SUCCESS!!!

We made it, we reached our goal! Thank you so much to everyone who contributed. You will be contacted by email shortly after we met the deadline. Make sure that the email address you provided us is valid or we won't be able to send you your reward(s).

UPDATE:

We've been featured on RocketHub's blog, click the link if you want to know a little more about us:

http://blog.rockethub.com/indie-game-studio-from-quebec-crowdfunds-a-ne

What is Brand?

Brand is a customization game hidden in a 2d action game. The player is tasked with a very simple goal: he is handed a sword and asked to "Make this sword fit for a king". In order to do so, he must get help from the Mage, the Smith and the Chemist to temper the sword until it is deemed strong enough to do a final test. The three of them will send the player to face monsters in a steampunk castle, an alexandrite mine and a necropolis to do some favors for them in exchange for their services. The player has a wide array of choices in how to upgrade his sword, and these upgrades directly affect the player's abilities, so that every new game offers something different. A game should last for a few hours, but the high replayability will make up for it.

There are nine basic powers you can upgrade and some of those combine together to create new abilities. To unlock these powers, the player must complete quests by exploring three vast levels, which can be explored in a similar fashion to Metroid or Castlevania games. The player can only have a set limit of upgrade levels within his weapon, forcing him to choose which he wants for his weapon and which ones he purposefully leave out. Forcing this kind of choice to the player will create a sense of ownership to his sword, as it will be the direct results of his decisions. The game will be released on Xbox 360 via Xbox live Indie Games and it will also be released on PC.

Take a look at the trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upYRgAt3Exs 

Why support us?

Brand is Nine Dots Studio's pilot project. We won't lie to you: it is nearly completed, and as such, it will be released even if we don't amass a large amount of money here on RocketHub. However, it is Nine Dots Studio as a whole that needs your help.

We are persuaded that we can make creative and innovative games without abusing developers and still make a profit. Unsurprisingly, convincing banks and investors isn't that simple.

As a rule of thumb, a bank will usually lend cash to you only if you already have 10% of the amount you require. So if I have 1000 dollars, getting a bank loan of up to 10,000 should be feasible. This is oversimplified, but in a way, it means that every single dollar contributed gives us access to ten more. If we make 10,000 dollars on RocketHub, we might be able to get a loan of 100,000 dollars!

Brand is a labor of love. We are 5 persons working on this project full-time in a room of my appartment for no salary. We've done so for months, but we won't be able to keep going indefinitely at this pace. We intend to make games far more ambitious than Brand, but for that, we need salaries, we need installations and we need more staff on board. That would require quite a lot of money, and that is where you make a difference. By combining my own personal savings, RocketHub contributions and sales from Brand, maybe we'll have the initial 10% we need to initiate the next phase.

What do you mean by "included in the exclusive survey pool"?

If you contribute 20$ or more, you will be added to the list of persons we will consult in a survey regarding design decisions in our next game. For instance, we might hesitate between different effects for an ability, or between different looks for a specific character. In these cases, we'll ask the people from the survey pool to vote on which option they prefer and we will implement the most popular one. So those who vote will have a real impact on what our next game will be like.

What are the asset packages?

If you contribute 50$ or more, we will give you access to the original files for the models, textures and animation in Brand. These assets are divided in packages, and you can choose 3 of those. You can use these files in your own project if you want, as long as it's not for comercial purposes. If you contributed 1000$ or more, you get all the visual assets in the game and you can use them in a project with commercial purposes, as long as you give us credits for the assets you used.

The packages are divided as follow:

Troglodyte or Chewter or Fluffy Fly or Manticore
Monsters contain their models, animations and their different texture variations

Necropolis or Mine or Castle
Levels contain the environment and the props models and textures

The Hero
Contains the model, animations and textures of the playable character

The Sword
Contains the different sword models and all texture variations of each

Menus and interface
Contains both the menus and in-game content (such as the Life gauge, the pause menu, the quest giver menus, etc)

FX
Contains all what we used to create the visual effects

What are the loading quotes and what are the restrictions?

Whenever there is a loading in the game, there is a background image and a short text, called the loading quote. You can choose what one of these quote says.

It must not be vulgar and must not contain any hate speech. It can be an inside joke and can contain innuendo, as long as it's reasonably tame.

Can you tell us more about the arena statue?

In the last level of the game, called the Arena, there will be custom made statues for those who claim this reward.

When we claim a reward, do we get all the previous ones as well?

Yes, you do get all previous rewards as well! This means that someone who contributes 1000$ and up also get an arena statue, even if the 500$ reward is sold out!

I want to know more!

You can check out our website:
http://ninedotsstudio.com/

or our facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/NineDotsStudio 

About RocketHub

1. RocketHub is not an investment or charity. It is an exchange: funds from fans for rewards from us.

2. It's an All & More funding mechanism: if we don't reach our financial goal we get to keep what we raise. But if we do reach our goal, we get access to exciting opportunities.