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Ghost of a Tale - stealth action-RPG where you play a mouse

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I couldn't believe this was Unity, thought it was UE 4 when playing it. Runs and looks incredibly good.
 
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Planned release: March 2018

http://www.ghostofatale.com/final-stretch-release-plan/
Final Stretch! Release Plan!

Welcome to this new Ghost of a Tale update, in which I will talk about the final game (release date, price, etc…) as well as various improvements and overall progress on the game’s development (spoiler: it’s going great!).

I do wish I had time to post more development updates here but we’ve entered the final stretch to the game’s completion and I tend to not see time whizzing by. Paul is working hard on dialogs and quests and Cyrille still develops precious tools which allow me to streamline my everyday workflow. And at this point of the development the dividends pay up big time!

To start, here’s a screenshot that makes use of a new volumetric lighting asset (not yet in the early access version). But more on that later…



The final game’s release:
A couple of months back I was still hoping we would be able to release the game this year. Even though to this day I’ve refused to give out a specific date out of fear of missing it I’ve been known to say publicly “2017”.

The thing is, now that we’ve got a very clear view on the final stretch, that’s just not realistic. Well, technically the game’s content itself will be mostly done by the end of December, there’s no doubts about this.

So I guess technically you could say “Yay, game done this year!”. But that’s not the way it works. You don’t release a game as soon as you wrote the last line of code and animated the last walk cycle.

When all is said and done we’re going to need a few weeks (we estimate 4 to 6) just going through QA. That is intense testing and making sure there are no outstanding issues (whether it be in text display, animation, mechanics, quests, dialogs, etc…).

After that (well, almost in parallel) we’ll have several people working on translating the 60K+ words of the game into as many languages as we can financially afford. Which is at first: French, Italian, German, and Spanish. We will also try for Portuguese, Polish and Russian eventually (depending on how much it costs). And after that Chinese and Japanese would be great.

On that topic, some studios often go with horrendous Google translate (sometimes because of cost, sometimes because they can’t be bothered) but let me assure you that won’t be the case for Ghost of a Tale. We will make sure the translators know of context and are given the tools necessary to do a great job.



Meanwhile we will reach out to journalists and YouTubers in order to make them aware of the game’s release date (or in some cases of the game’s sheer existence). This phase includes anything marketing-related (screenshots, interviews, advertisement, etc…).

If you remember, the early access version of Ghost of a Tale was released more or less in a void. We can’t afford that for the final release; things need to be done properly in order to insure the game’s completion doesn’t go thoroughly unnoticed.

All of this amounts to roughly 8 weeks after final content is done and locked. Which is why we are aiming for a release in the beginning of March 2018.

Note that this is for the PC version. Xbox One will follow soon after that (barring any technical catastrophe). And finally the PS4 version.

(We haven’t looked yet at Xbox One X but if the Xbox One can run the game, the X won’t have any problem running it much, MUCH better!)

Development Progress:
As I mentioned earlier I’ve very recently integrated a nice volumetric lighting asset in the game, which greatly brings out the atmosphere of mystery that I always wanted to capture.

Technically what it does is it allows for the display of light rays even when the light source is off-camera. In the screenshot below the sun is actually out of the camera’s frustum yet it casts visible volumetric rays.



At night it translates for example to a much more dramatic moonlight. Which inspired me to revisit the overall nocturnal look of the game and I think that you guys are going to like it!
What’s great is when you explore a dark wood at night and the moon rays fall through the canopy as Tilo runs through them. It just feels so nice.



Final game’s duration and details:
Some of you might wonder how long the game will last. That’s obviously difficult to say but based on the early access it should take at least 15 to 20 hours to finish. Of course it could be much longer if you want to discover all of the secrets and locations.

The final game will have roughly 60 quests, varying in terms of complexity (compared to the 30 or so in the early access). It will also have more NPCs, but let’s not spoil that right now!

The new locations to explore will more than double the area of what’s already available in the early access. Believe me, the world feels much bigger now and you will get lost without a map.


The price:
The final game will go on sale at $24.99. However, while the game remains in early access, the price will stay at $19.99. Which is a way for us of thanking you for taking a chance on an early-access game and trusting us not to fudge it up!

Character portraits:
Finally I would like to officially welcome Jerome Jacinto to Ghost of a Tale’s (diminutive) team! Jerome is an experienced illustrator who worked on “Tooth and Tail” (where he took care of character design and key art) as well as the digital board game “Armello”.

Jerome is now creating the game’s NPC portraits, which appear during dialogs (the art in the current release is just place-holder if you hadn’t guessed!). This will make dialogs even more enjoyable than they currently are.

Here’s a gallery of some of the characters (no real spoilers as those already appear in the early access).



Of course each character will possess a wide range of poses to match their dialog and personality. Here are only a few of Gusto’s expressions:



I have to say every time Jerome finishes up a new character’s expression sheet it truly is a pleasure to peruse through all of them in anticipation of their use in the game…
Alright, so we reached the end of this update! Thanks again for taking the time to read all of it. I hope you liked it and now I’ll go back to work. As usual please don’t hesitate to leave your comments below and I’ll do my best to reply. See you in the next update!
 

Jenkem

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Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I helped put crap in Monomyth
Anyone played yet? I played it when it first release on Early Access and thought it was very nice already... no idea what they added since then.

Installing.
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Never played but owned it for a while. I hope to post some incoherent impressions in a day or two.
 

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Does anyone knows how is the take out of enemy in the game? Is it just limited time unconscious or is it like in thief?
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Having played for a couple of hours.

I'd call it a mix of stealth and adventure game. Yes, you must hide from guards. You can knock them out for a limited time, but the AI isn't super bright. They don't search any hiding spots. You'll know that you are always safe if you can hide in time. They do react to both sound and sight to spot you. Therefore, you do have to be careful when close to guards. Why I say that it is also an adventure game is because you mostly need to find items to progress. Sometimes find keys to access new areas. There are disguises that you can find, but I have only found a few pieces of each. There are some NPCs to be found and the dialog is charming. Just like the rest of the game. It looks and animates great. I'm getting some annoying stuttering at points, though.

Don't go in expecting another Thief, but also don't expect things to go well if you get detected. I guess some people here would appreciate a game like this.

The rpg elements seem to be tied to the disguises as they change your stats. There are also side quests you can choose to accept.

I need to play more to judge it. It's decent fun so far and a good and ambitius effort for a small team like this.
 

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...a-creature-castle-fantasy-with-plenty-of-soul

Ghost of a Tale review - a creature castle fantasy with plenty of Soul
Escape the ratrace.


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Weather its bugs and lacklustre stealth, and Ghost of a Tale is a quietly ravishing potted epic with a serious subtext.

Ghost of a Tale's castle feels like a prison at first but ends up feeling like home. In the course of 20 hours searching for a way out, I've slowly fallen in love with the place - its feathery falls of afternoon light over mossy stonework, its leafblown ramparts and canted mausoleums, its small, hard-bitten population of anthropomorphic rats, mice, frogs and magpies. Part of the setting's allure is that it carries the echoes of many great virtual fortresses. Indeed, this slightly muddled third-person action-RPG's greatest strength is probably how it adds to that architectural tradition, though the witty, affecting, politically resonant writing runs a close second.

There's a touch of Square Enix's winding masterpiece Vagrant Story to certain overgrown, shady courtyards, and a generous dollop of both Zelda and Moria in the shape of a magnificent, underground vault woven around a circular puzzle structure. The view from the keep's belfry recalls the view inland from ICO's fortress walls, yellow crenelations biting into blissful green distances. Above all, there's the spectre of Dark Souls - a game with which Ghost of a Tale engages in fascinating, not always successful ways. As with From Software's Lordran, Dwindling Heights Keep is a purgatory for lost people and things that is much taller than it is broad, stretching from a bone-strewn shoreline up through catacombs and sewers to a barracks, kitchen and armoury. Like Lordran, it's a persistent environment bound together by a profusion of cunning shortcuts, unlocked one by one - rope elevators that whisk you from the gardens to the signal tower, doors that open from one side only and secret passages cheekily visible through rusted grates.

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Working out how the game's spaces thread into one another, letting their twists and turns sink into muscle memory, is as integral to Ghost of a Tale's appeal as its hypnotic good looks. The act of stitching those wayward, ruined chambers together also chimes with the narrative, a story about rediscovering the past and building trust across racial divides that is a lot more searching than its parade of waggling tails and frog beards might suggest.

Ghost of a Tale is the story of Tilo, a mouse minstrel thrown in the clinker after his wife Merra angers a rat baron by refusing to perform a certain song. He is soon sprung from his cell by a mysterious figure, and left to scour the rambling keep for an exit while trying to learn the fate of his spouse. You'll meet plenty of potential allies in the process, from argy-bargy thieves through grandmotherly cooks to gloating apothecaries, all of whom will send you off on various errands before they'll agree to help you.

The game's missions mostly consist of fetchquests, but there's the odd simple platforming sequence or physical puzzle such as activating artefacts in order, plus a few "dialogue battles" where you must pick the right responses to stop a character losing patience. It's a very forgiving to-do list, probably too forgiving for its own good - working out the right route aside, you'll only really ever have to worry about finding candles or lamp oil to light your path, with no weapons or tools to wield save throwable distraction items and the odd (inexplicably) explosive pinecone. The delight of delving deeper into the fortress lends even the most humdrum oddjob a certain thrill, however, and there's the odd setup that exploits the sumptuous environment design to great effect. Among my favourites is a restful mushroom-picking quest which saw me using a mycology handbook to identify the right growing conditions for certain fungus breeds, peering at leaf shapes and fallen logs while avoiding the gaze of a patrolling guard.

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Ghost of a Tale's willingness to let the world articulate itself to the player rather than leaning on HUD aids recalls both Dark Souls and Morrowind, patron saint of fashionably weird fantasy RPGs, but let's not get too carried away there - SeithCG's game is no Elder Scrollsy character development marathon. Quests generate XP, but level-ups only boost your health and stamina, and while there are a few minor abilities and perks such as reduced fall damage to acquire from certain characters, they're strictly optional - you'll carry out the missions concerned more for the sake of getting to know people than transforming yourself into the fourth Mouseketeer.

Tilo himself is a lovely, winsome creation, particularly when he's wobbling about in the caverns with a candlestick in his paw. As far as many of the game's other characters are concerned, however, he's the scum of the earth. In Ghost of a Tale's quasi-medieval world mice are a despised underclass, forever tainted by the treachery of their ancestors during an ancient war with an entity known as the Green Flame. Rats, conversely, are the heroes who finally drove back the demonic adversary, a legacy that has allowed them to gain power over the other species and establish a brutal regime.

The enmity between species soon becomes crucial to the plot - specifically, who you decide to trust at key intervals - and colours more or less every interaction or piece of textual backstory, from the mouthy bigoted frog you'll encounter in the cell next to yours to the rowdy ballads in Tilo's songbook, one of which is a sugary incitement to genocide. The obvious realworld parallel for the ostracisation of mice is the Christian stereotype of the Jews as a people cursed by the death of Jesus, but if this is to some degree an allegory, it's at once very open-ended and never remotely preachy.

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Rather than being parachuted into the universe, the question of prejudice is simply part of its terrain, the bitter soil from which people grow much as sexism is baked into the social bedrock of The Witcher games. The script is very much a master of that terrain, managing the intricacies with grace and sensitivity. It never boils characters down to their intolerances - almost everybody has a sympathetic side, however crude and vicious they might seem - and handles tricky phenomena like the concept of micro-aggressions with enviable deftness. It's also both very funny at times and extremely poignant at others - capable of a lot of tonal subtlety despite the absence of voice-acting, and happy to leave certain implications unsaid.

The question of race somewhat guides Ghost in a Tale's blend of stealth and disguises, but sadly the game is much less compelling on this front. Tilo is almost completely defenceless, though you can equip different gear pieces to boost your resistance to direct damage, poison and fire. Accordingly, you'll spend a lot of the game lurking in barrels (which double as save points) waiting for guards to pass, or crouching to lower footstep noise. The game's enemy AI is bare-bones to the point of crumbling away in your hands: rat guards either stand in place or trundle back and forth like catwalk models, forgetting you were there a few seconds after reaching your last known position. Outside of dialogue, there's little sense that you are a convict on the run from hotly pursuing authorities, and little satisfaction to glean from outwitting anybody. You can lob sticks and bottles to distract guards, but it's often easier just to gallop straight through to a hiding spot on the other side of the area.

Fortunately, Tilo soon gains access to the aforesaid disguises, beginning with a beat-up suit of rat armour that hinders movement but lets you pass as one of the prison guards. Many of the crucial quests involve dressing up as celebrity rogues, pirates, nobles and so forth to bamboozle people and learn their secrets. It's all very silly - think pumpkin masks and eyepatches that somehow improve your vision - but it's also part of the story's more serious preoccupation with ethnicity and discrimination, as suggested by a lore entry on the politics of religious attire. You can dress up as a kind of mouse secret policeman to stop guards attacking you, but they'll resent and harass you all the same, stealing food or threatening to lock you up unless you pay a bribe. The game could have done much more with the disguise concept - beyond making back-tracking less troublesome, it never really transforms how you play outside of dialogue - but it's provocative and intriguing where the stealth too often feels like an inconvenience.

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There are times when Ghost of a Tale seems ill at ease in its own clothes, its bewitching play of vegetation and masonry not quite disguising the project's relatively limited means. The array of quests is possibly too large for the map - you'll often pick up objects before you know what they're for, starting a quest only to discover that you've already put together the means to complete it. The current version of the game is, moreover, absolutely riddled with bugs, from trifles like map icons not appearing to more grating problems such as missions refusing to complete till you quit the game and reload.

The worst technical upsets helpfully coincide with the worst of the story and encounter design. Having done without such theatrics for most of its length, Ghost of a Tale ends with an agonising boss encounter which requires you to drag heavy objects around while allies try to fend off those enemies not already trapped by a swarm of pathfinding and animation glitches. In the process, what was once a story about a few, troubled souls in an out-of-the-way corner suddenly becomes a story about the fate of a kingdom, trading intimacy for grandeur with a dispiriting clang.

It's a soggy, rushed-feeling finale, but none of that's enough to kill off my enthusiasm for that castle and its denizens - as I write these words, I'm itching to don my preposterously oversized rat armour and take another tour of that central courtyard. There is so much to say about Ghost of a Tale, from the way its stooped and ivy-clad architecture engages with a proud history of video game citadels, through its status as a sort of combat-less Elder Souls knock-off, to the way its writing surfs the line between personality and critique. It is not always great fun to play, but it is always worth pondering, and its mournful, majestic setting will linger in your mind long after the taste of that final encounter has faded.
 

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