Patreon has been such an incredible help to me that I'm giving a thank you shout out to the Patreon staff as well as to all my patrons. (My Patreon is here, btw.) Patreon is a way for people to directly support the creative people they want to support. It's not for a specific project like a Kickstarter, but rather for everything that person is doing. It's actually a lot more fun than kickstarter because I get to show all the in-progress stuff I'm working on.
Here's a rundown of what I've been doing over on my Patreon lately.
Last month, I offered early access to (physical) Codex cards. Codex is a new take on customizable card games. If you'd like to learn more about Codex, here's three articles about the game's design:
#1 Codex Design: Cards and Gold As Resources
#2 Codex Design: Heroes and Tech Buildings
#3 Codex Design: Combat and the Patrol Zone
Anyway, all those Codex early access sets already shipped out and my patrons often play each other over Skype. If you missed out on that, you can actually still get physical cards through this post (requires $25+ patron level). Though you might as well wait until next week because there will be a balance update within a week.
Last week I posted a new Raw Game Design podcast episode (for $10+ patrons) where I discuss "reset buttons" in Codex (cards that blow up the board so you can possibly come back from a very bad position). I also discuss some changes to the Tower add-on. It's a way to detect stealth / invisible units and it's tricky to give the right amount of detection. Finally, we discuss what Geiger's moves will be in the Fantasy Strike fighting game.
I also posted an update to the Codex rulebooks today for patrons of any level.
Within a couple days, I plan to post a big update to the Codex print-and-play version (for $25+ patrons) that has dozens of balance changes based on the last month of playtesting. Within a week of that, the same changes will be available as physical cards to patrons of any level (for just the cost of printing + shipping).
Last and certainly not least, I plan to post a new playable version of Fantasy Strike, our simple-yet-deep fighting game (for the $25+ patrons). There's a little bit of info on the game here: http://www.sirlin.net/fantasystrike
The new build has loads of bug fixes, a few balance adjustments, and a new playable character, bringing our cast up to four so far. We have Grave, who has a projectile and is an all-around kind of guy. Jaina also has projectiles, and some rushdown capability, but where she really shines is zoning with her crazy obstacle course of flame arrows. Rook is a grappler's dream, having just about every tool a grappler could hope for. And our newest cast member is Valerie, a manic painter who's all about rushdown. She may bear some gameplay resemblance to Fei Long. ;)
We've been focusing mostly on gameplay so far, but we'll be upping our production values soon. If you're an expert 3D combat animator, or a visual effects artist (in Unity), or a 3D environmental artist, get in touch with us at jobs@sirlingames.com. We're also looking for a volunteer concept artist to help with our stages. Concept artists just need to know fighting games and the Fantasy Strike characters to work with us on the look of the stages. We need help in all those areas, but another experienced combat animator is what we need the most.
Thanks again to all my patrons. Your support is much appreciated and all the funds go directly into these projects.
