June Progress Update
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 11:30:51 PM

Knights!

It has been a little longer than we expected since the last update -- a month and 3 days -- but we’ve got a massive slew of news today including new artwork, the snow leopard reveal, exciting language pack plans, details about the first upcoming Exec Producers meeting, reward deliveries and more. We've got at least one more Kickstarter update scheduled before the end of June, so we'll keep the pace a little more snappy.

With that much to cover, let’s get going!

Introducing the Snow Leopard!

Thanks to all of our backers, we unlocked cyber cats and the Assassin Job at the $225,000 stretch goal. Even better, we decided to unlock the additional cat breed from the $235,000 goal as well -- because, two cats are better than one! And then, in a run off between three possibilities, you voted for the Snow Leopard to be the additional cat breed.

And that leads us to today, where the concept art team -- led by some cat lovers! -- has delivered this amazing piece for the snow leopard design. What a beast! Clearly, this will not be an easy cat to find and recruit, but to have such a majestic animal at your Assassin’s side will never grow old.

Announcing Plans for Language Pack Support!

Since the close of the Kickstarter, we’ve been extremely busy building new engine components and adapting our workflows and content building systems for Cyber Knights. These are some major tasks that will set the foundation of Cyber Knights and include items like rewriting our UI toolkit and establishing a proper text management system within Unity.

Each of our future Kickstarter updates is likely to touch on the results of some of these major engineering tasks. Today, we’re excited to share our plans and progress for translating Cyber Knights: Flashpoint into many languages. Despite being only available in English, our previous game Star Traders: Frontiers has a large international fanbase and we’ve always hoped to be able to translate the game for those players. However, this is much easier when we have a fresh start and this Kickstarter and Cyber Knights has afforded us that opportunity.

We have not finalized our language list or exact system for how translations will be available; however, the engineering work has reached a point where we can commit to translating Cyber Knights: Flashpoint into multiple languages. During the alpha, we work with interested players within the community to help test out the full translation pipeline and provide some initial community-led translations. Depending on the success of those efforts we will further engage the community and bring in professional translation services as needed to complete the project.

While we can’t commit to specific language nor which languages might be available when the game launches on Steam, the UI toolkit is now ready to play and we’ll be keeping that support tested, polished and primed for translation throughout the entire game development cycle.

Stretch Goal Outfits

There were 3 different new outfit sets (street, military, corp) unlocked as the project marched up its stretch goal ladder and we are excited to debut the first set today -- the street outfits. The corp and military additions will follow soon enough, but for today we’re looking over a street berserker and an all too cool bubble-gum popping street blade.

Forum Badges Delivered

We have now completed the sweep of social rewards due for the project, with every backer who entered a forum username for either the backers badge or the alpha badge now tagged on our forum. For our alpha backers, this badge will grant you access to the private forum boards used for feedback, suggestions and bug reports during the alpha. Now is a good time to check your forum account and make sure you are a badged! If you want your Cyber Knights badge to be shown as your active group, you must set it to be your user’s display group under Edit Profile > Settings > Display Group.

First Exec Producers Meeting

As the project has been picking up speed, we’re now preparing to sit down with our 22 Executive Producers ($1,000 reward or higher) and give them the first big behind the scenes look. This first meeting is focused on the game’s artwork and the process of visualizing, designing, drawing and then 3D modeling the Cyber Knights world -- not to mention putting it all into motion. The Execs will get a special tour of the process, the tools we use, and get a sneak peak look at a lot of the work-in-progress art as it stands.

 This first meeting will replace Cory’s usual Twitch 4 PM slot on Tuesday, June 16th. If you're attending, be sure to be in the #ck_exec's channel on our Discord at the appointed hour.

Backer Pen & Paper Game

When we last covered the pen and paper game for @DrSpendLove in our May update, we’d played the first four sessions of the campaign. Last night we played out the 13th and penultimate session with the final showdown looming inexorably over Yoss and his team. Some huge final choices have to be made and the consequences will ripple through New Boston and the game's story!

From where we last left Yoss, Cat, Shimmer and Lupin they dove straight into spoiler territory for the game. Their investigation led them through illicit gambling houses, corporate shadow banking and onto the trail of a secret shell corporation -- Nordic Financial Holdings Limited. “In these situations, you have to follow the money,” Shimmer said at the time. The Face’s quote has haunted them for the rest of the campaign.

The trail of money has led them through shell companies, to secret orbital communications relays, to the very top of the Matsumoto board and back down again into the dirty and bloody Los V streets of Ward 4. The trail of the money ran deep and they have peeled back layer after layer of a dizzying conspiracy until at last they saw how it all connected in Session #11. The deadly cat and mouse game has continued unabated, each side landing body blows as the team has destroyed both some key enemies and assets but have lost their safehouse, friends and limbs in the balance. The chips haven’t all hit the table yet and there are still more to fall.

Progress Bar Report

With each update, we always include the Progress Bar report so the current status is nice and clear. With this update, the only change is to mark off the Forum Badges as now completed and to add the little "3D" icon to those assets that have their concept art completed and are now in the hands of the 3D modeling team.

Here is a swift summary, but see below for more details and art.

• All concept art for the stretch goals (dogs, drones, cats, outfits and environments) are in the hands of the concept team and most are in the review and tweak stage or completed. 
• Our concept art team has completed 46 or the 55 heads turned in our backers and the concept art is getting reviewed, finalized and ready for 3D processing.
• We’ve completed 13 sessions -- almost 40 hours -- of the first reward pen and paper Cyber Knights campaign. We will play our last session next week and bring the campaign to its nail-biting conclusion. We will miss the weekly chance to visit New Boston -- it has been so much fun!

Streaming on Twitch

You can find Cory (and sometimes Andrew) on the Trese Brothers Twitch where we are streaming game development, answering questions and talking about the studio Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4PM EST.

As always, thank you for your support!

Andrew and Cory Trese

Trese Brothers Games

May Progress Report
almost 6 years ago – Sat, May 16, 2020 at 05:29:03 AM

Knights!

We have a lot of exciting progress to share in this report, but we wanted to start with some gratitude. We’re counting ourselves lucky to have all of you with us during these difficult times. It has been only two months since the close of our Kickstarter but it feels like much longer than that. Our community is chatting and growing in our Official Verified Trese Brothers Games Discord Server so be sure to download Discord and register an account. As a backer,you’re entitled to VIP standing on the server, so type “max!addrole” to summon the MercerBot to gain your backer or alpha role. Hope to see you all there!

Recently, we were excited to sit down with an interview with a longtime mainstay in the gaming press -- Hardcore Droid -- whose team has covered our games since the beginning when we only made Android games. We hope you’ll check out the Hardcore Droid Interview with Trese Brothers where we talk about the game, the Kickstarter, the industry, our relationship brothers and co-creators and more.

Progress Bar Report

With the last update 3 weeks out, we are excited to report some moving and shaking across the Progress Bar. Our schedule for rewards and stretch goals is split out into major groups (pre-Alpha, Alpha, and then the series of game market launches) and we are excited to say that all but one stretch goal and reward (waiting on Matrix Mk2) in the pre-Alpha grouping is now underway with the blue progress circle hovering by their names. The next exciting phase of this will start to see more of these items struck from the list completely finished.

Here is a swift summary, but see below for more details and art.

• All dogs, drones, cats, outfits and environments are now in the concept art phase or waiting with finished concept art to get pulled into the 3D production pipeline. This includes a number of stretch goals committed for delivery during the Alpha.
• We’ve turned over the first 20 references for backer’s 3D heads to the concept art team as well.
• We’ve completed 4 sessions -- about 11 hours -- of the first reward pen and paper Cyber Knights campaign. The story, connections and risks have intensified with each new session.
   

Outside of Kickstarter rewards and stretch goals, we’re making progress across the entire game. We’re deep in building out the UI kit, testing a new take on Talent cooldowns, tuning the mathematical models for the game’s stats and progression and adding more sophistication in combat, stealth and character animation. We’re pushing forward across the board!

Backer Pen & Paper Games

Let the games begin! We have been extremely excited to sit down with Legacy Edition backer @DrSpendlove and his friends and spin an all new story in the world of Cyber Knights. Under the New Boston dome in 2230, the Cyber Knight Yoss and his team are extremely well positioned to impact the timeline and events of the game set in 2231. Cory and I have had an absolute blast so far running the campaign together as co-storytellers and we’re both on the edge of our seats to see what major decisions and characters will echo into Cyber Knights: Flashpoint’s storyline as this campaign continues to unfold.

First, let us introduce the team: Yoss the Knight, Shimmer the Face, Catalina the Gunslinger and Agent EX Lupin. And second, tell their story.

Arranged by their Fixer Razor, the team agreed to work for a Matsumoto scientist to steal a Crane Tech prototype. They targeted a vulnerable moment as the prototype was shipped across the city at a commercial hover hub. The heist was complicated by additional security and a megacorporate shake-up within Crane. Luckily, Cat was on overwatch with her Customized Jaguar AT and by the time it was over, her rifle’s suppressor was smoking and the hover transport was a mess, but it was secure. Inside the hover transport, the close-quarters combat was savage and over in seconds. The capture cost Lupe his arm to the cutting edge of his own nanowire whip, traded for the life of the enemy's security team captain. With the prototype stolen, they escaped back into the shadowy streets but complications continued as the Matsumoto scientist changes the plan again. After a few tense days of unexpectedly sitting on the prototype, they finally got the call and smuggled the mysterious item out of the dome and into Ward 4. With the real sky over their heads, they dodged Los V gangers and Shimmer’s past life on those mean streets. The clandestine delivery of the hot prototype ended at the scientist secret laboratory tucked away under an abandoned factory deep in the Ward. With Brave Star and a wrathful megacorp trying to close the net on them, they slipped back to their safehouse to let the heat blow over.

A few weeks passed before the Matsumoto scientist called again with a second job and even juicier pay. This time it’s was clear he had suddenly gained a new ally or boss with powerful connections in the Matsumoto military. The team signed up to help investigate a suspicious ransom-kidnapping by a no-name criminal syndicate, the Seven Dragons. 

After digging into the story across rough Fenian territory, banking records and in the seedy gambling dens halfway between corporate and the streets the team believes they’ve uncovered an ugly truth -- that the kidnappers secretly work for Matsumoto and they are caught in an internal megacorp rivalry turned toxic.

With session #5 and #6 coming up this week, the waters are about to get a lot deeper!

Creator Edition: Character Faces

Few things are more rewarding than seeing some of our backers joining the ranks of characters in the game. With the first 20 faces reference sets delivered to the concept team, the first finished faces started coming out of the pipe late last week. We’re thrilled to get feedback from our creators, and especially when it reads like this: “I absolutely love this, 100%! It came out so much better than I thought. ... You guys definitely have a top notch [art] team.”

2X Dog Stretch Goal

Due to the avalanche of votes we received about the new dog breed, we committed to add two new dog breeds to the game -- both of our personal dogs. Each new breed will come with its own art, model, animations and abilities that can make it advantageous for your Hunder’s style. These are the first round drafts of the two dogs -- a support/sensory beagle and a fast attack shepherd. As the designs are pretty personal to us, we’re going through a set of revisions to tune them before they head to the 3D team. As with every aspect of the project, we're excited to share this progress!

Wishlists on Steam

You’ve helped back us to create this amazing game. Now please help us get the word out by telling a friend of yours about the game you’re helping to create. Invite a friend or gaming community today to add Cyber Knights: Flashpoint to their Steam wishlist and ‘Follow’ the game. This will help the game build momentum for the inevitable Early Access Steam release to make Cyber Knights as successful as possible.

Streaming on Twitch

You can find Cory (and sometimes Andrew) on the Trese Brothers Twitch where we are streaming game development, answering questions and talking about the studio Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4PM EST.

As always, thank you for your support!

Andrew and Cory Trese

Trese Brothers Games

Stretch Goals: Drone Concept Art
almost 6 years ago – Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 02:05:07 AM

Knights!

We are excited to share the first pieces of unlocked concept art from the campaign’s stretch goals. These are all work-in-progress, but we wanted to give you an insider’s look at the raw output from the art team.

Survey Reminder

Please forgive us if we are a bit obsessed with survey completion. Backers who don’t complete a survey, don’t get any rewards. We are happy to have now achieved a 92% completion rate for backer surveys. If you have not completed a survey please email me at [email protected] or message me here on Kickstarter.

If you missed the results of any of the polls, including the cybercat breed poll, our last post “Project Update - Month One” included all the results and details. Go Snow Leopard!

3X Drones Stretch Goal

The campaign unlocked three stretch goal drones chassis. These stretch goals gave us additional budget for the art, model, animations, sounds and abilities for each new drone type. These drones will be available for your Drone Pilot to purchase, customize and deploy on missions. The concept art for the drones has now been completed by the art team and we are working to review it before moving it forward into the 3D modeling phase. As with every aspect of the project, we're excited to share this progress!

The scout drone has light weaponry, digital scanners and baffled engines to reduce the chances of enemies detecting it. Scout drones are unarmored and easily destroyed, so the Drone Pilot must rely on their speed and stealth to gather valuable intel for her team and the Cyber Knight. Scout drones can spot enemies, mark targets and, in an emergency, lay down covering fire or attempt to distract enemies or security.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Battle drone is a heavily armored combat chassis designed to dish out and soak up damage. Battle drones can be equipped with top of the line heavy weapons, reactive armor and battle-ready redundant systems; representing the state of the art in 23rd century robotic combat. Equipped with huge, powerful engines they are loud, expensive, and difficult to pilot.

Support drones aren’t as fast as a Scout drone and they don’t have the heavy armament or structure of a Battle drone but they are easy to fly and highly customizable. Depending on your Drone Pilot’s build and your squad’s needs, Support drones can be configured with mobile medical stations, security scanners, jamming pods or nanogears for buffing your team. A Support drone’s piloting module makes it a breeze to fly for an experienced pilot and as a result its orders require fewer Action Points.

Development Update

At Trese Brothers we’ve moved from executing our Kickstarter-focused tasklist to executing on the next phase of building Flashpoint. This week we are iterating on the Wounds, Cyberware, Traits and Trait Mutation systems that play critical roles in bringing your characters to life in Cyber Knights. We started with an improved version of the Star Traders: Frontiers Traits and Trait Mutation systems and have further expanded it to include a threshold system rather than relying on random chance and can now allow five times as many Traits per character. We’ve woven Cyberware and combat Wounds into those mechanics and the resulting blend gives us dynamic characters that will encounter meaningful change from their time working for a Cyber Knight.

On the technical side, we’re testing the “Save Slots” feature that will let players store an unlimited number of named snapshots for their saved games (depending on available storage, infinity disk not included.) This feature will be available in non-Ironman difficulties and in any Custom Difficulty that wants to include it. Based on player feedback, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint Custom Difficulty will support both Ironman and Save Slots as unique settings that can be configured independently.

We are putting a priority on Save Slots and support features like it based on backer feedback from our last Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter-exclusive Star Traders: Frontiers alpha test was critical to the success of the game on Steam in Early Access and we want to do everything we can to repeat that success with Cyber Knights. While some of these important features were deployed later in the Star Traders: Frontiers cycle, we’ll be including them up front to ensure that the alpha test will be easier and more fun for all of our Kickstarter backers.

Our third in-progress element involves interactivity on mission maps. We’re testing new security systems, door types, bridges and other features your runners will be able to control with terminals or Matrix Mk2 hacking. We’ll have more details about this one in a future update!

Twitch Stream Today

We will be live today on the Trese Brothers Twitch where we are streaming game development, answering questions and talking about the studio -- we’ll be live today Tuesday 4PM EST.

Progress Bar

As a matter of routine, we always include the Progress Bar infographic in our updates. Here are the notes about the latest movements on the chart:

• We have now received input from over 25 of our backers who will join the game with their 3D face. These will be headed to the art team soon! If you pledged at the $500 reward and haven’t completed your intake form, please do!
• We’re also excited to announce we’ve set the start date for the first of 2 pen and paper RPG reward campaigns.
• Skyrise Environment is moving forward with the art team working on specific props and objects you’ll find in these tower lux residences.

Thanks for your support,

Andrew and Cory Trese

Trese Brothers Games

Project Update - Month One
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 03:55:58 PM

Knights,

It is hard to believe it has already been a month since the campaign ended. The Kickstarter may be over, but the updates will keep coming. We plan to post news about the state of our game and our current progress every month. Together we raised $226,709 on Kickstarter and $1,355 on PayPal for a campaign total of $228,064. After the end of the campaign, pledge manager add-ons and late pledges have added $13,135 which brings the final funding total for Cyber Knights: Flashpoint to $241,199 before chargebacks, manufacturing for physical rewards and fees.

Here at Trese Brothers HQ, we are busy finalizing the saved game format, putting the finishing touches on the dynamic story node system and reinforcing the foundation of the all-important battle map for missions.

Survey Update

Please understand that we are a bit obsessed with survey completion. If you don’t complete your survey, you can’t get any rewards. So, we are excited to have now achieved a 90% completion rate for backer surveys! Nearly everyone has voted in the cybercat poll and selected the campaign add-ons they wanted. If you have not received a survey email from Backerkit ([email protected] OR [email protected]) if you have not completed the survey and picked any final add-ons now is the time!

If you have not received a survey or had any issues filling it out, please email me at [email protected] or message me here on Kickstarter. We are here to help.

Poll Results!

We have wrapped up 3 polls from the Kickstarter -- the New Cat Breed, Favorite Profession from Cyber Knights classic and the Survivor Poll from Cyber Knights classic. The results are below!

Snow Leopard Wins Cat Breed Poll

The votes have been tallied and the winner is Snow Leopard. This majestic cat will be integrated into the Assassin cyber-job as the second companion type. Thank you for all your support -- you made this happen. Our backers, Patreons, Twitch subscribers all pitched in and we’ve begun funding the animation, model and texturing work to bring this beauty to life. Meow!

The voting was extremely close in the first two weeks but then Snow Leopard took the lead and never looked back. We thank everyone who voted -- no matter which cat you fancied we’re all winning here. Each cat had a lot of votes and we’re very excited to be expanding the feline variety in the game!

 Gunslinger Wins Profession Poll

In the poll for which profession would have the honor of being the first template in the new game list, Gunslinger beat Hacker out by a hair. We appreciate everyone voting on this poll during and after the campaign, it was a fun one. Very clearly -- Gunslinger, Hacker and Cybersword broke away from the other professions as the favorites.

Eliza Krofter Wins Survivor Poll

By a landslide, Eliza Krofter the young Cyber Knight featured in the “Made, Not Born” storyline of Cyber Knights classic was voted as the Survivor. She beat out both Clive Zep and Side-Arm Gerrin at a rate of 5 to 1. We’re excited to see a seminal character’s story continue and to find out what Krofter has been up to for the last 14 years.

To those who campaigned for the other survivors, we have seen the #CliveLives hashtag and even heard rumors of CliveLives appear in graffiti in the game.

Stretch Goal Update - Soundtrack Expansion

We are making progress on the Skyrise and Safehouse OST projects with our music and sound team at Studio Viking. For Skyrise, we’ll be expanding the OST with 2 unique compositions and 4 thematic remixes.

The Safehouse expansion will include 4 unique songs performed in-game by artists like Seven Banners Burning or LTS. We are working with Studio Viking to develop these artist’s personas around the voice talent -- all while juggling studio recording in the age of coronavirus.

If you’re getting the Digital Soundtrack Reward as part of your pledge tier, you will automatically get these additional tracks. All players will be able to hear them in-game when they’re raiding the high-style Skyrise towers or laying low in their Safehouse.

Reward Update: 3D Faces

In order for the art project to continue smoothly, we need to start gathering all of the details for the backer’s character faces that will get rendered into the game. We have finished preparing an in-take process to gather images, references and the other details needed to make this as smooth as possible. Once we have all the input for each face, we will create a concept art shot of the newly designed head and hair. From there, the 3D team will be ready to take over!

If you pledged at the Backstory Edition or higher ($500+), you will receive an invitation to a Google Form from [email protected] within the hour.

Wishlist / Follow on Steam

This month we worked with our video team to cut a pre-alpha teaser trailer for Steam. The more wishlists we can accumulate for the game’s eventual launch the better. If you can, please visit the Cyber Knights: Flashpoint page on Steam and click ‘Add to Wishlist’ and ‘Follow’ the game. This will help the game build momentum for the inevitable Early Access Release.

Trese Brothers on Reddit

We’re are online at the Trese Brothers Discord server but we’re also active on our Reddits, /r/TreseBrothers, /r/StarTradersFrontiers and newly minted /r/CyberKnightsGame so come, post a meme or a guide.

Final Hours of Kickstarter Livestream

We streamed the last five hours of the Kickstarter on Twitch, and if you missed it the video is archived on YouTube: Twitch Stream - Final 5 Hours of Cyber Knights: Flashpoint Kickstarter

Streaming on Twitch

You can find Cory (and sometimes Andrew) on the Trese Brothers Twitch where we are streaming game development, answering questions and talking about the studio Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4PM EST.

Many thanks for your support!

Cory and Andrew Trese

Trese Brothers Games

April 6th Deadline Reminder
about 6 years ago – Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 03:05:47 AM

Backers,

We’re sending out one more update as a reminder on the important upcoming date of April 6th. This is the last “boring” update that we will send out that is purely a reminder. From here, we will be pivoting to content focused updates as the development of the game continues as well as progress updates as we deliver each reward and stretch goal.

As usual, we end the update with a some of the work-in-progress art from the game!

Late Store Closing

One month out from the end of the campaign, this is the date when we will close the Late Pledge Store. If you know anyone who would love this game, give them a heads up now that this is the final call. As of April 6th, we will close the doors, tally the final commitments and turn all of our attention to completing the game’s alpha.

Polls Closing Too

April 6th is also the point in time where we will make the official tally of all Kickstarter polls -- the Cat Breed Poll (in your survey), the Favorite Class Poll (comment on this update) and the Survivor Poll (comment on this update).

Please Complete Your Survey Today!

Backer surveys are a critical part of the cycle of a Kickstarter. We need your details, choices, Discord username (if you have one) to be able to deliver the rewards you are owed. If you do not complete a survey, we will not be able to:

• Send your Steam key for the game!
• Invite you to the alpha
• Add you to the in-game credits
• Badge your Discord or forum username
• Etc!

At this point, 86% of our backers have completed their survey, picked add-ons and voted for cybercat. Surveys won’t officially be closing at any point but we are asking everyone to hop in and get these done so we can have the best shot at completing your reward -- whatever level -- in a timely fashion. Getting this done now means less emails and support issues later.

You should have received an email from Backerkit ([email protected] OR [email protected]) and please follow the link to complete the survey. If you have not received a survey or had any issues filling it out, please visit the BackerKit Survey Recovery link or email me at [email protected] or message me here on Kickstarter. We are here to help!

Progress on the Progress Bar

A good progress bar is always in motion! With every Kickstarter update, we will always post the “Progress Bar” infographic and do our best to keep it moving forward. Some of these items are very large, so sometimes there will be lulls in reward delivery or stretch goal completion.

Our latest progress report is that the art team has started working on the concepts for all 3 new types of drones that were unlocked as stretch goals. In addition, since the animation expansion has such impact on the gameplay, the animation team has completed the current round of more basic animations (reload, swap weapon, slide into cover) and is now working through the storyboards for the first set of expansion animations -- specifically hacking and carrying bodies. 

We're also hammering out the exact intake process for the 3D faces with the art team, so that reward will be coming up in the next week or two.

Streaming on Twitch

You can find Cory (and sometimes Andrew) on the Trese Brothers Twitch where we are streaming game development, answering questions and talking about the studio Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4PM EST.

Thank you for your support!

Andrew & Cory Trese

Trese Brothers Games