The basic Dead Drop platform is in final approval stages at Apple and we’re using Kickstarter to help raise money for the next steps. The project is officially LIVE on Kickstarter! Visit the project page and consider becoming a backer. We have 30 days to raise our goal or we walk away with NOTHING. We can’t wait to see you there!

We’re presenting at the Boulder Beta start-up event tonight in (Friday May 18)! If you’re in the Denver/Boulder area, come up and see us!

From the Boulder Beta website:

Boulder Beta is a quarterly get-together for founders, hackers, students, investors, designers, visionaries, media professionals, and more.

Join more than 300 people for a stimulating evening of conversation, cocktails, and interactive demos. Meet cool people, support awesome startups, and have a fun and engaging evening out in your community!

We’re thrilled to be a part of the night’s festivities, and would love to see you there! We’ll be posting pictures from the event over the next few days as we lead up to the official launch.

I spent the last half hour running around the streets of Denver testing the game. We’re VERY close to launch at this point.

The first release is going to consist of two modes. The first is a training mode. It’s going to be a general campaign that will teach you the basics of navigation around the Dead Drop universe. That’s what I was playing this afternoon. Basically it’s a narrative that has you perform certain actions. You’re going to fail at some of them on the first try, but get back in there and figure it out. The tools you learn will be valuable throughout the Dead Drop universe.

The second mode is multiplayer. You will use the tools you learned in the training mode here. In multiplayer, you build your own teams with your own friends. You can have as many people as you want in the game… all the more people to eliminate.

The training mode will come out first, and the multiplayer will be released about a week later.

Get ready to get into the game!

As the game has been under development, we’ve produced a lot of material that you won’t see in the game. The featured image above is one among many that we’ve used in the process of communicating with the team.

Dead Drop’s Twitter feed is heating up. Follow the latest there and here as the game’s version 1.0 gets its finishing touches.

We issued a press release a week or so ago, mostly to announce that we were (nearly) here. It got picked up on a few outlets, but we expect the real news to come when we release (later this month or early March). The game is going through final testing, and should be submitted to Apple for approval early next week. We’re VERY excited.

We’re going to be at SXSW and Boulder Beta later in the next few months as well, so keep your eyes peeled.

Stick with us for more details and how you can participate in the launch.

Initially, the campaign mode is going to be centered around a training type campaign. It’s a choose your own adventure type game that will give you objectives based on where you live and choices you make.

Depending on how you want to play the game, you will be led to different locations, directed to perform certain actions, and given a series of games that lead you toward your overall objective.

This initial campaign is designed to teach you the tools of Dead Drop. These are basic skills that you’ll use in the multiplayer mode and that you’ll use in future versions of the game. These are basic movement skills, weapons skills, and just overall how to use the app.

As the game progresses and new versions come out, there will be new campaigns that will be more difficult and add new game elements. We’re very excited about the campaign mode flexibility and future.

When my brother and I decided to do this game, we wanted it to have a unique feel to other games on mobile devices. Don’t get me wrong… there are a lot of great looking apps out there, but we wanted something that played different, and looked different. We thought through a lot of different design options, but we finally settled on a sketch look. We hoped that it would feel more organic and free flowing, but also have a clean appearance.

From our opening video, to the home page, minigames, and multiplayer modes, you’ll see the sketch style in all of our art. We think it’s pretty cool, and think you will too.

There will be various weapons available during a Dead Drop game. Some are earned (through multiple eliminations), some may be purchased, and some are given (the moderator can determine which weapons everyone has to begin a game). The weapons work in different ways. The firearms are fired. The bombs explode when set properly (when the target gets to a certain location), and the poison kills upon contact.

Each weapon has a different use, and most have a way to thwart. The bomb can take out multiple players, but it can be outrun. The guns are accurate, but they have a range and can miss their target. The poison is deadly, but  and there are antidotes. Use each wisely, and you’ll survive longer. Use them poorly, and you’ll be found out and eliminated yourself!