Fundraiser by Matthew Kubilis : Help me make my first game!

 

Hello, my name is Matthew Kubilis, and I’ve wanted to be a game designer since I was around 10 years old.

After having to leave home at age 16 due to abuse, I lost my college money, was unable to go to the school I had been accepted into, and have financially struggled ever since. 

making under 9$ an hour and a working side jobs to try to raise money and also save for college,  I’ve been overwhelmed by the costs and struggling to make the ends meet. 

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I’ve payed thousands of dollars over the years buying the softwares and tools I need, investing in my studio and trying to move forward, and even so I’m still not where I need to be.  

With a project on the horizon and a team being put together, this might be my lucky break— except I don’t have the money I need to get everything in order. 

Even a single dollar would make a world of difference, if 100 people all gave me that then it would be enough to put towards marketing or music and save me so much stress.

I want to establish this studio to help provide for me and my family,  as money is thin for all of us. I also want to give my workers good opportunities and a chance to establish careers in the industry. 

If I can reach my goal, this would be life-changing. I’m putting in as much work as I can, but I just need a little bit more help. After trying and saving for years I’m optimistic that I might finally see the rewards of those many unpaid hours and dollars spent. 

 

we already have 3 artists and a programmer lined up, but need money to pay the artists (they are receiving orders as the budget allows, so they are for sure being paid for their work)

 

I already have writing for the plot, and everybody seems to love it.

 

I can’t spoil too much, but the game is an exploration of a young man’s mind, touching on subjects of grief, self-harm, friendship, family, and recovery.

The genre is psychological horror, with the player exploring a variety of locations within the mysterious “dusk world”, with the main characters discovering secrets about the land— and themselves— as they work together to escape.  

Gameplay is a turn-based RPG and match 3 hybrid, combining unique elements to make for an original combat system.

 

for example, instead of rare power-ups in games like candy crush, each party member has a list of skills they can use. There are not limited resources, but have cooldowns that prevent the usage of any other skills for a certain amount of turns.

 

each character can also equip weapons and charms and unlock passive abilities that can affect gem damage or drop rates, and each character has their own “movement style”. This movement style means that some characters can move gems vertically, horizontally, diagonally, etc.

 

gems also do not begin to match until the whole party has acted, allowing you to easily set up chains and combos, and significantly reducing the luck-based gameplay of most match-3 games.

 

Navigating haunted forests, eerie waterways, and Vegas(?) offers a variety of enemies and new mechanics, such as water and fire, which can interact with the gems on the board in interesting ways.

 

through careful planning and strategy, even the strongest of foes can be slain, with each enemy bringing you closer to the truth, for better or for worse.

 

Support for this would help me pay artists and other creatives, and help my apprentice artist get her start in the animating/ game art industry. Any help is wildly appreciated and will not be forgotten!

 

current artwork includes filler graphics, credit to AEkashics Librarium for the enemy design, and red-baby and Augustina_jara on itch.io for the character art. Our own art will be coming soon, but make sure to show those artists some love.