KickStarter Americana Dawn - A JRPG inspired by American folklore and history

[LESS T_T]

Americana Dawn is a role playing game which explores over two centuries of early American history using a new tradition of folklore and tall tales. Throughout its story, we follow Foster, the spirit of the sea, a gentle and innocent being who arrives in America with no apparent heritage or home. Lost to the wilderness of Shenandoah Valley, he lives in complete isolation for a hundred years until he is found and recruited in the provincial militia. Thus begins his strange journey, spanning across three wars and the entire eastern seaboard of North America: from the French and Indian War to the American Revolution, from the colony of Georgia to Quebec City.

Foster witnesses once loyal English become American rebels. He fights against dear friends turned foe, watch mortal companions blossom and wither, bears witness to the chain of events that would create the United States, and is left with revelations both inspiring and woeful.

This is not a story about a man who changes the world, but a world that changes a man.

Microbattle

Turn-based combat in which players select from a roster of options to control a maximum of three characters. Rather than using ‘ability points’ as penalties for actions, Americana Dawn utilizes cooldowns, forcing players to strategize their approach to combat. Enemies deal devastating blows enough to knock out a character in a few hits; players must make deft use of the DIS (Dynamic Interrupt System) to keep enemies on the backfoot, carefully timing abilities to disrupt their maneuvers and limit incoming damage to the party. Using powerful but slow abilities will stifle the flexibility required to emerge victorious.

Each main character is given different weapon types that grant various strategic approaches to combat. As there are no random battles, EXP, or statistical improvements offered, progression is measured by skill acquisition. Characters who are naturally adept at specific weapons have fifteen levels of mastery per item. To further improve the innate strengths or weaknesses of a character, each character has three slots of accessories, which have a large variety of properties.

Macrobattle

Americana Dawn’s focus on a dynamic and changing world is demonstrated in its large-scaled combats based on historical battles. Players control historical figures and a large number of units that may be part of eight unique classes. The key element in these large wars is the interaction with the environment, whether it is slaughtering cannoneers and using infantry to steal their artillery, or attacking sentry towers and turning infantry into marksmen.

screenshots

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitbonton/americana-dawn-historical-rpg
Greenlight: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=343291594

 

[Abu Antar]

Another Kickstarter?
In May of 2012, Americana Dawn had a fundraiser on Kickstarter, asking for 2,000 USD (making 4,791 USD). At the time, the game was created using a pre-built engine and used many public assets, so I requested a modest amount. The original project was a short experimental game. I had not expected it to become what it is today, but I fell in love with 18th Century America, and all the strange and exotic people that resided there. From that passion, Americana Dawn took on a life of its own with a new cast, lore and purpose, created with a custom engine and all original assets.

Due to various circumstances, the original team had disbanded, but I could never stop working on this – both out of obligation to my supporters and my love for this game. I juggled multiple jobs as I recruited a new staff that had the skill, dedication and team spirit required to carry this to the finish line. The original budget barely covers the assets we currently have. Americana Dawn has been kept alive entirely by my day job's income which has caused a lot of struggles.

 

[Bibbimbop]

There's a character from England named Thames, as if that could ever be a straight-faced given name before hippies made ruining your offsprings' life so fashionable. It gets better. Thames earned the terrifying sobriquet "The Grouch Lord of London" due to his temper. "Grouch." There you have it. The historical source material for this game is Sesame Street.

 

[FuriousGamer87]

The trailer is well made.
The animations are pretty nice.
The combat system seem to be quite simple turn-based similar to Dragon Quest without the tension subsystem and Advance War for the mass battle Version (I rather they copied Yggdra Union style for that, tbh)
Seriously, the combat systems for both personal and army seem to be fucking weak.
The atmosphere.....damn the atmosphere is pretty good.
They got the vibe right.

Ah, well. $15 ain't much. After all, I backed both Wasteland 2 and SRR before.

 

[Comte]

My question is where the niggers at? how will slavery be portrayed? Can I purchase a negro manservant to fight for me?

 

[Ninjerk]

How incredibly Japanese is this

 

[StaticSpine]

:kwafuckyeah:

 

[Sranchammer]

If I can kill yanks, sign me up

 

[sser]

So... will I celebrate the Fifth of July in the game?

 

[Siveon]

How incredibly Japanese is this

Somewhere between Final Fantasy Tactics and Dark Souls. Not very, from what I can see. It's definitely leagues below modern Final Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei and any JRPG that gets shat out on the Vita.

Truth be told I think this looks pretty good. Of course the setting essentially makes the game for me, the look and feel of a colonial-era game is just something I rarely enjoy. The gameplay doesn't look too overambitious so hopefully that might turn out alright as well. A lot of inspiration definitely came from Suikoden as well, not many games have both SRPG gameplay and JRPG gameplay.

Now, will they actually reach their goal? No clue.

 

[Ninjerk]

How incredibly Japanese is this

Somewhere between Final Fantasy Tactics and Dark Souls. Not very, from what I can see. It's definitely leagues below modern Final Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei and any JRPG that gets shat out on the Vita.

Truth be told I think this looks pretty good. Of course the setting essentially makes the game for me, the look and feel of a colonial-era game is just something I rarely enjoy. The gameplay doesn't look too overambitious so hopefully that might turn out alright as well. A lot of inspiration definitely came from Suikoden as well, not many games have both SRPG gameplay and JRPG gameplay.

Now, will they actually reach their goal? No clue.

It could only be more Japanese by putting tentacle rape and loli in it.

 

[Siveon]

It could only be more Japanese by putting tentacle rape and loli in it.

Sure.

 

[Crooked Bee]

This game is now Josh Sawyer-approved.



(tune in at 15:00 or so)

 

[LESS T_T]

:kwafuckyeah::patriot::kwanzania:

 

[LESS T_T]

Failed.

Creator Bit Bonton about 14 hours ago
Thanks everyone! We're not giving up on this. We'll be making an update either today or the day after Christmas once things have settled down a little bit.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Failed.

Obviously, the lesson is that historical RPGs don't sell. /Feargus

 

[Drakron]

JRPG
Bit Bonton
Yosemite Village, CA

 

[Phage]

WHAT HOW HAVE I NOT SEEN THIS BEFORE I NEED IT IN MY LIFE!

 

[taxalot]

I'd have backed it had I seen that video of Washington summoning Bahamut earlier. This is awesome.

I hope they find a way to make this project go on in whatever form possible.

 

[Goliath]

My question is where the niggers at? how will slavery be portrayed? Can I purchase a negro manservant to fight for me?

Personally I am still waiting for "Harvest Moon: Old South"

 

[LESS T_T]

They'll relaunch Kickstarter campaign this spring: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitbonton/americana-dawn-historical-rpg/posts/1103954

Hello Backers.

We have been completely floored by the support we have received. Our team has taken it as inspiration to push even harder to bring this game to the fans.

That said, we must make this completely clear: our work has never stopped.

With nearly three times more content, improved art assets, and a trimmed budget. We are happy to announce that Americana Dawn will be relaunching this spring.

We plan to frequently update this page to keep our fans and supporters in the loop. Thank you.

When we started the kickstarter we had already had been working on the game for a few years. We plan on better showing off that work. Before, we simply didn't have the time to properly edit and record all the footage before, that was a mistake of ours. Though now we have learned from that mistake and with the addition of time we will be able to bring that content to the fans.

As for the budget, for a lot of us here this is a passion project, working out of pocket to produce the kind of game we always wanted to play. We made an effort to bring down our costs and scaling back a few parts of our vision, while also communicating with people willing to lend a hand to the project.

At the end of the day this is the game we always wanted to make as a team, so worked harder and took the steps needed to do more with less.

 

[Phage]

This is like, Phage: The Game. Too bad it will likely never exist, and if it does won't reach its full AMERICAN POTENTIAL!

 

[eric__s]

Sure it will, the people behind it are very passionate and it's a great project.

 

[Whisky]

I really hope the next campaign gets off the ground. This looks like great, unique project.

 

[SCO]

Just make a thread on something awful those kwan fags will fund anything.