The Mandate

Gamescom video with dev commentary
over 9 years ago – Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 11:40:50 PM

Hi backers,

Today we are sharing a video of the Gamescom boarding combat demo with developer commentary. You will find the link to the video a bit further down on the page. 

Originally Kickstarter Update #52 was supposed to talk about artificial intelligence but due to logistics we have had to swap topics so Update #52 is instead about the Gamescom demo. Update #54 (Game design update) should arrive in a couple of weeks time.

Speaking of Gamescom, we had a huge presence allowing attendees to play the Pre-Alpha demo at several demo stations. Volunteer staff were on hand to answer any questions players might have had.

Many different types of players were playing the demo and we noticed two distinct types of players who would play the demo: Casual Gamers and Core Gamers. Casual gamers seemed to check out the game briefly, while Core gamers who were more comfortable with Real Time Strategy games stayed and played for much longer. We even had some dedicated Captains who played for 30-45 minutes and some of those even managed to beat the demo, which we were really not expecting!

Perihelion devs also did presentations for the press in the business area and our schedule was fully booked for all three days. In general the response from the press can be summed up as enthusiastic but cautious. Since our demo was about boarding combat we were asked about the adventure mode and space combat mode. However, those two modes are not yet at a stage where we feel comfortable showing them off to the press. That being said the response from the press is inline with what we were aiming for: To create an awareness about The Mandate among the gaming press since most of the journalists had not heard about The Mandate before.

As a side-note we were told a story by one of the game journalists. He had interviewed Sid Meier a few years ago, and Sid Meier told him that back when he originally pitched ‘Pirates!’ nobody believed the game could be done. It was three games in one! This was back in the late 1980s. As one of our biggest inspirations, you could say that The Mandate is actually Sid Meier’s Pirates in space but without the dancing mini-game (from the 2004 remake). Of course our boarding combat is different and we put more emphasis on crew dynamics and RPG mechanics but we still feel the comparison is valid.

Ok, time to switch over to the Gamescom demo. Please keep in mind that the Gamescom demo is pre-alpha. It contains prototype code which is not optimized, the visuals are not final and the install process is tricky (involving installation of 3rd party database software etc). In the Gamescom demo the player is given control of 8 squads of Grand Fleet marines with orders to take back a Grand Fleet heavy cruiser which has been stormed by members of the Black Eagle faction who have dug into fortified defenses on the Heavy Cruiser. The demo contains two decks: the cargo hold and the main deck. The player’s squads start in the aft cargo hold and must sweep the cargo deck before proceeding to the main deck to take control of the bridge (and ship). Over to Robert and Garret!

We’d also like to take a second to talk about the Arkwright Heavy Armor. Originally we posted the Arkwright Armor family as part of Update #51 and also on The Mandate Facebook page. 

After a lot of feedback from backers and members on the forum we decided to place a recall to all deployed Arkwright Heavy Armors to do some urgent repairs. Whenever you make armor you have to sacrifice something for the protection you get. Thanks for the feedback, we took your suggestions and made it better!

We bought a new rubber stamp specifically for this! Just kidding! We all really appreciated your feedback and decided to go back and look at how we could improve the armor based on your comments. (We had some fun messing around with them too) 

In the end we decided to go with a slight variation on #3 and the armor is currently being modelled. You can see a work in progress shot below.

We really appreciate your feedback, and often times when we show off what the art team is working on, we wind up looking at it again after we see your comments or questions and see if we can improve things.

Hope you enjoyed the video with developer commentary and a sneak peak at the new Arkwright Armor! As always post your feedback and comments either here on Kickstarter or over at the forums.

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

Production update
over 9 years ago – Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 07:20:53 PM

Hi, backers!

The team is currently preparing for Gamescom which is a big trade fair for video games that is held every year in Cologne, Germany. This year it runs from 5th to 9th of August and we will be there to demo The Mandate. You can come and visit us - our booth is in hall 10.1, booth A60. 

In this update you will find both a linked video as well as a track from the orchestral soundtrack. Most images are linked to Full HD 1920x1080 resolution images which you can also download and use as wallpapers on your desktop.

We are going to diverge from our monthly update schedule and post updates more frequently over the next weeks both before and after Gamescom:

• Update #51 - Production update (this update)
• Update #52 - Artificial intelligence
• Update #53 - Gamescom demo
• Update #54 - Game design update

Before we continue, we want to address the subject of Alpha and Feature Beta. Back when we announced the deal with Eurovideo in Kickstarter update #45 last year, our plan was to roll out Alpha in early third quarter. We are in third quarter but our Alpha version is not ready yet. Now what do we mean by that? Well, we want to deliver a top notch quality product so that you can enjoy the Alpha and provide valuable feedback. We also want to have the capacity to respond to the feedback and make a better game. We are not yet feature complete, and from both a stability, usability and performance point of view we still have work to do. Our current focus is the Gamescom demo preparations and we will share gameplay footage from this demo soon. As for when you can expect the Alpha, we will get back to you as soon as we know more.

Next let us discuss the progress with the soundtrack. We will start by sharing a link to the revised The Mandate main theme. This is the stereo instrumental version. Since you first heard it back in our Kickstarter campaign almost two years ago it has been expanded from around 2 minutes to 8 minutes. Check it out below while reading the rest of this update.

Originally we had planned to do a 60 minute full orchestral soundtrack if our budget allowed for it. After discussing with both our composer and also Eurovideo we decided to go for 120 minutes of full orchestral music, and actually in the end our composer created 130 minutes of music. During June we recorded all 130 minutes of instrumental music with a full orchestra of 70 musicians. For some of the tracks we had access to rather exotic instruments. For example the Arkwright faction theme is scored with anvils.

In August and September we will record with a choir and so some of our tracks will have both an instrumental and a choir version. Since no self-respecting space opera would be caught without proper opera, we have commissioned text lyrics for four of the tracks. As befits the game setting and backstory these lyrics will be performed in Russian. The entire soundtrack will be both stereo and 5.1 sound. The list of tracks is as follows:

• The Mandate main theme (instrumental and opera)
• Anastasia’s theme (instrumental and opera)
• Suvarov’s slow march (instrumental and opera)
• Suvarov’s quick march
• Faction theme Arkwright
• Faction theme Black Eagle
• Faction theme Europan
• Faction theme Osmani
• Faction theme Pirates
• Faction theme Rebels
• Faction theme Romanov
• March Grand Fleet
• March Imperial
• March Triste/Funeral (instrumental and opera)
• Exploration music part 1
• Exploration music part 2
• Tension music part 1
• Tension music part 2
• Combat music - boarding
• Combat music - space

Keep in mind that inside the game several of these tracks will be split up into smaller parts, especially the exploration, tension and combat tracks. Also, the post production itself will take several months after the choir and opera recordings.

Shifting focus to the art budget we can say that since space combat and boarding combat are two of our main game modes it follows that a large part of our art budget is allocated to those two modes. Ships, ship interiors, character armours and animations make up the bulk of the art budget.

When we started development of The Mandate we had originally planned to have Grand Fleet ships and in addition a few ships from each of the Houses (Arkwright, Europan, Black Eagle, Romanov). Back then we did not know how many ships we would be able to produce and so (as discussed in previous updates) we spent quite a bit of time to figure out exactly how we would produce the ships (modular approach, procedural textures etc). In total we expected to produce somewhere between 15 and 20 ships. The deal with Eurovideo allowed us to staff up with additional artists and expand the art production budget.

So how many ships are we planning to produce?
How many ships have we produced?
When do we expect to be done with all ships?

The table below should answer these questions:

In total we are planning to produce 48 ships from 8 factions. Each faction has a distinct style with a strong design language and for each faction we are making six classes of ships: frigate (FF), destroyer (DD), light cruiser (CL), heavy cruiser (CA), battlecruiser (BC) and battleship (BB). Each ship will have four bow, three midship and three aft sections.

Together that gives 36 visual combinations per ship and the visual changes will also have gameplay implications. Later in this update you will see variations of a Rebel heavy cruiser where we have replaced the different ship sections.

Two factions stand out in the table above, namely the pirates and the ISTL. The pirates stand out since they are absent from the table and the reason for this is that we did not find a good justification in the lore for letting pirates build their own starships. Instead pirates will use modified prize ships which they have captured from other factions. The pirate versions will have both colour and silhouette changes to make them stand out. As for the ISTL (Interstellar Trade League) this faction was announced with the lore updates. Its primary focus is on trade and making a profit rather than outright conquest. This is reflected in the ISTL ship roster with three classes of freighters and three classes of escorts. Their freighters in particular will be different from most other ships since they are built to carry lots of cargo. We touched on our ideas for cargo concepts back in Kickstarter Update #41.

You may also notice that we are doing BC and BB last. This is because we wanted to finish a basic ship roster for each faction and get more experience with building the smaller ships before we tackle the bigger ones.

So to answer the three questions from earlier we have so far produced 21 ships out of 48 ships. Our current rate of production is 7 ships per month and we expect to complete all 48 ships by end of November. These ships are then ready to be inserted into the game engine. When all the ships are finished the artists will switch to other tasks.

Next we have the character armours which are important for boarding combat. Again we are aiming for the same eight factions as with the ships. For each faction we are producing four sets of armour: a duty suit (jump suit), light, medium and heavy armour. So far we have produced the Grand Fleet, Black Eagle and Romanov armour sets. The Arkwright armours are currently in production. Our production rate is approximately 1 faction or 4 armours per month and we expect all armours to be completed by end of December.

Especially for character armours we expect that the faction design for one faction may not be to everybody’s liking. There has been more discussion on the forums about the direction of character armours than for ship designs. We released the arkwright armour concepts as part of the Gamescom press kit last week and it has already gotten a lot of feedback, especially for the heavy armour. We do read your feedback and discuss internally but we cannot promise that your feedback will result in changes. 

Also, keep in mind one extra constraint that we have for boarding combat which is that you should at a glance be able to make out the type of armour an enemy squad is wearing. This requires that we play around not only with the textures but also with the silhouettes. The armour affects both mobility and survivability and if you come up against enemy marines in medium or heavy armour who you recognize to be moving in veteran or elite formation, then you may not wish to risk a frontal assault.

Of course the characters also need animations to work properly. We previously discussed in Kickstarter Update #43 that the veterancy of your crew has a huge impact on their combat performance. Especially during boarding combat we want to communicate this via animations, formations and the way weapons are held (weapon posture). To communicate the difference in veterancy (rookie, trained, veteran, elite) we plan to have four animation sets. Each animation set has approximately 200 animations.

We have completed the trained animation set and this is the one we are using for the Gamescom demo. You can see a selection of the animations in the video above. For the other animation sets we will base these off of the trained animation set but also create new ones. Aside from ships, armours and animations we are also creating planets, ship interiors, weapons and space stations. Each faction will get its own modular space station. Below you can see the concept for the Romanov starbase. 

Ship interiors have also been given room to grow. Each faction will have a unique visual style for the ship interiors. While the Grand Fleet might seem cold, spartan and militaristic, the Rebel ships are cobbled together with parts they salvage from other hulks, and the Osmani ships are sleek and heavily integrated with their technology. 

Beyond differentiating the interior visual style for each faction we also want the interiors to change as you expand your fleet and gain access to larger ships. For example, the bridge of a Battleship is much more intimidating in size compared to a frigate bridge. Expanding the interiors of the ship allows you to feel like you're commanding bigger, and better ships, and if you decide to board a ship of another faction you might be surprised by what you come up against.

On the programming side we have had two major challenges. The first challenge was to find the programmers with the right experience and who were also available to relocate. That said, we now have all the programmers that we need but it took longer than we expected. Our second big challenge is that of artificial intelligence. For The Mandate we want a robust AI solution that can handle both our boarding combat, space combat and adventure mode. There are no existing solutions on the market which satisfies our requirements (performance, features, customization etc). We will talk more about our solution a bit later.

There are several areas where we have made significant progress. First of all as you may know we are using the Unity engine. Unity 5 was released back in March 2015 but we opted to stick with Unity 4.6 since there is always a risk associated with upgrading to a major new release. After doing compatibility tests we upgraded in the middle of June from Unity 4.6 to Unity 5.1. While Unity 5 adds several new features, one of the more important ones for us is the ability to run the Unity editor in 64-bit mode. This allows us to utilize more memory inside Unity while developing the game. Another important feature that came with Unity 5 is the asset bundling which simplifies the workflow for our artists when putting together art assets and creating prefabs for use by the designers.

Ever since we made the decision to go for the mod support stretch goal back in  Kickstarter Update #37 we have been designing, implementing and iterating on our content tools. For example we now have a galaxy generator which can take objects (planets, stars etc) as input and generate star systems. These star systems can then be grouped into clusters. We can mix randomly generated star systems with specific/custom ones (think for example the starting system of each major faction in the sandbox which will be custom made).

To save time and avoid reinventing the wheel we have gone with third party software and solutions wherever possible. We already use Allegorithmic Substance Designer for our procedural textures. Recently we finished integrating support for Bullet physics which has several interesting features and also supports multi-threading. Two other third party software programs are Popcorn FX (for particle effects) and FMOD (for sound effects). Finally, we should mention that we are using Apex Path and Apex Steer from Apex Software ApS for pathfinding and formations, respectively.

Now, we mentioned earlier that we were looking for a robust AI solution and we did a thorough review of available AI solutions. There were no existing solution that satisfied our requirements and we did not want to develop our own solution from scratch as that would be a high risk project. Back in March we were exchanging some emails with Apex Software about their other products and were told that they were planning a third product, Apex AI. Since they knew we had several experienced developers they asked us what features we would be most interested to see in a new AI product. Well, we started talking and one thing led to the other. More on this soon..

On the design side, our approach to boarding combat has caused us to reconsider several aspects of the game. One part of the game we wanted to cover already today is crew management. First of all while you start the game with a frigate and a small crew, later on you will have bigger ships with considerably larger crews. We were struggling with how the player would manage the crew without losing the direct one-to-one interaction that makes The Mandate stand out. Since managing lots of individual crew members will become a time-consuming click-fest we needed a more elegant solution. 

Our solution is to organize crew into squads and officers. A squad consists of eight crew members. It is standardized across enlisted, marines, pilots and even specialists like engineering or medical. Crews are recruited and managed as squads. Squads have a number of skills and as they level up you can turn them into more specialized types of squads. Squad progression is both dependent on the type of service branch and in some cases also faction. So two squads of the same type (tactical marine squad) which come from different factions (Arkwright, Europan etc) may have  different upgrade paths available.

As a squad levels up, it may generate an officer candidate. Officers are individuals and have attributes in place of skills. They can be given different assignments. For example you could put an officer in charge of a squad, serve on your bridge/escort ship/space station or send him/her on a mission. A mission could be anything from gathering intelligence or performing acts of sabotage.

We believe this new direction will make crew management easier and remove unnecessary micromanagement. At the same time it should be mentioned that we are still committed to having a living ship, which should resemble an ant hill. When both squads and officers are off duty, we still want you to see them milling about and making a home for themselves in your ship. Some of your crew may even have special dialogue, missions or complaints which you can respond to.

Beyond the crew revamp the design team and writers have been working on other aspects of the game design as well:

• Story and mission structure
• Character creation
• Crew/officer interaction
• Officer attribute and trait lists

We will cover these points in much more detail as part of Kickstarter Update #54 and include progression examples for both officers and crew.

Speaking of updates you can expect KS Update #52 soon. KS Update #53 will be out right after Gamescom, and KS Update #54 will be rolled out end of August / early September.

Expect to also see more press coverage of The Mandate in August.

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

Lore Update 2 & revised timeline
over 9 years ago – Sun, Aug 02, 2015 at 09:31:53 AM

Hey backers,

For the next update (which should arrive late June or early July) we plan to give a production status update. Also our designers, programmers and artists have been very busy and we will share both visuals and gameplay footage.

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

Lore Update 1
over 9 years ago – Sun, Aug 02, 2015 at 09:31:42 AM

Hey backers,

As mentioned in the previous update the topic of today is the lore update part 1 (LUP1). It includes background information about the Romanov, Arkwright, Black Eagle and Europan factions as well as their respective sub factions. Furthermore, it includes information about how each faction sees both itself and the other factions and makes mention of key figures for each faction.

LUP1 currently stands at 27 pages of text with around 12000 words. This document will grow and expand as we release additional information. Click HERE to access LUP1 directly and click HERE to download backer design templates for your tier(s). The lore document is also accessible from the backer design templates page. 

If you are a regular backer we hope you will enjoy reading more about the backstory and lore. If you also pledged for design tiers then we encourage you to use this lore update to improve your backer design.

Lore update part 2 (LUP2) will include background information about the Osmani, Rebels, Pirates and a few other factions. It will include a revised and expanded timeline which covers major events in Mandate history. It should help put things in perspective. LUP2 is scheduled for a late May release.

When LUP2 comes out we will simultaneously send emails to all backers who pledged for design tiers to remind you to start sharpening your virtual pencils.

A few notes about the lore updates: 

• The writing style and vocabulary used may sometimes seem a bit unfamiliar or even obscure. It may even motivate you to dig out your favourite dictionary or at the very least google a few words online. This is intentional and by design
• Naturally we did not have a lot of time to flesh out the universe before and right after the Kickstarter campaign. As we added sub factions and discussed the role of each major faction it made sense to do certain adjustments. Therefore there are some major changes compared to information we have released previously
• Whenever there is a conflict between the lore updates and any previously released information then you can assume that the lore updates contain the most current and correct information. For example some of the articles on the official website are out of date
• We plan to maintain the lore update document going forward and it will contain both a version number and a changelog (in case we add data or do tweaks/typo fixes)

Also, as announced earlier, with the launch of this update we will disable the ability to purchase backer designs. We will give a few days for anybody who came late to the party or who got motivated after reading LUP1.

The final deadline for purchasing backer designs will be 5th of May at 11.59 PM GMT (6.59 PM EST, 3.59 PM PST).

We will keep the option to pre-order game copies at the $20, $30, $40, $50 and $75 tiers open until LUP2 has been released but eventually both our BackerKit pre-order store and our PayPal store will be deactivated. If you have friends who have been sitting on the fence, you should poke them soon.  

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

Progress update
over 9 years ago – Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 03:05:38 AM

Hey backers,

Today we are going to talk about our roadmap and progress update as well as the state of the project. Our aim is to shed more light on exactly where we are in development. We also have a new developer video which you can find at the bottom of this update.

When the Kickstarter campaign was successfully concluded last year we took a break for a few days and then started to plan our production roadmap in more detail. Our timeframe as outlined before we launched our Kickstarter placed Alpha in December 2014 with Beta to follow in Q1 2015.

We discussed each major feature and classified according to the high risk, high value matrix that we also shared with you as part of our Kickstarter update for January. During this planning stage we identified several issues that we were not aware of before the Kickstarter campaign was launched and which have had an impact on our production schedule and timeline.

The first issue was staffing-related as three of the senior programmers that we wanted to bring onboard full-time were prevented from joining the project due to pre-existing contracts. Despite our best efforts to terminate their previous contracts earlier in the end we had to wait until 1st of April before they could join us.

Secondly, our initial timeline (which was announced when the Kickstarter began) does not take into account the fact that we added stretch goals like planetary missions and starbase assaults. These features require additional time to develop on top of the ship boarding operations that we had already planned. For example planetary missions require a different approach to pathfinding for units that move around in an open space instead of down corridors [as would be the case with boarding operations]. To prevent further loss of time we looked at different solutions including three different ones from 3rd parties until we finally found one that satisfied our updated requirements.

Planetary missions also require unique artwork to distinguish them from boarding operations and would have required a lot of manual work to design and build planet surfaces. We decided to investigate how to procedurally generate planetary mission maps to allow us to create varied landscapes. In the long run this will save development time and ensure you do not visit the same planet layout twice (unless specifically created for story missions). This work has yielded some very promising results but required research and development. Above you can see four different “biome” types as we call them. We have a crystal planet, a lava planet, a desert planet and a moon. The walkable area is the same in all four cases, however, the lava planet has the walkable terrain raised compared to the other three. All four types are running off of the same level layout that the game designer created. We also have additional biomes in development but these four should suffice to demonstrate the versatility of our solution.

Thirdly, we announced already back in February that we were planning for “mod support” since we were not that far away from reaching this stretch goal. It is important to note that first of all this decision is irreversible and it also has major architectural implications. As you may know we are using Unity as our game engine and Unity generally has static scenes (or levels if you will) which are not easily modified after a game has been compiled, shipped and launched. This is not a problem if you are building a traditional RPG with predefined locations.

In The Mandate (both for ship interiors and planetary mission planets) we will not have static levels but rather dynamic ones that are generated at run-time. Unity does not natively support this. We wanted something robust and powerful, more similar to the MMO engines we have worked with in the past where the program code and the content data are decoupled. This allows designers to add and modify content data (npcs, ships, quests, items etc) by using a set of content design tools. The changes can be saved and exported without involving programmers and without modifying the game executables. Our plan is to allow modders to use these same tools after launch as well. These requirements, however, demanded a custom object model to be created.

For The Mandate, we are using a custom object model (entity/component model). Entities are not linked directly in the static Unity scenes but instead they can be serialized on-the-fly so we can have an open world sandbox with dynamic streaming. Entities can migrate seamlessly between boarding and space combat simulation, or communicate in both domains. The advanced serialization supports multiplayer replication and optimizes the data traffic by automatically recalculating the diffs in synchronized data.

For the game design and level design toolchain, the object mode enables advanced editor features like: custom nested prefabs, full undo support, data definition/reflection and MVC approach to separate data and entity logic from visual components.

At runtime, as we are using the actor model, entities can be updated independently and in parallel. This approach scales naturally in multi threaded environment with several CPUs.

Mandate will have seamless transition between worlds and to stream the data/assets in the background, we are using Unity asset bundles. Black box modules can also contain the precompiled code which interfaces with existing game framework, as it is used for the dynamic loading in MOD support. This way, some assets and modules don't need to be statically determined when the game is released, but can be added, overwritten or updated later. By replacing these asset bundles, we can dynamically update the content of the game.

The custom object model is now complete and we are now building the various content tools which use this model. It is important to stress that the content tools themselves will be very powerful and allow designers to rapidly create and modify new abilities, items, npcs, ship sections and ships. Due to data consistency checking it should minimize the introduction of bugs into the system and we have automated processes that can verify the integrity of the data.

The challenges presented above meant that The Mandate would require more time and effort to complete without having to sacrifice or cut features from the game concept. The systemic approach to how we wanted to make The Mandate has several major upsides such as providing content creation tools that allow us (and modders) to quickly develop additional content for the game once it has been launched. Conversely, it requires more development time to do it right. We believe this is the right thing to do and we hope that you agree with our approach.

With respect to development time we decided to delay staffing up the design team (including writers) and also the art team. This meant that both teams would spend more time in pre-production to iterate on designs and art, respectively. In parallel the programming team has been staffed to full strength and has been working on the issues outlined above.

On the art side the extra time has allowed us to iterate on the design language for each of the factions. Whenever you encounter ships or starbases from another faction you will recognize which faction they belong to due to their unique art direction when it comes to colour, silhouette and design language. Last update we showed the Grand Fleet heavy cruiser MK II and we also gave a sneak peek at a Black Eagle heavy cruiser in drydock. Today we are following up and sharing with you the ship styles for the Romanov, Osmani, Arkwright and Europan heavy cruiser designs.

For tech art we have also used the time to investigate and deal with issues ahead of time. We have built systematic approaches for each of the art-scale challenges we will face during the production so that we can tackle each area in the most efficient way possible. For example you may remember our presentation of the character system which we discussed a few updates ago. Another example would be the addition of physically based shaders and integration with Substance Designer procedural textures which required recently developed third party tools to reach maturity. A third example is the biome generation for planetary missions as seen earlier in this update that will help us generate a huge amount of variety of missions from the same amount of game designer input. These are all powerful, flexible solutions that are also scalable depending on hardware requirements.

Another side of development which has benefited from a longer development time is the audio. More specifically, our soundtrack. When we started development we were not sure how much funds we would be able to allocate to the soundtrack. We therefore asked our composer to plan for both a 60, 90 and 120 minute soundtrack. Based on what we will discuss later in this update, we can now confirm that The Mandate will get a full 120 minute soundtrack. Also, whereas the Kickstarter Mandate theme was recorded with around 30 musicians; we will use a 75-man orchestra for the full soundtrack. Our composer already has roughly 60 minutes of faction-specific music ready and is now starting on the second half of the soundtrack; the battle music and ambient music.

Due to copyright and intellectual property rights we cannot share the music yet and besides, it will only sound right once it has been recorded with the full orchestra. That being said the faction music goes very well with the art direction for the various ship styles that we showed earlier in this update. Since we got a lot of good feedback on the Mandate theme our composer decided to record four versions of the original Mandate track on piano for your enjoyment. Enjoy!

Oh, and there is one more thing we are exploring with respect to the soundtrack. Actually, technically it is the vocals or chorus. It is a bit early to talk about but if all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, this will be the icing on the cake. It is said that a picture is worth more than a thousand words...

While these efforts have required additional time in the development schedule we ultimately believe this will result in a more interesting and enjoyable experience. The high level design work on both design and art will save us time down the road, ensure a more tightly integrated experience since the different game modes are more strongly connected, and the technological solutions we have gone for, will help both with the production of expansion packs, sequels and mod support.

We saw three alternative approaches that could help us meet our funding requirements and avoid having to compromise on our game concept: We could seek additional crowdfunding, prepare a Steam Early Access version or we could find an investment partner. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses (or risks if you will).

We did not feel that it was right to ask for a second wave of crowdfunding. Also - while important progress has been made, it is not progress that is easy to present into sexy marketing material so there would be no guarantee of obtaining more funds this way.

As for using Early Access first of all it would require us to change our development roadmap to deliver something that would entice people to donate and secondly we would have no guarantee for the result. The Early Access could get us more money than we ever needed - or - it could fall on its face and then what? We have seen many projects take this road and we much prefer to not be in a permanent state of pre-alpha early access, something that can be infuriating to players who are essentially treated as unpaid QA staff.

Bearing this in mind we decided to look for an investment partner as our plan A with Early Access as plan B. One clear benefit for us is that we can focus our communication and talk to somebody who has experience evaluating projects at different stages of development. We met with several different publishers both small, medium and large at Gamescom in August and pitched our game concept.

For the last four months we have been exclusively discussing with one potential partner. After signing mutual NDAs with them we shared all relevant project information. On their side they conducted a thorough due diligence of The Mandate. They brought with them an external industry veteran who reviewed our production budget, the state of our codebase and also our design documents. Current and proposed future members of the development team were both evaluated and interviewed to get a clear understanding of the major production risks and whether we had the necessary experience to tackle them. The feedback was very professional and constructive and we immediately implemented several production changes (since the feedback was given with no strings attached). Next we embarked on a relatively lengthy contract negotiation process which ended up taking longer than expected. We did not feel comfortable announcing anything until a deal was signed and everything set in stone (and besides the NDA restricted what we could discuss).

This changes today as we just signed a contract with Eurovideo Medien GmbH of Germany. The guys are cool and consist of former D&D players who are also fans of games like X-Com, Pirates, Mount & Blade, Elite, FTL and many more. If you want to check out which games they distributed in the past years, have a look at their website. Actually, their offices are located next to the movie set for the movie classic “Das Boot”.

 

What is also important is that the guys understand both the type of game experience we are aiming for and also what we are NOT aiming for, e.g. on-the-rails free-2-play shooter with micro-transactions. Eurovideo sees the potential in The Mandate and wants to help us realize the game’s full potential. So what are the implications of this deal?

• Eurovideo will invest to ensure the development of The Mandate
• Perihelion Interactive will have full creative control. Full stop. We will execute the original game concept as we presented to you in the Kickstarter and will follow our vision without any intervention from Eurovideo
• Eurovideo will handle all marketing, PR and distribution activities
• Perihelion Interactive will interact with existing & new backers and release regular updates. There will be no changes here
• Perihelion Interactive will retain full control over backer pledges
• Eurovideo will handle all localization in cooperation with Perihelion Interactive
• We can now guarantee that The Mandate will be localized into German, French, Italian, Spanish and Russian (other languages to be discussed)
• Both the English and German versions will be voiced (other languages to be discussed)
• The development team will grow due to this investment and as a result we can pack more content and more hours of fun into the game
• The soundtrack will be 120 minutes instead of 60 minutes and the size of the orchestra will double
  

How does the road ahead look like with the additional funding? First of all we will now start to staff up the development team. At its peak the team will consist of around 30 developers with a combined AAA experience of 100+ years. The additional funding allows us to bring onboard several veteran developers who are both friends and former co-workers. This will reduce risk and ensure that The Mandate is a great game at release.

Furthermore, we will differentiate in our timeline between the feature Alpha, feature Beta and Content Beta. Whereas the first two relate to the specific features of the game the latter is about the content (quests, factions, ships etc) which are made with our tools [remember the discussion above about our tool chain and object actor model].

Feature Alpha: Q3 2015 (early)
Feature Beta: Q3 2015 (late)
Content Beta: Q4 2015
Launch: Q1 2016

All backers at $75 or above will gain access to the Feature Alpha. All backers at $40 or above will gain access to the Feature Beta. All backers from $20 or above will gain access to the Content Beta.

The Content Beta will be updated several times towards Launch. Depending on the feedback from the Feature Alpha and Feature Beta it may be slightly more restricted in scope initially but over time we will release content updates and unlock features so that right before launch the Content Beta will be identical to the launch version of the game (but for example it may miss localization for certain languages which become available at launch).

So what will happen next? Actually over the holidays Garret (Art Director) is reading a book about heraldry which is over a hundred years old but supposedly still relevant for the 36th century. Vegard (Tech Art Director) is playing around with some cool stuff. Could there be a connection to the book that Garret is reading? Time will tell.

Right after the holidays we will start the hiring process to bring onboard additional developers. Specifically we will bring on two veteran writers and two veteran designers as well as additional artists. The next few Kickstarter updates will cover star base design, modular design and what types of customization options will be available to the player. Then in February we plan to discuss the battle drills and formations in more detail and show you how our squad AI adapts to the changing environment and also talk more about how boarding operations work.

As part of developing the boarding combat prototype we also worked in parallel on the art side to define the different room types and investigate scale dimensions. We have put a lot of effort into ensuring that a ship deck will feel like it has depth and mass. As you know a deck will contain many rooms and each room can have several consoles. Each console can be manned by one of your crew and the consoles in turn affect ship performance and dictate whether certain systems are online or offline during space combat. You may recall our previous Kickstarter update which included a video that demonstrated sub-system targeting where you can detect and take out individual consoles and rooms with precision fire. We decided to make a video to showcase the rooms that have been built so far.

Above you can see actual in-game footage where we show off the various rooms completed so far. We plan to make a follow-up video later where we go into more detail about the modularity of these assets as well as what type of customization options will be available (again made possible due to systematic tech art approaches).

We also have quite a few backers who pledged for various design tiers. Some of these design tiers do not yet have templates but now that we are staffing up with writers and designers we expect to finalize the remaining templates during February. Speaking of which we will close down the ability to order design tiers on the 31st of March 2015. This will give all backers who pledge for various design tiers several months to also work on their designs and conduct peer review before we start the official submission process.

With that said it is time to wrap things up. The bottom line is that we are building an even bigger game for you guys. This requires more time and additional investments. We have had some staffing challenges as well as unanticipated technical challenges along the way, but both of these are now solved and our agreement with Eurovideo guarantees that we will not have to compromise the original vision for the game.

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive