Greetings everyone!

Last time I updated you, you received the text-based preview of the Sacred Fire’s first chapter. And we couldn’t be more happy about your feedback. We had already known from our Firestarter+ backers that we were heading in the right direction but the second wave of responses was equally encouraging. Thank you for that and keep them coming. We really enjoy hearing from you guys.

Meanwhile, Andrej and Matus (our new coder) have been keeping themselves very busy. Since our first internal build in March, they have been adding new functionality almost every week. Here’s what we already have:

• Visual and RPG editor in Unity used for creating scene visuals and RPG checks, attribute and relationship stats progress, and emotional impulses.
• NPC emotional states, relationship development and NPC attribute checks resulting in different reactions and story branching.
• Risk chains and challenges bonus and penalty.
• Tool for character art layers and predictive loading of character art.

Sacred Fire with placeholder art in Unity.

Apart from all the progress in development, we’ve been going to events to continue meeting potential publishers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Now there’s a few more people eagerly waiting for the playable preview, which is planned for this summer.

We’ve also made some new friends:

I’ve got useful advice from Rick (on the right), the US Community
Manager for Kingdom Come: Deliverance, at PAX East.

Andrej talked to Josh Sawyer (on the left), the game director of Pillars of Eternity I & II, at Reboot Develop.

By the way, if you haven’t checked out Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Pillars of Eternity II yet, you should. Seriously.

So Andrej went to Reboot Develop in Dubrovnik and Digital Dragons in Krakow and got in touch with reliable contractors for QA, localization and art production. And since I’m in the US for a few months, I’ve been visiting shows over here. PAX East in Boston was great fun and the crowds were just huge.

PAX East was rather overwhelming. In a good way.

Last weekend I went to DreamHack in Austin to pitch Sacred Fire at the Game Pitch Championship. The game was praised by the jury for its innovative approach to storytelling and positive reactions from the community and industry. We advanced to Top 5, which is a great result at this stage of development.

Next week I’ll be at E3. If you’re there, let me know, I’d be happy to chat. Perhaps the best way to get in touch is at https://twitter.com/martinkolesar. Just DM me.