Dragonpunk - Game For Slain Father

Hi,
I'm Dan Connery , the Lead for Dragonpunk , the free XCOM 2 total conversion mod. For over a decade, I’ve been excited about “Cloud Gaming”, with its promise to stream your video games directly, just like Netflix or Hulu. I’ve often wondered how many more people would share a love of games if a streaming service could liberate players from prohibitively expensive consoles and graphics cards. To follow my dreams in Cloud Gaming, I even earned a degree in Game Production from the University of Texas at Dallas, one of the top 10 game design schools in the nation .

My father and I shared a love for games, and he always encouraged me to pursue my passion in game development and cloud gaming, just as he finally fulfilled his lifelong dream to become a Doctor at the age of 50. We often daydreamed about making a cyberpunk/fantasy game together and spent countless hours designing the game mechanics.

However, early May 2015, my father was fatally shot on his estate in East Texas. Don Connery's Obituary

The alleged shooter was caught on the property, but the ballistic tests from Austin Crime Lab came back inconclusive. My family is now pursuing a civil suit against the alleged shooter, but it may be a year or more before the trial is resolved. I always thought I’d have time to make a game with my dad, but I never made time.

After I graduated, I was recalled into the US Army as an Officer, and I left my dream of Cloud Gaming behind. Even though I became one of the top Cloud Computing consultants in Washington DC, working directly for the US Army Chief Information Officer, I never got to make the game my father and I dreamed of. My goal now is to bring to bear all my strategic and cloud computing experience to create a game worthy of his memory, and to share our love of gaming.

(Our first cover. We're honored to have Jonah Lobe, the creator of the Skyrim Dragons, create our final cover)

Since my father's funeral, I’ve pursued developing a Cloud Gaming proof of concept "mod" using the game XCOM 2 with single-minded focus. I sold everything I had to finance the mod, and quit my cushy consultant job to work full time on Dragonpunk. While Cloud Gaming could be very lucrative and we’re working with Firaxis, Amazon, Nvidia, Origin PC, and other industry leaders, Dragonpunk will always be about making a great game with a rich story, that is accessible to everyone through a new era of cloud gaming.

I've spent $46,000 and every free minute since May 2015 to grow a team of 9 highly talented industry veterans who have been indispensable in bringing this XCOM 2 mod to life. Currently, we are only a few months away from successfully running a basic demo on a cloud gaming platform.

We've been making headlines as far back as October 2015, when PC Gamer featured our Co-Op Mod

Because the production of a full game can easily take 4+ years of development and millions of dollars, we’re introducing Dragonpunk as a mod first. Mods provide a playable concept which can be expanded once you’ve engaged players with your ideas and built trust in the gaming community. Many incredibly popular games such as DotA and Team Fortress started as mods before gaining the studio backing necessary to turn them in major titles.

(Firaxis is a privilege to work with, so we developed a free toolset to help other modders)

Dragonpunk will demonstrate the practicality of Cloud Gaming by turning XCOM 2, a single player game that requires an expensive graphics card, into a Co-Op Multiplayer Online Game that can be played by anyone with a WIFI enabled laptop.

(Partnering with Amazon and Nvidia means Co-Op XCOM 2 play on any PC anywhere in the US )

While I was hoping to self-fund this phase of development completely with the inheritance my father left me, the civil suit and legal fees mean this is no longer possible. We’re only $12,948 from completing a playable demo, and 100% of the money raised goes directly to Dragonpunk’s amazingly talented artists and coders, who have worked with exemplary skill and dedication over the last year.

(Our Industry Veteran Artists are giving us a huge discount, but they still have to eat)

As a service-disabled veteran of two wars, I already have the next phase of funding secured through the VA small business loan, but we have to show our playable demo to get it. I’m on GoFundMe to ask for your help to bridge the gap.

Many people use GoFundMe for life-threatening emergencies, so please donate to them, as this is just a video game. If you DO like video games and would be willing to donate, I would incredibly grateful for your help in creating a game to honor my fallen father, and to help makes games available to millions of new players by pushing the boundaries of cloud gaming technology.

Thank you all for your time and consideration.

Very Respectfully,

Daniel Connery
Dan Connery's LinkedIn Profile
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