The Noise Under - NeoNoir/Cyberpunk narrative MMORPG

Background	States had been weakened by fast-paced technological innovations and overpopulation. Some of them collapsed. Mutations, due to pollution and biological wars, had bred fear and hate. Poor and disillusioned people had been crammed into the outskirts of cities where an atmosphere of civil war and constant chaos were prevailing while new aristocracies, emerging from multinationals, were living in opulence in real fortresses. To decongest the cities, the UN started building several artificial islands in international waters across the globe. INé is a city-state consisting of three of those artificial islands, in the Pacific.
The world	YBERIS: is the financial and technological heart of the archipelago but also of this zone of the Pacific. The island is essentially covered of business districts, residential areas and entertainment places. Inhabitants are mainly employees of multinational and local companies. Enterprises from the whole world have settled theirs headquarters, research labs and sometimes, a few production units. The most powerful of them have gathered their staff into monolithic and quasi self-contained urban complexes. YBERIS offers varying degrees ofcomfort and luxury but especially order and security privails above all. QAZ: Qaz concentrates the poorest populations. Only underground economy allows the mass of down-and-out to survive in commonplace, mundane violence. Some places are real cut-throat and are left in the hands of gangs or mafias. The local economy relies heavily on the black market and illegal sex, cybertechnology and drug activities. REB: totally destroyed, many years ago, by an earthquake and the tsunami it generated. Buildings, factories, research complexes: everything is in ruins. Clans who decide to leave the civilization, live there. Several kind of mutant creatures lurk around. Before the disaster, it was what YBERIS is these days. But now all is ravaged: the landscape is apocalyptic. Partially flooded, the island is terrifying, dark, and hostile.
The gameplay	The atmosphere
	"THE NOISE UNDER" is neo-noir/cyberpunk. That means ultra-capitalistic dystopia with credible high tech. It's about moral dirt. It's about networks, biotech and cybernetics. It's about escape. It's about raw and rusted aesthetic, not as an objective but as a consequence. It's about surviving. It's about do-it-yourself and recovery technology. It's about necessity which knows no law. It's about loneliness and death at every corner. Unlike so much colourful-chromed-luminous cyberpunk rpgs, "THE NOISE UNDER" is not cool. It's bleak. It's rough. It's do-or-die.
	An adventure MMO RPG
	Currently, a good adventure videogame means one single-player through one main story-line. If you want another story in the same setting, you have no choice but wait for the sequel, pay the full price and so on. No interactivity with others players. No re-use of your character attributes in the sequel. On the other hand, computer RPGs, mainly Third or First Person Shooter, are too focused on developing skills and accumulating items to the detriment of the richness and the complexity of stories. What are called "quests" are widely nothing but pretextes to hack and slash or to shoot-shoot-shoot. To top it all off, the social part is too constrained by Guilds. Aas a matter of a fact, from our point of view, the most important has been lost: social interactivity *while* story-telling. In others words, today a video game player can not make his character grow in a story-telling oriented and persistent world. Exactly the opposite of pen and paper RPGs.
	NARRATIVE: The heart of "THE NOISE UNDER", that will focus most of our efforts, is what we call the adventures. An adventure is an interactive fiction, as it exists in legacy pen and paper RPGs, with a strong storyline, great NPCs (some of them being recurring characters), goals and missions. We structured three different lengths of adventure corresponding each to the time needed to achieve it: short, intermediate and long. An adventure can be one-shot or it can be part of a series spanning several seasons (like tv programs). The adventures will be created by our narrative team and published on the in-game adventure shop.
	RPG: "THE NOISE UNDER" is tactical, not based on physical reflexes. It's turn-based during interactions and fights. No class system: you'll be what you do and the way you to do it. Your skills as well as your reputation will change according to your past actions, succeeded or failed, and will influence those to come, for better or for worse. Your objective is to survive. So You'll need to eat, to rest in a safe place and to get healed. You'll have to equip yourself. You'll have to get people to teach you how to do things (crafting, hacking systems...). ... Most of the time, you'll be paying (in-game currency) for all of that. So you'll need to rent out your skills, to traffic and smuggle because the only way to make money is to dive into the underground economy.
	MMO: Your narrative experiences will take place in the backstreets and the cut throat bars of QAZ, in the ultraprotected arcologies of YBERIS, or in the devasted land of REB and its buried research labs. Open world: The adventures you'll live will make you explore about 100km2 (size of the fully designed world, excluding the interiors). Private interiors will be accessible according to your skills, the adventures you lived or you're living. Persistent world: The world will continue to evolve and to change even if you're not connected in. No PVP or PVE modes: Only one unique world in which things happen through adventures or not. No guild system: If you want to build a team, you'll just have to hire team mates (NPCs or real players) or simply play with friends. You'll be able to share the same narrative experience through the cooperative adventures which have been designed for that purpose. Continuity of game session: For example, you're will be able to start playing on your PC or MAC and continue your game session on your tablet. The only rupture will result from logout-login process. To benefit from this feature, you'll just have to install the relevant game client on both systems. Game views: The game experience tends to get closer to real life tabletop rpgs sessions, the main views (except the Hacking view) will be tactical tabletop inspired. The visual tests we've made absolutely convinced us that the aesthetics and the neo-noir/cyberpunk ambiance of "THE NOISE UNDER" (interiors, exteriors, characters) will be best rendered while using hand-drawned technics. The game experience supposes a big urban territory which narrates the city and offers a wide range of places, of characters, of situations to build exciting stories. Doing this using 3D is much more expensive (5 to 6 times), but provides nothing more to the most important: the adventures. So, for those different reasons, the game views will be fully 2D.
Miscellaneous	Technology: Even if the game views are heavily 2D, "THE NOISE UNDER" application will mainly rely on UNITY4, the fantastic game development framework. Languages: From the first release, "THE NOISE UNDER" and all the adventures will be available in both English and French. Hardware and O.S.: Windows, MacOsX, Linux, Android tablets, Ipad, thanks to UNITY4.

The campaign	Why do we need your support?
	"THE NOISE UNDER" concept is totally new: the narrative system (with the adventure shop and the different types of adventures) and the gameplay which includes hacking, crafting system and reputation gameplays, all of that in a persistent world. The completed territory will be huge (about 100 km2), so will be the in-game Net.There will be a plenty of NPCs, places, items. That means hours and hours of narrative experiences. To keep the game as close as possible to the original concept, it is fundamental for us to have the last word, the "final cut", on the development, the graphical and gameplay decisions while keeping the deadlines in mind. We want to market the game at "the right price" and don't want to have to answer to anyone but you, the player-customer. So we decided to ask for support. With a crowdfunding campaign, we can ask directly to people, to players, to customers. You and us will be closer, more transparent by frequent reporting on how the dev goes, more interesting by showing you the way we build the project. "THE NOISE UNDER" will be membership-based. A membership will grant the member an access to 3 adventures to choose a month, whatever the length. The first release of "THE NOISE UNDER" will come with a little more than 100 adventures. Then this initial stock will be enriched on a continuous flow.
The campaign	How much do we need?
	The budget for a complete world and full features is between $2,5 to $3 millions (depending on the degree of outsourcing). We ask for $500,000 as an initial goal to build the fundations and the basic gameplay. But we need to raise $1,650,000 to have 100% of the gameplay features and 50% of the open world. That will enable us to hire the relevant people and contractors to do this right, essentially writers and 2D artists/illustrators.
	Stretch Goals


	QAZ districts and locations: around 20% completed. Initial sets of adventures, recurrent characters and item types. First set of Bars (Bars are special locations where connected players can discuss together and meet Non-Player Characters).


	YBERIS districts and locations: Around 15% completed. First set of Bars.


	Crafting gameplay is the ability for a character (player or non player) to assemble prefabricated parts into an item or to disssemble an item into prefabricated parts. Reputation gameplay is the way the actions done by a player influence his character "life" in the game world.


	New set of adventures More recurring characters. New set of item types.


	REB districts and locations: Around 15% completed.


	New set of adventures More recurring characters. New set of item types.


	Hacking gameplay is the ability for a player to hack information systems through the in-game Net to do several types of actions.


	QAZ, YBERIS and REB districts and locations: Around 50% completed (25% more for QAZ, 35% more for REB, 35% more for YBERIS). Another set of adventures. More recurring characters. Another set of item types.
	Support us!
	By visiting our indiegogo project page to contribute via: Or more simple, by choosing a reward below and clicking to contribute. It will lead you directly to the relevant perk page on the website of IndieGoGo. Carbon $20 2 months of membership. Access to the private space of the community forum. Follow-up newsletters. Digital art and wallpapers. Carbon $20 EARLY BIRD: Quantity limited! Same content as Normal "CARBON" + the following BONUS: + 1 month of membership (3 months of membership in total). + Access to the BETA version. Concrete $40 5 months of membership. Access to the BETA version. "THE NOISE UNDER" novella (English or French). Access to the private space of the community forum. Follow-up newsletters. Digital art and wallpapers. Concrete $40 EARLY BIRD: Quantity limited! Same content as Normal "CONCRETE" + the following BONUS: + Access to the ALPHA version. Asphalt $60 EARLY BIRD: 25% off! Quantity limited. Same content as the $80 reward for $60 only! Asphalt $80 11 months of membership. A recurring Non Player Character with your name. Access to the ALPHA version. Access to the BETA version. "THE NOISE UNDER" novella (English or French). In game: some money to start. Access to the private space of the community forum. Follow-up newsletters. Digital art and wallpapers. Data $120 EARLY BIRDS: 35 off! Quantity limited. Same content as the $160 reward for $120 only! 23 months of membership. A recurring Non Player Character with your name. Access to the ALPHA version. Access to the BETA version. "THE NOISE UNDER" novella (English or French). In game: some money to start. In game: a vehicle. Access to the private space of the community forum. Follow-up newsletters. Digital art and wallpapers. Data $160 23 months of membership. A recurring Non Player Character with your name. Access to the ALPHA version. Access to the BETA version. "THE NOISE UNDER" novella (English or French). In game: some money to start. In game: a vehicle. Access to the private space of the community forum. Follow-up newsletters. Digital art and wallpapers. Corpo $450 EARLY BIRD: 35% off! Quantity limited. Same content as the $700 reward for 450$ only! Lifetime membership. A recurring Non Player Character with your name and based on your picture. In game: some money to start. In game: a vehicle. In game: a safe room. Access to the ALPHA version. Access to the BETA version. "THE NOISE UNDER" novella (English or French). Access to the private space of the community forum. Follow-up newsletters. Digital art and wallpapers. Corpo $700 Lifetime membership. A recurring Non Player Character with your name and based on your picture. In game: some money to start. In game: a vehicle. In game: a safe room. Access to the ALPHA version. Access to the BETA version. "THE NOISE UNDER" novella (English or French). Access to the private space of the community forum. Follow-up newsletters. Digital art and wallpapers.
	How it will work? Supporting the project will grant you automatically a player membership corresponding to the reward you've choosen. Neither payment information request nor membership renewal will be asked to you until the end of the period of the reward. And if you want more (period or adventures), it will be possible with the adventure shop. For example, W. Gibsoon, a famous writer, supports the project by choosing the "DATA" reward. He gets an access for 23 months that will give him access to 69 adventures (23 months * 3 adventures per month). At the end of the period of 23 months, W. Gibsoon will be asked to confirm his membership by entering his payment informations or to cancel it

The milestones

This forecast macro-planning is based on the assumption that all the stretch goals of the crowd-funding has been reached.

DEVELOPMENT START: July 2013.

ALPHA RELEASE: December 2013.

OPEN BETA RELEASE: December 2014.

Observations: The main problems with MMO are to synchronize of players actions accross the internet and to keep game data consistency. From this point of view, The technological/technical risks are low. First, because the game is no realtime but turn-based, which is less consning. Second, because the application will mainly rely on UNITY4, that already include tools for network communications and data synchronization.

Keep in touch

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