KickStarter Balrum

[getter77]

Well, that was sudden. Good on them for trying to get this out in as good a shape as they can though, especially with the whole world otherwise still going in hard on these December releases.

 

[Riptides]

Darn it, I can't believe this actually happened. Now I have to wait another two months?

 

[Alienman]

I wonder that the prob is? I have seen some videos from a Codexer playing it on youtube, and it does not look broken exactly.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I had completely missed this, but the teaser and screenshots look great

 

[LESS T_T]

Coming sooon-ish: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/balconyteam/balrum/posts/1497315

Hello there dear backers! We hope you are all well.

We have been really busy with Balrum and the game is finally in a good shape. We really needed the extra time. The whole game is finally balanced to our liking and we even could add a few extra features.

At the moment everything is looking good for a late February release.

There were a few major problems that we finally sorted out. The biggest problem was the support of really high refresh rate monitors. Balrum had trouble with 144Hz monitors but thanks to a thorough rewrite of our subsystems Balrum is running smoother than ever. As we were rewriting a lot of things related to the speed of the engine we took the opportunity to make moving around even smoother. You will see the difference!

Here are a few new features:
-Moveable pet health/mana bar

-Bigger main QuickSlot bar

-Autosave every X minutes (configurable)
-World Tooltips are now viewable from a distance

-Eye protection mode “Eye Care” (enabled in the video tab under the “style”)
-Options button in the Main Menu

The extra time allowed us to finish scrapped lore bits and quests so there is even more to do in the world.

Thank you for your patience everyone. We are working as hard as we can.

 

[Siveon]

Christ, finally. They were this close to becoming full on vaporware.

 

[felipepepe]

Hurray, I'll finally get a gift from myself 3 years in the past!

 

[Roqua]

Nice. I honestly thought people interested in games like this were smarter than your average monkeys, but people on the steam forums were being ridiculously dramatic about the delay.

This looks to be like the only crpg coming out in the foreseeable future with a chance of some depth and meat. Unless I am missing a game release or maybe a game coming out of early access soon? I think Zombiesite (sp?) is almost done? Same with Grim Dawn but those are arpgs when I'm looking for the next Underrail. Not to say they won't be good or worth wasting some evenings avoiding the family over, I'm just looking to scratch a specific itch.

Anything else with some depth and meat coming out in the next two or three months besides this? I think Bard's Tale, Torment, Star Crawl, Seven Dragon Saga, and all the other big name ones are all a good ways off? Well, I guess this bodes well for sales on Balrum if it delivers on the depth and meat department, which looks like there is a good chance it will.

 

[Xzylvador]

So how big a part of this game will be RPG and how much will be farmville mixed with tamagotshi?

Seriously asking this. It looks kind of good, really, but it seems like it would be somewhat of a miracle if they manage to marry those different parts into a whole that doesn't feel like a weird hybrid that tries to do everything and ends up failing at things because of that.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I guess this bodes well for sales on Balrum if it delivers on the depth and meat department, which looks like there is a good chance it will.

There'a a farm game that looks like Terraria, called Stardew Valley coming out in about a week. I'm guessing that will be the main competition on Steam.

Have they made any mention of pricing?

 

[Roqua]

Now you guys have me worried. I was under the impression this was a crpg with some farming. Like Underrail was a crpg with some fishing. Farming holds as much appeal to me in a game as it does in real life - none at all. How big a part of this game is farming? And now I'm thinking the steam forum people where having hissy fits because they are farming game people and not crpg people.

I don't know why a game would have such robust rpg features and gameplay if it wasn't primarily an rpg?

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Now you guys have me worried. I was under the impression this was a crpg with some farming. Like Underrail was a crpg with some fishing. Farming holds as much appeal to me in a game as it does in real life - none at all. How big a part of this game is farming? And now I'm thinking the steam forum people where having hissy fits because they are farming game people and not crpg people.

I don't know why a game would have such robust rpg features and gameplay if it wasn't primarily an rpg?

I wasn't meaning to imply that this game has heavy farming elements. I know very little about it really, apart from the fact that I'm interested and that base/farm building seems to feature fairly heavily in the videos on the Steam page.

 

[Serus]

Why all this hype now ? Wasn't this game looking as a very simple rpg to the point of being banal-shit-boring ? Mixed with potentially good crafting/building/whatever elements but as a crpg it didn't show much promise last time I checked. Did something change recently ?

 

[PulsatingBrain]

There have been a few posts within the last few months. I don't know if that qualifies as "all this hype". The release date was moved back to late February so I guess some people are curious about it as we're nearing that date

 

[adure]

I guess this bodes well for sales on Balrum if it delivers on the depth and meat department, which looks like there is a good chance it will.

There'a a farm game that looks like Terraria, called Stardew Valley coming out in about a week. I'm guessing that will be the main competition on Steam.

Have they made any mention of pricing?

it was sold for 20 at kickstarter.
i dont think they will go above this.

and in my eyes thers no competition.
i take both!

 

[Roqua]

Why all this hype now ? Wasn't this game looking as a very simple rpg to the point of being banal-shit-boring ? Mixed with potentially good crafting/building/whatever elements but as a crpg it didn't show much promise last time I checked. Did something change recently ?

Where do you get that? I'm just going off the trailer and the information on the steam page but I get the idea it is a pretty heavy crpg. But the fact that no one seems to know if this is a crpg with some farming, a farming game with some rpg elements, or what has me worried.

The said they delayed the game for balancing and I assume balancing mobs not corn or wheat, but has anyone actually played this? I didn't back and would like to hear from someone that has more of a clue of what a crpg should be than the average steam dickhead.

 

[moraes]

Where do you get that? I'm just going off the trailer and the information on the steam page but I get the idea it is a pretty heavy crpg. But the fact that no one seems to know if this is a crpg with some farming, a farming game with some rpg elements, or what has me worried.

The said they delayed the game for balancing and I assume balancing mobs not corn or wheat, but has anyone actually played this? I didn't back and would like to hear from someone that has more of a clue of what a crpg should be than the average steam dickhead.

Well, here is what a reviewer said in this very thread:

Dunno, the starting dialogue & story are pretty bad and definitely non-engaging, the RPG system is minimalistic (even if I reconsider my attitude to this, I won't be doing any guides as it's just too simple) and crafting elements are really heavy. Just like the people have been asking in the thread, it's more Minecraft than RPG.

Like, say a dish you wanna cook (uncooked stuff doesn't heal for much) needs a half-baked meat. This means you need to find some kind of a fireplace, you need to put some logs into it (which you either find or chop) then you put meet and you don't just cook - the bar on the meat fills and the more it fills, the more cooked the meat is. So you don't click and craft - you need to wait until it's grilled just the way you need it to be grilled.

Other stuff in the game seems exactly this way. Farming, mining, constructing, etc. I'm sure some people will love it, but for me it seems too tedious to even try this stuff. I guess I'll force myself to try it again, but meh. And, of course, getting released on the 16th is even worse for them - with the Underrail being pushed to 18th, you know what most oldschool RPG fans will choose.

On the other hand, the Minecraft crowd is definitely a bigger audience, though I'm not sure how hard the Balrum is promoted there. They probably should be focusing on that.

More Minecraft than RPG it seems, unfortunately.

EDIT: On the plus side, Embers of Rage (expansion for TOME) will be released this 23th, so there'll be plenty of rogueliking to do around while waiting for the next CRPG.

 

[Roqua]

Well, that sucks. The trailer really makes this look more crpg than anything else, even the bullets describing the game are mostly about rpg talking points and only a couple cover the farming/crafting nonsense. I hate to knock an indie title but I really dislike when a game is advertised as one thing and delivers something else. I'll still buy and try to see for myself since I can easily refund if it doesn't deliver but it is still disappointing to hear this is more minecraft than rpg.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

So, I found this game while looking to see if we had a Stardew Valley thread. Is this not just an Eschalon clone? It's the same engine, it's got the same god damned art assets. Something tells me that Basilisk sold the entire god damned engine to someone after failing to sell well with Eschalon: Book III.

This just looks like they didn't try to create unique assets and just ended up spending all their time using the (in my opinion) awful map editor that Basilisk released for a month or so after Eschalon: Book III.

Whatever, I won't be mad.

 

[Siveon]

What...?

Balrum uses our own engine.

It's nothing like Eschalon (in terms of scope and focus, afaik). Just because it's turn-based and isometric, it's a clone of a relatively minor indie game? Okay.

Spoiler

They do look alike at least.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

What...?

Balrum uses our own engine.

It's nothing like Eschalon (in terms of scope and focus, afaik). Just because it's turn-based and isometric, it's a clone of a relatively minor indie game? Okay.

Spoiler

They do look alike at least.

Alright. After having done some investigation of the similar looking assets. They are still similar, but they are not the same (like different arrangements etc.)

Gameplay still looks the same (synchronous turn based combat), but that's just because it is what it is.

Anybody who played those games would definitely say 'hey this looks the fucking same', because it does regardless of being able to 'build your own home'.

 

[LESS T_T]

Out now: http://store.steampowered.com/app/424250/

Hello everyone! Finally! Finally! Balrum is ready!

First of all, thank you for being patient and understanding.

Second of all, thank you to everyone over at Kickstarter for making Balrum a possibility. You guys were so kind and supportive we could not believe it.

We will support Balrum for years to come and enhance it as much as we can. 1.0 is just the beginning


We hope that you will enjoy your time spent in the world of Balrum!

Thank you everyone!

 

[Aenra]

Jaesun

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I'll probably buy it despite my bitching earlier.

 

[Saxon1974]

Interesting. Backed it so long ago I forgot. I don't play first releases though, I will wait a few months for patches but I am curious about it.