The story so far...

Hi! We’re Starchaser Studios, a small group of game making enthusiasts spread across both the EU and the US. For us, what started out as a a simple hobby has gradually evolved into a full grown passion.

In a nutshell, after some early experiments, we decided that our dream of making professional games should come to life. Although we already had full time jobs, a team consisting of a game designer, a programmer and a project manager gathered. In other words, back in June 2011, three friends decided to break the routine. They were soon joined by others, such as an enthusiastic financial manager, a 2D artist and a 3D modeler.

Although the core development team has been constant for the past few months, we also have a fair number of collaborators who contribute depending on their spare time, commitment and skills. Because of our community driven nature, we believe that it’s mainly the community that should benefit from games developed this way. Therefore, our first release will be completely FREE for everyone: no paid features, no commercials, just clean, simple fun.

However, this new passion has been taking a lot of our time and funds. While we did manage to acquire some of the needed software and pay a part of our collaborators, we still need to acquire a couple of more licenses and additional materials. But...we’ll talk about that later. For the moment, allow us to present our first creation.

We've got Uplift!

For the moment, we're busy working on our first title. Uplift is a fantasy themed game for both iOS and Android, with a pinch of steampunk flavour. At its roots, Uplift is a combination between a platformer and a puzzle game, although we’d like to believe the game created its own path.

The game follows the adventures of professor Flugen, renowned zeppelin specialist, his nephew Zack and his pet robot. Desperate to help their home city, one of the many floating cities of their world, the three embark on a quest to find the precious heltrogen gas. Obviously, this scarce resource does not grow on trees, but lays hidden deep within a savage mountain range. A small airship, a difficult task and dangers lurking around each corner. Guess who the main pilot is going to be?

You may notice our story is not the hardcore steampunk novel some might expect. Don’t worry, our extensive Lore Book will more than make up for it. Based on hybrid mechanics, our game tries to find a balance between easy to understand controls and spontaneous challenges. No complicated schemes, no crippling bugs and no unfinished levels.

While the graphics and mechanics have evolved since our first video, so did the expectations. You may find more screenshots and information on our web-site: www.starchaserstudios.com

Our desired launch date would be the 1st quarter of 2012 (Q1 2012). The game will initially be launched on Android and soon after, depending on the raised funds, on the iOS. Other platforms will follow, if the game is successful. No matter what platform you will choose to play it on, the bottom line is that you will receive a FREE, quality title.

What will the money be used for?

As we’ve said earlier, we’ve already managed to get a small team to work together, so we won’t ask for any money to accomplish any programming or creative tasks. This is our job, and we will give our best to accomplish it. 

We’ve also paid our bills on web activities and the additional tools we use on the game. As a primary tool however, we’re using the world famous Unity. This is why, we still need money for professional licenses which will not only help us finish our first game, but will also help us develop future titles:

But let’s not get carried away by numbers here. We don’t really want to sound greedy, so we’ll just wrap things up to a few basic thresholds:

• $2900 for the basic licenses (we will support all additional taxes and the price difference)
  
• $4400 to speed up the iOS release (wishful thinking, we know)

Honestly, we’ll be more than happy if we manage to reach our first threshold, so just pitch in, if you feel like it. If you can’t, don’t worry. You’ll help by just spreading the word!

The rewards will be given in the second half of the campaign or at the end. The reason is we want the beta test keys to be a nice addition to your rewards, rather than a way of just previewing the product.

If we can't get the funding, we won't give up. We do plan to take a loan in order to push things further, although it would put additional strain on the team. This is why it would would be great to reach our goals through IndieGoGo.

If you help us go beyond that, none of your donations will be wasted. Your money will be carefully invested in founding a dream and making sure the mobile game world will be richer by at least a quality title.