It has been a busy 3 months since we launched the alpha in January. With 5 Phases and 12 updates under our belt, hundreds of Knights have tested out these early versions of the game. Were getting daily input, suggestions and bug reports and are working constantly to improve Flashpoint. Now, on to this months progress update!

Public Studio Chat

We are excited to announce that we will be doing a public Studio Chat Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 9pm EDT. Studio Chats are our version of a Reddit AMA -- post your questions in advance and we'll answer them live that evening! Cory and I will be chatting in a voice channel on our Discord to answer your questions, hang out and talk about CKF, STF and all things Trese Brothers. If youre able join us, the voice channel will open shortly before 9:00 pm Eastern. The Studio Chat will run about 1 hour and will be recorded so we will post a link in a future Kickstarter update. If you have a question youd like answered during the chat, post it in the #studio_chat channel on our Discord beforehand (start it with studio chat q: please, and feel free to add react emojis to other questions you like). Hope to see you there!

PAX Rising Showcase at PAX East

Speaking of hope to see you there! -- were going to PAX East 2022! We are thrilled to announce that were one of 12 indie games being featured in the PAX Rising Showcase at PAX East this April. Were very excited to be back at PAX again. Its been too long! We'll be in the PAX Rising booth and you can come and play the demo any day of the show. Come hang out, we can't wait to see you there. You can learn more about the PAX Rising Showcase and all of the games that will be a part of it at http://www.paxeast22.com/Rising

Alpha Phase 5

Over 3 months, weve cranked through 5 major phases of the alpha -- initial gameplay, training your mercs, buying and modding weapons, death and recruiting and finally with Phase 5 we added a new class the Cybersword. Weve received hundreds of in-game bug reports and thousands of pieces of feedback from the community of players. If you havent joined in yet but backed at the Alpha Tier ($60 or higher), let us know! Reach out to us here, on Kickstarter or on our Discord (type max!addrole after joining if you included your Discord username in the Kickstarter survey, or DM @Liviana for help getting set up).

Matrix Mk2 Prototype

As we approach Alpha Phase 6, we have completed the first Matrix Mk2 prototype. This prototype hits a number of our key goals for Matrix Mk2:

• Digital Battleground -- a completely new tactical challenge awaits your hacker in the matrix. Terminals across the RL map lead to small and large computer hosts, tasked with everything from controlling a door to storing trade secrets. Your hacker must load up their programs to scan, search, slice through quantum nodes, override security and battle potentially deadly IC to find the target -- priceless paydata, control over security systems, doors or even the AIs Alarm system.
• Extensive Hacker Build Options -- your hacker will be building out a deck, hand-picking programs, installing cyberware add-ons and training on a class tree that compliments and improves their use of entire families of programs. Mix programs and class training to build a hyper-aggro hacker who smashes enemy IC or an ultra stealth hacker who ghosts through quantum nodes unseen. Decks are linked in loadouts, allowing multiple decks per hacker and multiple hackers per team.
• Multi-turn hacks -- Hackers may slice into a terminal and hack across the Matrix while their meat body sleeps. If the hack is hard enough it will take multiple turns so it is up to the team to keep the hacker safe by distracting or fending off security in a gunfight. Your Soldier may be screaming, Jack out now -- We cant hold them! but does the slumped hacker even really hear him?

The UI is clunky and you have to know exactly what you are doing to get through it right now, but that is rapidly improving as we approach Phase 6 of the alpha, which will be the debut of the fully operational Matrix Mk2 system!

Ultra Edition: Naming Surveys

For those backers who pledged at the Ultra Edition or higher, youve been receiving emails including surveys to add your names to the game. While we initially thought wed source 10 names from each backer, weve increased our ambitions to 50 names by breaking it out into 5 surveys focusing on a wider range of name types, such as characters, codenames, drones, dogs, cats, weapons, items of different types, locations and more. Weve sent 3 of 5 surveys so far and will wrap this reward up in a few weeks.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress

For completeness, we have included the progress bar infographic in this update. The Matrix Mk2 Prototype is now complete and the Naming Reward is on-going and will soon be wrapped up. Always exciting to see motion on this multi-year delivery plan! If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us.

[ 2022-03-31 18:47:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Explore the dystopian cyberpunk future of 2231 as you command a company of shadow mercenaries working for the highest bidder. Cyber Knights wraps a world full of consequential story choices and significant character development around a rich core of classic and new mechanics. The game combines tactical elements like stealth, hacking and tense combat with strategic features like base building, contact management and in-depth squad customization. Cyber Knights invites you to jack in and explore a unique cyberpunk world and the immersive, human stories of your merc team in the dark future of 2231.

• Turn-based Tactics: Deep and tactical gameplay using a turn-based, gridless third-person combat simulator. Cover! Overwatch! Recoil!
  
• Dynamic Cyberpunk Story: Unique interwoven narrative with depth, meaningful player choices and hundreds of hours of gameplay
  
• Sophisticated Missions: Combine stealth, hacking and combat across multi-stage missions. Gain pre-mission advantages from Contacts
  
• Endless of Builds: Experiment with endless combos of Jobs, cyberware, weapons and gadgets to build the perfect team
  
• Evolving Characters: Your team evolves as the story, your choices and battle leave lasting wounds, add Traits and threaten to strip their humanity
  
• Safehouse Base Building: Construct a custom safehouse and upgrade rooms such as weapon shop, hund kennel and medical bay.

Cyber Knights strikes a unique tone with a futuristic setting that has passed through the messy near-future to arrive at dystopian 2231. Man-made environmental disasters have ravaged our biosphere. Artificial consciousness has been created, subsequently murdered, and then strictly outlawed at a global level. Megacorporate colonies and research stations dot the solar system from Venus to Jupiter. Quantum computing has radically altered the digital landscape and the very meaning of privacy and digital security.

The game's threaded stories originate from both inside and outside your team -- weaving together threads from your hired mercenaries, criminal connections and history that just won’t die. These stories operate on three interconnected and at times overlapping levels -- personal stories (your team), contact stories (your employers) and event stories (city-wide).

And every choice you make and mission you run will impact your character's permanent Traits, changing them in both subtle and big ways. Their stories and your choices combine to create a unique narrative for every game, every Knight and every team.


The second game our studio created, Cyber Knights RPG, took hundreds of thousands of gamers on an gritty cyberpunk roller-coaster, trying to get rich or go down shooting. The classic Cyber Knights has always had a huge following within our community and we are xcited to come back to the world and stories we started creating there so many years ago with an all new game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint.

We’re weaving together the genre’s classic themes with the unique setting and history of Cyber Knights to create some of the most cutting, gripping and human stories we’ve ever told. Betrayal, sacrifice, trading away humanity for an advantage, living fast and dying young, revenge and testing the bonds of friendship and trust -- it's all here under the New Boston dome.