IndieRPGs checks out Celestian Tales: Old North in this video:

Thanks Couch.

Celestian Tales: Old North is now availabe on Steam and GOG:

Celestian Tales: Old North is a refreshing take on the classic turn-based Japanese style RPG, where your decisions in its dark and gritty storyline shape the world of tomorrow. When the future comes at last, is it what you hoped for?

Experience what it's truly like to bear the responsibilities of a hero in the beautifully hand-drawn Old North. Take on the role of one among six young nobles, learning your way of knighthood and assisting the lords you serve. When an external force threatens the land, you find yourself swept in the tides of war where the deadliest enemies are those among your own ranks.

Celestian Tales: Old North is a complex tale of human interactions where deception, intrigue, and betrayal stand side-by-side with loyalty, friendship, and personal growth. Scrapping away the cliché of a destined person or a boy/girl-saving-the-world, the story is tailored for a mature audience and questions the bare morals of a human being. Will you do anything to survive? Will you be steadfast in defending your faith and beliefs? Or will you let yourself be corrupted, little by little, in the name of greater good?

Featuring a turn-based combat system with plenty of character and party customization options, Celestian Tales allows you to play the game at your own pace in your own style. Enter the first decade of this epic series and see for yourself what sets it apart.

Features:

• Moral Confrontations - Situations are presented to the player throughout the game that force players to face moral questions and beliefs.
• Unique Story – By avoiding genre cliches, the story brings a fresh approach to RPG storytelling by allowing players feel the weight of their character’s actions.
• Multiple Story Arcs - 6 Selectable Characters allow you to play the game from 6 different perspectives. Play through the game as all 6 characters for a full experience.
• Traditional RPG Gameplay - Inspired by classic JRPGs with a turn-based RPG battle system, players can develop a personal combat style.
• Beautiful Art - Lush hand-painted background visuals and environments with detailed emotive character portraits and animated pixel-art characters create a full and complete world experience.
• Epic Music - A sweeping score that captures the pace and emotion of the story as it unfolds.

Celestian Tales: Old North will be released at August 10. Here's the launch trailer:

Celestian Tales: Old North is a refreshing take on the classic turn-based J-RPG, where your decisions in its dark and gritty storyline shape the world of tomorrow. When the future comes at last, is it what you hoped for?

Experience what it's truly like to bear the responsibilities of a hero in the beautifully hand-drawn Old North. Take on the role of one among six young nobles, learning your way of knighthood and assisting the lords you serve. When an external force threatens the land, you find yourself swept in the tides of war where the deadliest enemies are those among your own ranks.

Celestian Tales: Old North is a complex tale of human interactions where deception, intrigue, and betrayal stand side-by-side with loyalty, friendship, and personal growth. Scrapping away the cliché of a destined person or a boy/girl-saving-the-world, the story is tailored for a mature audience and questions the bare morals of a human being. Will you do anything to survive? Will you be steadfast in defending your faith and beliefs? Or will you let yourself be corrupted, little by little, in the name of greater good?

Featuring a turn-based combat system with plenty of character and party customization options, Celestian Tales allows you to play the game at your own pace in your own style. Enter the first decade of this epic series and see for yourself what sets it apart.

Features

• Moral Confrontations - Situations are presented to the player throughout the game that force players to face moral questions and beliefs.
• Unique Story – By avoiding genre cliches, the story brings a fresh approach to RPG storytelling by allowing players feel the weight of their character’s actions.
• Multiple Story Arcs - 6 Selectable Characters allow you to play the game from 6 different perspectives. Play through the game as all 6 characters for a full experience.
• Traditional RPG Gameplay - Inspired by classic JRPGs with a turn-based RPG battle system, players can develop a personal combat style.
• Beautiful Art - Lush hand-painted background visuals and environments with detailed emotive character portraits and animated pixel-art characters create a full and complete world experience.
• Epic Music - A sweeping score that captures the pace and emotion of the story as it unfolds.

Celestian Tales: Old North will be released at August 11. Chris Priestman (Siliconera) describes the game:

Celestian Tales: Old North
Is A JRPG Throwback Without The Destined Hero Trope

The creators of Celestian Tales: Old North are adamant that they won’t adhere to the typical JRPG trope of having a destined hero who has to save the world. This is in spite of the game also apparently being a throwback to the genre’s roots.

“You are not special. The world is not about to end. There is no ancient prophecy. No giant mythical beast is about to be unleashed,” reads the game’s description. “But, war is coming.”

Yes, instead of a clash of good and evil, monster and man, Celestian Tales is apparently about taking on responsibility for your family and your country – defending both and not necessarily in battle.

While the game does have turn-based battles, it’s more concerned with having you investigate your army’s own ranks, sniffing out deception and betrayal. An external force threatens your land but its internal that the greatest compromise to your mission can be found. “The story is tailored for a mature audience and questions the bare morals of a human being,” the description continues. “Will you do anything to survive? Will you be steadfast in defending your faith and beliefs? Or will you let yourself be corrupted, little by little, in the name of greater good?”

On top of that, the game has hand-painted visuals, lets you choose from one of six nobles to play as, and is said to give you plenty of moral choices to deal with. It’ll be out for PC on August 11th as revealed by its Steam page.

Trailer:

Digital Tribes, an indie focussed publisher, announced that they are working with Ekuatar to bring Celestial Tales to the masses and that the release date is the 11th of August and will come to Steam, Humble Bundle and GOG.

MORAL DRIVEN JRPG ASKS, WHICH PATH WILL YOU FOLLOW?

STAMFORD, CT. July 14, 2015 – You are not special. The world is not about to end. There is no ancient prophecy nor a giant mythical beast about to be unleashed…
 
Digital Tribe and Ekuator Games present to you Celestian Tales: Old North, a turn-based roleplaying game created in traditional JRPG style, full of lush hand-painted environments, emotive portraits, memorable characters and a sprawling engaging moralistic storyline that is told through the eyes of six protagonists over many engrossing hours of gameplay.
 
Celestian Tales: Old North allows players to become part of a diverse group of young warriors in training who must learn who they are and where they stand as everyone’s skills are developed to survive the impending war with a dangerous threat from another land.

Experience six intertwining tales from the perspectives of a noble prepared to sacrifice those of lower birth for the greater good, a loyal soldier bred for the fields of battle, a prodigy in strength pushing through all obstacles by force, a knowledge-hungry explorer shackled by the chains of duty, a peasant crawling out from a life of poverty, and an outsider questioning the natural evils of humanity. Then face the cause which unites them all.
 
One's truth may not be another's. Good deeds done by someone may be perceived by another as evil. Often we see only what we want to see and believe only in what we want to believe. Which path will you follow as you journey in the Old North? Through whose eyes will you experience the events that unfold?
 
FEATURES INCLUDE

• Moral Confrontations - Situations are presented to the player throughout the game that tug at moral standings and beliefs.
• Unique Story – Brings a fresh approach to RPG storytelling by avoiding genre clichés in a story where players feel the weight of their character’s actions.
• Multiple Story Arcs - 6 Selectable Characters allow you to play the game from 6 different perspectives. Play through the game as all 6 characters to get the entire experience.
• Traditional RPG Gameplay - Inspired by classic JRPGs with a turn-based RPG battle system that allows players to develop a personal combat style.
• Beautiful Art - Lush hand-painted background visuals and environments with detailed emotive character portraits and animated pixel-art characters that run around the world.
• Epic Music - A sweeping score that captures the pace and emotion of the story as it unfolds.

Celestian Tales: Old North will launch on Steam, Humble Store and other major digital distribution channels for PC, Mac and Linux.

Ekuator Games latest update has information about a new test build for Celestian Tales: Old North, and talks about a few of the games characters.

First of all, let us apologize for staying silent for way too long. We've been terribly busy applying the rest of the features into the game. Before today, the things we've made were mostly in the background, and not visible for the player -- so we were confused regarding what to show you.

But wait no longer! The newest Test Build(s) have been uploaded into Drive and shared on the forums. It's currently waiting for you to try out!

 

As we all know, the Test Build only shows a fraction of the whole First Decade. It's designed to test out all the systems are functional, such as combat and user interfaces. However, we've also been working on the rest of the things needed to finish the game.

Ekuator Games latest update talks new forum , and test build for Celestian Tales.

New Forums

We've launched a new forum so we can communicate our updates in more frequency, and combine the communities from Kickstarter and PayPal in one space. You can access the forum here.

Test Build

In the forum we've also uploaded a Test Build, which can be downloaded and played to see how far we are into making game's systems. The build is short and lacking in many features, but shows how far we are in making the game and how it currently looks like.

The build will be updated every a few days with bug and error fixes, as well as adding in more features currently still in the making. Minor updates will often be sent out through the forums -- having update notification e-mails flooding your inbox doesn't seem like a good idea -- so be sure to check it out often!

Especially for Vanguard-tier backers and above, please introduce yourselves in the Introduction thread along with your registered e-mail addresses. We'll add your names into the group that can access the Test Build. Note that this is done manually, so it may take some time until you're added.

P.S. We recommend running if you're having trouble with the encounters. The save function is not yet enabled, so if you're defeated (a very likely scenario) you'll be sent to the beginning.

Ekuator Games latest post-funding update for Celestian Tales: Old North has information on the progress of the opening movie, and shares a few in-game screenshots.

WIP Opening Movie and In-Game Screenshots

Hope you all had a great holiday! We've started working again on the project since two weeks ago. Here's a couple of things that has happened since then:

Animated Opening Movie

We've been busy applying colour blocks and shadings onto the hundreds of frames of the animations. They don't look too good when seen raw without the background and additional effects applied, though. We'll show some of them so you can get a glimpse of what we're actually busy doing.

Environments and Events

We've put in all events that are currently possible to be made. The rest will need to wait until their corresponding scenes are finished, and that means putting in the environment assets. Currently we're doing the most difficult parts -- the large cities. While villages can resemble one another to some extent, each city is pretty unique in geography and style. Therefore, we can only reuse a small amount of assets in creating them.

Ekuator Games released a new year end update for Celestian Tales: Old North.

Year-End Update!

Hello everyone!

A few days ago we finished our last working days for the years! After three days of final burst of work hours, we managed to finish most of the targets we set. Here's a compact list of the things we've done since the last update.

Game Framework

• Added numerous functions for events -- such as timed random facing for a sprite to show a 'confused' expression, or sprite 'jump' to show 'surprised' expression (see Suikoden 2 for a sense of how it looks) and audio fade effects for smoother BGM transitions.
• Functions for Sub-events, essentially enabling us to make an object doing something over and over again (e.g. a soldier training with a dummy)
• Functions for screen overlay and text or image fading effects for storytelling purposes (e.g. reading a letter)
• NPC talk-to functions, triggers, as well as NPC behaviour functions.
• More intuitive event editor.

Battle Framework

• Basic combat UI placement.
• Bug fixes for attack, defend, and use item functions and calculations.
• Bug fixes for level and stat growth on all playable characters.
• Bug fixes for skill functions on all playable characters.
• Reworked enemy aggro calculations.

Pixel Arts

• Lucienne, Reed, and Ylianne's 8-directional walking animation.
• Lucienne, Reed, and Ylianne's 8-directional running animation.
• Drawing weapon and weapons-ready animation for all playable characters.

Environment Arts

• Assets for 'Warcamp' scene.
• Scene placements for 'Warcamp' scene.
• Assets for 'Montcalm' scene (unfinished, about 70% done)

Script and Screenplay

• Finished full script for Second Decade.
• Listed all needed assets and scenes for Second Decade.
• Made colliders, triggers, and events located in 'Warcamp'.

Ekuator Games next post-funding update for Celestian Tales: Old North takes a look behind the scenes of how they made the upcoming two minute trailer for the game.

Trailer Work-in-Progress

On our last update, we told you that we're making an animated trailer for Celestian Tales: Old North. In this one we're showing you the step-by-steps on how we're creating the two-minute animation.

 On other news

We're currently putting in all the events in the game, the conversations, the NPC movements, their changing directions, showing emoticons, triggering event-related animations, putting in sound effects and changing BGMs. It's not really hard work as we already have the script, but the sheer amount of it is just mind-numbing sometimes.

Ekuator Games latest post-funding update for Celestian Tales: Old North shares some new NPC illustrations, and offers a preview of a few game soundtracks.

All the main characters' illustrations have been shown, so we're going to put up the NPCs for a change. We're also showing off a 30-second preview of the barbarians' chant and the opening track, freshly recorded just yesterday. On other news, some of our volunteer proofreaders have returned the script with recommendations and feedbacks!

Ekuator Games has posted the next long overdue post-funding update for Celestian Tales: Old North. In the words of the developer it's a huge update of text.

A Long and Huge Update

Hello everyone!

We know we're late in updating and we're sorry about this. We'll make it up to you by making this update a big one.

Illustrations: Alternate Costumes Coloured

We made several exclusive updates in the past few weeks, where Vanguard-tier backers have voted for the alternate costumes of each character. After going through sketches and line arts, the six main cast are now coloured and ready to be shown in their other outfits!

Sprites: Exploration

As we finish animating all combat sprites from enemies to bosses to characters, we've moved on to making exploration sprites. There's a huge load of work of animating to be done. Here's a list of some of the general animations we'll have to do:

• Walking in 8 directions for characters
• Running in 8 directions for characters
• Walking in 4 directions for NPCs
• Drawing a weapon in 4 directions
• Walking in 4 directions with weapon drawn
• Kneeling and standing up (probably just one direction)

Other than these, we'll have to do event-specific animations such as falling dead, shouting, charging at an enemy, swinging weapon (and this must not be repetitive), etc.

Do keep in mind that we'll have to do all these times the number of units we have. We've got 6 main characters with 2 outfits each, 14 unique NPCs, 4 backer characters, and about 37 common dudes and dudettes such as nobles, knights, soldiers, townsfolk, villagers, outlaws, and big grey raiders from beyond the sea.

Audio: Vocal Recording

Just yesterday, we started recording vocal sessions in professional studios. We're a bit late on this, due to one of our vocalists, Cecile, is 5-months pregnant. Not only that it's hard to perform abdominal breathing when your uterus is bloating, it may also harm the baby. So please understand.

Ekuator Games next post-funding update for Celestian Tales brings us the coloured illustrations of the main characters you will play as in the game.

Coloured Characters

It's a bit late than the usual once every two weeks update, we know. There had been some problems and national holidays which set us back. We did say it'd be once every two or three, though, so hopefully this update isn't late by too much.

On the last update, we noticed that some of you asked for the coloured illustrations of the main characters, so that you can compare them with the alternate costumes later. We've shown Aria and Ylianne, and here are the rest.

On our next update we will showcase the alternate costumes which you have chosen. The most voted sketches have been made to stronger line arts, and we'd like you to see them and say your ideas regarding colour schemes before we move on to textures and colours. As before, this update will only be available for Vanguard-tier backers and above.

Ekuator Games released the next post-campaign update for their funded RPG game Celestian Tales: Old North with new game music, and screenshots.

WIP Screenshots and Tracks

It's been a somewhat smooth month, with all parts doing their respective jobs. We've got new coloured arts, new screenshots of the explorable areas, and some music tracks. Showing them would make this single update too cramped up, so we're keeping the coloured arts for a later update. By then, we can put them side-by-side with the alternates and see how they fare.

Ekuator Games released a new post-campaign update for their funded RPG game Celestian Tales: Old North that shares infomationo the current state of the game.

Two Months Post-Campaign

It's been two months since this Kickstarter campaign ended early April. Though many things just started to go full throttle by mid-late April (because of the fund transfer time gap), a lot have been done so far. Today's update will cover many stuffs from illustrations, animations, playable areas, to music tracks

Ekuator Games has posted a new kickstarter update for their funded RPG Celestian Tales: Old North with a look at the games art, and talks about the games animations.

Animations and Line Arts

These two weeks we've been working hard on every front. Some things are a bit behind schedule, but other fronts are moving faster than what we expected.

General Stuffs

We are forming a legal company to be the beneficiary of all incoming funds from Steam, Humble Bundle, and other distribution services. Not only will this make managing money easier and safer (instead of being held by a person), this will also help out in making the TIN (to make use of tax treaties).

Ekuator Games has posted the next post-funding update for Celestian Tales: Old North with news on the games sprites, shows some new sketches, and talks about art.

Sprites, Sketches, Line Arts

Work's been going quite smoothly here and there. Thankfully, now we do have stuffs for you to see instead of a boring wall of text.

General Stuff

First thing's first: your pledges have arrived! We've converted some of the NZD into IDR to get things going. It's tough telling people (outside of the core team) to do stuffs when we can't pay them. Now that we can, the wheels are greased and we're going full speed.

On other news, we're moving things forward with Steam and Humble Bundle. We got into talks about tax, and fortunately our country has a tax treaty with the US which will substantially reduce the tax withholding. However this requires some administrative works (such as registering a TIN with the IRS), which take time and are currently in-progress. When this is done though, we're good for the rest of our game-making future.

Ekuator Games has a new post-funding update for Celestian Tales: Old North with a recap of the last three weeks after the kickstarter was funded.

First Week: Fixing Pledges 

Some backers may have had problems, such as cards blocked or the pledges going over the limit. There's a 7-day window for backers to fix these and reconfirm the pledges.

We knew that not 100% will confirm their pledges. There are some who did cancel their pledges, but it was quite far below what we expected. The number spiked due to one dropped Venerated pledge, but overall it's still safe and sound.

Second Week: Kickstarter's Transfer

Kickstarter takes a flat 5% cut for their services. Amazon takes 3% + $0.20 NZD per pledge for processing the funds, but this differs depending on the amount pledged. We stayed on the safe side and calculated both these fees to be around 10% of total pledges.

On Wednesday, Kickstarter sent us an e-mail saying that the funds have been transferred. After all dropped pledges and these two companies taking their respective cuts, the net they sent was around the expected amount.

Meanwhile, pledges through PayPal have been withdrawn successfully to our bank account in Indonesia. These pledges are made in USD and after PayPal takes its cut, the pledges totaled $1,690.62 USD.

Due to Easter holidays, the funds have just arrived on our New Zealand account this morning. We'll have to transfer it from there to our country before it can be used for practical purposes, but we're so thrilled that your pledges have arrived in our hands!

Other News in Development

We're slowing things down a bit while waiting for the Kickstarter pledges arrive. However, that doesn't mean we're not working for Celestian Tales!

We have started recruiting a pixel animator and a level designer since we passed through the respective stretch goals. He joined as soon as we're certain we have the space and jumped straight into the game's overall design from play time to level progressions. His reverse approach to designing has given us a lot of insights.

We also tested a number of candidates for an animator -- not only for the results but also for their work ethics. In a small team it's important to keep the group's integrity, and it's fatal if we get someone who can't work professionally. It took a while, but we've got the ones we're looking for. They're going to start working as soon as the Kickstarter transfer arrives in our country's bank account.

On another front, we have contacted higher-tier backers asking about their characters to give us bases to create concepts and integrate them into the game. We're now in the process of modifying and finalising the script so that it can both showcase the main storyline while accommodating these characters in the best way possible.

Producer Cipto Adiguno of Ekuator Game was interviewed on BitPulse to talk about their funded kickstarter Celestian Tales: Old North, and how the game was created.

BitPulse: Congratulations on exceeding your Kickstarter goal! Did you and the team celebrate? If so, how, if you don’t mind me asking?

Adiguno: We celebrated by buying three whole fried chicken buckets and 8 liters of Coca Cola for everyone to share. We ate until we were drunk with chicken. The celebration party costs just around $15 in total.

Did you end up receiving enough money to fund all three parts of the game?

Yes, the amount should be enough for all three parts of the game. However, since we’ve planned the game to be made in three parts (and told everyone that it’s the format), we will still stick to that plan.

You hit all five of your stretch goals, including the two that include new playable characters and campaigns, can you explain to me how the two work into the release of the game? Are they both included in part one?

The additional story arcs work like stand-alone side stories. You will play as a character that’s only available in the main story as an NPC, and experience the world through him/her. These stories should be played as you switch to the next part to give you a glimpse about events that happen (or have happened) which affected the main arc.

Will the game be released on Steam Early Access in beta form or are you skipping that for a final release?

We will have the game on Steam Early Access. We need that format as reward fulfillment for backers who wanted beta access.

Why did you choose to use Kickstarter? Did you pitch the game to any publishers?

The market for games of this scale in our area is almost non-existent. We knew we had to reach the world, and Kickstarter gives us that reach. We didn’t pitch the game to any publishers for this reason. However, some publishers did come to us after seeing our success in Kickstarter and Greenlight.

The kickstarter for Celestian Tales: Old North was funded, and made $60,630 of the games $30,000 goal. Ekuator Games has a new  update with more information.

Project Ends, All Stretch Goals Reached!

After a 33-day campaign, this Kickstarter comes to an end at last! Over $63,000 NZD has been pledged. We've passed all the stretch goals. With such great support from all 1300+ backers (including those who pledged through PayPal and other means), Celestian Tales will be made with utmost care and determination to bring you the best experience possible. 

Thank you! Thank you so much! We can't even begin to express our gratitude through words. Therefore we're going to express it through an image. As usual, Intan drew something up as her excitement peaked. Maybe it even peaked too much. We just assumed she's drunk. Also, this one actually has a title: 'thank you lol' :P

Since our previous campaign, we have continually kept our backers in the loop with constant updates. We tried our best to be transparent, telling both good news and bad news inside the development process. We showed concepts and asked for your inputs to be implemented in the game. It's a beautiful relationship which brought Celestian Tales to new heights.

Therefore, the end of this Kickstarter is just a beginning of our journey together. We believe that your support is the secret ingredient we need to make Celestian Tales a memorable game for all of us. We look forward to working with you!

The kickstarter for Celestian Tales: Old North is nearing the end, and the developers Ekuator Games have posted a new update with more information.

24 Hours to Go!

One day left until this Kickstarter campaign ends! Such tremendous support flooded us yesterday, and hopefully even more so today. Combined with pledges through PayPal, we're now at around $53,500 NZD. Thank you so much for your support!

Intan, as usual, tends to doodle stuffs when she's excited about things. As the campaign steps ever closer to its end, she drew another piece of fan art. It's watercolour on paper, so pardon the paper's textures.

 If you're asking why Reed again or why he looks so nobly, we don't know either. We didn't ask her to draw. She just doodled anything she likes to loosen up her mind. We're grateful enough she drew one Celestian Tales' characters. Maybe that means working with us is quite fun that she even filled her spare time with work-related stuffs ;)

Honestly, we don't have much left to show. We've shown everything we currently have on the previous updates and the prototype. So that's it for today's update! We're going to stop gazing at the numbers now, or bad things may happen to our brains.

Here's to hoping these last hours prove sufficient for us to reach the final Enhanced Audio stretch goal! :D

Ekuator Games has posted another update for Celestian Tales: Old North with infomation the kickstsrter has 70 hours left, and that the prototype demo is updated.

70 Hours Left -- Prototype Updated!

70 hours left until the Kickstarter campaign reaches its end, and we're stepping ever closer to the fourth stretch goal. Hope we can get a good surge these last few hours! :D

Prototype Updated

When the campaign reaches its last 48 hours, people who starred this project will be notified. Most likely they'll be checking back and rethink about backing us. To prepare for this last-days surge, we updated the prototype with some tweaks and additional features!

Some of the stuffs we added:

• Streamlined environment assets for easier and faster area-making
• Additional particle effects to further beautify the environment
• Movement speed tweaks
• Obtainable items scattered everywhere
• Harder enemies and better combat AI
• Event trigger for a special enemy spawn
• Fixed bugs on certain skills
• Skip option and animated icon for dialogues
• Fade-ins and outs for the user interface

Please do try the updated prototype again and tell us what you think. Your feedbacks have tremendously assisted our development! ;)

Ekuator Games has posted another update for Celestian Tales: Old North with infomation the kickstsrter is nearing the end, and the third stretch goal was reached.

Five Days to Go and Third Stretch Reached!

Five days remain until this Kickstarter campaign reaches its end. We have reached the THIRD stretch goal for enhanced environments! Everything's looking really good! :D

In this update we're going to let you take a peek on how we're beautifying the environments and show off Severin Leroux, whose storyline will be available at the end of the first part. There's also a trial faction-specific track you can hear, and a potential vocalist who may join us if we do reach that Enhanced Audio goal.

Siliconera posted a preview of the recently funded kickstarter Celestian Tales: Old North. If you want more details about the game here is the link to the games website.

Celestian Tales: Old North is heading into romantically heavy territory in its Kickstarter pitch, but it’s one we’re willing to stay a while and listen to. The PC RPG from Indonesian devs Ekuator Games will be split into three parts hopes to delve into serious choices and stories of each of its six main characters, similar to Odin Sphere, and the hard picks of the past will carry on into the future.

The game is intended to span some three decades of in-game time, after all. You can also try out a very early prototype out on their main site if you’re split.

Combat is expected to be a turn-based affair, with the ability to custom-build characters as they grow. There’s also expected to be less of it, with the devs promising that every fight therefore will have “real, threatening challenges”.

In fact, say the devs, running away is an option due to a reputation system—mass genocide of fairies probably doesn’t sit well with the elves you’re on the way to visit. To beef up such concepts, every character shares the same experience pool and levels up together. As someone who’s swapped back and forth between difficulty settings in Bravely Default to avoid combat or grind as necessary, this sounds great.

After being funded last week the developer of Celestian TalesEkuator Games announced in a new kickstarter update that his game has also been Greenlit on Steam.

We Are Greenlit!

When we submitted Celestian Tales: Old North to Steam Greenlight, we thought it'd be a while until it goes through. We expected a few weeks, or maybe even months if the community doesn't find the game appealing to their tastes. To have it greenlit in just a little more than one day is a very happy surprise!

Being greenlit means we'll be able to deliver Celestian Tales and all of its updates and contents to you through Steam. Every backer will be able to get the game both as DRM-Free and as a Steam Key, and play whichever version you want. 

Being on Steam also gives us a bigger chance (or even a near-guarantee) to be accepted on most DRM-Free distribution sites such as GOG, Humble Store, and GamersGate. Also, since Steam is such a huge platform, if we can get good numbers there we may be able to persuade consoles to accept us as a licensed developer. This is a very big win for everyone.

Ekuator Games has posted the fifth update for Celestian Tales. The update shares information about ther game on Steam Greenlight, and some wardrobe concepts.

Steam Greenlight and Wardrobe Concepts

Two weeks to go and we've reached our first stretch goal. Thank you so much for your awesome support! :D

Steam Greenlight

Kickstarter projects always have that slow moment in the middle. We figured it's time to pick up the pace and reach out to where people are: Steam Greenlight. 

Steam is by far the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, owned by Valve. Getting in here means we'll be able to automatically update the game with fixes and new contents, as well as expose Celestian Tales to tens of millions of its active users. It really means a lot for a game to be greenlit, so please take a minute to vote 'Yes' for us so we can deliver Celestian Tales to you through Steam!

Alternate Concepts: Aria

Among the rewards we included in the Vanguard and Paladin tiers were alternate wardrobes for the main casts. We want them to be different enough while still retaining the characters' unique personalities and true to the spirit of Celestian Tales. Below are a few rough sketches for Aria's alternate wardrobe.

These are rough sketches -- not even revised yet -- so do forgive the lines and erased parts here and there. We also haven't decided which ones we're going to finalize. How about you tell us which is your favourite and help us decide?

After the Kickstarter campaign is finished and we enter full-time development, once every few days we're going to show a character's wardrobe concept sketches like the one above so you can have your say about which to choose. Don't worry, designs not picked may still be made in the future. We change clothes every day. It's natural if our characters can have more than one alternate costume :)

Ekuator Games has posted the fourth update for Celestian Tales. The update shares information the game is 100% funded, and talks about new stretch goals.

FUNDED! Into the Stretch Goals!

This is Day 12, and we have passed through the target amount! Celestian Tales: Old North will be made reality, and it's all because of your support. Thank you! :D

Honestly, we didn't think we'd get here in such a short time. We've been preparing new arts, new animations, and new prototype features to celebrate the project passing through its goal, but it happened so quickly we haven't finished them yet. We're sorry for not foreseeing this earlier. Please accept a better-looking stretch goal art as an apology.

We received quite a number of feedbacks about those who wish to know more about the additional story contents listed on the Stretch Goals.

PayPal Options

We received a number of requests asking to pledge through PayPal. Since we've passed through the target, we can safely open the PayPal option. It's now available on our website and can be accessed here.

If you know of anyone who'd like to pledge for Celestian Tales: Old North through PayPal, please share them this news. We really, really appreciate it :)

Ekuator Games has posted the third update for Celestian Tales. The update shares information the game is 70% funded. and talks about new stretch goals.

70% Reached! Stretch Goals Revealed!

It feels like a very long week over here, but an exciting, fulfilling long week. We've reached 70% of the target goal with still 27 days to go, and it looks like we're quite set to break the goal mark. It's all thanks to you! :D

In these few days we've received a number of constructive feedbacks from you who tried the prototype. We really appreciate your voices. As of now the prototype has been updated with minor tweaks, bug fixes, and text editing. More polishing is on the way and we have some new features under construction right now, but they're not ready to be shown out yet.

Ekuator Games has posted the second update for the relaunched Kickstarter Celestian Tales. The update shares infomation the game is now half funded.

Second Day: 50% Reached, Prototype Fixed.

It's yet two days past the moment we relaunched Celestian Tales: Old North, and we have now surpassed HALFWAY our target! Thank you so much for the great contributions, all of you are just so awesome. :)

The weekends might make for slower pace, but we've reached the front page when it comes to people browsing the Video Games section. That's a huge source of traction (some of you might also have come from there). High hopes for the weekdays of this first week to get us to a good number!

As we reached the 50% mark, Intan got very excited and so she doodled something in the spare time. Do enjoy!

Prototype Fixed

First of all, let us start by apologizing for giving you an unpleasant experience. We understand that some of you must be frustrated having a game that doesn't work as it should. That's not the message we wanted to send, and we're totally sorry for that.

We didn't plan to have working hours on the weekend, but as soon as error reports came in we scrambled together to fix the problems. The fixed versions have been built and uploaded, and are now available for you to try. We really appreciate all the feedbacks you sent our way, which allowed us to notice the errors in the game.

You can get the fixed versions here.

Some of the problems we addressed:

• You should be able to move (and play the game).
• Characters in the events should not walk out of the screen.
• Using 'Command' on an ally should not freeze the game.
• Resolution adjustments for larger screen sizes.

We're sorry that Mac builds are not yet available as we need to get our hands on a Mac first to be able to try and test stuffs. That should happen as soon as tomorrow, so please check again later. Would you like us to personally send a personal message to notify you when it's available, please tell us so (we can actually make another update for this, but too many updates might be annoying for some).

Ekuator Games has posted the first update for the relaunched Kickstarter Celestian Tales. In the update we get news a new Prototype is available, and the game is 43% funded.

Day One

This has truly been a remarkable day.

Just 24 hours ago we launched Celestian Tales: Old North to the world, and you answered. The first hour picked up great pace and we already got 10%. Halfway through the day, we reached $10,000 NZD, which is one-third of the target. Now, by the end of the first 24-hour, over 43% has been funded. That's almost half the target. In one day.

We know this might sound cliché, but we're really at loss of words. The amount of support you've given us is just tremendous. As developers, it fulfils us the most to know that there are people sharing the excitement. There are those who believe in what we do, who approve of our visions and contribute to it. When we think of that, all the sleepless nights suddenly felt worth it.

The whole Ekuator team sincerely thanks you for the trust you've given us.

Prototype Now Available

We originally wanted to have the prototype available for you to try on the very first day. However, some last-minute added features produced unprecedented errors. Our programmers got to it as soon as they could. Denny returned to the office at midnight, and Ray stayed up working on it until just a couple hours ago.

The result is a playable build you can try your hands on. It doesn't have the full richness and experience of a completed game, but features a lot of working systems such as dialogue, combat, environmental sounds, and event triggers. The prototype currently features only three out of the six main characters, but even that limitation still allows us to create some interactions between them.

The prototype is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. However, since none of us here uses Mac or Linux, we'd like to ask for your feedback if anything doesn't work or feel wrong.

Perhaps we shouldn't delay your journey any longer. Feel free to download and try it out, and as always, please don't hesitate to drop us a comment or two. Rest assured, your voices are always heard :)

Ekuator Games has relaunched their promised Kickstarter Celestian Tales asking for $30,000. The game has had a makeover and is improved over the old design.

When was the last time you played an RPG where you are the chosen hero, foretold by prophecy to venture on a quest to kill dragons, challenge gods, and ultimately save the world from utter destruction? For most of you, it was probably the last one you played.

The Old North is a world of fantasies and realities. Of swords and sorceries, yet of humans and mortals. A world where the utmost evil is not a dimension-defying sorcerer or an awakened godlike creature of ancient myths, but the darkness lurking in every man's heart. A world where peace, love, and compassion stand side by side with hatred, pride, and jealousy. A world where the virtues and vices of humanity are two sides of the same coin. Grey morals, questionable justice, and blind faith are among the main themes of Celestian Tales.

Ekuator Games has contacted us about some updates that have been done for Celestian Tales. One of them being that they "scrapped its pixel-art tiled environments and substituted them with beautiful hand-drawn assets arranged in complex layers. Further enriched by particle effects and 3D sounds, the game doesn't attempt to remake a vintage style but to reimagine the classic as a modern game".

The other update is related to them re-launching the campaign on Kickstarter for funding as the first campaign failed. A sneak peak of that campaign can be found in the latest update of their old campaign page. They are asking for 10K less in that campaign.

Ekuator Games has another update on the relaunch of Celestian Tales.

Relaunch: Verifying Identity

Things are falling into place right now. Interfaces are getting finished, and currently we have choices! Animations are made smoother -- now characters walk and run on eight frames instead of four. Scenes are being populated with enemies and citizens moving around doing their stuffs. Environment assets got some resizing to match the characters' size. Huge thanks to you guys who pointed out these stuffs for us to improve on!

On the relaunch topic, we got in touch with some of our teammates who are living abroad and are willing to connect their accounts to Kickstarter. We're now setting things up for the site's identity verification, which might take a few working days. Hope it won't be much longer till we're verified and ready to launch.

Ekuator Games has a new update for Celestian Tales with a look at the games visuals, audio, and more information on the relaunch.

We're nearly ready for the relaunch and wanted to show you the draft project page today, but the thing that got the whole team up this week is this: when we submitted our relaunch's draft page for review, Kickstarter declined our project. According to Luke, the Kickstarter staff contacting us, this is because our representative in the US is no longer eligible to be the creator of our project.

Therefore, we're currently asking our team member in Australia to be the representative instead. However, we're not exactly familiar with Australian tax laws and overseas fund transfers. If anyone has knowledge or experience on the field, would you please drop us a message? We'd really appreciate it if we can ask you for opinion. :)

As soon as we solve this problem, we'll send the relaunch's draft page for review. When we're clear to go on all fronts, we'll have a backers-only update for you to take a peek at the page before anyone else does.

Ekuator Games has news on the relaunch of their RPG Celestian Tales: Old North.

Preparing the Relaunch

Last week we might be throwing out too many things at once. But you know what? Things haven't been slowing down!

Lord Alain Levant

So far we've been talking a lot about the six playable characters, but little about anyone else. The story starts when these six young nobles were sent to serve a liege lord from House Levant, one of the three major bloodlines in Old North, to learn their steps in knighthood. Take a peek on how our lord looks like.

Combat Background

The combat background sketch we showed you last week has been coloured and integrated into the combat system. Currently we're testing out the combat, brushing off bugs and errors as well as optimizing user controls.

Character Introductions

When the new Kickstarter Page relaunches, we'll have to introduce the six characters. After all, they're the center point of the game's storyline. But since each of them has a background long enough to write a full page about, we're trying to keep it simple yet engaging. What do you think of our short description on them?

Revamped Website

Our new, sleeker, smoother, and mobile-friendly website is up! Check it out over here or click on a character's banner to go straight to his/her page. Don't forget to tell us what you think!

As always, we're looking forward to your comments! If there's one thing we learned so far, it's this: you guys are awesome. Celestian Tales has come this far because of you. The game has evolved to a point where we didn't think was possible, and it will go much further with your support. Thank you!

Celestian Tales: Old North has failed to get funded. The developer has a new update about the future of the game.

After exactly 31 days of ups and downs, the Kickstarter for Celestian Tales: Old North has just ended at $24,000 or 60% of its target. Though it fell short of the $40,000 we aimed for, your incredible feedbacks and support have proven to us that this game is worth fighting for. We received so many inputs from upgrading graphics to combat specifics, encouragements, and praises. Thank you, everyone, it's been an awesome 31 days! :D

This is not the end of Celestian Tales: Old North. Thanks to this project, we secured a way to fund the first few weeks of development time before we run out again. We've got a plan to use the time to shape the game and polish it into something awesome for everyone to try out. When everything is set, we'll be coming back to Kickstarter and try this again. With your on our backs, we believe we can make this happen.

From now on until the relaunch day, we're going to give weekly updates on this project, showing our advancements with the ongoing development. We hope this doesn't bother you and instead be a refreshment with new things to see, read, and maybe even play. :)

If there's any questions, suggestions, or fun messages, don't be shy to still contact us! All comments and messages in Kickstarter gets forwarded to our email, so we'll definitely read it and reply.

Ekuator Games the developer of Celestian Tales: Old North has sent news the game has a playable prototype. As for the game itself it has only earned $19,972 with only five days left.

On this weekend's In Depth, we're continuing the previous update's discussion about combat system. This time the main topic is customization -- how far are we really designing a 'play with your own style' customization options?

And, after numerous tests of polishing and destroying bugs, we thought it's time to show a playable prototype build to you all. It might look like the game, but it's basically still bare as it is. Read more about it down there or jump straight to the web player!

Combat System: Customizations

As many of you might know through our updates, each playable character in Celestian Tales: Old North are special. We wanted combat to not just be a must-have addition to an RPG -- we want it to empower each character's personalities and story.

The massive amount of customizations in the game is basically made possible by the modular elements you can mix-and-match yourself. The list is as follows:

• There are six playable characters
• You can bring up to three characters into combat
• Each character has three equipment slots: a Weapon, an Armor, and an Accessory.
• Each character possesses dozens of combat skills, but you may only bring a limited amount of them into combat.
• Each character also has a number of passive skills, and you also may only bring a limited amount into combat.

Sounds difficult? We'll get to them one by one.

Earlier this month I posted about a new kickstarter called Celestian Tales: Old North. One of the problems brought up was the graphics, and according to the developer they have been upgraded.

We've been receiving messages concerning our 'barebone graphics', and in our effort to answer we're on our way to revamp the combat backgrounds and environment from pixel arts to hand-drawn colors. Remember that sketch yesterday? Today it's halfway done into coloring:

            

Not using pixel backgrounds, in turn, lowers the workload for our dedicated pixel artist. This change gives her more time to add more animation frames to make them more fluid.

As of right now the project has earned only $11,837 of $40,000, and time is running out.

Well by now most of you should know I love 2D traditional RPG's. So because of that I bring you a new kickstarter called Celestian Tales: Old North.