The Reactor: Archive

November 21, 2016

Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts Kickstarter - Borasco Stretch Goal Preview

Since launching last Thursday night, the Kickstarter now has $17,160 USD pledged from 218 Backers, which is 57% of the required $30,000 USD primary funding goal. A big Thank You to all our amazing Backers that have pledged so far!

We still need everyone's help to make this project a reality! Please share this post and our Kickstarter with friends you think may be interested in the new Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts game.

For today, here's a quick preview of one of our Stretch Goals, which will add new landship to the Kickstarter. Check out the attached image of the North's Borasco-class courser, a small, fast carrier.

Please support our Kickstarter, and share this post online. Check back often for new updates!

November 17, 2016

Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts Kickstarter is LIVE!

Our first Kickstarter is live and will run for 30 days, until December 17 at 8:40 PM, EST. Show your support, pledge early for first-wave shipping, and this season, give the gift of a Kickstarter project that any wargamer will love. Please share the news and help spread the word!

November 16, 2016

Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts Kickstarter Launching Soon!

After announcing Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts at Gen Con 2016, Fusion Core Studios is now preparing the next stage of this exciting new project. A Kickstarter for the fleet-scale tabletop miniatures game is set to launch in mid-November, running through the holiday gift-buying season and wrapping up before Christmas. The goal is to fund the production of four multi-part plastic landship miniatures for the North and South factions of the Heavy Gear universe. Stretch goals include four additional landship classes, multiple option parts for each ship, plastic miniatures for troop units, and upgrades to game components such as a color rulebook, high-quality cardstock game tokens, and templates. Kickstarter backers will receive extra miniatures, early shipping for the game's release, and bonus backer rewards.

For more information, visit Fusion Core Studios' Facebook page or website.

August 1, 2016

Sleep? What's Sleep?

GenCon, the biggest gaming convention in North America, starts in two days, and we're frantically preparing our displays and finalizing our meeting schedules. Our main goal at GenCon this year is to promote Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts and the upcoming Kickstarter; we've taken this project about as far as it can go on bootstraps and bubble gum, and it's time to see what the market thinks!

The prototype miniatures from Shapeways are here, and we need to get them assembled and painted up. These miniatures were modeled in Maya from our original concept art for demo and proof-of-concept purposes. They'll need to be redone from scratch in Solidworks for injection molding, using Kickstarter funds; at that point, we'll add more fine detail and make adjustments (for example, we've realized that the in-scale turrets are reeeaaallllly teensy, and probably need to be slightly enlarged for a more "heroic" look). We've learned a lot from the protos, though, and will probably keep working on the Maya models for a little while to firm up design changes before switching over to a molding engineer.

We'll be at Booth #1321, sharing space with Dream Pod 9. Come visit, see the prototype minis, and have a chat! Show updates will also be posted to our Facebook and Twitter pages.

July 17, 2016

Fusion Core, Online!

Welcome to Fusion Core Studios, and our very first Reactor post!

The big news for the moment is that after years of gradual preparation, we're finally going live and announcing our first game, Heavy Gear: Dreadnoughts, a tabletop miniatures game set in Dream Pod 9's long-lived Heavy Gear universe.

It's been tough, staying quiet all these years. We've lurked on the various Heavy Gear forums, chatted with fans at cons, and resisted the urge to blurt out all our hopes and dreams (as it's said, making plans is a sure way to make the universe laugh at you). It's been slow going, too; we have day jobs, families, hobbies, and sleep deficits to pay attention to (not necessarily always in that order), and careful project budgeting has required slower run-up to production. But here we are in 2016, and we're pretty happy with what we've got to show, and what we've got nearly complete.

Most importantly, the Alpha rules are done, and are in the ruthless process of testing and revision. The spectacular designs for the landships, stars of the show, are complete. The game's background, a carefully developed progression of the Heavy Gear Universe's rich history and lore, has been run through editors and fine-tuning.

There's still tons of work left to do, of course: scads of playtesting, more art design, 3D modeling, and all the myriad tasks of injection molding and production. Many of the project's more ambitious goals are linked to our upcoming Kickstarter, scheduled for October, 2016; our objective is to produce detailed injection-molded miniatures and a wide-release box set for new players.

In the coming months, we'll be posting more news and information about the Kickstarter and the game itself. We'll also be adding to the site; obviously, we'll put up a product page for Dreadnoughts, and in due time, there will be an online store, forums, and event tracker.