Founded in 2012 and Indie Game Studio based in Offenburg, Germany, Black Forest Games looked to Kickstarter to fund DieselStormers, an action multiplayer game set in dieselpunk-fantasy, which was successfully funded within 26 days with goal of $50k and raised $52,931. DieselStormers has now made it’s way PC via Steam Early Access today for $18.99. There are plans for the game to also be on PS4, Xbox One, Linux, Mac and other platforms.
Based on a report from Fox News, there have been several studies suggest that ’75 to 84 percent of all Kickstarter projects are delivered with a remarkable delay based upon the release date initially announced on the crowdfunding platform.’ With that report in mind, Black Forest Games previously looked to Kickstarter for their previous games in the Giana project in 2012, which brought Giana Twins: Twisted Dreams to Steam back in October 2014 after it was greenlit. After that, Giana Twins: Twisted Dreams Rise of The Owlverlord came out.
After that, Black Forest Games looked to Kickstarter again for another game called Ravensdale, but that was an unsuccessful run, and they had to go back to the drawing board. Black Forest is now happy to be the exception to the rule of the 75 to 84 percent of all Kickstarter projects being delivered with a delay based on the release date initially announced on the crowdfunding platform.
It’s now releasing its second successful Kickstarter-backed title DieselStormers without any delay. Punctuality rate: a hundred percent!
DieselStormers began where Ravensdale left off, where players will be in a little town known as Ravensdale and chaos has broken loose through the town. Though there may be an answer to why this all happened, and it leads up to the discovery of oil being in the town, which has made hundreds o humans turn into oil hungry orcs. Due to the chaos, new machines have been build that bring new forms of magic, while evil monsters are just destroying the town and enslaving the human, while drinking the oil as if it was beer, which they call ‘goop.’ Players will join the ‘Resistance,’ who are people that fight back the orcs in battles and go against the bosses.
During the Early Access, features will include:
- Single player mode.
- Online co-op multiplayer.
- Early version of local/couch co-op (up to 4 players, controllers only, in a single player mission press “start” and then controller button “A” to join).
- Randomly-generated levels and loot based on template combinations (no story/equipment progression yet).
- Modular weapon parts and crafting system basics (combinable stats and properties).
- Basic overdrive mode (death beam).
- Elemental types: fire and goop.
- Interaction between elements. E.g. goop can be set ablaze and vice versa.
- Basic hazards and helpers: force fields, fire, explosive barrels and more.
- Three basic enemy types and one elite Mech enemy in up to five variants each.
- One district of the city of Ravensdale.
- Three primary mission types and one secondary objective (kill an elite enemy or enemy waves, or simply reach the end of the level).
Once the game has been fully finished, the full release version will feature:
- An overarching storyline with gate story missions.
- A full progression system (loot tiers, story/mission progress, unlocks/upgrades).
- Equippable armor parts with stats and abilities (e.g. bullet catching, jump jets, etc.): helmets and shoulders, gauntlets, cuirass and greaves.
- New elemental properties for projectiles and hazards (e.g. lightning, gravity, etc.) and new projectile abilities (seeking, creeping, eruptive, etc.).
- New mission types: e.g. defending a base, speedrunning, transporting cargo, etc.
- Calamities: level-changing global effects like lowered gravity, goop tides, raid bombardments, etc.
- Many, many more new and improved level chunks.
- New hazards and helpers: conveyor belts, crumbling platforms, rotating platforms, triggers, gravity vortexes, etc.
- Elite helper objects, e.g. a multi-crewable cannon.
- Advanced modular enemies with new combinable weapons and special abilities (e.g. heavy shield in front, spawn a hazard trail, berserk, etc.)
- New large elite enemies with combinable body parts, special abilities and big fragging guns.
- Huge boss enemies with even more combinable body parts, special abilities and extra limbs with BFG slots.
- Team upgrade (Arc Connector) based on combinable elemental effects (lightning, fire, etc.), projectile boosts and more.
- Legendary loot with unique properties like shooting goblins at your foes.
- Character progression skill tree.
- Final music and audio effects.
- Fully supported couch co-op.
- A complete overhaul of the Headquarters.
“Once we’ve made a promise we intend to keep it no matter what,” Managing Director and Co-Founder of Black Forest Games, Adrian Goersch, proclaims, “We’ve spent years with a vision of Diesel, Orcs and Guns in our heads. Now we are finally at a point where we can share that universe with the community. But we intend to do more. It is our goal to involve the players intensively in our development phase. Until the final release we are planning to publish ten major updates.”
You can watch the Early Access launch trailer below:
DieselStormers is for both single players and multiplayer mode that can either be local or online for up to 4 players, and currently is $18.99, but once the final version is available in April 2015, it will be $24.99. The backers of the game, have already received their Steam Early Access codes.
You can find out more information about the game on their official site, plus follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook.