Update 11

Announcements galore!

Feb 15 2015

Weekly Goal Met! Marching Forward

We’re having a great weekend so far, pushing past the 8,000 backer goal for the week. As of noon Sunday there are 8,078 of you strong! That’s a small army… growing into a larger army. This also means everybody who backs this Kickstarter will receive gratis the exclusive ‘Little Friends’ digital reward, which our dwarven smiths are busily crafting:

With this goal met, we’re setting a new challenge. Let’s grow our army of backers to at least 9,000 strong come next Sunday noon. The Dwarves are not the only faction helping us out with this. The Dark Elves are working on a special gift for everybody if we meet this next goal:

A handy sling, popular with the Dark Elves. This one comes with rare Splatter Seeds. The elves harvest these seeds from a creeping vine that thrives in their domain. The seeds have sharp thorns that can damage a foe, but they also split open on contact to spray a phosphorescent goo. Great way to tag a foe in the dark! The 5 seeds that come with this sling have a one-of-a-kind, extra long-lasting, purple goo. For every hundred additional backers over 9,000 that join us by Sunday noon, the elves have offered to include a bonus purple seed.

Over a million people have played the original Underworld games. We know most of them have yet to learn of the Underworld Ascendant Kickstarter, so still a lot more fans out there to reach!

As a small, indie studio we’ve been fortunate to get some good press coverage, and we’ve been doing what we can in other areas to get the word out. But our over 8,000 and growing-in-size community has the strongest voice. Please continue to reach out to friends through Facebook, Twitter, carrier pigeon or whatever other means to help find more to join us. Besides, the Dark Elves would be thrilled to harvest bushels of purple Splatter Seeds.

Some Announcements

It’s our pleasure to announce that Stephen L. Russell will be doing voice acting for Underworld Ascendant. Among gamers, Stephen is perhaps best known as the voice of Garrett in the original Thief games. At LookingGlass we worked closely with Stephen, where he voiced some of the more memorable characters from Thief, Thief II and System Shock 2. Stephen also did voice acting for Fallout 3 and Skyrim. We’re looking forward to working with him once again.

We are also announcing our first official Add-On, the Dark Elven ‘Kinsman’ Buckler:

The worlds of Underworld Ascendant and Shroud of the Avatar are connected. Through the ages a magic portal linking these distant worlds has allowed for travel and interchange. One such event happened generations ago, when a band of Dark Elves broke free of their magician overlord, and escaped through the portal to make an exodus into the Stygian Abyss.

Over the long years since, this band of Dark Elves established a thriving colony in the Abyss. Their one great sadness is being sundered so far from their dark elven kindred who remain in the lands of the Shroud of the Avatar. Their solace is a magic buckler, the Kinsman. This buckler has a solitary moonstone that glows with the warmth of friendship when held by kin across the two worlds, signifying the bonds that stretch beyond space and time.

For any Backers who get a Kinsman Buckler in both games, theirs will glow as well. Shroud of the Avatar players can get their buckler HERE.

There will be more Underworld Ascendant Add-On’s coming, stay tuned!

And More…

We also wanted to highlight a fun set of rewards that start in the $200 pledge tier, the Kickstarter exclusive enchanted Avatar robes. Worn by your Avatar, these convey an honorary status as a backer, which sentinels and other NPCs with similar roles in the game will recognize. These NPCs will bow in respect to those wearing the copper-trimmed robe; bow more deeply and longer to those wearing the silver-trimmed robe; and with the gold-trimmed robe, bards will also sing out their praises. These robes also provide a slight charisma boost, making bartering and the like a bit more productive.

Finally, we wanted to share one of the fan stories posted in the forums about an experience playing the original Underworld games. radishes' story begins:

“My favorite late-game thing to do in Ultima Underworld was (and is) to re-populate the Abyss. I'd eliminate one or more of the friendly factions, clean out all their dropped junk, and use the "Summon Life" spell to create my own little village in that spot. For example, I'd nuke the headquarters of the friendly trolls, and summon my own eclectic hodgepodge of mages, headless, goblins, and outcasts to take their place.”

That’s getting creative! It’s not something we imagined players doing when we were designing the game. Keep your stories coming!

The Team at OtherSide

External Links

• Kickstarter Update