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KickStarter Forged of Blood - turn-based tactical fantasy RPG

CritiestBunny

Critical Forge
Developer
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
94
Our latest KS update covers out 3 factions and the bloodlines in Forged of Blood.

Update #10 - The Factions & Narrative Goals

d25ad42bf5d7e053a8465b212756d94d_original.png


We thought it's high time we told you more about the factions at play in Forged of Blood and what we have in mind for them. While you will lead your family and bloodline at the head of the Loyalists, you will have to contend with two other factions for control of Attiras and its throne.

The Loyalists:

b5dc14bb22a2985168b53fb1124077f8_original.png


With your father gone, your seat of power taken, and your armies scattered, the remnants of the imperial forces look to you and your brother to lead them. The Loyalists are few, but you and your bloodline represents some of the most powerful Neshalan lords in the world of Attiras. Take to the field and command up two three other parties of powerful and characters and take back your throne one battle at a time.

The Rebels:

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While you and the other Neshalan rulers of Attiras have enjoyed physical and arcane advantages for hundreds of years, the extinction of the Volgisi have slowly diluted the gene pool of the royal bloodlines. Looking to take advantage of the waning strength in the Neshlalan bloodlines, the humans of Attiras have finally banded together and organized a far reaching rebellion.

Betting it all on a large scale attack on the capital and a number of simultaneous attacks, the Rebels have managed to assassinate the King and seized a large number of regions - slowly stamping out Neshalan rulers in each. Though successful, the initial attack had left much of the of the Rebel leadership dead and they look to a new and untested leader while they consolidate their holdings.

The Claimants:

89156066a289851ab92a07314edcee24_original.png


Led by the second most powerful Neshalan bloodline, the Claimants sought to quickly destroy the Rebels and claim the throne as their own. Clever, powerful, and wealthy, the Claimants suffer the most common of aristocratic flaws: hubris.

While the young princes (the player and his brother) flee the capital, the Claimants declared themselves the rightful rulers of Attiras and marched an army to the capital, only to be met by a devastating Rebel ambush that left their heir dead and their main army routed. Though wounded, the Claimant force has managed to carve out a section of Attiras for themselves and are able to field large war parties of "Fallen" soldiers to face any threat.

How it all comes together:

For Forged of Blood, the player will play as Tavias Caenican, the second son and heir presumptive to the throne of Attiras. He and his family are of the most powerful bloodline in Attiras, containing the most pure Volgisi blood in their families. Now while it might seem like a bit of a mouthful right now, we've chosen to create these layers of bloodlines and races not only as part of the larger, richer world of Attiras, but to also allow for different bloodlines to have different advantages in the game.

The Rebel - led and run by humans - will represent the first and largest threat to the player. However, human soldiers are significantly weaker than the Neshalan Loyalists and will field more units in battle. Serving as the half-way point between the pure-blood Neshalan and the human units are the Fallen. The Fallen are the product of selective breeding between certain Neshalan bloodlines and humans to make a lower caste of citizen but perfect soldiers in the world of Attiras. These Fallen will make up the majority of the Claimant faction's forces, allowing for smaller parties of units in the field while still being effective in combat.

In terms of gameplay, the two opposing factions arrayed against the player's Loyalist parties will give different challenges for the player to face. Rebel encounters will pose numerous amounts of enemies while Claimant forces will field parties in similar size to the players. Of course, the inclusion of magic on the tactical map can really tilt the balance of power in any way.

For now, we believe that we've really drawn out some of the most interesting parts of the world and managed to translate that into interesting builds and encounters for the tactical game. We'll close this update off with the last of our pre-recorded Dev Talk episodes that cover our narrative approach, and we hope the this look into our factions and story gives you all a better impression of how it will all come together.

 

CritiestBunny

Critical Forge
Developer
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
94
Thanks for posting the videos! Sorry again for the potato quality sound... I'll roll those into an update later this week.
 

daveyd

Savant
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
287
I hope Critical Forge decides to try Fig.
Not sure that would help. I know I wouldn't pledge there.

I think it'd help with exposure which is the main thing preventing them from reaching their goal on KS. (Aside from only running 1 or 2 campaigns at a time, the project could potentially get shoutouts from inXile, Obsidian, etc.).

I'm not sure what the difference is between pledging for a copy on KS and Fig is. Except that Fig takes less of a cut of the backer up front (just the ~2% processing fee instead of the 10% from Kickstarter / Stripe IIRC).
 

daveyd

Savant
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
287
That's true, or at least Critical Forge thinks they have the funding to complete it in some form. I just always find it a shame when promising indie developers cannot make the game with the full set of features / scope they envisioned.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,889
I hope Critical Forge decides to try Fig.
Not sure that would help. I know I wouldn't pledge there.

I think it'd help with exposure which is the main thing preventing them from reaching their goal on KS. (Aside from only running 1 or 2 campaigns at a time, the project could potentially get shoutouts from inXile, Obsidian, etc.).

I'm not sure what the difference is between pledging for a copy on KS and Fig is. Except that Fig takes less of a cut of the backer up front (just the ~2% processing fee instead of the 10% from Kickstarter / Stripe IIRC).
The difference is that Fig uses their press connections to promote your game.
 

daveyd

Savant
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
287
Yup this will probably be the best failed KS out there :(

Definitely in my top 5. I'm also still bummed about Deathfire, Seven Dragon Saga, and Prisonscape.

I hope Critical Forge decides to try Fig.

Never heard of those games before :/

Deathfire was Guido Henkel's project that was cancelled after the KS failed a few years ago. :( Seven Dragon Saga is a CRPG being made by a lot of the former SSI (Gold Box) developers. However, since the KS failed they're only working on it part-time so progress has been very slow. Prisonscape is also still being worked on and is currently in alpha / beta and available for pre-order. Don't let the pixel art fool you, it's going to be a CRPG.
 

santino27

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
2,679
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Still hoping for good things from SDS, but yeah, things have been really, really, really slow since the KS failed.
 

CritiestBunny

Critical Forge
Developer
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
94
Hey guys, Igor here with the sombre update most of you have seen coming. Not gonna lie, it sucks, but we're picking ourselves up and continuing on. In the silence since our last update, we've started to implement a lot of updates to our UI and gameplay loops. We're fleshing everything out and while we do have to tighten our purse strings a little more now, we are still on track.

I've copied and pasted our last Kickstarter update here:

01c7b49c90440d7e015a1ee39c585ad3_original.png



Hi everyone,

We want to take this time to express just how grateful we all are for the support we’ve received in these last couple months. Though our campaign ends with a bit of a whimper, we will continue to develop Forged of Blood as promised and we’re still firm on our 2018 release date. So, we know that many of you will have questions and we’re going to do our best to answer them here - starting with the three big questions we asked ourselves when we first started development on Forged of Blood:

  • Do we actually have the capability to make the game we have always wanted?
  • Will our vision resonate with Tactical RPG players?
  • Will the game be economically sustainable to allow us to continue doing what we love to do everyday?
In our push to get a build to show for both PAX East and Kickstarter, we’ve managed to answer the first two questions easily. Our pre-alpha demo provided a solid proof of concept in our ability and in the entertainment value of our game. We were able to prove to ourselves that yes: Forged of Blood as we envisioned it is well within our grasp, and perhaps more importantly: it is actually a lot of fun. When it came to the TRPG players out there, the few that got the chance to play the build thoroughly enjoyed it and saw the nuances in our system even at the pre-alpha stage. Now to be entirely honest, the jury is still out on Question 3, and given how we’re ending this campaign it would be fair for some to say that this venture is not financially viable. However, we went into it as a passion project, and we’ll see it through knowing that we will enter 2018 with a game that our fans will love.

6d1f7ddf2a440d929865d708419f51df_original.png


Though unsuccessful, our first Kickstarter campaign and our first steps into into this industry has been a treasure trove of lessons and unrelenting support; and we are ever grateful for all the kind words and critiques we’ve received. We’ll try to break down as much of our reasoning and thought processes below for those of you who want to know more about us and our decisions.

We’ll start by reiterating our main goals for the Kickstarter campaign that was mainly aimed at giving us the funds to take on some of the “nice to have” embellishments for our game. These are aspects of the game that we feel would enhance the experience of Forged of Blood, but would not be completely missed if they were not there. Expanded visual effects, character voice acting, and a larger writing team are all things that would definitely have added a higher degree of polish to the final product but are ultimately ancillary to the core gameplay and it’s enjoyment.

Regarding our start date for the campaign, we really have to address the question of time. Our plan was (and is) to make Forged of Blood over the span of two years and in an ideal situation we would have entered our funding round before we started production. Efficiency and planning have an exponential correlation over time, and we would have liked to be able to go into production having already raised funds from Kickstarter - like many game campaigns before us - so we are able to plan according to that budget.

Ultimately, we decided against that approach when we took into account the current state of video game crowdfunding campaigns and the fact that we are a brand new studio that has yet to put itself on the video game map. That put the burden on us as a studio and as game developers to show our chops as it were and we couldn’t have gone into the campaign with just concept art.

As it stands, with a year behind us and another year ahead of us, Forged of Blood is in a pre-alpha state. A state in which we are able to show our core game loop in a very tangible way, but are far enough away from release date that we would be able to plan for a course of action that can make the most efficient use of crowdfunding to address our “nice to have” list. That was the sweet spot we felt we needed to hit to be able to come to Kickstarter: the point in our schedule and budget where the injection of funds can take us to new heights or firmly set our development to the scope we can afford to take it on our own.

Finally, the matter of our Kickstarter funding goal is one of the most debated topics both internally in the studio and within the fan communities we’ve been a part of. We’ll start off by saying that our philosophy was to raise funds that we know could make a significant impact - you know the whole “go big or go home” mentality resonated pretty well with a bunch of nerds working on the ultimate passion project. That meant that we really didn’t want to dip our toes into the crowdfunding purely for pre-orders or a chance to mitigate risk.

Now we’ll address what our funding ask of S$ 150,000 or around US$ 107,000 would have truly entailed and why the number was ultimately that high. Starting with our intentions to expand on the visual effects - especially in regards to the magic system, this was truly one of those things that was an all or nothing aspect of production. As of now, we’ve planned for and funded ourselves to be able to show and mix spell effects that would look truly wonderful; but as many of you who have asked us about the magic know we have a lot more than just spell effects. We have modifiers that will further customize and shape the spells, and the moment we start to create new visual effects for each nuanced modifier and their eventual integration into a single spell… Well. You can imagine how the number of new visual effects will balloon. Let us not forget the amount of time it would take it properly hook up and integrate each visual effect with the corresponding spell mechanics. That would have multiplied our current visual effects budget of US$ 2500 by ten, in addition to needing a longer production runway for the programming team to implement, costing would run to an estimated total of USD$35,000.

The same principle applies for character voiceover work. If we voiced only our two main characters then the game will feel empty. If we voiced our main characters and a small selection of the supporting characters then the game will feel unfinished and unpolished. The course of action we decided on was to provide a large enough contingency fund for quality voice acting that would allow us to tell the story we want properly. Conservatively speaking, we were looking at allocating around $10,000 for a proper selection of characters to be voiced along with our cutscenes and cinematics.

24656b8a65d238a1a6326f6cfe6979b5_original.png


$ 55,000 that would have been allocated to expanding our current writing team of one largely overworked guy to at least two… largely overworked guys/gals, and ideally more (subject to negotiations and pricing of course, but from our conversations and previous experience running another studio, you generally get what you pay for). We so desperately wanted to expand the team because as it is, most of the team are filling in for multiple roles at the studio and to say that the team is over extended would be a bit of an understatement.

Narrative choice and consequence is one of our foundational design pillars, and thus far we’ve found a few creative ways to create agency across the various narrative sequences we have planned. But there is always that itch to do more… to be able to make more and allow for even more actions in the game (passion project right?). Being able to have bring on a few more writers would really open up our already branching tree of choices and consequences into a whole forest for players to explore.

To us, all of these embellishments went hand in hand, and to do one without the other would have broken the cohesion of the final game output. Right now, Forged of Blood still promises to be a Tactical RPG experience that focuses on nuance and player agency - our magic system, tactical combat mechanics, character building, and planned narrative threads are still green lit in our production and we fully intend to deliver and build upon what we’ve made. Our failure here on Kickstarter is one that cut a very personal wound in our hearts, but it ultimately only detracted add-ons we would have liked and not our core vision.

Furthermore, we felt that if we were to go in with a much lower funding goal - say $50,000 - we couldn’t have realistically promised what we did with our current goal. That would have effectively categorized our Kickstarter campaign as pre-orders and not as a means to make the game truly better. To us, that just feels… off. We see digital pre-orders as a way to measure early viability, and for larger game studios large pre-order numbers help to allay shareholder needs and wants. They are ultimately great for developers but might not necessarily have the interests of the consumer in mind and so we we stuck to our plan.

As we look ahead and beyond this decidedly upsetting turn of events, we know that Forged of Blood will have a little less eye candy to draw people in. This may very well impact our long term sales viability - or it may not - but to the hardcore Tactical RPG fans we’ve met around the world: this is still the game you’ve been waiting for. The promises we’ve made, the mechanics we’ve designed are still our primary goals and though the mechanics and design decisions are in a constant state of flux, the game and it’s enjoyment will remain our driving force. Our inability to expand our team just means that we carry forward the same burdens and responsibilities that we have carried over the last year, and in many ways that might work out for the best.

We have also been asked on multiple occasions if we would give Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platforms a shot at a later date, and the answer to that is an unsatisfactory: “maybe.” Right now, our focus is to continue developing the game so that if we do decide to seek additional funds, Forged of Blood would be in much more advanced state and people would be able to approach our vision with a little less hesitation. Until then, we have a lot of lessons to learn from here and a lot more work to do.

1b940e3115a352ba0c8b021567d1ee75_original.png


To our backers: we count you as our game’s most passionate supporters - your pledges speak to your commitment to the genre and our game. In the coming weeks we will be sending out a survey that will offer opportunities to be even more involved in our production and we can’t wait to hear from each of you.

This has been a humbling, trying, but ultimately rewarding experience for us as a studio. We’ve had the chance to meet and talk to so many passionate fans of our genre, and we would also like to take this chance to use our efforts here to help another tactical game that does have some very similar goals as we do.






The guys over at Fort Triumph are in the middle of their campaign, and everyone here on the Forged of Blood team are rooting for those guys to succeed. We are also eagerly waiting on the huge success of Phoenix Point by original X-COM devs. Our genre is niche, and the devs around the world that work on games like ours help to bring visibility back to the sort of tactical gaming that we have sorely missed.

At the end of the day, this campaign and the efforts that preceded it have truly validated our game concept. Commercial viability aside, Forged of Blood seems to have well and truly resonated with many of the genre’s fans and we’ll keep going until that 2018 release date.

Thank you all so very much for your support. We’re stinging a little here, but we’re not stopping.

The Critical Forge Team
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,176
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
CritiestBunny
joesys

Are you still finding alternatives for funding or decided to go what with you have? I really want to see this game in its full potential.

I think i agree that the probkem with the campaign is the lack of visibility and exposure.

I had reccomended to reach up to the usual rpg celeb like MCA, sawyer, swen, fargo, etc.

The game deserve a second chance imo, maybe try fig or indiegogo.

Butcif you decide running a campaign again is too tiring and rather to spend time making the game i wish u guys great luck
 

CritiestBunny

Critical Forge
Developer
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
94
CritiestBunny
joesys

Are you still finding alternatives for funding or decided to go what with you have? I really want to see this game in its full potential.

I think i agree that the probkem with the campaign is the lack of visibility and exposure.

I had reccomended to reach up to the usual rpg celeb like MCA, sawyer, swen, fargo, etc.

The game deserve a second chance imo, maybe try fig or indiegogo.

Butcif you decide running a campaign again is too tiring and rather to spend time making the game i wish u guys great luck

Right now we're putting more of our own funds to keep the game going which does hurt, but will let us focus on pushing the game out faster. It was very disheartening for me personally as I was charged with marketing the game and all indications point to a rather piss poor execution of that job. Hundreds of cold emails to media outlets and media personalities didn't get us very far. A lot of it also had a direct correlation to my unwillingness to shell out for PR lists and access because I was naive enough to believe that the quality of our work would be enough to carry us through (and we really just don't have the money to put into that... through now we know we'd have to.) I chose instead to go at it with brute force - build and reach out to my own lists because I thought that would be a more personal way to reach out to people. Anyway, the optics of another crowdfunding campaign so soon after this first failure aren't good and we'd prefer to go at it again when we even more of the game to show - though at that point the reasons to go into crowdfunding will change a little.

I think for the moment I need to put the marketing stuff on the back burner and get back to actually writing the story and game design elements and we'll probably revisit Kickstarter and Fig when we are further along. I've had to put off so many little things here and there that I am now causing a bit of a gridlock in the team as a lot of them are waiting on stuff from my end.
 

Arulan

Cipher
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
313
It's disappointing to see the campaign end this way. This game was definitely one of the highlights of PAX East for me.

Good luck with development. I'm looking forward to seeing more as it progresses.

Any chance you'll be at PAX East next year?
 

CritiestBunny

Critical Forge
Developer
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
94
It's disappointing to see the campaign end this way. This game was definitely one of the highlights of PAX East for me.

Good luck with development. I'm looking forward to seeing more as it progresses.

Any chance you'll be at PAX East next year?

Hmm, we're still shooting for a number of events between now and release though we'd try to go through indie channels like Indie Mega Booth to get into them. I think I'd definitely like to bring the game to PAX next year, but we'd have to see if we can actually carry that cost ourselves again.
 

CritiestBunny

Critical Forge
Developer
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
94
Ok, so enough doom and gloom - back to the fun stuff. So one of the things we've talked and received a ton of feedback on has been our UI and so we spent the last month or so addressing those issues and we had our AD Ken do a blog post to show some of the changes we've made. I'll be doing a big showcase of the UX going into our Strategic and Castle Layers in the next couple weeks after that.

Link to post (and quoted below): http://forgedofblood.com/2017/05/19/tactical-ui-overhaul/


Tactical UI Overhaul
Foreword:

Hey guys, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming (blog schedule) as we formally close our crowdfunding round. While the outcome was unfortunate (see our closing remarks here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/criticalforge/forged-of-blood/posts/1877218 ) we are excited to go back to our (more or less) regular production schedule as the team is no longer stretched out in trying to chase down PR leads and maintaining the campaign. To everyone who keeps up with us here and on the communities we are always open to your comments and suggestions so please do continue to engage us. To start us off with a bang, Ken’s here to talk about our most recent overhauls to Forged of Blood:

The UI Overhaul

Hello readers, this is Ken writing, and I am back with a post covering our UI (User Interface) and more specifically UX (or User Experience), and their evolution. For this blog, I will focus on the Tactical Layer specifically.

Rethinking Our Tactical Layer

While our first run at the UI design worked well from the art standpoint (Igor and I are very happy with the minimalist fantasy thing we have going on), our trips to Gameprime Asia 2016 and PAX East 2017 gave us a lot of to reflect on. During the events, we had players play our Tactical Layer gameplay. Although there were a lot of gameplay improvements from Gameprime to PAX, the UI and UX remained consistent throughout, so feedback and criticism about the UI were taken very seriously by us. One of the most jarring UI issues we saw was that players kept trying to hit enemies behind cover using low-level Maul attacks – with a 0% Hit Chance. This concerned us as this meant that the displayed tactical information was not conveyed well to the players.
In the old Tactical UI, when a player had to make a decision to attack an enemy, their eyes needed to shift to the bottom left area to check their attack’s Hit Chance. While if you need to check the status of the enemy you had selected, you had to look towards the bottom right area. This huge space gap of space between the displayed information was very unintuitive as players will tend to be oblivious about the information presented.

1a.jpg

1a. First UI Pass, Concept



1b.jpg

1b. First UI Pass, In-game



As we were examining the previous Tactical UI, we also felt that some elements were not doing much and only added to the screen clutter. If you look at the above screenshots, what we called the Action Center (the panel at the bottom center), contained icons that were not used often by the players and were there mostly for redundancy – we had buttons to Attack, Move, Shift, Use Item, Interact. Fathur (our programmer) brought a great point that the center area of the screen should be used for very important actions and information, and with the previous implementation, the most important aspects, such as Abilities and attack Hit Chance, were located to the side.

Although we liked how the Action Points were conveyed (the bar and node designs above the icons), it was not easily expandable and that’s became a problem. Due to iterations in the game design, units are now able to have up to two digits of Action Points, and with the old UI, it’s almost impossible to expand the number of points displayed.

What’s interesting to see in our iterative design process is how our design philosophies shift with feedback and experience. Going into our first UI pass, the philosophy was to present the player as much information as possible to allow for a deliberate action. This led to the cluttered mass of information that our players experienced, and through feedback, we quickly shifted our design direction to one that tiers the information presented. Before we tackle the UI changes, we first had to revisit all the relevant tactical information and properly categorize them in order of importance. Which naturally led us to revisit the user experience as a whole.

Rethinking Our UX

Our conversation started by discussing the feedback we have gotten from our players. Coming into the UX challenge, we first had to redefine the goals for the Tactical Combat. We listed the information and actions that the players needed to be take to achieve those goals. After establishing an order of importance for each action and presented information with the game designers, we also had to look at the primary, secondary, and tertiary placement of information and how it is all ultimately accessed by the player. Several of the team members, namely Pandu, Fathur, and myself went on to do some research about how tactical information was laid out in other games.

2.jpg

2. UI Research

The decision was made to streamline player interaction and information overlay to the mouse cursor. Information that we had relegated to the lower tiers of importance will now be accessible through additional steps, while all actions and top-tier information are available immediately in the primary Tactical Layer.

3a.jpg

3a. New UI Concept, unexpanded



3b.jpg

3b. New UI Concept, Expanded

So in the new UI flow, we changed how the Left and Right Clicks work. Left Clicks are now actions, and Right Click is used to access more detailed information and actions. Streamlining the new tactical UX as such:

  • Top Tier Information (Image 3a):
    • Turn order (top center)
    • Player Character information (bottom left)
    • Accessible Player Actions (bottom center)
      • Base Tactical Actions, Player Character Abilities
    • Gameplay information (top left and bottom right)
      • Quest information, Actions taken
    • Action Information (on mouse cursor)
      • Ability Descriptions, Hit Chance on Target, Action Tooltips
  • Secondary Tier Information (Image 3b):
    • NPC Information & Available Actions (on mouse cursor, on right-click on target)
    • Expanded Character Information Sheet (windowed overlay, on left-click Character button)
    • Expanded Lore Information Sheet (windowed overlay, on left-click Codex button & demarcated hyperlink)
    • Game Menu (windowed overlay, on left-click Game Menu button)
As you can see, the Action Center is now merged with the Ability Bar in the center, with the current character’s abilities as the focus. We feel that this is more important than showing just the actions and relegating the abilities to the side. The move actions are also streamlined: all move actions are now just called Move in the Action Center (located at the bottom right). The previous actions are now located to the sides while the End Turn button is unchanged. Action Points Panel has also replaced the old design, it now clearly displays (in numbers) how many points the unit has. We have also made Objectives and Combat Log to be more easily accessible to the player by moving them to the top left and bottom corners of the screen respectively.

You will also notice that the Turn Order is now bigger and more prominent on the screen – clearly showing what armor the units are wearing and whose turn it is and where the unit’s next turn will be. The frames of the units also reflect the allegiance of each unit in the tactical layer: red being enemies, green being controllable units, and blue NPC allies. The color information is also reflected in the floating health bar above the units.
Here’s a WIP of how it looks in-game. Note that not all of the changes have been implemented yet.

4.jpg

4. New Tactical UI Work-in-Progress

Additional UX Quality of Life Changes

There are a few other additional features/changes we have decided upon that affects players’ User Experience. One such issue that we addressed is helping players distinguish what’s a cover object and what’s not, we had to identify the problems and define some guidelines for the artists to follow. Before PAX, there were no rules about covers, so any object of any size could either be a Partial Cover, a Full Cover, or a Complete Cover, as long as they feel like it’s suitable. It’s very arbitrary and subjective, and ultimately, confusing to the player. This was especially apparent in more natural maps. Distinguishing between traversable path and covers was like a guessing game.

So to solve this issue, we now have defined rules for each type of cover. Partial Covers can now not go over 1 block high is one of such rules. There are definitely more to the cover changes, but basically the rules are now helping the players identify the visual information better.

That is all for this week’s blog post about our tactical UI and UX updates. Thank you for reading, I hope it was an enjoyable read from start to finish. See you again next time.

– Ken
 

CritiestBunny

Critical Forge
Developer
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
94
Did a quick post on the cover updates mentioned last week. Actually curious what you guys think since a lot of you already saw the forest map in action.


Cover Object Visual Updates
We’ve got a quick follow up to Ken’s post on the UI updates and the visual changes we’ve made to our cover system. While last week’s post covered most of the biggest updates we’ve made to the UI, we thought it would be nice to give a quick look at the “quality of life” changes Ken mentioned in how we’re visually treating the full and partial covers on the tactical map.

We’ll start off by showing the forest map (full gameplay video of the map) we showed at PAX which we actually really loved because of the dense foliage and the arrangement of Cover Objects on the map that created natural choke-points and engagement zones. The introduction of magic to our build also allowed players to open up new avenues of attack which was an absolute blast. However, with all the cover objects being trees of some sort – even with our new UI updates and the overlaid “cover markers” – it was still very hard to distinguish what was Full and Partial cover as well as figuring out which parts of the map were indestructible map blockers. That’s where our new guidelines came into play.

BanditCamp_Old.jpg

Bandit Camp (forest environment), version 1.

BanditCamp_Old2.jpg

Bandit Camp (forest environment), version 1 with Cover Object Markers shown.

The first thing we set was height restrictions for objects that will count as Partial Cover, and introduced density restrictions for objects we’d count as Full Cover. Without going too much into the long discussions we had, our final guidelines are basically:

  • Partial Covers should not be greater than the height of a humanoid character and should encompass a good portion of a cube to be able to provide cover from all four sides.
  • Full Covers should be greater than the height of a humanoid character, be dense enough to provide cover from all four sides, but be porous enough that targets can still be hit.
We had a few more rules than that, but those were the big two. Below are the objects that we resized and shaped for the different Cover Objects in relation to a character. You’ll see the new cover objects and how they fit which cubic tile below:

Plain_Covers_02.jpg

New Cover Objects (plains and forests) with Cover Object Markers shown.

Plain_Covers_01.jpg

New Cover Objects (plains and forests).

With proper guidelines set for Cover Objects, we still had the issue of the indestructible trees that were placed as Map Blockers. From a map design perspective, these indestructible Map Blockers were used to control the flow of the map and create different tactical opportunities in the terrain. The main issue with using trees in a heavily forested map means that it makes it difficult for the player to know which trees are Cover Objects and which trees are blockers. After weighing the pros and cons of drastically changing the feel of the map, we decided that player understanding of the terrain takes priority over ease of map design for us. We ultimately made a blanket rule that Map Blockers now need to be part of the terrain (as in rock formations, hills, solid buildings, or rivers and lakes) and cannot compete with Cover Objects when placed within the boundaries of the Tactical Combat Map.

BanditCamp_New2.jpg

Bandit Camp (forest environment), version 2 with Cover Object Markers shown.

BanditCamp_New.jpg

Bandit Camp (forest environment), version 2.

The result, as you might see, is drastic – both from a visual and a tactical standpoint – but we think it’s for the best as it does allow the player to survey the field a bit more. Setting these rule-sets for the game for us is one of those “obvious now that we did it” sort of things – and also one of the truest reflections of the hurried production schedule we face as a small indie studio.

Forged of Blood is our first run at game development as our own studio, and try as you might to account for every rule and guideline, there is something to be said for human fallibility and inexperience. More often than not, things have to be pushed back and pipeline urgencies and sensibilities only emerge when an issue is too big to ignore. We are at ultimately very lucky to have a team that is able to see these issues, discuss them, and make a change (without too much yelling).

AllCoverSelection.jpg

Updated Cover Objects across multiple environments.

Lienny and Jenny have spent the last few weeks going through each of our environments and updating the Cover Objects to our guidelines, as well as assembling a set of objects that can be used in each environmental tileset. Ken also had his hands full tackling how these new rules will affect a lot of the fully custom architectural assets needs to be handled (more on some the gorgeous work he and the art team have have done later). Anyway, I’ll leave off here with a look at the Cover Objects the girls have created so far, and we’ll cover each environment a later date.

With our tactical map production pipeline now moving at a solid pace, our next big challenge is finalizing the rest of the game. For now, here’s a little look at what we’ve been working on as well: laying out the basic UX flow for our Strategic and Castle layers (we’ll have an post on that soon!).

FoB_UXSnip.png

Cheers everyone, until next time.

Igor
 

CritiestBunny

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Ok we need to start putting more pretty things up... so here's our latest blog post with one of the most time consuming maps to date (to be topped of by only a few other maps later):

Behind the Map: “Mirlitas Ruins”
Hey everyone, Igor here.

We’ve been pushing this update back for a bit to make sure we have everything we need to show it off, and it’s finally here. This post showcases once of our larger production maps that will be in Forged of Blood. With all the work that has gone into it, we thought it’d be nice to do a tag-team post again to show how the map goes from one end of the studio to the other.

When we started churning out maps for tactical combat in Forged of Blood, the vast majority of them were designed with tactical play in mind. Creating multiple avenues of approach, engagement points, and allowing for creative solutions in approaching the combat has always been at the forefront of our design philosophy, and once the maps are blocked out, they were passed on to the art side for production (see our post by the art team). For the most part, these maps reused assets according to their environment and were designed with multiple uses in mind – these maps would make the large pool of maps we’ve slotted for the many encounters players would have in-game.

We did however, reserve a handful of maps for one-off uses that would be lore-specific and today we’ll cover the “Mirlitas Ruins.” Without giving too much away, this tactical map is housed in a section of a vast ancient city where the player will encounter a powerful new enemy – or potentially gain a new ally.

With so many little projects going on concurrently, I teamed up with Joe to get the map designed. Going into the design, I had a few story specific objectives that Joe needed to translate into a blocked out map in-engine. First, I wanted the opening engagement to take place in the center of a map where the player’s party will be surrounded by NPCs at an elevated position – an ambush. The story I had in mind gives players the option to engage in a bit of diplomacy instead of outright combat, the map had to be designed to put players in a tactically inferior starting position, but have multiple egress routes to disengage and regroup. Part of the lore I had written also pointed to an inherent weakness in the enemy forces that could help the player end the battle quickly – if they could see the right avenues of approach and had the character builds required. All this plus the need to build a assets and architecture that are unlike the rest of the maps we’ve created so far make this one of the more time intensive maps to produce.

With that I’ll pass this on to Joe for a look at how he interpreted the tactical needs of the story into the map.

Joe:
Hi, Joe here. When I chatted with Igor regarding the map, I started to think what sort of maps would be suitable. Given the pivotal moment where the protagonist will either face a powerful enemy or gain new allies, I thought of the idea that the protagonist will have to make a pilgrimage to seek help. I immediately thought of The Seven Thousands steps on the Throat of the World in Skyrim and like the idea of pilgrimage steps.

For the ambush Igor mentioned, I was thinking that the area where the protagonist spawns will be pretty open with very few cover objects to hide behind. The area should also be enclosed with enough “spawn” points for the ambushers to spawn. Finally, since the protagonist will also meet and have a chance to engage in some key dialogue, I wanted a memorable place for the entire conversation to be set in. With that in mind, this is what I came up after several iterations:

MirlitasBlocking1.png

The idea is for the protagonist to walk up the steps and finally meet and talk to a faction leader on top of the stairs. Notice the area has relatively less cover and surrounded by “buildings.” Perfect for ambusher spawn points.

Originally, I planned for the faction leader to stand at this platform.

MirlitasBlocking2.png

I envisioned the platform to be a toppled, half destroyed statue like the image below (keeping in mind the ancient grandeur Igor wanted for the ruins).

StatueSource.jpg

Given the background of the factions and faction leader, I thought it would be a powerful image for the player if negotiation for the faction’s help is held while the faction leader stands on the ruins of the previous civilization. Ultimately, we decided to change the platform into another building as this map exceeds the time budget if we were to implement half destroyed statue as platform.

As usual, I tried to make multiple solution approaches for the map so that the player does not have to complete the scenario exactly the way that we designed it to be.

One example in this map is how the player’s respond to the ambush (if ambush happens). If the player decides to retreat, then one way is to run down the stairs, drawing and taking multiple attacks by the ambushers. Or the player can try to make use of this “collapsed” section of the wall as a shortcut and jumped down instead of going through the stairs. However, the player has to charge through multiple ambusher should they chose this route. A fast but fragile party might prefer to sprint through the enemies while the slower but defensive party might prefer wider route. That’s all from my end, once Igor and I liked where the map was, we could hand then pass it on to the art side.

MirlitasBlocking3.png

Igor:
Once the map was blocked out by Joe, the next phase was to sit down with Ken and set the environmental theme for the map. In the Forged of Blood lore, this was an ancient city and the architectural style is one that would permeate throughout the world, and what the current world’s architectural stylings are derivative of. I knew that I wanted it to be grand and ornate. Something appropriate to the architectural tendencies of powerful beings, and the style had to reflect a race that was based on a matriarchal society. Anyway, the heavy lifting then went to Ken really bring the map to life.

Ken:
With this map, my goal was to design a part of the city for the tactical gameplay area. The map was designed with a huge staircase leading up to the big open area, I imagined that this could be the entrance to the city. Visitors coming from the mountain go up through the staircase where the area opens up to a big square. Of course, it’s hard to depict scale with limited resource and pre-determined greybox blocked by the game designers, so there were some liberties taken with the layout of the main square. It’s definitely going to feel more condensed than what an actual city square will look like.

During my first dip into the map, I had to find reasons why the map (or this part of the city) is blocked off. There needs to be a sensible reason why the playable area is restricted. I thought maybe it could be cool visually to show that the mountain where the city is located, was starting to split and slide off, thus causing the destruction of the bridge that leads to the inner city area and also the divide between the main square area. As the mountain split and the city destroyed, the place has now become desolate and deserted. We went off with that idea.

Mirlitas-Concept.jpg

For the design of the architectural style itself, I took a lot of inspirations from gothic architectural styles with the arches and flying buttresses. Gothic architectures were supposed to reach the heavens so they are typically very tall and I think it’s very fitting because the Volgisi was the ancient civilization that was formed from all the different Volgisi clans. My goal was to make their architectural style more elegant, thus the arches and the lighter colored materials used for the buildings. Once the art was done, we passed it on to Lienny.

Lienny:
After getting the concept art for the map, the map was divided into 3 categories, full custom assets, semi custom assets and modular pieces that will be used in different parts.

Mirlitas-Screenshot-1.jpg

The map itself has a number of specific structure designs that only appear in this particular map, so choosing the right pieces to custom make is the first thing I did to measure the total time allocation for this map.

After the process is done, I began to block out the structures that are supposed to be fully custom, and then I moved on to the modular pieces first, as some of the modular pieces will still be implemented to create a semi custom piece like the walls or stairwell. Full custom pieces are reserved for the buildings structures like houses and towers, etc.

Mirlitas-Concept-2.jpg

In total there are 6 fully custom assets, 4 semi custom, and 40 pieces of custom modular assets.

For fully customized pieces, there were some issues implementing the concept art into the map. Some of the blocked space for the structure is too small for the design, and the structure itself ended up looking like a miniature piece in the map. We discussed this with the level designer and ended up with increasing the blocked out space to fit the concept design.

Aside issues of the game play area itself, I also need to make the “feel” of the surrounding environment, and ended up with making the whole map twice the gameplay area to reflect the surroundings, and while this is ongoing, there were also changes of covers and walls specification by the game design team – so we had to go back and redesign some of the custom cover objects.

In the end, it took approximately 5 weeks to fully block out and make the asset pieces, plus additional 2-3 weeks to add further details to the map itself and getting the right ambiance.

Mirlitas-Screenshot-2.jpg

Igor:
This map is one of larger scale maps that really put a dent in our production schedule, and while getting one down means we will be able to reuse some of the assets in maps with the similar look, we do try to keep these maps tied to specific engagements. This post – much like the map – took a little work from a large part of the team but the final product is pretty sweet to look at. In terms of production, we are still on track with our 2018 release, and a few of these special maps aside, our tactical map production is really picking up pace.

I’ll stack a few screenshots below. We can’t wait to start using the map for battle.

Until next time!

Mirlitas-Screenshot-5.jpg
Mirlitas-Screenshot-7.jpg
Mirlitas-Screenshot-6.jpg
 

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