If we’re *exact* about it, we’re 81.355% funded at time of
writing - backers have funded us to the tune of £16,271! There’s just 8
days to go for us to raise the last £3,729.
A quick reminder: it’s an all-or-nothing campaign, so we absolutely must hit the £20k goal in order to receive the funding. Help us get there by continuing to share the campaign in any way that you can.
Real life trickery
We hope you enjoyed yesterday’s surprise character reveal!
Hackers and hacktivists have become iconic figures in recent
times, making a huge impact on the public dialogue around data privacy,
information security, freedom of information, whistleblowing, mass
surveillance, and digital rights.
Having real hackers in the
game is an opportunity for players to dig into the themes of the game in
a more meaningful way. After all, their stories helped inspire and
shape OFF GRID.
Our halloween themed scare is all about these scenes from the OFF GRID intro...
Each represents a real scare that happens regularly.
They
are not fiction. They happen. Governments really do smash their way
into homes (or use trickery to gain access), and bundle away teens and
other souls with little, poor, or even no substantial evidence.
The
people we are featuring in the game have been through this, and they’d
be the first to tell you that’s a trick-or-treater you don’t want
knocking on your door. So whatever you do this Hallows Eve - stay safe
on the interwebs!
Help us reach 100% funded!
If you haven’t backed OFF GRID yet, what are you waiting for?! Go ahead and treat yourself - it will help us make this game the best it can be, and shine a light on the aforementioned issues.
If you are quick about it there’s still some early bird £14 copies available as an exclusive to Kickstarter! SO BACK NOW!
Just 8 more days to go!
Happy Halloween and THANK YOU!
The Off Grid Team
If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
Friday, 26 October 2018
OFF GRID is 76% funded and officially loved by Kickstarter! <3
The campaign was given a 'PROJECT WE LOVE' badge earlier in the week! We had hopes and dreams
of getting that nice little bit of extra love from Kickstarter before
we started, and now we’ve got it. It feels good. Thanks Kickstarter!
BIG NEWS IS COMING
We have some tremendously fun news coming next week! Stay tuned - the news is going to break on Tuesday, October 30th. You don’t want to miss it!
Once the news is LIVE - please do us the favor of sharing it to
the masses. Tweet, blog, write an article, do a little video, share,
retweet, or write us a poem.
Would you like a clue? OF COURSE you'd like a clue! Here you are:
To celebrate the release of the aforementioned news, Rich will be doing a dev stream on Tuesday to chat about it all with you! Tune in via twitch.tv/semaeopus at 5pm UK time.
Now,
let's get to smashing the 80% milestone as soon as possible, folks!
Share and chat about it as much as you can! Perfect conversation for
all those Halloween parties this weekend... the mass surveillance state
that surrounds us all is downright frightening, after all.
THANK YOU!
The Off Grid Team
If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
WOW. You backers gave us a seriously wild ride yesterday: 35% funded in 5 hours, 40% funded in 7 hours, AND THEN we hit the 50% mark within 21 hours!
It feels seriously good to be 50% funded within the first 24 hours of the campaign! Your enthusiasm and support has blown us away. THANK YOU!
For this first update, we wanted to give you a little background on the inspiration for Off Grid. As you might be aware, it’s been in the works for quite some time!
The game was initially inspired when Rich heard Eben Moglen speak about net neutrality and data privacy at the INET conference in 2011. It struck a cord, and the seed for Off Grid was planted.
Soon after, Rich teamed up with Pontus, and together they built the first prototype of Off Grid. The goal was to get people thinking about data. The root notion was to try and physicalize it - to make data into something manipulable, something that people would be able to go and play with and see as a thing you can walk around.
But the concept was still a little out there: this was early 2013, before Snowden and NSA revelations.
Fast forward to June 2013, and the first ever public unveiling of Off Grid (in a livestreamed interview at Etoo London) just happened to fall nearly 64 years to the day after the publishing of George Orwell's book, 1984, and the same week that Edward Snowden made his first leak.
And all of a sudden, it clicked.
Prior to the first revelations, it was a struggle to explain to anyone why what we were doing with Off Grid was important or would be interesting. Then, almost overnight, Snowden gave everyone the vocabulary to talk about it. People understood.
Now, years on, the revelations have just kept rolling, and everyone is much more aware of the issues surrounding data privacy and mass surveillance.
It is the perfect time for a game like Off Grid: people are tuned into the effects of data mining and the impact that bad laws around digital rights have on real life. Help us get Off Grid funded, and THEN help us shape the game so we can all try to picture a less dystopian digital tomorrow.
Let’s keep the momentum going - tell your friends!!
THANK YOU!
The Off Grid Team
P.S. If you want to chat to us a bit more informally, we regularly hang out in our studio discord - we’d love to see you in there! Join us: https://discordapp.com/invite/NDEVwBJ
If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
From 4pm BST onwards TODAY, you will have the opportunity to:
-PLAY A FREE DEMO of Off Grid
-Secure your copy from as little as £8 (SUPER EARLY BIRD - it's a steal!)
-Get your name or handle in the game
-Help shape the game via our FIRST ACCESS program!
-Snag some official OFF GRID merch
Launching on Tuesday, October 9th, you will have the opportunity to:
-PLAY A FREE DEMO of Off Grid
-Secure your copy from as little as £8 (SUPER EARLY BIRD!)
-Get your name or handle in the game
-Help shape the game via our FIRST ACCESS program!
...and much more!
The campaign goes live at 4pm BST. That's:
4pm London / 5pm Berlin / 11am New York / 8am LA
Get in there quick to get the best deal on the game! Some reward tiers are limited... you don't want to miss out!
Help
us spread the word! Share our posts, tell friends when you've backed,
and let us know that you have by using #offgridthegame on social media!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
The Off Grid Team
If you haven’t already - be sure to wishlist Off Grid on Steam - each wishlist makes a big difference to us, and we really appreciate your support!
BIG NEWS! We'll be running a Kickstarter campaign in October!
Get ready for:
a playable demo
the first ever opportunity to secure a copy of Off Grid
a chance to get behind the scenes and help shape the game
The Kickstarter will go live:
Tuesday, October 9th
Please
consider backing us if you are able! If you're not able to, please
share, share, share. Every pledge, like, wishlist and follow means a
lot!
We'll be asking for feedback on our campaign via Discord
this week - hop on in there to get a preview of the campaign & tell
us what you think: https://discordapp.com/invite/NDEVwBJ
ICYMI: We've done a couple dev streams already! One featured hacker Darren Martyn, Pwnsauce of LulzSec fame, and in another, Rich intro'd the game and went through some basic lua device scripting.
We’ve been away on our summer holidays, Pontus headed back to Finland to catch up with family, and rich got married for the second time (to the same person). We’ve had some contract work to do to keep the wolves at bay, but fret not we have been continuing away on off grid development in the background! and so here is an overdue catch up on what we’ve been up to…
Rich took the opportunity to use some of the time for getting back in tune with a pencil and paper and wrote the first draft for the Off Grid script. As you may know we have had the premise and the major characters fleshed out for some time but the new script ties together all the current designs for future levels and features with a coherent narrative, and pretty much lays out the entire player journey for the main story missions. This has been really helpful already for working out what to prioritize in the next levels we are prototyping, and what the player journey for the game is in relation to the character’s development.
We got featured on ‘Bolum Sonu Canavari’, a well known Turkish gaming site, and kindly a friend of mine has done a rough translation into English for us! Enjoy!
