Defeat can be a bitter pill to swallow, but for Hogs of War Lardcore this does not mean the end of development, if anything we are just getting started.
Now at this point, its obvious where our mistakes lay within this campaign, but at the time our thinking was to bring Lardcore up to scratch first, before then porting that work over with all its fancy bells and whistles included. Our costing and price-tags were steep, but they followed the same idea. What we should have done was led with the PC port from the get-go, rather than shooting ourselves in the foot by not having potential PC backers involved from the beginning. Ultimately, you live and you learn, and that's exactly what we intend to do moving forward with development!
So what exactly is the plan for Lardcore going forward? How can the project still continue without funding from the Kickstarter? And do those who backed the project still receive some kind of reward for such dedication to the cause?
For us as a team - its effectively business as usual. The ultimate goal of running a Kickstarter campaign was for it to help raise funding for the bigger parts of the project and to hire additional staff, but with that mission ending in defeat, it now falls onto our existing team to continue such work going forward. We are aware of & are looking into other methods of raising funds for the project, but the details on that information is strictly top secret soldier! Hogs of War Lardcore is still planned to release on PlayStation, but that doesn't rule out future workings for PC. If anything, this past campaign has proven that such a market cannot be ignored, so rest assured - we're keeping PC players in mind moving forward! When the new year roles around we'll also be looking to share a development timeline with the wider community, which will provide a breakdown of how development will flow going into 2024.
As a final thank you to everyone who previously backed, commented and generally got involved in our campaign, we'd like to gift you all a First-Aid Leaflet to help patch yourself up and soldier on, just as we are doing with Lardcore! (Printable version here). We still have a long way to go with this project, but we intend, as always, to keep the community fully involved every step of the way!
Calling all recruits! This is it! High Command have finally given the go ahead for a new offensive - the Lardcore Kickstarter Campaign is a Go!
So what can we expect from this Kickstarter? Well for starters, a ton of new and updated content via the incoming stretch goals! Remastered music, new cheat codes, an achievement system, rebalancing singleplayer with additional hard and 'IronHam' Modes - there is almost too much to unpack here! As you'd expect, the further down the stretch goal list you go, the bigger the rewards become. Unlocking the Italian Team for all releases of Lardcore, alongside the PC port & much bigger Online Multiplayer rewards (including an Online Competitive Hogs mode!) are some of the real juicy ones, but I'm sure your probably asking why Online Multiplayer is split between a 'basic' and 'advanced' stretch goal. Well if you take a look at where the PC port currently sits in the stretch goal list (£550K), the basic version of Online Multiplayer only takes us up to £300K, so this would only be for PS4 & PS5. Advanced Online Multiplayer at £600K would then see that work ported to PC, with additional bells and whistles for Multiplayer mode taking us past that point.
Of course it wouldn't be a real fight without some extra ammunition, and that's where our Pledge Tiers come in! Here you'll be finding an absolute bucket load of digital content, including Kickstarter Exclusive in game rewards! Up to 10 in game hats, 6 in game Backpacks and 3 different types of weapon skins are just some of the things you can find amount the 13 tiers on offer, not to mention a giant selection of additional non in-game digital rewards!
Alright, 'thats pretty cool' I hear you say as you gaze once more upon the exclusive 'Born to Grill' Helmet, but where's the physical merchandise? The answer to that requires a little more explanation. You see, a physical bundle reward is included, but only within our two highest pledge tiers. The reason for this is simply down to production costs - if we included physical rewards in any of the lower tiers then a much larger chunk of the total raised funds from this campaign would be needed specifically for that, and right now we'd prefer to priorities Lardcore's gameplay development over merchandise. However, we fully intend to launch an official Hogs of War Lardcore Store in future (Kickstarter success permitting!).
['Dev Corps' Physical merch bundle is comprised of a Lardcore t-shirt, mug and x2 posters!]
Don't forget, even if we manage to reach the highest listed stretch goal - we still have the Classified section to look forward to! These goals will encompass the much higher valued community requests, including new multiplayer game modes, class reworks, team creation & customisation to name just a few!
We are super excited to get the ball rolling on this next phase of development, this is our time to show the world that Hogs of War is still very much alive and kicking! You can find the campaign page right here, take a look for yourself at all the awesome rewards and get involved in the community discussions happening right now over on the campaign page! Week by week we'll be releasing War Report videos over on the Lardcore YouTube channel as we keep up with the campaign's progress, noting the stretch goals hit and ones still to come. As always a huge thank you to the community for the support they have shown us in the build up to this campaign, lets make history with this Kickstarter!
It's no secret that our team behind the scenes have been incredibly busy, given our recent uptick in video content - this level of output is going to remain the same (if not increasing!) right up to the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign!
Despite not being announced yet, we can confirm that the exact dates and times for when the campaign will start & end are locked in! Such information will be released to the community over the coming weeks, but in short - the campaign is right around the corner! Our top hog scientists have been carefully engineering the necessary stretch goals and pledge tiers to help ensure that this campaign is to be a worthy investment, after all - we only get one shot at this!
In the build up to the start of the Kickstarter campaign, we've been sharing more of the development processes & ideas with the community. Uniform Etiquette discussed the possible inclusion of different hats and head-wear that would be unique to each team. Our aim here is to provide the player with a basic level of customisation for choosing hats (some being class specific, others viable across all pigs), while also keeping the hats themselves grounded in the military theme of the game. We don't want to get too swept away with the idea of cosmetics, after all they are going to remain secondary to the game tasks we have at hand, but its definitely something we feel could help enhance Lardcore in the long run!
Speaking of game tasks - in another one of our more recent videos we discussed the possible return of the Ace Class. In the original game this was one rank of pig that sat unused within the game files, but we hope to bring this hog back through Lardcore! The Ace was designed way back during the original development of Hogs of War, however it was shelved after the removal of flyable planes/aircraft. This class of pig was placed in-between the Hero and the Legend, boasting the same amount of health as the Hero (150HP) and a very similar arsenal of weaponry/abilities. So in Lardcore we intend to do one of two things with this class via the Kickstarter campaign:
Basic > Include this rank of pig (in its current form) within enemy ranks in the singleplayer campaign (players will fight against the pig, but won't be able to access him via the promotion tree)
Advanced > Adjustment of the existing promotion tree to include the Ace (so players will be able to upgrade to this class), while also overhauling their weaponry to become a unique class that differs from the Hero/Legend
Whichever level of inclusion will depend on which stretch goals can be achieved on the Kickstarter, however we remain very positive to the idea that this community can smash every goal put in front of them!
Elsewhere in the video 'Ham vs Machine', we revealed our first 3D model concepts for the vehicles in Hogs of War Lardcore, each offering up their own newly added details to help give further context to how these metal monsters work & how pigs get in and out of them! Take a look at our turnarounds below!
Pillbox
Default Health - 100HP
Weaponry - x3 Heavy Machine Guns, x3 Flamethrower
Artillery
Default Health - 200HP
Weaponry - x3 Long Range Shells, x1 Mine Shell, x1 Poison Gas Shell, x1 F-Rain Shell, x1 Shock Shell, x1 Thousand Pound Shell
Tank
Default Health - 150HP
Weaponry - x1 Airburst, Infinite Bazooka
Aquatank
Default Health - 150HP
Weaponry - Infinite Bazooka, x1 Mortar
Duck/Truck
Default Health - 150HP
Weaponry - None
Of course from a gameplay perspective - pigs will still be able to jump into and out of these vehicles using the same 'press triangle' method as the original game, although it would be cool to have unique animations for this process that wouldn't impact the player's turn time!
And finally our latest release - 'Bacon, Bombs & Bayonets!', showcasing the first installment of our in game weapon models! The game's original models were certainly distinctive in design, however we hope to bring further detail and uniqueness as development progresses!
We've certainly got a little way to go before our models are finalised, especially when it comes to the more iconic weapons from the original (Jetpack, Shotgun, Flamethrower, Heavy Weapon models), but we hope we can maintain that sense of originality within our own art style as development progresses. The way we see it - Hogs of War Lardcore has to strike that perfect balance between grit, humour and colour. You have the one side of the original art style that was saturated, blending colour tones and emphasising this through the use of humour in the pigs themselves and the voice work. Then on the other side it encompassed a real world conflict that affected so many around the world, and that message is hammered home through the game's settings, models and general contents.
We hope to strike this balance within all the development work that is shown in future, and as always from myself and the team - we hope to see you all in the next video! A massive thank you to everyone who has gotten involved in the discussions across our development video series, the input we've had from the community has been incredibly helpful so keep those comments coming! Expect to see further development videos in the coming weeks, quickly followed by our Kickstarter Announcement Video, during which time the dates will be posted across our social media! See you then soldier!
