TEAM STAR - THE NOVEL AND GAME

Team Star is my latest big project and it’s currently being crowdfunded! Click here to check out the Kickstarter page, click here to watch the video that explains everything or read on to learn more.

I’ve been steadily working on the concepts in Team Star since 2014 and in the last year or so, I’ve decided to take my plans public!

Team Star the novel is about a ragtag group of Team Star players coming together to take down the best team in the world at the largest tournament of all time - The Team Star International. Only through cooperation and determination can this group of waylaid players break down the barriers between themselves and gel as a team, bringing them closer to redemption.

The game is one a lot of people would be familiar with - it’s a 5-on-5 first person shooter in the vein of Counter Strike, with play progressing over several rounds and players gaining money from kills to purchase better weapons as they go.

These are just the very basics, so be sure to check out all the info I’ve posted to the Kickstarter page and/or check out the infographics and synopses below to learn more!

Team Star: The Novel

Brief Synopsis

Alex “Sultan” Kostenko faces a crushing defeat in the last Team Star Season 1 tournament, leading to an explosive falling out with his team, Solis Nox. Blamed for the loss and grappling with internal strife, Sultan’s world crumbles as Solis Nox disbands under a cloud of betrayal by his closest friend and teammate Crysis and his coach Markov, who sell the team without his knowledge.

In the aftermath, Sultan breaks down and considers retiring. But when his old teammates form a new team around “IronRush” (the hottest up and coming player in the game) Sultan decides to get revenge by forming his own new squad and beating them at the biggest tournament of all time - The Team Star International.

With the lure of a $100 million dollar grand prize, everyone who is anyone is trying out for a shot at the title. Sultan slowly brings together a ragtag group of misfits, including the quirky but resourceful “Frodo”, the controversial American sniper “Hotshot”, the toxic but talented “Ballzack” and the skilled but underappreciated “SirG”.

The new team faces challenges from technological sabotage to internal discord, as they navigate the complexities of Team Star’s Season 2 maps, exploring new strategies and slowly bonding as a team. Sultan’s leadership is tested as he confronts his past traumas and fears, particularly the loss of his younger brother and mother in a tragic incident linked to his father Kuzma’s resistance activities. 

The climactic showdown at The Team Star International reveals the depths of corruption within the esports world, with Sultan and his team facing rigged games and underhanded tactics by their rivals and the game’s own creators. As the media lights get brighter with each step closer to the Grand Finals, the team must overcome seemingly insurmountable odds with ingenuity and teamwork to try to clinch an unlikely victory that sees dreams realized and justice served!

On Characters and Backstory

NOTE: This entire section is word for word read aloud by me in the Kickstarter campaign video with pictures and music, so if you’d prefer to consume this in video form, click here to check out that section of the Kickstarter video.

Now as much as I’d like to tell you the whole story of Team Star right here, I think it might be better if I just introduce you to our main characters instead. I think interesting characters and the way they interact carry the weight of good stories so hopefully you’ll appreciate who I’ve created for our ragtag group of protagonists. Fair warning - this will inevitably spoil some things so read on with care.

Alex Kostenko (known as “Sultan” in Team Star) is a 27 year old Ukrainian player and our focal point character. As the story begins, he’s the in-game leader of the Russo/Ukrainian team Solis Nox, one of the best Team Star teams in the world. Alex is somewhat hot-headed in game and can get himself into trouble by speaking his mind, but in general he’s a pretty level headed guy - almost reserved in social situations that don’t involve the game. This is especially true compared to his gregarious father Kuzma.

When the matches start, Alex is the most competitive person you could know - driven to craft devious tactics to trick his foes and leave them grasping. In his private thoughts, he is Napoleon driving back far larger forces with his cunning and resolve.

As undeniably one of the best IGL’s out there, Solis Nox knows his value - although his understanding of leadership as being just “follow my orders” does leave something to be desired. He and his Russian friend Evgeny “Crysis” Sokolov started the team when they were both together at university in Kyiv. Back then, they played the predecessor to Team Star - Kobra Kombat. This was more of a traditional wargame and one in which Solis Nox won more than its fair share of underground tournaments. 

Together with their teammates Ghost, Talon and HUD, the boys jumped head first into Team Star when it came out and did exceptionally well, making the final 4 in every tournament they played in. But it was in the crucial high-stakes moments that Evgeny and the others noticed Alex lose his normally commanding demeanor. Something seemed to almost drug him and kneecap his play calling, throwing the team off balance when they could ill afford it. It was clear Alex was struggling with something… something that was dragging him down… but something he wouldn’t divulge.

The truth is, Alex’s family had been struck with tragedy moments before his first Team Star tournament when the larger world of geopolitical events brought conflict to their little Crimean sailing village. After Alex’s father Kuzma sought to organize some kind of resistance against a Russian occupation in 2014, his mother and younger brother were killed in a car bombing meant for him. Ever since, Kuzma has been a shell of his former self and Alex has been left to pick up the pieces. 

It’s after a particularly crushing loss that Crysis and the other Solis Nox team members decide to break up the team. Under the guidance of a new coach with a controversial background, they conspire to enlist the young Team Star phenom Ivan “IronRush” Federov and form the first all Russian super-team: Leviathan. Their first target - the recently announced Team Star International, a tournament with a 100 million dollar prize. 

Obviously, Alex does not take any of this lightly and focuses all his pain on revenge at all costs. His first order of business is recruiting a team.

That’s where Frodo comes in.

Oliver Hawthorne aka “Frodo” is a 16 year old Team Star player, short on life experience and stature, but brimming with naive positivity. Brought up in London amongst the luxuries of his father’s old money, Oliver couldn’t want for anything - save getting the time of day from his aloof parents. Their conspicuous absence from any real part of his day to day life meant Oliver sought connection in other places - namely, video games. In Team Star, Oliver found some success as a rifler, but more than anything he excelled as a “glitch hunter”, finding little exploits in the game’s physics system. His endless study of the game enabled him to set elaborate traps while on defense or spring bewildering assaults on unsuspecting defenders.

Determined to be taken seriously by anyone in his life, he used some of his family’s ample funds to found his own team called “Kerra” - but with his limited social skills, his attempts at leading a group of players fell flat and they quickly disbanded. 

Discouraged, Oliver fell back into glitch hunting and spending time on Team Star forums. 

That is, until he saw Sultan and Solis Nox in action. Oliver became enamored with Sultan’s play calls and ability to lead his players to victory - even seeing him as a potential mentor figure. 

He’s determined to find some way to play with him and after the very public Solis Nox breakup, Oliver makes his way to Sultan’s town to arrange a happenstance meeting with him at the IGL’s favorite LAN center. 

Sultan quickly sees potential in the young upstart and - with no other options forthcoming among the locals - makes him the first member of the new roster. 

Tom Wyatt aka “Hotshot” is a 25 year old American who was unrivaled as a sniper in Kobra Kombat - a legend for his uncanny ability to predict where opponents would appear and effortlessly take them out. His skill made him cocky and fed into his brash online persona as a “tell it like it is” kinda player. 

Like Sultan before him, Hotshot made the move to Team Star when it gained massive popularity, but found more limited success in the new format. Drama seemed to follow the young sniper wherever he went - with esports blogs discussing the internal divisions and back talking that accompanied his tenure as he hopped between various teams. 

For a time, he seemed to settle into a role as the lead sniper and IGL on North America’s premiere Team Star team, Nimbus. They dominated in the USA, but like other N/A squads, they struggled against the top tier Europeans.

Eventually, as Hotshot’s streaming career began to take his focus away from the game, Nimbus descended into mediocre placings. When the familiar backstabbing and drama reared its head once again, Hotshot was given the blame and the boot.

The truth is, Hotshot had been secretly harboring doubts about his abilities in Team Star and these doubts pushed him to be more toxic than he normally would be. After getting booted from yet another team, Hotshot began to contemplate giving up the game entirely and focusing on being a variety streamer. 

But during an autograph session at a Comic Con in London, Hotshot is approached by a man he instantly recognizes as Sultan… and some random 16 year old kid. 

They come with an offer to join a new team.

When it comes to consistent players in Team Star, perhaps none is more consistent than Jan “Ballzack” Balsac, the 25 year old German rifler from team Flex. His consistency is due to the ridiculous amount of time he spends in the game. No one in the world has played more Team Star than Ballzack… and it shows. 

With eyelids permanently at half-mast, his face droops with perceived superiority. Where Hotshot is brash and ready to speak his mind, Ballzack is a virtuoso in trash talking - both to his foes and teammates. The man is a toxic waste dump of insults and he’s all too ready to ooze them onto anyone around him. 

When Sultan, Frodo and Hotshot find him, he’s sandwiched in the middle of a massive row of players at the largest LAN event in the world (a place called The DEN) - where he’s been steadily building a wall of snack wrappers and empty slushie cups around his computer.

Though he protests that he’s only taking a “sabbatical” from team Flex, it’s clear they may have kicked the hefty Ballzack from the team for his incredibly toxic persona. It’s a fact Ballzack is running from, as team Flex was the most important thing in his life and to confront his own role in pushing them away is like pulling on a thread connected to a lot of other deep seated issues. 

But with the promise of having a new team and working with the legendary Hotshot, Ballzack agrees to the offer of joining this new roster.

Leaving only one spot left. 

At that same LAN event sitting at the far end of one row is a mysterious player wearing an EnGame Helmet (these are normally only used at tournaments when the organizers want to make use of a feature which projects players’ live facial expressions onto their character models; players think it’s gimmicky, but sponsors love it). Sultan and the rest of the team can see this player is far and away the best sniper at the DEN, but Hotshot is uneasy. Just by watching, he recognizes this player’s style and realizes it could really only be one person.

After Sultan introduces himself, the player removes their helmet to reveal what Hotshot suspected - it’s SirG.

Daniela “SirG” Pereira is a 23 year old Brazilian woman who worked her way through the Women’s League and led her team Os Tigres to 3 straight championship victories. Her tenacity and ridiculous crack shot abilities brought her attention from the Team Star community at large and eventually she was given a chance to IGL a team in the Men’s League - namely, on Nimbus.

Hotshot’s position… on Hotshot’s team. 

Needless to say, the combination of a beloved player losing their job to a relative newbie and that newbie being the first woman to play in the men’s league did not bring out the best in the Team Star community. Hotshot did nothing to stem the tide of misogyny and hate that came SirG’s way, which did not go unnoticed by SirG. She had actually idolized Hotshot in her early career and tried to model herself after his playstyle - but where her shot was arguably even better than his, her game sense was lacking and underdeveloped, a subtle but important side effect of her practicing on bots to avoid harassment in Team Star voice chat. 

After Nimbus had a mixed run of tournament results with SirG at the helm, Nimbus management quietly let her go.

With that history, it’s no surprise that SirG and Hotshot harbor some bad blood between each other. But with some clever massaging by Sultan (and some privately acknowledged respect for one another) the door opens to adding SirG as that final piece to the puzzle. Finally, a new team… full of misfits and castoffs, but great players every one - all looking for redemption. 

Personally, I’m so excited to see how these people push each other, learn and grow from each other and ultimately challenge the best team in the world for the biggest prize in gaming history.

Now obviously, I’ve left out a ton of stuff - really these are just the building blocks. But if you like these fundamentals, that’s a pretty good sign you’ll like the final product - an exciting, accessible story in a new frontier. A celebration of the kinds of stories that make esports incredible!

Stretch Goals for the Kickstarter