Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

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

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Doesn't 'deterministic' in gaming terms mean that it is basically 100% linear?

Nah. Determinism usually refers to mechanics which allow you to predict with 100% certainty the outcome of your individual choices--but because you (and your opponent) will make different choices each time, the game is never the same twice. Think about Chess, or Go--does every game of these that you play turn out exactly the same? Probably not, right? You and your opponent are going to be making different choices and trying out new strategies in each game. So even though the outcome of any one choice is predictable, the course of each match can still vary pretty wildly.
 
Last edited:

vazha

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
2,063
I think you could profitably debate vazha about gender norms (honing your arguments, and perhaps nudging folks toward a better acceptable of your views, which are similar to ones I've talked about in Primordia marketing!).
Except no, he couldn't. I've got no qualms about women being presented as main characters, or frontline fighters, for that matter. Mr.Stern certainly has all the artistic licence he needs to portray ladies as leading characters, notwithstanding what the real history might have to say on that matter. And I have played and enjoyed titles like Heroine's Quest, Kult and Joan of Arc, among others. What I dislike here is simplistic, schoolgirl fanfiction lvl writing that relies on all the worst feminist cliches around (simplistic might not be bad per se - Mr. Bean is comedy at its simplest, yet immensely enjoyable, while this is another kind of simplistic - crude, banal and thoroughly uninspiring). I'm not saying this kind of writing or storylines don't have a right to exist - if the game was an equally simplistic garbage, it would be a match made in heaven, but seeing as the game is a complex, nuanced tacticool rpg, this kind of storytelling diminishes the whole experience. Well, it did for me.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
Doesn't 'deterministic' in gaming terms mean that it is basically 100% linear?

Nah. Determinism usually refers to mechanics which allow you to predict with 100% certainty the outcome of your individual choices--but because you (and your opponent) will make different choices each time, the game is never the same twice. Think about Chess, or Go--does every game of these that you play turn out exactly the same? Probably not, right? You and your opponent are going to be making different choices and trying out new strategies in each game. So even though the outcome of any one choice is predictable, the course of each match can still vary pretty wildly.
So it's like deterministic combat rather than annoying RNG. Sounds good. A deterministic game would be not so much.
 
Last edited:

mindx2

Codex Roaming East Coast Reporter
Patron
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
4,389
Location
Perusing his PC Museum shelves.
Codex 2012 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire RPG Wokedex Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I'll post the full thing here if you don't mind Craig Stern. Liking all the improvements but how close are you to the re-release?

Hey all! It's been a little over a year since our last update on the new Telepath Tactics engine, and I'm still plugging away. Despite taking some time to release a new board game, I've made a ton of progress--so much so that it would be impossible to set it all out here in its entirety*.

That said, here's another little summary for you:

  • First and most importantly, mid-battle saving is now in-engine and working as advertised!
  • We've got proper 3D terrain integrated into the game now! (One nice thing about the new 3D terrain: characters who get shoved into water or lava now visibly sink into it instead of just, like...standing on top it).
105108eb91cb49ff699f56188306a581_original.png

Did I mention that there's a new Sand tileset?
  • Push/pull-type skills are now more powerful. Falling damage now occurs even when dropping a single tile of elevation, and enemies can be slammed into each other to deal significant damage to them both!
  • Created new skills for classes that didn't have many, as well as alternate high-level skills for the core psy fighter classes to offer them differing tactical roles at high levels. There are now more than 150 different skills in the game!
  • A proper lighting system, instead of that janky 2D approximation we had before.
8189f381467868624dfb51a8611facda_original.png

  • We now have a dedicated shop interface! Shops are highly customizable, with the ability to flexibly generate stocks of available items with a high degree of precision over both pricing and content. Oh, and they support selling off unwanted items.
ad265ccbc820aac2902e0450db46cbbc_original.png

  • Procedural item generation is a thing! The engine now supports generating equipment with differing base materials, at differing levels of quality, and with special characteristics (sturdy weapons have increased durability; blazing weapons have reduced durability but a chance to set enemies on fire; armor-piercing weapons ignore 50% of the enemy's resistance; and so on).
  • The engine now has a calendar system that tracks the progression of time, allows events to occur based on the number of days passed and/or the current day of the week, and so on.
e7092daa34d10ac261ef1365ea39de0e_original.png

  • Dovetailing with the calendar system, the engine now has systems for managing food and character salaries. (I won't be using these particular systems in the TT rerelease, but I have plans for them in a future title using this same engine--stay tuned!)
  • There is now a working campaign editing suite! As of now, the suite contains a map editor with fully functional autotiling (meaning that you can simply paint terrain types onto the battlefield, and the game will do the work of figuring out which specific tiles to use based on the stuff surrounding them); an in-depth character creator with its own built-in portrait builder; a dedicated cut scene editor with sub-editors for building custom shops and unit rosters; and a dialogue and script editor with predictive text suggestions and in-engine explanations of the more arcane engine-related features (like reply types and script actions). Still on deck: item and skill editors!
afe22726f0ae155d1138ccc043f17efa_original.png

d727295994dc427ac02389a5d27884fc_original.png

Creating a portrait for a new shadowling in the Character Editor
1f24ea34651c2102662acc37ec8ee422_original.png

Picking out a new background in the Cut Scene Editor
  • Wayyyyyy more cut scene backgrounds. Telepath Tactics had 6; so far, the new engine has 38 with more on the way!
  • The scripting system is more powerful and flexible than ever before! A vastly expanded selection of special characters allow direct access to all manner of in-game data that you can slot directly into script actions, reply actions, and dialogue. As of now, 104 distinct script actions have been fully implemented.
  • Procedural character generation is a thing! Proc gen characters have their own unique generated names, portraits, backgrounds, traits, stat growths, skill progressions, personalities, hobbies, and personalized dialogue. They can interact with one another, form relationships and memories, and directly impact each other's morale. There's a lot more to say about this, but I'll leave it there for now. :)
Hopefully that gives you an idea of what I've been up to! True Messiah stuff ate up more time than I was hoping, but I'm hoping to have an official announcement sometime in the coming months. Until then!

Yours in tactics,

Craig
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
I'll post the full thing here if you don't mind Craig Stern. Liking all the improvements but how close are you to the re-release?

No prob, and thanks!

For logistical reasons, there's a good chance that I'll be releasing a brand-new title (same universe, related story) using the engine before I do the special edition TT re-release. In either case, though, my best guess is that the next release will be coming in 2020, and that the other should follow in the year after.
 

Mustawd

Guest
I'll be releasing a brand-new title (same universe, related story) using the engine before I do the special edition TT re-release

Is that a good idea? I personally bought TT and enjoyed it, but the bugs started to get annoying enough that I stopped my playthrough to wait for them to be fixed. Of course they were not.

Releasing another game before releasing a fixed version of TT kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth tbh.

I’ll prolly wait to purchase any of your new titles till we get a TT re-release that fixes the issues.

But that’s just my opinion.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Patching TT would generate little to no new sales, in no small part because it’s saddled with negative Steam reviews and won’t get new press reviews. Releasing a new game gives him a clean slate and the possibility of significant revenues. Seems like a much wiser course.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,509
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Also also, what could be a good move is just have a new steam listing for the upgraded version (so to remove the negatives) whilst giving THAT version to previous customers. Win win.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Look, I just want to play a bug free Telepath Tactics game. Whatever works I guess. Just sucks to have to wait.
 

mindx2

Codex Roaming East Coast Reporter
Patron
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
4,389
Location
Perusing his PC Museum shelves.
Codex 2012 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire RPG Wokedex Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Look, I just want to play a bug free Telepath Tactics game. Whatever works I guess. Just sucks to have to wait.
I'm surprised you couldn't finish the game. At release there was the very annoying slowdown when battles dragged on but that was patched. Once that was fixed I was able to finish with maybe 2 crashes total...
 

Mustawd

Guest
I kept getting the inventory bugs over and over. As well as the slowdowns.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Releasing another game before releasing a fixed version of TT kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth tbh.

I hear ya. Frankly, TT and the new game are going to share 98% of their systems, so except for a few months of producing battles, working on one will essentially mean making progress on the other. That's true for the releases, too: if I release the new game first and spend months fixing bugs from user reports, those bug fixes will accrue to the TT re-release's benefit. It mostly just comes down to which one makes more sense to release when, more than anything.

One thing I'm actually curious about: I know I didn't do a great job of reining in feature creep with TT, and I have a suspicion that it shipped with at least a couple of systems that involved a disproportionate amount of work relative to the actual user enjoyment they produced. For instance: did anyone actually enjoy the proc gen maps? Would the campaign not have been better with singular, hand-designed maps where those appeared? Is it really worth coding that whole system again? And what about local multiplayer? It kinda felt like that fell flat as a selling point, and ended up just making Steam users mad when they read "multiplayer," ignored the word "local" preceding it, and discovered that the multiplayer was not, in fact, online. What say you, Codex?
 

Mustawd

Guest
1. I always like hand crafted maps vs procedure generated ones, but I don’t have a preference regarding your game.

2. I don’t think I saw anyone talk about multiplayer once. I’m not a big MP fan.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,237
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
And what about local multiplayer? It kinda felt like that fell flat as a selling point, and ended up just making Steam users mad when they read "multiplayer," ignored the word "local" preceding it, and discovered that the multiplayer was not, in fact, online.
Calling it hotseat mode instead of local multiplayer might have helped.
 

vazha

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
2,063
I'll post the full thing here if you don't mind Craig Stern. Liking all the improvements but how close are you to the re-release?

No prob, and thanks!

For logistical reasons, there's a good chance that I'll be releasing a brand-new title (same universe, related story) using the engine before I do the special edition TT re-release. In either case, though, my best guess is that the next release will be coming in 2020, and that the other should follow in the year after.
Please don't do a related story. In fact, please forget you ever wrote this story in the first place. Do something along the lines of earlier telepath titles at least.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Patching TT would generate little to no new sales, in no small part because it’s saddled with negative Steam reviews and won’t get new press reviews. Releasing a new game gives him a clean slate and the possibility of significant revenues. Seems like a much wiser course.

Yes. I liked TT and would buy the new version to support Craig, but a new title would interest me more.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
What's up, RPG chums? I just wanted to pop in to say that I've been assiduously slaving away in the game dev mines all these months, and things are coming along smoothly. I'll be doing my usual end-of-year progress report in approximately a month-and-a-half, and announcing The Next Thing at around that time as well! "Get hype," as the kids used to say! :D
 

Jimmious

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 18, 2015
Messages
5,132
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
What's up, RPG chums? I just wanted to pop in to say that I've been assiduously slaving away in the game dev mines all these months, and things are coming along smoothly. I'll be doing my usual end-of-year progress report in approximately a month-and-a-half, and announcing The Next Thing at around that time as well! "Get hype," as the kids used to say! :D
I'd love a gameplay video of the improved engine :D
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
I expect I'll be putting that out at about the same time as the rest! (The video, I mean. The Dwarf Fortress madness...that's another matter!)
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,050
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Also also, what could be a good move is just have a new steam listing for the upgraded version (so to remove the negatives) whilst giving THAT version to previous customers. Win win.

Yeah do it like Original Sin, which released its Enhanced Edition as a seperate game with its own Steam library entry. Every purchaser of the game got the EE for free, and everyone who buys the game now can install both the classic and enhanced edition at the same time and choose which one to play.

Craig Stern that would be the ideal solution, especially since you switched engines, so people can still play the old game if they want to for some reason, but also get the upgrade for free if they already own the game.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom