We're just a few days away from launch, now, and I'm excited to see what we might be able to achieve. So before things kick off, I wanted to talk about the next types of stretch goal: bonuses.
Bonuses
Whereas the additional characters - some previews of whom I shared last time - are whole new minis that will be available to add to backers' pledges, the bonuses are extra stuff for the existing minis, and currently there are two kinds planned.
The first, and simplest, is backpacks. Given that the campaign has a focus on hard(ish) sci-fi, it makes sense that our soldiers of the future will continue to carry additional equipment in a manner that travellers and warriors have been doing since at least the neolithic era: in backpacks. As all of our core designs are different, coming up with a single design of backpack that will fit on all of the minis is no easy task, but I think we've got one ready. The concept art is ready to go to the sculptor, and having a single pack design is both efficient for manufacturing and will help to tie the minis together.
If we meet our funding target for the backpacks, then every physical mini will come with a backpack without any backers needing to add anything to their pledges.
A slightly more complex offering is equipment upgrades. All of our designs come with at least one separate arm (actually, three of them come with two separate arms!), so equipment upgrades will let hobbyists switch the standard carbine weapon design on Abdalla and Kurtz for a different weapon option. We're still ironing out the concept art for these, but it looks like Anya will get the option of a sniper rifle, while Kurtz will get a squad support weapon of the same design as the one carried by KB3's base design. Speaking of our robotic friend, KB3, we're brainstorming his options. In Horizon Wars: Zero Dark, synthetics (drones and robots) have a lot of customization opportunities. KB3 could end up with twin submachine guns, or a medical kit, or a rocket launcher, or a riot shield... We're thinking about running a poll for backers to decide what KB3's upgrade will be - if we get that far in our stretch goals! Ngana is the only one of the initial designs with only one separate arm, and we like the idea of leaning into her more "civvie" style and giving her an upgrade that will let her run as an embedded journalist or EmJay.
A third kind of bonus isn't technically planned but, if it looks feasible we're certainly considering it: alternative heads. KB3, Abdalla and Kurtz all come with separate heads, so there's a very real chance that we might expand the stretchgoal to add head variants for each of them, probably with headgear or some sort. Ngana, due to her hijab, doesn't come with a separate head so, if we do extra heads, we'll have to see about giving her some alternative upgrade option instead.
We do have one more kind of stretch goal still to cover. Next time, I'll touch upon materials.