Shoryuken founders announce crafting RTS/RPG hybrid Stonehearth
Already funded on Kickstarter.
Shoryuken founder Tom Cannon and his twin brother, Evolution fighting game tournament co-founder Tony Cannon, have announced their upcoming Kickstarter project Stonehearth (not to be confused with Hearthstone, a Blizzard virtual card combat game).
Given the Cannon bros.' pedigree, you might expect the duo to be making a fighting game, but you'd be wrong. Stonehearth is closer to say, Dwarf Fortress. You guide a group of settlers as they build a civilization upon a randomly generated world map. Crafting and building will be key, but players will also get to assign jobs to their settlers and level them up, giving the whole thing an RPG flavour.
There will be an RTS component to the game as well, as players will have to do battle with enemy armies and monstrous bosses. This aspect of the game is meant to be more deliberately paced than other RTS games, probably to make up for Stonehearth's inherent complexity. With granular detail comes granular responsibly, I suppose.
Throughout the campaign players will encounter situations called "modules." These are authored challenges, but which modules you encounter will be random. Additionally, players will be able to design their own modules ala LittleBigPlanet, so there will essentially be unlimited missions.
Stonehearth is being pitched as a single-player game, but the Cannon brothers' studio Radiant Entertainment noted that it would like to add co-op and competitive multiplayer modes as future stretch goals.
Speaking of stretch goals, Stonehearth is slated for a PC release, but if it hits $200K then Mac and Linux versions will be in order.
Those who pledge $15 towards Stonehearth will receive a digital download of it upon its estimated September 2014 release while $30 will guarantee two copies of the game and early beta access later this year.
The Stonehearth Kickstarter is currently at $139,941, surpassing its $120,000 goal with 27 days to go before its 30th May deadline. Additionally, it's on Steam Greenlight, too.
