write a 1000+ word article on a game design topic of your choice, to be posted on on the official 'At the Gates' website and Jon Shafer’s design blog. Your name will be credited as the inspiration for the article, upon request.
• Name one CONTINENT, which will be added to the map generator. *See “Reward Tier Details” below.
• All of the above rewards.
Pledge $2,500 or More
• Design the visual look, gameplay traits, etc. for one of 'At the Gates' barbarian factions and its leader. *See “Reward Tier Details” below.
• All of the above rewards.
Reward Tier Details
Boxed Version
The box will be approximately 7.5 inches tall, 5.5 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. It will contain:
• A printed manual/strategy guide. We have no idea how long this will be since, well, it hasn’t been written yet! But you can expect something over 100 pages. As suggested, it will be more than just, “this is how you install the game!” and also offer gameplay tips, delve into possible strategies, and include design notes explaining the team’s intentions behind the features being described. It should be pretty cool!
• Autographs from each member of the core development team (Jon, Kay and Jonathan).
• A CD or DVD of the game that contains all versions of At the Gates, stored in a paper sleeve.
Naming In-Game Items
All of the reward tiers which allow contributors to name or set the direction for an in-game item are subject to approval by Conifer - after all, we have to make sure whatever you choose is actually appropriate for the game! As an example, let’s say Jonathan likes Elves and wants to name a city "Elftown." This city name doesn't really match the theme, but if we Romanized it into "Elfinium," then it would be. We will work with you to help come up with an appropriate name if necessary.
If you're curious what it means to "add a name to the random map generator," this is how it works:
In randomly-generated maps, certain geographic features will be given names that are visible in the game. If your contribution reaches the appropriate tier, your names will be added to the pool of names that the map generator picks from. Your names will be distributed with all copies of the game so that anytime someone generates a random At the Gates map, your names will have a chance to be displayed!
Why Contribute?
The majority of funding for the development of At the Gates is coming from Kickstarter and contributions here on our website. Our project has a significant head start over many of the others which show up on Kickstarter, as our team already has a fully-playable prototype which includes a rough implementation of every major feature. Maps can be randomly generated, you can order your armies to crush enemies, basic diplomacy is possible and so on. We’re very happy with the current state of the game!
So if that’s the case, why are we asking for your money?
The short answer is that in spite of that progress, the road ahead is still a long one. While At the Gates is technically playable, the mechanics are still extremely rough. Iteration is the most vital element of game development, and the current version of At the Gates is just a first draft. The AI - essential for any single player strategy game - is still in its very early stages and will need significant development time and resources to provide the challenge strategy gamers expect.
The art style is solid, but there's a significant amount of polish work we'd still like to do. Portraits have been completed for only one out of the ten leaders. There’s zero animation work done for either the units or the landscape. We have no sound effects, nor music outside of a single title theme.
So, yeah... our to-do list is pretty packed!
Conifer Games is a brand-new studio. We’re not sitting on a massive pile of cash, we don’t have a publisher and, as of right now, any future expenses will come directly out of the team’s pocket. In other words, without your support At the Gates will never be finished.
$40,000 is not a large budget for a game with this kind of scope. But it's sufficient to finish At the Gates because we've already made significant progress, and have a very small development team. Raising more than that would let us add even more features to the game than we've talked about here, so we're certainly hoping to not just meet this threshold but shoot beyond it!
Our launch target for At the Gates is the first half of 2014.That date is obviously pretty far off, but we believe in setting realistic deadlines and being honest with you all about what to expect. A game like this can't be built in six months. Well, not a good one, anyways!
After At the Gates ships, Conifer will continue supporting it with patches and new content. And, should this Kickstarter be a success, once development on At the Gates ultimately winds down we’ll begin work on other fresh, deep and ambitious titles. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves now!
With your guys’ support we can make all of that a reality. Come and be a part of an amazing game and a new company with a bright future. We promise we won’t let you down!
