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Bastard Bonds - fabulous fast-paced tactical RPG with high-end pixel art

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,882
My verdict after playing it for about 5h is that game is super boring and simple. Tactical combat is a chore more than fun or good. Everything else is between bad and mediocre.

I hoped this game would next KotC but it is not even close.
 

epeli

Arcane
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
719
Oh wow, didn't expect to find a codex thread for Bastard Bonds. And the dev's here too!

Played it a while ago. A nice casual J-ish RPG with surprisingly long campaign. I found it addictive and the combat was fun despite being very simplistic. Serpents in the Staglands could learn how to do pixel art from this. The character creation was awesome in terms of visual customization, but the options for actual character builds were woefully lacking. And the AI was completely braindead. No aggro management of any kind, the combat AI just targets the nearest hostile and that's that. And the pathfinding, oh god it. Your partymembers would only path a way too short distance at once, making them often head the wrong way if you pass a tight corner in one turn.

If the AI and skill system were improved and the content levels were static rather than automatically level-scaled, the combat could become good enough to make this (or a sequel) a :obviously: RPG.
 

epeli

Arcane
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
719
I don't hate SitS art or anything if my post gave that impression, quite the contrary. But the parts where SitS isn't good, BB does a better job.

I mean, sure, SitS artstyle looks good and is evocative of Darklands as Whalenought intended, even if some locations felt like they needed new art rather than reused assets. The animations are also very good, especially for such a small indie studio. It just had one fatal flaw, the awful font. Most of my friends who tried the game (and usually like pixel art) dropped it for its font and/or otherwise unclear graphics and I highly doubt they're the only ones. IMO SitS would've been grealy improved by higher res UI components or better pixel art for them. Definitely could learn from BB.
 

Lord Azlan

Arcane
Patron
Shitposter
Joined
Jun 4, 2014
Messages
1,901
Chuffed to make it out of the tutorial dungeon and now exploring the world.

Has a strange Faery Tale Adventure feel to it - that's just me I suppose.

Spent more time than necessary exploring the different character combinations at the beginning.

I am finding the humour 'very sweet'.

Now a gang of three and just got my ass killed by some guys with poison. It's made me think the combat is more complicated than I first thought.

I suspect the game is simply load area, clear area, rinse and repeat. And I am okay with that.

Liking the different skill types and pondering what sort of party will make it through.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
Just played this game. Boring as hell. Seemed really promising at first but it is just tank clicking defend, and 3 other dudes right clicking the enemy. Do that 10 billion times and that is this game. The plus side is it inspired me to play Blackguards and Aarklash again.
 

Kaivokz

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2015
Messages
1,499
I have been playing this and enjoying it enough to write a little about it.

Mechanics

Character customization is simple but pretty neat. Abilities are in a 3x3 grid. The rows are strength, dexterity, and magic. The columns are attack, defense, and utility. On character creation you have 10 points to put into this grid and you get another point at every level. When you put a point in, the column/row each get one point. So if you have five points in (0,0) and five points in (0,1), you would have ten points in strength (the first row), five points in attack (first column) and five points in defense (second column). The value at each position on the grid is the product of the corresponding row and column values. In the example I just gave, you would have 50 physical attack and 50 physical defense. Each position on the grid has perks at successively larger point totals (50, 120, 280, 600, 1200, 2000).
Because of the value of intersections is multiplicative, having a lot of points in a row or column makes other positions in that row or column easier to level up. So if you have 25 points into the dexterity-attack intersection, you will have a score of 25 dexterity and 25 attack (625 at the intersection). If you have no points in magic (default value is 1), then you will have a score of 25 at the magic-attack intersection. Putting a single point into that intersection bumps your magic-attack score up to 52 (26*2)—enough to get you the first perk. It also simultaneously boosts your dexterity-attack score to 650 (adding another 25 points in), because your dexterity score is already so high.

rzAZ5Qu.jpg


There is also a manpower mechanic that determines how many people your base can support. You can establish your base pretty much anywhere on the map and different locations have different max capacities and manpower requirements. The base holds your units for combat and various services (like blacksmith, shops, storage, porters), both of which take up capacity. It takes time to work up to having more than one or two services in your camp. Manpower is determined differently depending on your alignment (lawful, neutral, or chaotic). If you are lawful, your contribution is equal to your highest utility intersection value. Chaotic's is equal to their second highest value of any intersection. Neutral's is the square of your utility score itself. This means that if you have a combat focused neutral character (no points in utility), their contribution to your manpower total is going to negligible (1 point). However, neutral is the best for a pure support character—they can spread their points around to use all utility abilities (labor, to move heavy stuff; thwart, to pick locks and so on; and weave, to interact with magical energies) and their manpower contribution will keep going up ( = (10 + your level) ^ 2). Lawful can get the same value, but only if they put all of their points in one utility ability. e.g. if a neutral character has 10 points in each of the utility intersections, he will have 30 points in utility, so 30^2 = 900 manpower. If a lawful character has all 30 points in one intersection, the value of that intersection will obviously be 30^2, but if he has 10 points in each utility ability his manpower contribution will only be 10^2. Given that each of the utility intersections has a perk which increases manpower (strength-utility = 2*manpower, dexterity-utility = +1000 manpower, magic-utility = +(band size * your level) manpower), neutral only gets better as you proceed. This feels like a fair trade-off, though; a combat focused neutral character is the least helpful member of your camp, but a utility focused neutral character is the most helpful.

Combat
is handled through left and right click with different contextual actions. Left click: this mostly just moves the character. Right click: If you are within weapon range (e.g. daggers & swords have a range of 1, spears have a range of 2, bows have a range of 5), you will attack. If you are out of weapon range and know magic, you will use your magic on the target. If an enemy is hesitating (happens when they are almost dead) and you can communicate with it, which gives you two options: mug them or recruit them to your band of bastards. Both have chances to fail and can be enhanced by utility skills. At first you can only communicate with some intelligent beings, but you can recruit intelligent beings who also communicate with beasts, and via magic you can talk to intelligent creatures who don't speak your language. Right click on yourself defends or (in risk mode) puts you on standby, which places you after the next person in initiative.

This is a simple system, but by holding down shift you can switch to "risk" mode. In risk mode, you have a chance to fail based on your risk (0 risk = no chance of failure). No matter how high your risk is, if you take a normal action, you always succeed and are moved to the next round. If you fail, you become vulnerable and your initiative gets placed into the next round. If you succeed in your action, you get put at the end of the initiative for the current round. If you succeed until your risk bar is full, you gain a defensive status (which procs all "defense" effects, like heal on defend, etc. and lowers damage taken), a stacking 10% daredevil exp multiplier for the current map, and are put into the next round. If you have multiple characters with the same alignment, they give you a chance to re-roll your risk check if you would fail, making a same-alignment parties very strong. I can see someone who doesn't use the risk system well struggling with the game, but optimizing it is very simple—always use risk as much as you can, unless you are on the front-line and a bunch of people will hit you while you are vulnerable. Even if you are probably going to fail, try anyway; maxing out the exp modifier is worth it even if you don't need to risk anything to win the battle. Enemies also use risk, so they can and will take multiple actions per round, sometimes they will fail and become vulnerable, but sometimes they will succeed and lay into you.

On magic: there is really only one "spell", but it isn't as simple as you would think. First, as you put more points into the magic-attack intersection, that spell advances. First it is just a direct damage spell, but then it becomes a direct damage spell with a debuff, which can also be targeted on allies to buff them, and with enough investment it will hit multiple targets. Second, somewhere near the beginning of the game you will come across a shrine which tells you about different variations of the base magical energy—each of these six variations have different buff and debuff effects, and have different damage modifiers based on the creature you're attacking (e.g. max is effective against lux & nix). A character can attune to these variations with equipment (and many monsters you can recruit are naturally attuned to one variation—goblins will naturally cast pox magic, etc.) and equipment can be swapped out on the fly in combat, so you have more flexibility with magic than it first seems. This flexibility doesn't come until you advance pretty far into magic and until you find equipment which attunes you, but I enjoy that; you don't just select another spell at level up, and there is no tooltip that tells you "x attunement does y effect", so you have to remember what you read at the shrine in order to use magic effectively. e.g. you can swap to a Max-attuned item and debuff an enemy with reduced physical defense and then on the next turn swap to a Rex-attuned item and buff an ally's physical damage.

uradedC.jpg


Each character only starts with two inventory slots so inventory management is important and you can't just truck everything back (items despawn after you leave a map), though with utility skills this can go up to five and eventually you can recruit porters to carry items for you (but they take up manpower and space at your camp). The game-play loop is basically just clear map -> manage base (if desired) -> move to next map, repeat. Once cleared a map stays conquered for a short time, during which you can establish a base, but will eventually be repopulated with enemies who you will have to clear out if you decide you want to make a base there. The nicely drawn environments & monsters and fun character building make this engaging, even though the combat itself lacks some tactical depth. I have not finished the game, but so far there haven't been any tactical challenges; enemies have simple AI and the solutions to combat are pretty simple. I've seen some people complaining on steam about the difficulty, but the game is too easy. Maybe this changes mid-end game, but so far there hasn't been any interesting encounter design (there have been great atmospheric map layouts though).

Gear is also pretty simple. Each character can equip a weapon, armor, and an accessory. I have found them sufficiently varied as to make customization interesting, even only given three slots. For example, I have a utility character with poor combat stats, but I have equipped him with a bow and an accessory that causes daze (increased chance to miss), so even though he doesn't do much damage, he distracts enemies while the rest of my team cleans them up. There are items which give you risk-strike, which increase the risk of enemies you hit, or grant you lucky/unlucky status which rolls twice for damage and takes the higher/lower result, etc. There is a crafting mechanic if you bring a blacksmith to your base, which mostly lets you combine two weapons together to form a stronger version of that weapon, but there are other recipes too, which are up to the player to discover. The game definitely does not hold your hand—it expects you to experiment and try things out, which I quite like.

Art

I don't really care about art, but the environments in this game are very aesthetically appealing and varied: forests, swamps, dark tunnels, decrepit churches full of demons, a mysterious castle torn between two dimensions, a haunted village that you get trapped in, shrines, old forts, etc.
pPEyNWQ.jpg
46L4ILb.jpg
izQKdOg.jpg
7TBpWqC.jpg
The character designer is incredibly robust for a pixel game. I replicated two characters from my favorite childhood RPG:
Td0m4w0.jpg

340
340

Story
Kind of non-existent in the early game. You're a prisoner charged with a crime. Whether or not you actually committed that crime is up to you. You break out. That's basically it. Try to survive on this prison island and maybe escape. None of the characters have been compelling to me, so I created 3 custom ones of my own (Max, Khris and Marcus). Maybe I will recruit some monsters to use, but since it's kind of random how their stats are distributed, I haven't really been compelled to use them even though they seem to have stronger innate abilities than orcs and humans. I recruited a giant mage demon who buffed everyone's damage innately, but he kept talking about wanting to have sex with me so I booted his degenerate self out of my camp.
:bunkertime:
 
Last edited:

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
13,609
Location
Winter
I've had this on my wishlist for years and was about to buy it when I saw it has a LGBTQRSFTX+ tag on steam. Whats that about?
 

Kaivokz

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2015
Messages
1,499
I've had this on my wishlist for years and was about to buy it when I saw it has a LGBTQRSFTX+ tag on steam. Whats that about?
LGBT reputation seems overblown. If the mere thought of a gay person makes you need a shower, you probably won't like this game, but it seems like the gay content is locked behind avoidable companions (of which there are 21, assorted male and female).

As for muscular men = gay, when I was a kid, this wasn't gay:
MV5BMWIxMzQxZjAtMGFkNC00NzYwLWFiMGEtNzZhZjE5MmFiMmMyL2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_UY1200_CR85,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg

If it is now, I don't know what to tell you.
 

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
13,609
Location
Winter
I've had this on my wishlist for years and was about to buy it when I saw it has a LGBTQRSFTX+ tag on steam. Whats that about?
LGBT reputation seems overblown. If the mere thought of a gay person makes you need a shower, you probably won't like this game, but it seems like the gay content is locked behind avoidable companions (of which there are 21, assorted male and female).

As for muscular men = gay, when I was a kid, this wasn't gay:
MV5BMWIxMzQxZjAtMGFkNC00NzYwLWFiMGEtNzZhZjE5MmFiMmMyL2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_UY1200_CR85,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg

If it is now, I don't know what to tell you.

What are you going on about? Some games have an agenda so I just asked why it had the tag when it didn't before. Because a couple of optional companions? OK then.

Not sure why you would drag Conan into it.
 

Kaivokz

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2015
Messages
1,499
Oh, I didn't mean to say your question was unfounded. I haven't encountered any LGBT agenda pushing.

Conan was a response to the general feeling toward the game. Case in point, this is the first review that pops up on steam:
"Solid character writing, simple but satisfying gameplay, gay as ♥♥♥♥. Please give it a shot if you like big beefy dudes."
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 2, 2018
Messages
408
I've had this on my wishlist for years and was about to buy it when I saw it has a LGBTQRSFTX+ tag on steam. Whats that about?
LGBT reputation seems overblown. If the mere thought of a gay person makes you need a shower, you probably won't like this game, but it seems like the gay content is locked behind avoidable companions (of which there are 21, assorted male and female).
If it is now, I don't know what to tell you.

LGBT reputation seems overblown down your throat by a steroid orc who chains you to a prison wall for days to get his rocks off!
Nah just kidding, this game is decent, the super gay butt adventures aren't all in your face unless you go looking for them. The game doesn't actively make you gay. Although I haven't finished it yet, only about half way through. Now sometimes I get a boner when I see the mailman. Not sure if that used to happen. Inconclusive.
 

4249

I stalk the night
Patron
Joined
Nov 19, 2014
Messages
1,216
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Wasn't the developer some sort of artist oriented towards gay porn or something? I think that's where the assumption rises. Bastard Bonds itself only has casual hints towards that stuff but is not really about it at all AFAIK. I only have it on my wishlist though, have not played.

edit:

There's nothing gay about enjoying the male physique.
Well that's quite true! In my particular case though, there's definitely some gay to it.

:lol:

Ah, no, he was a game developer mostly oriented towards gay porn.
 

Pocgels

Scholar
Joined
Nov 15, 2016
Messages
166
It has the most sympathetic and least forced gay propaganda I've ever seen in a video game.

Sadly, it doesn't really have gameplay. Fights are super basic, the risk system can't prop it up on its own, and exploration/setting/whatever isn't developed enough either. Some good ideas, and honestly another game from this dev with a slightly larger team could be really good.
 

Gunnar

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
819
I finished this game a few years ago, it's worth playing. There's not too much gay stuff. I recall one quest and a few character models that looked kind of gay. The combat is simplistic and repetitive and I found the camp system too restrictive but it's fun to explore the world and uncover story bits.
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,932
I tried the demo once. Good effort for an indie RPG but it really is gay.
It's easier to dodge the gay stuff and has less gay stuff in general than say a Bioware game. Interesting game world to explore but the combat is a mite too simple.
 

Contagium

Savant
Patron
Joined
Aug 2, 2018
Messages
477
Location
New Hampshire, USA
I played this recently and thought it kind of sucked. User interface, combat, progression, "story" all really underwhelming. The opening was cool how you get to choose what gets you thrown on the island. I'd be interested to see if/what the dev does in the future
 

wishbonetail

Learned
Joined
Oct 18, 2021
Messages
671
Dunno what's this about underwhelming experience. I found this game to be one of the most enjoyable indies i've played in the recent years. A lot of characters, exploration is interesting and rewarding, combat is TB, woods are mysterious. What's more to wish for? The one real downside is the level scaling. I guess you can't get everything.
 

Lios

Cipher
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
425
Underrated game. Combat could be a lot more tactical, true, but it's not simplistic, just a simple combat system that, if the game had a non-retard AI, would be a good challenge to learn to master. Now you just hide behind corners and lure enemies to get gangbanged by your team.
The game has this unique blend of japanese rpg, atmosphere of genuine mystery and folk tale psychedelics that got me hooked un the first place.
Oh and a lot of jacked beefy dudes.
 

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