KickStarter Alder's Blood: Definitive Edition - Victorian-fantasy tactical stealth game

[Abu Antar]

Kickstarter campaign is live.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Infinitron]

Funding goal reached: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...n-western-tactical-stealth-game/posts/2604658

100% FUNDED! Thank you!

Hey Hunters,

We love you and we are soooo happy! Thanks to your support, Alder's Blood is now funded on Kickstarter!

THANK YOU!

We have promised that if we reach our goal by the end of the weekend, we will prepare something special for you, so stay tuned for another update tomorrow, when we'll let you know what we've cooked for you! Have a good rest of this lovely Sunday

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...n-western-tactical-stealth-game/posts/2605245

Alder's Blood Demo!

You all are amazing! We don't know if we can ever thank you enough! It was a long journey for the whole team, very often a difficult one. But right now we can all agree that it was totally worth it. Everything is starting to come together and it's just breathtaking (pun intended). Thank you all once again!

Alder's Blood has been funded over the weekend and this is why we have something special for all of you - a Free Kickstarter Demo!

Download from Itch.io here <<<

Download from IndieDB here <<<

The Demo will be available for a limited period of time.

Stretch goals
Now it's time to explore our stretch goals adding even more content to the game!

 

[thesheeep]

Well, that's good.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

There's about 2 days left of the kickstarter campaign.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

edit.
https://turnbasedlovers.com/10-turns-interview/with-alders-blood-developers/

10 Turns Inteview with Alder’s Blood Developers
By
hardcase
-
October 7, 2019
Few weeks ago I decided to take a walk on the grim land of Alder’s Blood.
Among werewolf, vampire and many others nice friends, the travel eventually was really fascinating and I resolved to have a chat with the demonic developers of the game, Shockwork Games, but not before taking a long rifle with me

I don’t’ like to hunt animals, but I really like to hunt demons…

1st Turn) What can you tell us about the world of Alder’s Blood? What were your inspirations?

Hi! First of all thank you for the opportunity for this interview. Alder’s Blood was inspired by a lot of things. Mostly my and Alex’s (illustrator and concept artist on the project) love for dark, Victorian setting. There are not many games where you can play as a vampire/werewolf hunter, so we decided to create one.


Ideas for a world like that were floating around for years before the development even started. Dualism was something I find very attractive and so I incorporated that into the game’s world building. We have this conflicts of extremes: nature, emotions, desires against civilization, reason and logic.

From there the rest started to slowly emerging, building what we have now.

2nd Turn) Once Joseph Conrad said “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness”. Why did you decide to develop a tactical Horror RPG?

With fantastical settings like fantasy or sci fi you have this opportunity to “overdraw” motives and themes. Why? To show some ideas more strongly. That’s one of the reasons we chose the horror setting for Alder’s Blood. Another one was way more trivial. There isn’t a tactical game in such a setting.

This is very important in a saturated market of indie games. An original setting with good artstyle should hopefuly bring more people to the game.

3rd Turn) Ok now let’s talk about weapons, items and loot in general. What can we expect in this regard? Will there be special/unique or magical items?

We have melee weapons, firearms, harpoon launchers and more. Around 30 weapons at the time of writing this, but we want to include more. Some of these weapons will be very unique, “legendary” and can only be unlocked by completing a full quest arc for one of the in-game factions.

Then there are items and these vary greatly from simple medkits and antidotes to magic items that allow our hunters to cast spells. There are also traps that we can set up on the ground and some distraction tools like simple pebbles or a “Screamer”; a damned soul trapped in a piece of resin that screams when thrown on the ground.

4th Turn) I tried the demo and I saw that stealth is very important in Alder’s Blood. When you approach a beast, you have to consider many factors like the smell, the natural weakness of the enemy and your stamina. I have to confess that I’m really intrigued by this feature but also a little worried. Now my question is: the importance of the stealth means that a more brutal and direct approach is always discouraged?

It will depend on the players playstyle. Some may find it more rewarding to sneak past most of the enemies, but others may prefer to kill everything in their path.

But even the more brutal way of dealing with beasts should require good positioning and knowledge of the surroundings. Setting up ambushes for the unaware monsters is probably the best approach for the combat. Running into the unknown may be fatal for your hunters.

5th Turn) The hunters are really fascinating, a figure between an outlaw and a hero of a dark Wild West world. Somehow, they reminded me the gunslingers of the Dark Tower series (Long live Stephen King!). They seem to be the last chance against an eternal damnation, kind of true heroes. So now an obligatory question: there will be the chance for your hunters to be corrupted by the darkness in some way?

I don’t want to spoil too much, but I can say, yes there is a mechanic like that and it will have a long term consequences for your hunters. We also have ideas of how we can build up on this mechanic in the future updates.

6th Turn) Can you explain a little bit more about the exploration system? How much freedom will the players have?

We unlock all the region connections quite early in the game, so if players want to wander around and scavenge resources, or complete random missions, they are free to do so. There are also side quests outside of the game main story, so there are stuff to do in-between story missions.

7th Turn) Ok, now let’s talk about the RPG features of the game. At the beginning of the game it will be possible to create characters from the scratch?

At the beginning players will be provided with a small hunting party of 4 hunters. But players will be able to change everything on them: their avatars, skins, color schemes and even names.

When it comes to recruiting new hunters, we have a system that generates them for the player (3 at a time, with an option to reshuffle). But as with the starting hunters, players can change everything about them

8th Turn) How do you gain XP in the game and how can you customize your characters when they level-up?

You gain Experience by completing missions and it’s important to note that only the mission objective will grant you the XP. We wanted players to focus on the missions and stealth aspect of the game and not fall into a killing spree for extra XP.

Another way to get more experience for your hunters are various events that they may encounter during travels. This may be a choice of helping someone in need or abandoning them to their fate, or a monster pack threatening the people and our choice of what we’ll do about this.

Levelling up hunters is a little bit different from most games. When a hunters reaches a new level players will be presented with a choice of 5 traits (each time they may be different) from which only one can be selected. These will usually change the hunters statistics like his Health or Stamina, but it may also change hunter’s performance in camp (how much resources he will scavenge, how good he will be in protecting the camp from ambushes, etc)

9th Turn) Will there be randomly generated contents in Alder’s Blood? And, if yes, what kind of content will there be?

Right now everything in Alder’s Blood is hand crafted. The way the game plays and rely on stealth make it extremely difficult to produce fun maps with random generations, so we decided to put more effort in polished hand-crafted content.

We have some ideas to include some completely optional mission that would feature something like that. If we decide to actually develop something like that it will be included in one of the post-launch updates.

10th Turn) Can you reveal to our readers when do you think the game will be released?

The release window for Alder’s Blood is January 2020. If we do not face any serious delay we should be able to meet that date with PC and Switch versions. XBOX ONE and PS4 version will be available on a later date.

11th Bonus Turn) Before leaving you, just a bonus question. Which is the latest turn-based game you’ve played or still playing?

Recently I played a lot of games that I already played quite a lot. Mostly Into the Breach and Wargroove. I find myself coming back to these two from time to time, especially Into the Breach. I also started playing the original Advance Wars, but I didn’t had much time to really get into it.

Can’t wait to lay my hands on new Fire Emblem, sounds a lot like something I would enjoy.

Thank you so much for the time you have dedicated to us! Obviously we will continue to follow your amazing project.

To stay up to date on Alder’s Blood and the world of turn-based games, please subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Jinn]

Damn, this is really coming together now. Even the art has improved greatly.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/820020/announcements/detail/1613907015424923746

DevLog: Corruption
Power corrupts
No, it’s not going to be about politics, but… a character progression in Alder’s Blood!

Yup, we have this thing called Corruption in our game and we didn’t think we should talk too much about it, but it’s a pretty big mechanic in the game, so I think it deserves its own DevLog.

If you followed us for some time you probably know that it’s the decaying corpse of God that is responsible for all the troubles in the grim world of Alder’s Blood. Our hunters are the only ones capable of getting rid of this problem as they are the closest creatures to their deceased Father...but it’s also their weakness.

Since they are so close to their god, they are also more vulnerable to its corrupting power. With time it wearies down a hunter, or can even drive him mad as the beasts he once hunted.

How does it translate to gameplay? Hunters gather corruption points as they:

• take part in missions,
  
• attack monsters directly (poison or bleeding doesn’t count!),
  
• take damage from monsters,
  
• use magic or corrupted weapons and items.

When a threshold is breaching during a mission a hunter will gain a negative trait. This may result in decreased maximum health or stamina, or worse performance in camping tasks.

The corruption grows in hunters with time, quicker in more aggressive hunters. How can you counter it? You can’t. Once the corruption level is too high, the hunter can go mad and attack its own crew. Not only you will lose that hunter, but others may get hurt.

The only real option for you is to use a sacrifice ritual. Hunters know that they are not invincible, so they can choose to forfeit their lives to strengthen the younger generation. A more leveled up hunter is also a hunter with higher corruption, by using the sacrifice mechanic a portion of experience can be transferred to a recruit to start fresh.
The trick is to know when the time comes to leave the hunting grounds.

This is quite a gloomy mechanic, but also a one that should prevent players from losing too much progress with the death of the more elite fighters. We hope you will like this idea.

That’s all for today and see you in the next one!

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page for free prologue:

FEATURES:
Tactical Strategy combat
Stealth and preparations
A sneak peek into twisted world of Alder's Blood
Diversity of approaches
Prologue - NOT a Demo
Hey it's free - enjoy and we wish you lots of fun

SUMMARY:
The story takes place before the events from Alder's Blood and changes the perspective from Chief of the Hunters - to a commoner, named Charles.

Charles, as everyone else in this cruel world, is struggling to stay alive. Daring his luck, out of bravery or desperation - he aims for a quick buck and attempts to hunt the spawns of darkness. If he'll survive - income from reselling the remains of the beasts will secure his livelihood for weeks to come.

What he is not aware of, is how his story will soon unfold and his life... changed forever.

In the world ruled by misery and humanity rotting in shadow of God's dead carcass - death, becomes mercy.

 

[Infinitron]

Released on GOG and Newgrounds first: https://af.gog.com/game/alders_blood_prologue?as=1649904300

 

[new fucking guy]

Newgrounds? what the fuck

 

[Darth Canoli]

So, i started to play the prologue.

You start with one character, the system is extremely simple and yet, you have to play a tutorial mission, click here, click here, do that ...
After you win a short battle, you get to a inn and have to suffer through the visual novel storyline.
No dialog choices and yet, you have to click on your one-choice option and nowhere else.

Second mission started and back to desktop, i think this isn't for me.

Thanks for the demo.

 

[Infinitron]

Switch release a month before Steam Early Access release O_o https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pres...pril_10th_Preorder_the_game_on_Switch_now.php

Prepare your gear, sharpen your blades, reload your guns and become the Chief - leader to an exiled group of monster hunters. It’s time to hunt what’s lurking in the shadows in Alder’s Blood - a Victorian-Western stealth tactical game coming to the Nintendo Switch™ on March 13th. Pre-order today and save 25% off the retail price. The game will be also available on Steam Early Access on April 10th.

February 28th, 2020 - Warsaw, Poland

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Before diving into the epic of Alder’s Blood get a taste of what’s to come with the prologue! This free release is available as the demo on the games’ Nintendo e-Shop page. Alder’s Blood is set to launch on the Nintendo Switch console on March 13th this year with the Steam Early Access release date coming on April 10th. The game will also appear on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One stores in the near future.

Pre-order the game on Nintendo Switch:

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/alders-blood-switch/

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Alder-s-Blood-1729222.html

to get this title 25% cheaper.

Wishlist Alder’s Blood on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/820020/Alders_Blood/

to be notified once the complete game launches.

 

[toro]

It will be released next week (10th of April) for $14.99.

 

[ColCol]

I don't know. THe demo was so forgettable, both writing and gameplay wise, I don't have much hope.

 

[Infinitron]

Released:



They decided not to do Early Access in the end, it seems.

 

[Whisper]

How is game, worth playing?

 

[Jenkem]

also want to know, might check out the prologue which they apparently just updated

 

[toro]

The strategic layer is quite weak. Urtuk is much better in this aspect. That's all.

 

[Saduj]

The description for this game includes "stealth based combat". Anyone play enough to get an idea of what that means? I like games where stealth is useful but not a required option in most cases. If every mission involves memorizing patrol patterns and "nobody can see you" is a victory condition, it isn't for me.

 

[toro]

The description for this game includes "stealth based combat". Anyone play enough to get an idea of what that means? I like games where stealth is a useful but not required option in most cases. If every mission involves memorizing patrol patterns and "nobody can see you" is a victory condition, it isn't for me.

You can hide in bushes.

 

[Alpharius]

The description for this game includes "stealth based combat". Anyone play enough to get an idea of what that means? I like games where stealth is a useful but not required option in most cases. If every mission involves memorizing patrol patterns and "nobody can see you" is a victory condition, it isn't for me.

There is this corruption thing that increases each time the hunter attacks\takes damage from an enemy so it seems like the best way to finish a mission is by sneaking through it without attacking anyone, cause loot and xp doesn't seem to depend on kills.

I've completed the first two or three missions by killing everyone before i noticed it and already got permanent debuffs on all my hunters. Then i completed the next 3 missions by sneaking. It was pretty easy and not much fun.

It may be too early to tell, but i'm not sure this corruption thing is such a great idea. At least its not what i'd expect from an x-com(or nuxcom)-like game.

Though one can also forget about corruption and keep accamulting permanent debuffs and later sacrifice hunters to transef xp to new recruits, but i don't see any incenitive to do so so far.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Hm, backed this but i think i wont be touching it for a while. All of this sounds discouraging