Legends of Amberland - oldschool open world blobber

[Removal]

WTF GoG???????????????????????

I really wish I knew what went on inside their curating process
they either never approve it, or approve the game so late that everyone who wanted it got it from a different store

 

[Dorateen]

New update is pretty beefy. Game is shaping up nicely now.

Spoiler

- [feature] After Griffin landing monsters get a turn.
- [feature] Can't call a Griffin if monster within 3 tiles.
- [feature] Option "Unrestricted Party Creation" (no restriction during party creation, can start with any number of party members).
- [feature] Option / Controls (Combat speed) to adjust the combat speed.
- [feature] Option / Controls (Animation speed) to adjust the animation speed.

- [balance] Gold income from monsters and chests halved, increased shop prices.
- [balance] Increased MP costs for magic.
- [balance] Offensive spells made weaker (at higher mastery levels).
- [balance] Characters have lower HP/MP numbers now.
- [balance] Monsters base initiative +1 (they act earlier during the combat now).
- [balance] Monsters deal bigger damage (especially high level ones).
- [balance] Monsters have higher HP (especially high level ones).
- [balance] All kinds of trolls now have an additional attack type which targets all characters (but that attack deals lower damage).

- [interface] Option to enable fog on overworld minimap.
- [interface] Minimap displays unvisited locations as "???" instead of location names (like on the main map).
- [interface] Dungeon map fully fogged when outside of boundaries (to avoid confusion of existence of some hidden passage).

- [fix] After Griffin landing the tile is executed now (prevent Griffin teleport abuse, properly deal lava damage).
- [fix] Bug in the main storyline.
- [fix] Removed 0/0 invisible monsters from the overworld map (leftovers from the older map format used during alpha).
- [fix] Combat initiative not reset upon reload/new game.
- [fix] Starting characters sometimes had not fully restored HP/MP (attributes bonuses were not applied immediately).

 

[Infinitron]

GOG will say it's too niche

Yeah, sort of The game was rejected by GoG.

You should ask people to vote for it here: https://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/legends_of_amberland_the_forgotten_crown?as=1649904300

 

[ushas]

Voted. May it help you with future submissions!

Their curation has somehow adverse effect on me. I'm finding myself having less reasons to visit the store, as more and more games I'm interested in are released outside of GOG. Too niche tastes huh.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Version 0.23 is out. Mostly selling stuff and random improvements.
http://www.silverlemurgames.com/2019/04/17/legends-of-amberland-version-0-23/

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Version 0.24 is out. Racial classes introduced.
http://www.silverlemurgames.com/2019/05/09/legends-of-amberland-version-0-24/

Planned final release May-June. (EDIT: somewhere this summer)

 

[Dorateen]

Looking forward to checking out the Battlesmith. Good work.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

So, the big elephant in the room is the difficulty, or better its total lack so far. Maybe it ramps up later on, but the earlygame balance is not what I expected from a M&M-like at all. Here's a few issues.

I have done a lot of rebalancing, at the moment I started to get reports that the balance is very good now (from more casual players mind you). Can you check the v0.24 and comment on the new balance?

Overall, I suspect that the normal difficulty (for majority of players) might be a bit too low for Codexians, so I'm thinking of slightly reducing the current normal dificulty and make hard difficulty somewhat harder where hard difficulty would be the recommended starting difficulty for Codexians.
Plus, I'm making insane difficulty setting for, well, the most maniatic ones.

 

[sebas]

When you say harder, you mean mob stats, numbers, economy..etc? I am curious as I am really looking forward to the full release.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

When you say harder, you mean mob stats, numbers, economy..etc? I am curious as I am really looking forward to the full release.

Yes. Plus, magic balance and so on.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Version 0.25 released

If I was naming the updates, which I don't, I would call that one something like "The Great Configurator Update". It introduces difficulty settings and keybindings. Now you can choose from 4 difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane. Normal difficulty is the one you were playing so far, it's the most balanced level, it provides an adequate challenge and allow you to enjoy the journey. Easy is for people who are somewhat stressed and want to make it, well, easier, still it's not very easy, just easier. Hard is meant for hardcore RPG players, with lots of experience and so on (that's the recommended difficulty if you came from RPG Codex or similar community), still the difficulty on Hard is reasonable. Insane is meant for those who constantly complain the games nowadays are too easy, it's unreasonably difficult, with penalties to everything and probably unbeatable for most people. One thing to note, I tried to keep the pacing similar in all difficulties, so I abstained from heavy bumping monsters HP and other mechanics that would make the game longer than harder. It's more like that harder difficulty levels introduce more deadly environment than more resistant one. As for keybindings, not much to say I suppose, you can bind up to 3 keys per action and rebind almost all keys (except very special like Escape).

- [feature] Difficulty levels upon new game start (Easy, Normal, Hard, Insane).
- [feature] Rebindable keys (Options/Controls).

- [design] Additional shop items (including Arcane buffing items).
- [design] Tower of Despair unofficial name was dropped in favour of the official Ivory Tower (it was confusing using both names, now the Tower of Despair appears only in the lore/rumours sections and it's always accompanied by the official Ivory Tower name).

- [balance] Reduced regular shop prices for items tier 4 & 5.
- [balance] Decreased Arcane requirements and Magic Points cost for high level offensive spells.

- [interface] Disabled hot keys when in Quick Menu mode.

- [fix] Keyboard bug from v0.24.
- [fix] Inconsistent portraits highlights bug (now I understand why so many players were asking "what it means if the portrait has a yellow outline" :D).
- [fix] Other small fixes (extremely rare and harmless which probably no one noticed).

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Version 0.26 released

This version focuses on finishing & polishing end game elements also it dealt with some things that were confusing to new players. In addition, there is now a "Compatibility" beta branch on Steam which you can use in case of problems with running the game.

By the way, I will be showcasing Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown in a few days during Digital Dragons in Cracow. If by any chance to attend this event, drop by!

- [design] Added proper final dialogue and end game conclusion.
- [design] Mirrors finished.
- [design] Added alternative [...] (SPOILER PROTECTION: all I can say is it's something related to mirrors).
- [design] New side quest for Royal Cook.

- [misc] Added "Compatibility" branch to Steam, which can be used is some very rare cases where the game won't start. To activate: right click on 'Legends of Amberland' and open Properties, the select 'Betas' tab and choose "compatibility" branch from the dropdown list. Steam will start downloading it. You can revert this by opting out. Note that this version won't be updated as often as the main branch so it's to be used as the last resort.

- [interface] Added "Next Character" button on the party creation screen (it was confusing to some players how to select another character, the old method on clicking the portrait works of course).
- [interface] Attempting to enter locked grate gives a notice "This grate is locked" (it was slightly confusing to new players).
- [interface] Clicking by mouse on lever popups a notice "Enter to interact (move forward) with objects" (operating levers was sometimes confusing to new players).

 

[Chris Koźmik]

All right, this is coming to an end. What's left is adding subraces (some players seem to like to have all party members from different race, which was surprising to me, but no problem) and finishing some quests, especially on the eastern territories. Plus mundane things like finishing manual and other I have forgotten and will remember in the last minute or something :-P

So, the game will be most likely released next month.


Then I'm going to make an expansion for my older game, Stellar Monarch and if things go well and everything is good and sales are OK I will be probably planning for Legends of Amberland II somewhere next year I suppose.
I would say, I was quite surprised by the creative process of this game, usually when I finish a game I can't stand looking at it for a while Yet, with this project I found out the process of writing quests and editing the map quite appealing. Can't say I'm burned out creatively at this stage, which is a good sign for future. I definitely would not mind going through this once again and make a sequel

 

[Infinitron]

All right, this is coming to an end. What's left is adding subraces (some players seem to like to have all party members from different race, which was surprising to me, but no problem) and finishing some quests, especially on the eastern territories. Plus mundane things like finishing manual and other I have forgotten and will remember in the last minute or something :-P

So, the game will be most likely released next month.

0.26 straight to 1.0?

 

[Chris Koźmik]

0.26 straight to 1.0?

Well, at this stage I tend to make weekly builds so there will be a few more versions I guess. Usually, I end at version 0.43... But you are right, from marketing point of view I should increase the increments So, at least v0.30
Yeah, the next one should be v0.30, definitelly Thanks!

 

[Butter]

Cool. I'll be getting this soon then.

 

[Dorateen]

- [misc] Added "Compatibility" branch to Steam, which can be used is some very rare cases where the game won't start.

Speaking of compatibility, in case this information is helpful, I was recently able to get LoA to run on a Windows 7 home desktop when I finally updated to Service Pack 1. Now maybe this is an isolated case and I'm the only person who never ran microsoft updates. But I believe it had to do with the switch to using Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 redistributable. There seems to be a .dll file that absolutely needs Service Pack 1 to be installed. So again, maybe it's just me, but I would advise that SP1 is a required spec to run on Windows 7, not just vanilla.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm disaapointed at GOG but i guess Steam will do.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Moving the release date to July this year (a few weeks more). Mostly due to marketing reasons (I forgot about Steam sales season and E3 mayhem :D).

The current state of the game:
- 2 features are missing (subraces and fleeing from combat)
- several side quests and NPCs need to be finished
- manual is half done

 

[Chris Koźmik]

You should ask people to vote for it here: https://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/legends_of_amberland_the_forgotten_crown?as=1649904300

All right, I was avoiding this topic for a while. But now I have the final information.

I have created a separate topic for the "being rejected by GOG" thing since I suspect the discussion and comments would monopolize the topic here
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/legends-of-amberland-rejected-by-gog.128058/

 

[Curratum]

This looks good fun but the price point is not right for what is offered in terms of both gameplay and fidelity, I feel.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Version 0.30 released

This is a post Digital Dragons version. I collected feedback observing how people play it for the first time. It was quite interesting. To my surprise there were very few things that were confusing to first time players and there was not much. So, this version introduces fleeing from combat. I was considering it for a while but after observing how people play I decided it's a necessary feature. Also I removed cast spell button and just left spellbook button, that one was confusing and not really useful in practice. One more thing I noticed was people being confused what to do first, so i added more tips to push the player in the direction of the Royal Castle. There is also some rebalancing and traditional improvements and fixes.

- [feature] Fleeing from combat.
- [feature] Keyhole mechanic (keys to open doors). Note that since there are not many gated areas there won't be many like those in the game.
- [feature] At the game start there is a popup message "Letter from the Royal Wizard" which tells you the initial story and directs you to the Royal Castle.

- [engine] Mute on window focus lost (a small thing that will make some people happy).

- [design] Finished several smaller NPCs.
- [design] Tip on the hut near the starting area how to reach the Royal Castle.
- [design] Northern Keep storyline done.

- [misc] Changed the date to a fictional, lore based one instead of the date since the start of the adventure. I know, that's a bit confusing to some players, but it's better immersion wise since it gives you a point of time where the story takes place and connects it better with the rest of the information you find.

- [balance] Added Magic Arrow, a very cheap but weak spell for wizards & sages (so wizards can basically always use soem sort of magic and don't need to rely on melee combat).
- [balance] Slightly higher starting MP, so some low magic classes (like Battlesmith) can at least use one spell from the very beginning.

- [interface] Left/right arrow keys are rotate instead of move be default.
- [interface] Added rest button on inn page.
- [interface] Small improvements on the main menu screen (size of the title, added buttons with links to Discord, etc).
- [interface] Additional art assets.
- [interface] Removed cast spell button, there is just spellbook button.

- [fix] Escape now properly ends dialogue with an NPC the npc (in some extremely rare cases the NPCs after dialogue action would not trigger properly).
- [fix] Getting double letters from the Royal Wizard sometimes.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

Version 0.40 released

This version is code complete, which means everything that was planned was coded into the game and what's left is storyline/content/assets. This is a very nice & happy milestone for me since code is always the most tricky part. So, in this version there were two major things added and several small ones. Added subraces which allows more variation to the race choices. Redesigned combat abilities, especially Ranger and Knight which were getting on my nerves for a while. There is also an important fix.

- [feature] Subraces added. Now upon creation you can select a variant of each race, for example after selecting an elf you choose if it's a Wood Elf, High Elf, etc. If you use older saves you will have a generic base race without additional perks.
- [feature] Redesigned knight's combat ability. Now knights have Charge combat ability which is a special attack which targets all monsters (like Whirling weapon with 100% chance of triggering).
- [feature] Redesigned ranger's combat ability. Ranger's Detoxicate was both not too useful and non thematic after introducing racial classes like battlesmith which inherit from ranger. So, now rangers have Stun combat ability which is a special attack which makes the target skip the next attack.

- [misc] Added one mechanic/feature but it not listed to avoid spoilers.

- [balance] Massively increased HPs of all dragons.

- [interface] Tooltips for achievements/titles (on Titles & Awards screen).
- [interface] Upon getting an achievement/title it's always mentioned on the NPC dialogue screen.

- [fix] Newly generated custom party (non quick start) had wrong stats.
- [fix] The Letter from the Royal Wizard was only showing up if you selected quick start option.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

And a hotfix (v0.40.1) because I broke things :D

 

[Dorateen]

July 1 release?