With the launch of the UK version of Kickstarter, Blazing Griffin have launched a kickstarter to make the sequel to The Ship.
Title: The Ship 2: Full Steam Ahead
Developer: Blazing Griffin
Estimated Release: April 2014
Kickstarter Link - looks like£32+ £16+ gets you a copy of the game.
Edit: It appears the developers made a mistake with their original tiers - the minimum cost of the game is now £16+, not £32+.
The Ship: Full Steam Ahead will be a steampunk sequel to the popular 1920's-themed computer game, The Ship.
HELP US CREATE AN AUTHENTIC STEAMPUNK EXPERIENCE
“One is bored… You, lackey, create an alternative reality for The Ship: a Steampunk world – a most audacious sequel wot is crafted from coal and brass, and wot has one in it.”
–– Her most imperious Majesty, Queen Victoria, at GAME & Son, Piccadilly, 2012.
Yes, my friend – by imagined royal appointment, no less – our navvies here at BlazingGriffin will soon be pounding out white-hot ingots of C++ in the vast coding foundries that put the ‘great’ in Great Britain, transforming The Ship – an already awesome game on Mr Babbage’s Steam Emporia – into its very own, steamed up and punky sequel: The Ship: Full Steam Ahead.
This sequel will take you back to the Colonial Era of the British Empire, where men were strapping chaps, women wore six-barrelled guns in their garters, and Victorian England was thriving in an alternate time-line powered by steam.
Did we mention the Steampunk?
Ah, the smell of coal dust; the worrying hack of TB in the lungs; the clank of a mechanical servitor thwacking a villain with a hickory-handled five iron…
In the spirit of the original, 1920’s game, The Ship: Full Steam Ahead will let you dress up in your Steampunk finery, travel on Victoria’s finest shippage, and ‘drub’ the enemies of the Empire, while those self-same scoundrels, attempt to murder you. You’ll get to play in an evocative, Victorian environment, where eating, sleeping, and promenading (as well as unmentionable ablutions) are just as important as murdering your shipmates. After all, one must have some sense of decorum, don’t you think?
Going beyond this ‘hundredweight’ of original gameplay, we’ll be embracing the rather risqué craze of ‘open development’, waving our merry kerchiefs with much hulabaloo, and setting sail for gameplay unknown. We have plenty of ideas for new features, but most importantly, we want to create something new and rather daring with input from YOU -- our most noble players.
In short, now is the time to prime your gas gun and don your mechanical timepiece…
HOW YOU CAN HELP
“You, sir. A trip to the Indies, you say? Why, give us that penny, and we’ll give you a world of steam and high adventure!”
–– Sir Chitlin Wynthrop, The J. Noobington Home for Wayward Gamers.
We need your shillings and sixpences to build The Ship: Full Steam Ahead.
This is an ambitious project – one for which a stiff-upper-lip, a cold mustard compress, and a stout truss have undoubtedly prepared us. But there’s no doubt that the renovation of The Ship is going to give us a ‘discommodious swelling of the brain’ and a ‘furious griping of the bowels’ without the patent cure of funds.
To this end, the monies gathered by Messrs’ Kickstarter Esq. will allows us to:
Pay everyone: these days, it seems, it’s the ‘done thing’ to recompense to the working classes. That includes our business folk, designers, coding navvies and artistic wallas, as well as our specialists in the field of auditory, acoustic engineering.
Change our engine: replacing the technological marvel that is The Ship’s resilient – though somewhat antiquated – engine. The scale of this task may be imagined as a rather modest canal-building project, using desks and keyboards instead of shovels. The use of flat caps will, of course, be mandatory.
Rebuild the core game: recreating the core of the old game in its new genre. How else might we regale the world with our thrillingly eccentric creations, such as new gameplay, environments, weapons, and passengers, and some ‘banging good tunes’ – all in a most gratifying Steampunk styley? This will be a slim slice of the multiplayer game, but one of merchantable quality.
Create a content delivery platform: so we can deliver our new, anabaric wonders without recourse to a pony and trap, or the laying of a new trans-Atlantic cable.
Promote and market the game: so we can aggrandise ourselves in the most prestigious periodicals. Such shameless promotion will help us sell our tenacious product, and thus self-fund future expansion of The Ship: Full Steam Ahead, the Empire, and possible sequels.
Localise our content: so that those in the colonies as well as London may enjoy our loquacious quips.
As we’re a small team bootstrapping The Ship: Full Steam Ahead into existence, Blazing Griffin’s patronage of the ‘Indies’ and other such development communities is entirely assured. You’ll definitely have an opportunity to tell us what you think, or what you’d improve. Scared we’ll break this fiendish contraption? Forego the formalities, drop by and have your say!
In the meantime, we do hope you’ll be compelled to join us on this adventure of brash derring-do…
Tiers
Pledge £4 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ STEAM ENTHUSIAST +++. You will receive: Our heartfelt thanks for investing! Every pound will help us to make this project a reality.
Pledge £8 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ CITIZEN OF THE EMPIRE +++. In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: WALLPAPER (Exclusive, hi-res backgrounds for your desktop, iPad or mobile devices) + AVATAR IMAGES (images of game characters for use as blog avatars, etc.)
Pledge £16 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ COLONIAL EXPLORER +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: FREE COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL SHIP GAME (you’ll get *five* copies -- one for you, two for your friends, and two for their friends). + WEB CREDITS (get your name on the The Ship’s VIP Passenger List -- our web list reserved for special contributors). + RSFPS LETTER OF MEMBERSHIP (Letter of membership for the ‘Royal Society for the Proliferation of Steam’
. Add £3 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £32 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ AGENT OF THE IMPERIAL SECRET SERVICE +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: A COPY OF THE SHIP: FULL STEAM AHEAD: (a copy of the game or its equivalent in paid downloadable content) + POSTER MAP (a high-quality, printed map, including our most artful deck plans and duplicitous game secrets) + FSA STICKERS (a selection of Full Steam Ahead sticky stuff) + PIN-BADGE (the official 'Full Steam Ahead' pin-badge) + BETA ACCESS (Enter Full Steam Ahead during the later periods of development and experience new features before they are officially released. Put in your tuppence-worth. Help us polish our solid Beta and Pre-alpha work. Exact date TBA -- delivered earlier than rest of items). Add £15 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £64 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ PROFESSOR OF CHRONOZOOLOGY +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: EMBROIDERED PATCH (an embroidered patch from a ship of the fleet) + CONCEPT ART E-BOOK (a digital version of our most splendiferous concept art book) + SOUNDTRACK (MP3's from or inspired by our steampunk soundtrack) + ALPHA ACCESS (As for Beta Access, but enter Full Steam Ahead during the intermediate periods of development. Put in your shilling’s-worth. Help us build on our Pre-alpha awesomeness. Exact date TBA -- delivered earlier than rest of items). Add £15 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £128 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ CURATOR OF ATLANTEAN ANTIQUITIES +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: T-SHIRT (the 'Full Steam Ahead' T-shirt) + CUFF-LINKS / BROOCH (your choice of steampunk cuff-links or a steampunk brooch. The irony of providing cuff-links with a t-shirt is not at all lost on us...) + IN-GAME CREDITS (get your name featured on the in-game credits) + PRE-ALPHA ACCESS (As for Beta and Alpha access, but enter Full Steam Ahead during the early periods of development. Put in your sovereign’s-worth. Help us define this game. Exact date TBA -- delivered earlier than rest of items). Add £30 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £256 or more (Limited to 100)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ OFFICER ON HER MAJESTY’S DIRIGIBLE, REDOUBTABLE +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: TICKETS (a framed pair of facsimile tickets for one of the ships in the game) + LIMITED EDITION CHARACTER MODEL (a numbered, strictly limited-edition, character model of a steampunked MR X – a proper collector’s item). Add £60 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £512 or more (Limited to 20)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ HER MAJESTY’S SPECIAL ENVOY +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: YOUR NAME ON A GAME CHARACTER (your name -- or the name of a friend / family member / fictitious person of your choosing -- will feature on an in-game character. [Subject to approval]) + CONCEPT ART BOOK (a limited edition copy of the concept art book signed by the team). Add £60 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £1,024 or more (Limited to 10)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ VICE REGENT OF THE MARTIAN COLONIES +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: UNIQUE GAME ITEM (a uniquely modelled game item, with its own special ‘history’, just for you) + YOUR LIKENESS (A likeness of you (or a friend / family member of your choosing) will be featured in the game as a passenger, captain or game character) + AN HONEST-TO-GOD RAYGUN (a reproduction raygun designed by our art team and delivered straight to your door). Add £60 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £4,096 or more (Limited to 5)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ COLLABORATOR +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE E… EDINBURGH (a return flight for two from anywhere in the world to Edinburgh, Scotland. Three night’s accommodation in the city, and a VIP invite to the Full Steam Ahead launch party. Meet the team. Schmooze. In the event of Martian invasion, feel free to fricassee stuff with your raygun).
Estimated delivery: Apr 2014
Title: The Ship 2: Full Steam Ahead
Developer: Blazing Griffin
Estimated Release: April 2014
Kickstarter Link - looks like
Edit: It appears the developers made a mistake with their original tiers - the minimum cost of the game is now £16+, not £32+.
The Ship: Full Steam Ahead will be a steampunk sequel to the popular 1920's-themed computer game, The Ship.
HELP US CREATE AN AUTHENTIC STEAMPUNK EXPERIENCE
“One is bored… You, lackey, create an alternative reality for The Ship: a Steampunk world – a most audacious sequel wot is crafted from coal and brass, and wot has one in it.”
–– Her most imperious Majesty, Queen Victoria, at GAME & Son, Piccadilly, 2012.
Yes, my friend – by imagined royal appointment, no less – our navvies here at BlazingGriffin will soon be pounding out white-hot ingots of C++ in the vast coding foundries that put the ‘great’ in Great Britain, transforming The Ship – an already awesome game on Mr Babbage’s Steam Emporia – into its very own, steamed up and punky sequel: The Ship: Full Steam Ahead.
This sequel will take you back to the Colonial Era of the British Empire, where men were strapping chaps, women wore six-barrelled guns in their garters, and Victorian England was thriving in an alternate time-line powered by steam.
Did we mention the Steampunk?
Ah, the smell of coal dust; the worrying hack of TB in the lungs; the clank of a mechanical servitor thwacking a villain with a hickory-handled five iron…
In the spirit of the original, 1920’s game, The Ship: Full Steam Ahead will let you dress up in your Steampunk finery, travel on Victoria’s finest shippage, and ‘drub’ the enemies of the Empire, while those self-same scoundrels, attempt to murder you. You’ll get to play in an evocative, Victorian environment, where eating, sleeping, and promenading (as well as unmentionable ablutions) are just as important as murdering your shipmates. After all, one must have some sense of decorum, don’t you think?
Going beyond this ‘hundredweight’ of original gameplay, we’ll be embracing the rather risqué craze of ‘open development’, waving our merry kerchiefs with much hulabaloo, and setting sail for gameplay unknown. We have plenty of ideas for new features, but most importantly, we want to create something new and rather daring with input from YOU -- our most noble players.
In short, now is the time to prime your gas gun and don your mechanical timepiece…
HOW YOU CAN HELP
“You, sir. A trip to the Indies, you say? Why, give us that penny, and we’ll give you a world of steam and high adventure!”
–– Sir Chitlin Wynthrop, The J. Noobington Home for Wayward Gamers.
We need your shillings and sixpences to build The Ship: Full Steam Ahead.
This is an ambitious project – one for which a stiff-upper-lip, a cold mustard compress, and a stout truss have undoubtedly prepared us. But there’s no doubt that the renovation of The Ship is going to give us a ‘discommodious swelling of the brain’ and a ‘furious griping of the bowels’ without the patent cure of funds.
To this end, the monies gathered by Messrs’ Kickstarter Esq. will allows us to:
Pay everyone: these days, it seems, it’s the ‘done thing’ to recompense to the working classes. That includes our business folk, designers, coding navvies and artistic wallas, as well as our specialists in the field of auditory, acoustic engineering.
Change our engine: replacing the technological marvel that is The Ship’s resilient – though somewhat antiquated – engine. The scale of this task may be imagined as a rather modest canal-building project, using desks and keyboards instead of shovels. The use of flat caps will, of course, be mandatory.
Rebuild the core game: recreating the core of the old game in its new genre. How else might we regale the world with our thrillingly eccentric creations, such as new gameplay, environments, weapons, and passengers, and some ‘banging good tunes’ – all in a most gratifying Steampunk styley? This will be a slim slice of the multiplayer game, but one of merchantable quality.
Create a content delivery platform: so we can deliver our new, anabaric wonders without recourse to a pony and trap, or the laying of a new trans-Atlantic cable.
Promote and market the game: so we can aggrandise ourselves in the most prestigious periodicals. Such shameless promotion will help us sell our tenacious product, and thus self-fund future expansion of The Ship: Full Steam Ahead, the Empire, and possible sequels.
Localise our content: so that those in the colonies as well as London may enjoy our loquacious quips.
As we’re a small team bootstrapping The Ship: Full Steam Ahead into existence, Blazing Griffin’s patronage of the ‘Indies’ and other such development communities is entirely assured. You’ll definitely have an opportunity to tell us what you think, or what you’d improve. Scared we’ll break this fiendish contraption? Forego the formalities, drop by and have your say!
In the meantime, we do hope you’ll be compelled to join us on this adventure of brash derring-do…
Tiers
Pledge £4 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ STEAM ENTHUSIAST +++. You will receive: Our heartfelt thanks for investing! Every pound will help us to make this project a reality.
Pledge £8 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ CITIZEN OF THE EMPIRE +++. In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: WALLPAPER (Exclusive, hi-res backgrounds for your desktop, iPad or mobile devices) + AVATAR IMAGES (images of game characters for use as blog avatars, etc.)
Pledge £16 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ COLONIAL EXPLORER +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: FREE COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL SHIP GAME (you’ll get *five* copies -- one for you, two for your friends, and two for their friends). + WEB CREDITS (get your name on the The Ship’s VIP Passenger List -- our web list reserved for special contributors). + RSFPS LETTER OF MEMBERSHIP (Letter of membership for the ‘Royal Society for the Proliferation of Steam’
. Add £3 to ship outside the UKPledge £32 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ AGENT OF THE IMPERIAL SECRET SERVICE +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: A COPY OF THE SHIP: FULL STEAM AHEAD: (a copy of the game or its equivalent in paid downloadable content) + POSTER MAP (a high-quality, printed map, including our most artful deck plans and duplicitous game secrets) + FSA STICKERS (a selection of Full Steam Ahead sticky stuff) + PIN-BADGE (the official 'Full Steam Ahead' pin-badge) + BETA ACCESS (Enter Full Steam Ahead during the later periods of development and experience new features before they are officially released. Put in your tuppence-worth. Help us polish our solid Beta and Pre-alpha work. Exact date TBA -- delivered earlier than rest of items). Add £15 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £64 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ PROFESSOR OF CHRONOZOOLOGY +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: EMBROIDERED PATCH (an embroidered patch from a ship of the fleet) + CONCEPT ART E-BOOK (a digital version of our most splendiferous concept art book) + SOUNDTRACK (MP3's from or inspired by our steampunk soundtrack) + ALPHA ACCESS (As for Beta Access, but enter Full Steam Ahead during the intermediate periods of development. Put in your shilling’s-worth. Help us build on our Pre-alpha awesomeness. Exact date TBA -- delivered earlier than rest of items). Add £15 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £128 or more
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ CURATOR OF ATLANTEAN ANTIQUITIES +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: T-SHIRT (the 'Full Steam Ahead' T-shirt) + CUFF-LINKS / BROOCH (your choice of steampunk cuff-links or a steampunk brooch. The irony of providing cuff-links with a t-shirt is not at all lost on us...) + IN-GAME CREDITS (get your name featured on the in-game credits) + PRE-ALPHA ACCESS (As for Beta and Alpha access, but enter Full Steam Ahead during the early periods of development. Put in your sovereign’s-worth. Help us define this game. Exact date TBA -- delivered earlier than rest of items). Add £30 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £256 or more (Limited to 100)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ OFFICER ON HER MAJESTY’S DIRIGIBLE, REDOUBTABLE +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: TICKETS (a framed pair of facsimile tickets for one of the ships in the game) + LIMITED EDITION CHARACTER MODEL (a numbered, strictly limited-edition, character model of a steampunked MR X – a proper collector’s item). Add £60 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £512 or more (Limited to 20)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ HER MAJESTY’S SPECIAL ENVOY +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: YOUR NAME ON A GAME CHARACTER (your name -- or the name of a friend / family member / fictitious person of your choosing -- will feature on an in-game character. [Subject to approval]) + CONCEPT ART BOOK (a limited edition copy of the concept art book signed by the team). Add £60 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £1,024 or more (Limited to 10)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ VICE REGENT OF THE MARTIAN COLONIES +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: UNIQUE GAME ITEM (a uniquely modelled game item, with its own special ‘history’, just for you) + YOUR LIKENESS (A likeness of you (or a friend / family member of your choosing) will be featured in the game as a passenger, captain or game character) + AN HONEST-TO-GOD RAYGUN (a reproduction raygun designed by our art team and delivered straight to your door). Add £60 to ship outside the UK
Pledge £4,096 or more (Limited to 5)
PLEDGE LEVEL: +++ COLLABORATOR +++ In addition to the above rewards, you will receive: A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE E… EDINBURGH (a return flight for two from anywhere in the world to Edinburgh, Scotland. Three night’s accommodation in the city, and a VIP invite to the Full Steam Ahead launch party. Meet the team. Schmooze. In the event of Martian invasion, feel free to fricassee stuff with your raygun).
Estimated delivery: Apr 2014
