San Francisco-based RadioFree.net recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for its first large-scale project, to produce the video game Illuminati Confirmed. The Kickstarter project has a goal of $210,000, and as of this writing has been pledged about $35,600 towards it, with 27 days remaining.
If the title Illuminati Confirmed sounds familiar, it may be that you remember the original award-winning 1994 Steve Jackson Games card game Illuminati: New World Order. RadioFree.net owner and operator Derek Pearcy, who helped produce the original card game, has licensed the game from SJG and is basing Illuminati Confirmed off its gameplay. Pearcy is leading the video game team in the role of designer and developer, and according to the Illuminati Confirmed website, is being assisted by a not-so-secret society of other video game developers who have been working on the video game since Fall 2019.
As Pearcy explains in the Kickstarter video and notes, Illuminati Confirmed “is a strategic video game of secret conspiracies, power systems and a struggling resistance” in which you are attempting to take over and control the world. The Illuminati views the world’s various faction groups as puppets, and can use its power directly to secretly take control of a group, or influence another puppet group to do the dirty work on its behalf. Take control of enough groups to fill your on-screen Illuminati pyramid, and you win.
The base game will come with six playable conspiracy groups: the Bavarian Illuminati (historically credited with creating the Illuminati), The Discordian Society, Gnomes of Zurich, The Bermuda Triangle, The Servants of Cthulhu, and The Network. The Society of Assassins, The Adepts of Hermes, and The U.F.O.s will be added as later seasonal updates. The game is being designed to support one to six players, “with cross-play between Windows and most modern Android and Apple devices.”
Currently, the devs are planning to launch an Early Access phase by June 2021, and to release the full game sometime in August. The three seasons updates are scheduled for October, and will include 20 additional cards based on the themes of Assassins (S1), Ancient Secrets (S2), and Weird Science (S3).
The Illuminati Confirmed Kickstarter page has all the details on the 12 currently available reward tiers, and you can follow the game’s development live via its Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube channels.
Source: Illuminati Confirmed Kickstarter