Nebulae is a massively multiplayer online strategy game, where you – our players – collectively control nations in a threatened galaxy. You will combine governance, economics, diplomacy and instances of 3D combat to ensure your nations’ dominance and attempt to survive the deathly expansion of a nebula.
Nebulae will be available on your mobile screen in 2020. The PC version will follow suit on a complementary, cross-platform basis.
We believe that the best MMO player experience is delivered without a subscription model and without pay-to-win mechanics. Therefore Nebulae will always be free to play, generating revenue from cosmetic microtransactions and, later on, marketing partnerships.
Our galaxy is divided between several spacefaring nations. These powers compete for control of star systems, military dominance and ideological influence. On a macro-level, players in each nation are collectively responsible for its:
At launch, every nation will have a unique political structure (authoritarian, democratic and everything in between). In the long-term however, every power may be destroyed, merged, or fully replaced with new nations, created by our players (yes, you!).
Nebulae is the “all you can eat” menu choice for political experimentation – in an MMO.
We want you to be part of Nebulae wherever you are, which is why we opted for a mobile-first release in 2020, followed up with a PC release further down the line (timeline and our stretch goals are separate sections below!).
The communities will play in the same world and have complementary functionalities between platforms. The management & politics part will be indentical, no matter the device. In combat instances, however, players will be separated by device (which will allow larger scale combat for PC, and shorter skirmishes on mobile) to cater to different types of combat controls.
Much like in real-life, you will randomly spawn into an existing faction, with tutorials introducing you to its unique political system, governance and latest news and developments. You will then be asked if you agree or disagree with the current political system, or if you wish to discover more about your current regime. This choice will trigger certain in-game events that will try to convince you to stay/to betray your current faction and join another.
On a micro-level, any player who gathers enough support may transform an existing parliamentary democracy into a totalitarian utopia. Or the other way round. But before going into politics (or not), you will learn to be a manager and a pilot.
As Station Captains, you will supervise NPC pilots, dispatching them on various missions, while managing the economic life of the station – its production, contribution to faction research and tax collection, among others.
Captains – as you prove your worth to your respective nations, you may be awarded, elected or assigned to manage a larger station or a planet, and so your management responsibilities expand horizontally (managing planetary social cohesion) and vertically (coordinating the efforts of all player-controlled stations orbiting nearby). Same principles will apply as your faction entrusts you to manage star systems or even entire sectors.
As pilots, you have 3 possibilities to customize your spacecraft:
As you learn the ropes of managing a station or a planet, you will become increasingly involved into the political processes of the faction, which can quickly become part of your daily gameplay. Bear in mind, however, that nations are dramatically different in structuring their governance. It will be up to players to maintain or change them:
Speaking of research: Every stellar power will have a different configuration of starting tech and will need to carefully choose how to advance between 6 different sections of the tech tree:
Revolving around a supermassive black hole for billions of years, our galaxy has developed into a rare and beautiful corner of the universe. It is aflush with intelligent life forms across hundreds of species, some of which have developed into full-fledged spacefaring nations.
In a fragile peace, six stellar powers have developed over millennia. Most recently, the nebula at the centre of the galaxy has begun expanding, forcing entire star systems to be evacuated, creating billions of refugees and provoking border clashes between the powers. Moreover, another mysterious faction calling themselves the Nomads, has been scouted recently, settling on the fringes of the galaxy.
The upper arm of the galaxy, the first one to be explored in Nebulae, when Kickstarter succeeds, hosts three major powers:
You, commander, will get to choose your species amongst the 5 most common ones (more are in development!).
However, unless you take the once in a lifetime opportunity to vanquish fate and choose your birthplace in the Cosmos with our rewards, you won’t have a say in what your initial faction will be.
Will you stand out for its values? Will you fight to change it from the inside? Or… will you seek an opportunity for treason and join another faction of your choice when you get the chance?
The decision is yours to make.
The lower arm of the galaxy will be unlocked at 148 000€ contributions.
We – Northern Lights Entertainment – are a young and independent team of die-hard gamers with a badass sci-fi project and nothing to lose.
We started off as 2 co-founders with a Word document 1.5 years ago. On October 25th we celebrated 1 year since the creation of our company. We are now a team of 12 and a network of 100+ supporters, volunteers and mentors.
Today, we are here because we need your kick to start the next phase of development of Nebulae – our cross-platform Astropolitics MMO with 3D combat in space.
If we do not reach our funding goal of 42k €, the native inhabitants of our world will never find the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Take a few minutes and let us show you why this matters.
We want to develop a large, cross-platform game for as many players as we can find. But raising more money through this Kickstarter campaign will enable us to go further in development at a faster pace. Here is an overview of our stretch goals:
We have conducted an estimation of how many contributions at each rewards-level we might get. We have estimated how much of this money is going to go into the production and shipping of the physical goods (roughly 25%). We have also subtracted the mandatory Kickstarter and international transaction fees that may be applicable for us (about 9%). We have estimated up to 11% of the money going into the infrastructure costs that we will need (paying for the server costs during testing and initial launches). Everything else is going to go into hiring and paying our development team (except the founders, who will remain unpaid up to the stretch goal of 400k €), and various administrative costs – such as the value added tax (where applicable), accounting and payroll costs and so on.
As mentioned before – raising more money enables us to go further, faster. But if (when) we reach the 42k target, here is how we imagine things moving along:
You can get a large selection of different in-game rewards, some of them self-explanatory (reserving your nickname ahead of launch, or choosing your faction), but also others, under the form of redeemable vouchers (e.g. for faction change without penalty, or a ship design voucher that allows you to keep the same ship, but give it a unique in-game appearance).
Here is a preview of what some of our physical rewards will look like (subject to production, printing, lighting adjustments):
Nebulae Cardkeepers that you can attach to your phone, to keep your cards reachable and safe, wherever you go:
Nebulae webcam covers, so that you feel safe and private at your computer:
Nebulae phone cases, so that you can your device (and Nebulae participation) is safe (sample design for an iPhone 7):
If you are feeling fancy, you can also represent any of the Nebulae factions with a themed T-shirt:
Look, we have in front of us all the risks faced by video game studios, startups and teams:
– We could get exterminated by a massive galactic nebula that you can’t negotiate with;
– We could run into unexpected technological and development problems, resulting in production or release delays;
– We could struggle to find supplementary funding, if and when needed;
– We could struggle to acquire and retain players, once the game is released;
– We may lack the experience or skills to face any/all of the challenges and complexities above.
The truth is, we’ve come this far.
– We’ve learned to hire great talent and build a team of 12 teamplayers that resolves any challenges we have faced – this far;
– We’ve learned how to find our tone of voice and to speak to communities of gamers and otherwise and get them excited about Nebulae – this far;
– We’ve been very good at putting our own money into development, securing subsidies and bank loans – this far;
This is just another lesson on our path – and we will carry on learning, doing our best to deliver a phenomenal experience to players.
And if you still feel like you need to learn more about us or Nebulae – visit us on www.nebulae.world and shoot us an email through the contact form or the comments section of Kickstarter.