KickStarter Telepath Tactics Liberated - deterministic tactical RPG inspired by Fire Emblem

[Craig Stern]

Craig Stern Any chance of getting idling animations? Or is that cost prohibitive? I wonder if even the old jRPG staple of having them walk in place would add something.

I don't really have a budget for extra animations right now, unfortunately. It'll be a possibility if I get a budget for a follow up game that reuses the sprites, though. My main concern at that point would be avoiding a performance hit from having dozens of sprites constantly animating onscreen, but it'd be with a recoded engine on a new, more efficient platform, so ideally I could make it work.

 

[roshan]

I haven't played any of these tactical JRPGs, but I think seeing 50 units on the screen playing animations at the same time would not only look absurd and tacky but be distracting as well. It also makes little sense to have characters play "idle" animations while in the midst of combat, unless it's something like a menacing gesture with a knife or so.

 

[roshan]

BTW, really enjoying this game so far, but it's exhausting to play (in a really good way)! I think I can only do one battle at a time before needing a break. Lots of fun though! And this is certainly not a casual game. I like all the little things that make combat interesting, like the backstab damage bonus. This alone adds so much to combat, it means you have to watch where your characters are facing, protect their sides, form up so that enemies can't get behind your front line. I also really like the counterattacks launched by front liners!

 

[Galdred]

I don't really have a budget for extra animations right now, unfortunately. It'll be a possibility if I get a budget for a follow up game that reuses the sprites, though. My main concern at that point would be avoiding a performance hit from having dozens of sprites constantly animating onscreen, but it'd be with a recoded engine on a new, more efficient platform, so ideally I could make it work.

I think it works better to only idle the selected character, and randomly idling the other from time to time. You'd have to make an exception for randomization there!
BTW, I think you should insist more on the deterministic system of your games. There may not be that many players into it, but there are even less developers catering to them.

 

[Siveon]

Please no...

EDIT: Do you have an example where this looks good?

Good is up for you to decide, but I personally remember the Fire Emblem idles pretty fondly.



Skip around a bit (first battle is at 7:24, but a good non-tutorial part would be around 1:37:11, I couldn't find any of the animations on its own) and you should see some idle animations. It's generally just units making subtle movements in place and making a more aggressive animation when being selected.

 

[Craig Stern]

I'm actually not a huge fan of the GBA Fire Emblem idle animations personally, but I do think that my future games would benefit from a bit more movement on the screen (not just in terms of idle animations, but with proper animated water and such).

On an unrelated topic: someone on my forums motivated me to pick back up my modding tutorials. I'm not sure how many more I'll write--that probably depends on demand--but here's tutorial 20, on creating your own attacks in the game.

 

[Siveon]

They're certainly more cartoon-y than it's older iterations, and I can certainly see why people won't like them. But, it does it's job at distinguishing units (though the mounted units look very similar to each other). For another view on FE idles, check out FE4's:

Spoiler

Not as much distracting movement, though the orange hair thing is a bit odd. I do like the better detail. I wish more people made easy to show .gifs of FE idles.

I just didn't want to mention it since I haven't played FE4 (the translations are unfinished and glitchy as hell).

 

[Damned Registrations]

I like when the idle animations are also functional; they can be used to show that a unit hasn't taken his turn yet, or is currently selected. FE already uses the greyed out colour palette for the former, but it switches the animation a bit for the second (probably not terribly useful in this case though, since the selected character also follows the cursor instead of being left behind.) Or in games like FFT or Tactics Ogre, certain status effects freeze the idle animation.



And yeah, it does help a bit in making otherwise samey units look different from eachother, if they have slightly different animations or if the animation exposes some of the otherwise more subtle differences in their appearance.

 

[Archibald]

Brofist for Brigandine video, unappreciated gem in my opinion.

 

[Galdred]

I'm actually not a huge fan of the GBA Fire Emblem idle animations personally, but I do think that my future games would benefit from a bit more movement on the screen (not just in terms of idle animations, but with proper animated water and such).

On an unrelated topic: someone on my forums motivated me to pick back up my modding tutorials. I'm not sure how many more I'll write--that probably depends on demand--but here's tutorial 20, on creating your own attacks in the game.

Actually, stuff moving on screen would lower the need for idle animations indeed. Water can be a bit hard (I had to give up in my game, as there were too many situations to animate with hexagons, but I will try to do it through particle animations), but leaves falling, birds, rain, or trees "idle" animation can make the scene more alive, if you cannot invest in having one idle animation for each character (I am a bit weary of stuff that increases the cost of future assets now. But if you have specific animations for every characters, some idle can be much simpler than the average).

 

[AlexYeCu]

BTW, why there is no Linux version of the TT at GOG and Steam?
I can see 3 platforms at SD site.

 

[Craig Stern]

BTW, why there is no Linux version of the TT at GOG and Steam?
I can see 3 platforms at SD site.

Basically: I'm using AIR, which doesn't officially support Linux anymore, and never supported an integrated installer for Linux. Neither GOG nor Steam will accept a game that requires you to run two separate installers, so the Linux version is not on either site.

 

[Namutree]

This game seems neat. I'll give it a try.

 

[Mustawd]

BTW, really enjoying this game so far, but it's exhausting to play (in a really good way)!

i think that's pretty much the consensus for a lot of us who've played it.

 

[Namutree]

I started playing this morning (Went to sleep immediately after buying it). I'm really enjoying it. I've been binge playing it ever since I woke up. I'm only taking a short break now after losing a buddy and having to restart a battle for the first time.

I did have an issue though:

Spoiler

At the prison sequence when you are infiltrating the bandit fort the guard didn't drop any keys after I killed him. I guess it was a glitch or something as I had to reload twice before he finally dropped those dang keys. To make things worse when I reloaded one of my bandages disappeared. Also, I kinda think that guard was too challenging considering that the game doesn't let you make any preparations before you enter that fort. Personally, I was fine as I've been raising the main characters a lot and hadn't used any bandages, but that place could be a noob grave. I'd recommend lowering his strength and hp a bit so the unprepared don't get trapped and need to restart the game. Not to say I didn't enjoy the pleasant change of pace, but it could have been executed better.

Anyways, beside that little hassle the game has been fantastic. I'll have it beat by the end of Tuesday probably; Wednesday at the latest. I'd have it finished sooner, but work and all that junk. I'll probably make a campaign after I finish the main one too. Probably something simple; like an arena.

 

[JarlFrank]

Playing this now. Enjoying it. Playing on "casual" because permadeath in this game is harsh, and yet I restart a battle every time I lose a character because getting HP lowered is harsh too. I really enjoy the difficulty level though, most maps have to be approached more than once until you finally find a proper tactic to beat it. I like how every character class is useful in its own way. I also like how in a lot of fights, there is a real pressure on you at all times. Now that I leveled my characters properly I'm having an easier time than at the start tho. Level 11 Emma + the cryokineticist girl's frost armor = goddamn fucking invincible in melee.

What I would like to have is an option to save the game during combat, as the fights can become quite long and maybe I wanna save and quit for some reason, so I don't lose all progress. But I've gotten used to not being able to savescum, and the battles are more exciting that way, so eh... I don't mind. Still, a "save and quit" function would be useful.
Also, I had one minor item bug that bugged me (heh) in the prison level and cost me about 100 of my precious monies because I had to buy a spear later. Started the fight in the prison entrance hall, gave the spear to the spear chick, lost the fight. Re-started... and the spear had completely vanished from the inventory, making her entirely useless. Still made her get some XP by shoving people around though. :D
And while I'm at items... eh, making every item have a limited amount of uses and taking away all of a character's attacks once the item breaks is kinda crap. Put quite some money into buying new weapons just to have backups because of that. Losing your bow in the middle of a fight with the trader being still two fights away is shit, since it makes the bow-girl completely useless.

Other than that, the challenge level is just right and I'm enjoying it.

Oh, and the engine is pretty shitty, my game always gets bad performance on maps with rain effects.

 

[Craig Stern]

I did have an issue though:

Spoiler

At the prison sequence when you are infiltrating the bandit fort the guard didn't drop any keys after I killed him. I guess it was a glitch or something as I had to reload twice before he finally dropped those dang keys. To make things worse when I reloaded one of my bandages disappeared. Also, I kinda think that guard was too challenging considering that the game doesn't let you make any preparations before you enter that fort. Personally, I was fine as I've been raising the main characters a lot and hadn't used any bandages, but that place could be a noob grave. I'd recommend lowering his strength and hp a bit so the unprepared don't get trapped and need to restart the game.

Spoiler

Fun fact: I actually tested that fight with a level 1 Emma--if you approach it right, it's beatable even if you somehow didn't level her up at all!

 

[Luka-boy]

Sad to hear mid-battle saves might not be added to the game in the end. A friend and me have been interested in this game since it came out and have been waiting for months for that feature.

 

[Mustawd]

Sad to hear mid-battle saves might not be added to the game in the end. A friend and me have been interested in this game since it came out and have been waiting for months for that feature.

It's definitely sad. I'm waiting for that feature to restart my playthrough. But understandable as he's got a full time job IRL and the save feature is apparently extremely difficult to implement.

 

[JarlFrank]

Will not being able to save mid-game become a bigger issue later on? Cause right now I can live with it, worst battle to get through was the one where I had to rescue the flying gargoyle thingie.

 

[Mustawd]

There are some longer battles after the point you're describing. But it's not really necessary. It's just something missing from the game that keeps me from playing, since I don't necessarily have big chunks of time to devote to it at once.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Also, I had one minor item bug that bugged me (heh) in the prison level and cost me about 100 of my precious monies because I had to buy a spear later. Started the fight in the prison entrance hall, gave the spear to the spear chick, lost the fight. Re-started... and the spear had completely vanished from the inventory, making her entirely useless. Still made her get some XP by shoving people around though. :D

Story of my fucking life. I must have lost 3-4 weapons to this friggin bug :/
At first few fights it wont bother much but it is a pain in later battles. Still a very entertaining game though!

 

[Craig Stern]

I've lost track of how many hours I've spent trying to squash that stupid bug. The nice thing is, thanks to editable save files, you can manually restore any weapons or items that go missing.

 

[Cyberarmy]

The nice thing is, thanks to editable save files, you can manually restore any weapons or items that go missing.

Geeeeez, you're telling me that now?!?

 

[JarlFrank]

I've lost track of how many hours I've spent trying to squash that stupid bug. The nice thing is, thanks to editable save files, you can manually restore any weapons or items that go missing.

I tried, but for some reason the save file edit didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure I added more money to offset the spear I had to buy, but when I loaded the savegame there wasn't actually more money. Weird.