[Indie][Steam] Those Who Rule - Chapter 3 Released! (Open Beta V2)

Thanks for the link! Reading through that article, it would be a pretty large lift. I could potentially allow level/class mods semi-easily, but once it gets to level design it would be very difficult as I do all of that in the inspector currently. Then events too would be a weird one.

Definitely an interesting read though. It requires a completely different way of thinking from the get-go. Though honestly if I was smart I would have already created my own level editor to make it easier on myself when creating new levels, and it doubles as a benefit of making it public for players to mess around with.

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Hexagons!?

In the wishlist it goes. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

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They’re the bestagons if the people on this forum are to be believed. :wink:

Appreciate the support!

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Released v1.0.3! Patch notes here.

Added a system for dialogue options, allowing the player to choose how certain elements of the story unfold. Implemented one such decision at the end of the prologue chapter. Also some feedback I got was increasing the game speed, so there is now a “normal” and “fast” game speed option. The “fast” option will considerably speed up the movement/combat animations (2x). Honestly I’m thinking of making it the default because now when I test the game on normal speed I see why people were saying it can feel slow. As always, minor bug fixes are included as well as I find them or they get reported (thank you those who submit reports!).

The major focus of my time recently has been working on a world map and a class/ability system, both of which I hope to share with you all soon. I’m making the world map myself from scratch using Inkarnate, which is why it’s taking so long. I’m not super artistically inclined, but it has been fun working on it the past few weeks. For the class system, I hope to share a couple options I have with you all and get the communities feedback.

Cheers! Hope everyone is doing well in the new year. :slight_smile:

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sounds good, looking forward to seeing this progress further

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Berwick hex grid and turn flow?
Based.

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Thanks Rye!

:raised_hands: Still have to play Berwick Saga. The turn flow will be different from how I understand Berwick works as it’s determined by how fast your “stamina” regenerates, based off of an endurance stat.

This looks very good, I’ll keep an eye.

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Eyyyyyy0! This looks fun looking forward to seeing how this project will come along!

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Hey Everyone!

Been quietly working on the map for a while now, and I tried my hand at two different versions. One is a parchment style that is more in line with the world maps I’m used to. The second one I tried my hand at coloring the details of the map.

The maps will mainly be used to narrate at the beginning of each chapter, setting the larger context of what is going on in the chapter.

Parchment

Colored

Which map style do you like better?
  • Parchment
  • Colored
0 voters

Thank you both! The kind words are much appreciated. :smiley:

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I feel like the parchment map is classic. Pairing it with a fire camera filter or this effect would likely be dope.

Esp, if you draw dotted paths between points or place soldiers on certain locations.

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Wow good looking out! That asset looks perfect, I’ll definitely get some mileage out of it, thank you!

I can definitely see fading in some character art to show who is where during the prelude on each chapter.

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Thanks to everyone who voted in the map poll! I was expected more of a “parchment” bias due to that being how FE games usually handle it, so it was refreshing to see people like the colored version. If you haven’t yet, definitely let me know which you like better in the map poll. I’m leaning towards polishing up the colored one and using that as the in game world map, also using the plugin Copywright suggested as it is pretty slick.

Moving on to some new work, I’ve been able to put in some solid grinding time and have completely revamped the inventory system. I’m going to lay out some pros and cons of the old vs new system to explain my reasoning for the revamp.

Old inventory system:
4 “equipment slots”. 1 handed weapons/shield take up one slot. 2 handed take 2 slots.

Pros:

  • Feels a little more realistic since two handed weapons are larger, they should take more space.

Cons

  • Could have weird combinations like 3 shields, 1 sword. 4 Shields.
  • Coding was getting messy as I always had to check if a two handed weapon was taking up two slots.

New inventory system:
3 “weapon slots”. 1 and 2 handed both only take up one slot. 1 shield slot, with shields being auto equipped with one handed weapons. This is accompanied by shields not having durability so they are unable to break, so you will only need one. 2 item slots for things like bandages, and potentially throwing weapons in the future?? Not 100% sure how deep I’ll go on items yet but the possibilities are there.

Pros

  • I think it’s simpler. All weapons take up a slot so the main difference between 1/2 handed is now mainly more offense/stronger effects in 2H weapons, whereas 1H let’s you equip a shield giving you more defense.
  • Shields are separate. Shields automatically equipped saving the player clicks.

Cons

  • A little less realistic. Carrying 3 2-handed weapons doesn’t seem very realistic, but I don’t think most players will care THAT much about the “realism” behind it as long as it isn’t at ridiculous levels.

Here is a little demo of the new inventory:

It may be hard to see, but I also added a QOL feature in that hovering over an unequipped weapon will show the stats if it was equipped compared to the currently equipped weapon, and will highlight stats green if they’re “better” or red if they’re “worse”. Took a little bit of code refactoring, but I think it was ultimately worth it. Also got some new flat icons that I really enjoy using.

I’ve also been super happy with how recent character’s I commissioned turned out so here are those for those of you who are interested in them!

New Character Portaits

Say hello to Benjen and Rho!


Thanks for reading and I’d love to know if you think I could have made any better design decisions. I like how the inventory turned out but there’s always room for improvement and I definitely have my blind spots when it comes to design. Cheers!

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I like the new inventory system, it’s pretty cool. And QoL improvements are always appreciated.
Also, cheers to whoever drew those characters, the art style is amazing.

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Thanks Gustabo. :slight_smile: I’ll pass it along to him. I think he’s insanely good, he has quite a few different art styles too, but still manages to keep all the portraits consistent. His DeviantArt has a lot of fantastic work. Definitely feel lucky to have him doing art for the game.

Glad the plugin’s helping!

Very nice UI you have there! Really clean and easy to digest.

If I had any suggestions, it’d be to add a darker color to the Ui Image of the selected/hovering item slot.

That way, the player knows which is being selected. In the video, the equipped weapon changes but it’s a bit tough to know which I’m targeting without that color change or a cursor.

Edit: oops, you’re totally doing that. Was a bit hard to make out at first.

Also, really high quality portraits. :ok_hand:

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Hey everyone! Here with another progress update. The past two weeks I’ve been focusing on the implementation of classes and abilities. I think it’s going to be the most integral part of how the game-play feels so I’d love your feedback. I’ll try to keep it fairly summarized, but will always happy to go into more depth if you have any questions.

Summary

  • Each character will have on personal ability unique to themselves.
  • 6 base classes, one per character.
  • Each base class will have access to certain weapons. Example: A fighter will have access to 1 and 2 handed axes. A soldier 1 and 2 handed lances.
  • Each base class comes with 1 unique default ability, and gains another at level 5 and 10 (3 total).
  • At level 15 the player will choose a class to promote to from 3 options, 2 being the default upgrades for that base class, and 1 being specific to the character upgrading.
  • On upgrade to the promoted class, the character will gain stats, an ultimate ability unique to the promoted class, and the ability to use weapons extra weapon types depending on the class.
  • Other abilities are granted by weapons/items in your inventory. Example: a Claymore may have a Sweep ability that hits 3 units in front of your unit, but only if your character has enough levels in “Two-Handed Swords”. A Bandage in your inventory would give you the Heal Injury ability, that would heal your unit x% of their health, up to 80%. An Iron Axe might have the Axe Throw ability that gives you a ranged attack, only if you have the required weapon level in “One Handed Axes”.
  • Come end game, with 3 weapons slots, 2 item slots, 1 shield slot, 4 class abilities (3 base + 1 ultimate promoted) and 1 personal ability, a unit will cap out at 11 abilities, with 6 being customizable from chapter to chapter. I think this gives flexibility to build your characters how you want to, while still making each character unique.

Would love any feedback you all might have. I know it’s really hard to judge it just through text, but any first thoughts/impressions are appreciated. I’ve changed this quite a bit over time due to feedback already to simplify it so it’s not too much of a hassle to manage a party of 10+ units a chapter.

Also got some new character art commissioned. One for a generic mercenary, and another for one of Fern’s senators that will play a large role in the story. The last time I had a “generic mercenary” commissioned, he made the character look so good I ended up using him as a playable character. So this is round two, and for real just a generic this time. :sweat_smile:

Characters


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Hey everyone! Wanted to share another quick progress update. I’ve made the Fighter and Soldier base classes along with their default ability of Kick and Shield Bash.

The kick is a useful ability because it is high accuracy (though lower damage), so it gives the traditionally lower accuracy fighter an attack that will do a small bit of damage but very accurately, great for finishing off enemies or putting them in range of more accurate ally attacks. A great effect of the kick is it will move the hit unit back one tile. This is great for when the enemy is camping a strategic tile (fort, forest), to take away their terrain advantage.

The shield bash will be an ability available to the soldier class when they have a one handed weapon and shield equipped. Though the stamina cost is higher, it will have the powerful effect of inflicting stun on the enemy hit. “Stun” is also the first status effect in the game! It will make it so the enemy will skip their next turn, but also they cannot counter attack and all attacks against them have 100% chance to hit. This gives the player another way to reduce RNG through good use of skills.

I’m currently working on another status effect “taunted” that will change the AI of the enemy to attack the unit that taunted them. What will be interesting about it is that taunted units will take the shortest path to attack their target, so you can manipulate this to know exactly where an enemy will end up on their turn, allowing you to set up flanks while your tank takes aggro. The taunt ability will be the default ability of the defender class, which will be the class of one of the units you get at the start of chapter 1!

Also I made a little game-play change (with big repercussions) so now you can choose the direction of your units even after they attack (previously you were only able to do it if you didn’t attack). I think this will allow the player to be more aggressive with their play, as they can kill a unit, then rotate their unit so they aren’t easily backstabbed by enemies. That’s the thought behind it anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

As always thanks for reading and any feedback is greatly appreciated in these early stages of the game. Have a great rest of the weekend everyone. :slight_smile:

Character Art - King Philip and Prince August of Fern


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Holy crap, that is amazing. It’s not every day I see people turning they’re to hack into an original game and I’m excited to see the future of this game!

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Thanks a lot @Bacon_Eggs! I’m a year into it and I still can’t really believe I’m doing it either. :joy:

Appreciate the kind words!

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