Jeremy Penter is the lead developer of AfterEarth: The Fall ^[1], a RPG currently on Kickstarter. This RPG offers a mash-up of post-apocalyptic setting with dark fantasy elements. It also offers the chance for all backers to have a say in the development of the game.

Flames Rising sat down to talk about the game and its unique development.

What is the elevator pitch for the game?

AfterEarth: The Fall is a unique mix of post-apocalyptic action and magical fantasy based in the chaotic birthing years of a new era on Earth that is backed up by a unique card-based rules system that allows the role-players to control how the game plays.

How long have you been developing the game?

The game has been in some form of development for 10 years but real life, including a serious medical complication with one of the members slowed us to a crawl for many years. Strangely, as fate often does, those problems and life situations turned out to be a strange boon for us as the timing now is right to use Kickstarter as a platform for release. We also didn’t move into the Kickstarter sphere until we had enough content for a book without any pledge submissions at all. This allowed us to offer everyone the book at the lowest level which is rare for most Kickstarters.

What elements are available for backers to determine? What’s off-limits?

Everything is within limits to vote on or create in the game. Major heroes and villains, NPC’s, races, roles, locations, skills, monsters, weapons and armor, even 1 of only 3 dragons that are known to exist in the world can be created. Pledges will be able to use the same databases and submission formats we use when suggesting ideas for the game. As game fans ourselves this is a reflection of our own dreams to create content for a game that actually could be a published product and we felt that since we wanted it others may as well, and Kickstarter is all about contributions of all kinds from and by the pledges. If there is game content that is truly off limits we have not yet identified it or had a backer ask for it.

What is your favorite part of the setting?

My favorite part of the game is the unique back-story and how that goes a long way to explain how magic and dragons sit side-by-side with scientists and yet doesn’t clog the world with variables that seem cluttered or needlessly added. The back-story does an excellent job of setting up plausible reasons for all of these fantasy elements to be mixed with what gamers would term as a realistic setting in a game-world. It is very thorough and takes into account the entire game-world to lay out what has occurred in the past to lead to the events and situations the gamers find themselves in when they adventure through AfterEarth.

Tell us about the development team.

The development team and content group has fluctuated throughout the years as time has taken good friends from us and introduced us to others. Luckily the core group now were all members since the very beginning. Currently I am the lead creator which means I keep my focus on the direction for the world and make sure that everything team members bring into the mix needs to fit with the history provided by the back-story and most importantly, is interesting, fun, and emotionally engaging to a reader. My wife is a co-creator and professional editor with more than 7 years experience in crowd-contribution publications in various fields. We have two other leads who handle everything from content creation, rules balancing, and database administration for creation tracking. They were both there the day I suddenly got the idea for the game-world while reading a science magazine.

We have also brought on a talented team of artists to handle the final art for the book. This includes Boco ^[2], who has an established track record for this kind of thing and has really met our art requirements with an efficiency that is quite rare at times. Diego Candia ^[3], has experience that belies his age and his artistic vision is spot on with ours. We also recently began working with Joey Tuttle ^[4], and could not be happier with his contributions. Three other artists that handle very important work throughout the book round out our current team.

Find out more at Kickstarter.com ^[1].