KickStarter Solasta Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Zed Duke of Banville]

When is this game coming out?

Saturday

Next Friday, just like Grimoire.

 

[Dodo1610]

 

[Infinitron]

This month's dev journal: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/posts/2700881

Dev Journal | December 2019 - Dungeons & Goblins

Hello dear readers!

December's here, and that means we have yet another batch of amazing stuff to share with you. Take a chair, grab a cup of coffee (or hot chocolate) and let us tell you of the newest developments in Solasta.

Pledge Manager
Almost 90% of you have already completed your CrowdOx survey, which is great! As a reminder, if you have any issue with it please don't hesitate to contact us. You can reach us on Kickstarter, by email (contact@tactical-adventures.com), on our forums or directly on our Discord Server. For those haven't yet, please make sure to fill up your survey soon! Without your information you won't be receiving your rewards, and that we really wouldn't want that

Alright, now for the actual Dev Update!

Important Note: As a reminder, everything you're about to see is Work In Progress! That means some of it may look clunky, janky, broken, empty, ugly - and even if it does look "okay" or pretty good, it's not final (so it will look even better in the final game)! Also the design is not final, so things may work differently once the game goes live.

Art Direction - Research
What do you show new players when they enter the Character Creation screen? Sometimes, seemingly simple questions like these bring up quite a lot of discussions. Do we go for simplicity with a static, cool-looking concept art of the party? Wait... how would that work since the player is supposed to create his four characters from scratch? Who do we show on screen in that case?

Research on a dynamic Character Creation landing screen (sketch), which would display the 3D models of the characters you create.

While we're still early in development and everything can be subject to changes, our Art Director proposed to go with a dynamic landing screen. By default, you would get four pre-generated characters on screen - and clicking on one would take you to the Character Creation screen where you can switch them with your very own creation, changing the Character Creation screen accordingly every time you swap party members.

Speaking of Character Creation, our Concept Artist has started working on a wide variety of haircuts, beards and moustaches! Note that haircuts and facial hair can be chosen separately, they are not linked together.

Picking up adventuring comes with a complementary trim at the nearest barber shop.

For those who might have missed our mid-November Developer Update (only available on our Website), here is also the first visual for our Word Map, which will be used to travel from location to location (very early draft).

Welcome to Solasta, the temperature outside is currently 22°C and we hope you enjoyed flying with TA Airlines.

Spoiler

Monsters & Enemies
We've talked a lot about adventurers and their ilk, but what about the true citizens of Solasta? Those who are shunned by the more "advanced" societies just because they happen to enjoy a little bit of violence and murder. Discrimination, that's what. Of course, it would be hard to have a good High Fantasy setting without the classics. Orcs... and Goblins! You've already met your friendly orc neighbours in the Ruins of Telema (and perhaps even enjoyed a fair few rounds of fisticuffs, they do so enjoy physical activities), so prepare to greet our Goblins!

Beautiful. Now that's a face that'd make any seasoned adventurer swoon.

Now that their 3D models are done, our lead animator Grégoire (who was the guest of our previous article on Animation) is going to spend a good chunk of time bringing them to life! Walking, running, attacking, dying... There's plenty to be done.

Little known fact: Goblins can actually fly by wiggling their ears very hard. Not.

Aside from Goblins, our Concept Artist has also worked on bringing some wildlife to the world of Solasta. Behold the wolf!

Who's a good boy? Who's a good pupper! Yes you are!

Environment & Levels
Our Art Team wasn't the only one hard at work, as our Design Team has been working on some new levels that you'll get to enjoy. We don't want to spoil too much by giving away location names or showing too much of the level itself, but here are a few gifs to enjoy.

I mean... it does look like a nice spot to take a nap. I'd do the same.

Watching your neighbors over the fence as they are doing a barbecue and didn't invite you.

Orc Totems Concept Art

Close-up of the totem in-game

New Features
One of the much needed features that we couldn't implement in time for the Kickstarter Demo was a functional 3D Map of the level so that players wouldn't get lost in the level. We haven't forgotten about it, and we are now testing a new version that's already working much better than the previous one. Note that it still looks very rough for now, and we plan to remove some elements to improve its readability.

You'll be able to move the map around, zoom in and maybe even fast travel from there.

We've also created a tool that adjusts the water level of the ground to add muddy pools and make humid caverns look more realistic! Hopefully those are tools that will be available for the community once the Modding SDK is made public.

Ughhhhh... Soggy socks, that's the worst.

Animations & Special Effects
We're now reaching the end of today's update, which was packed with a lot more visuals than usual! I picked a few spells and animations from our FX artist and lead animator for the finale - we like to leave the best for last.

Rapier attack animation, minus the rapier since we still need to make it.

Barkskin Spell Animation

Hold Person Spell Animation

That's it for today! Among what you've seen today, what made you the most excited? Please do drop a little comment below as we always enjoy reading your messages

Read our previous articles here:

• TL;DR #7: A primer on animating Solasta
• Dev Update #2 - Dungeons & Dwarves
• Lore Chronicles - The Eastern Realms

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.solasta-game.com/news/52-directors-log-3-on-kickstarter-and-moving-forward

DIRECTOR'S LOG #3 : ON KICKSTARTER AND MOVING FORWARD

Article by Mathieu Girard (CEO of Tactical Adventures)

Hi everyone,

Over the past few months, we have given you regular production updates on what we have been working on. I thought that now would be interesting to share the bigger picture with you.



And it is thanks to you!

The Kickstarter Campaign has been a great experience for us – be it on the production, community or financing side. As we hoped for, the additional funds will allow us to add more content. You have joined us as a community, providing feedback, suggestions… and also reassuring us on the interest for Solasta, for it is always a leap of faith to start working on a new game! Don’t worry, we also know we have to improve the camera system and we are working on it.

Something that’s probably less obvious is that the production of the Kickstarter demo has been an amazing learning experience as well. It required us to set up a production pipeline very early in the development cycle, and forced us to confront challenges that usually only appear later when working on a video game. The Ruins of Telema were a boon because it was a “stand-alone” dungeon: we had to face not only the complexity behind designing a level with verticality in mind, but also keep an eye on balancing encounters and cutscenes to avoid slowing down the pace too much.

First combat encounter of the Kickstarter Demo, good ol' baby spiders.

I think one of the biggest findings is that it’s really, really cool to have a demo showing off the quality level we'd like to achieve . Some Kickstarter projects only have a trailer, others a very early demo without sound or full of placeholders… We wanted to give a slice of what could be the final game (within reason of course), which is why we did some voice recording, had some music tracks produced and even added some last-minute tool-tips and tutorial elements. Obviously, we were trying to convince you that the game will be good, but it was also very useful for us – we get to tackle questions and clear some of the unknown before entering full Production. The state that we reached was critical to me, because it resonated with my passion for the MVP principle. But what is exactly MVP?

MVP Methodology illustrated by Henrik Kniberg

Spoiler

The MVP

MVP stands for Minimal Viable Product. It might be obvious for some because it is a well-known principle in Web / Apps development, but it isn’t really widespread in the video game industry. In a nutshell, MVP focuses on producing something step by step, by fulfilling the first requirements set by the user, without working all the details and options, before moving towards the next step. In the picture above, all items in the bottom row depict a mean of transportation – you may not need a car when a bicycle would suffice! Not to mention your wallet would sing a different tune if you got one or the other.

In the video games industry, projects are becoming more and more complex, with large teams of sometimes several hundreds of people. The way they are planned, organized and divided into tasks often end up with a “waterfall” pipeline where the game evolves through conception, prototype, production, alpha, beta and release stages. But it is rare to have a glimpse of the final product until the end, leading to some projects failing and a lot of frustration for the team. It feeds the “wait and see” mentality, where even if things don’t look too good, you always hope everything will be fine when you assemble all the pieces together at the end.

Our first prototype was fairly rough! But you could still play it, and that's what's important.

Working through MVP stages

Before the studio was staffed and we had offices, I started a first MVP focusing on showing the game core pillars: character creation, dungeon layout, exploration mechanics, basic character presentation, combat, a magic system, and GUI to use all that. I did not go into all the options and details, nor did I make “quick and dirty” code: I did the best I could for the objectives I had within the 9 months I gave myself. The result allowed me to show this project to others, demonstrate how it worked – and from there, hire a team and secure initial funding. Once this MVP cycle was done, we aimed for a new one: adding visual polish, lighting, new textures, to convince even more people, get more funding, and understand how far we could get. The next MVP cycle was building an FPP (First Playable Prototype) which rapidly became the Ruins of Telema (which you now know as the Kickstarter demo).

Working with an MVP approach is not simple: many people like to keep the big picture in mind and worry about covering all the bases from the get-go, which can significantly complicate and slow down the production cycles. Keep in mind that it is far easier to use the MVP approach when you are a small and agile team, which is also one of the reasons we’re using this method. What is also essential is to understand than the MVP must work in pair with refactoring (which means going back in existing systems to improve them). When I developed the first prototype, I needed a quick minimal AI for the monsters, and used a simple machine state simulation. As it proved totally inadequate for complex situations, our AI programmer then replaced it with a more advanced AI system. Refactoring takes a bit of time, but you get to know what you need to change and improve because you get to test the previous system in-game. On the other hand, the classical approach would be to design a full-fledged AI on paper at the start, and then hope it works as well as you imaged once it’s fully implemented in-game (plus sometimes you realize that half of the work you did was pointless because another system was removed from the game later due to lack of time).

But there is one nagging question here… what about quality?

I can tell you, these skeletons were NOT smart. But they did the job!

Quality

With the MVP method, one may think that quality is not most crucial point of the process. It could be considered slacking and doing sloppy work, as you cut the chase to the most immediate result. One might even argue that it could be a way for us to be cheap and deliver an incomplete game. But it is exactly the opposite: because we rush asap to a playable result, we have ample time to improve, polish, refactor, and start the cycle again. Increasing a game quality is also a very satisfying moment for the team after you hacked your way out of the jungle of features development, and the sooner the better thanks to MVP!

Another thing that was really nice with the Kickstarter demo was that we got meaningful and detailed feedback since the demo was a fairly representative vertical slice. By placing the customer experience higher up in our list of priorities, you get more interesting feedback than with a buggy / obscure prototype. Obviously, that is easier said than done This also helped us decide to develop the rest of the game in a similar way as the Kickstarter demo. We have cut Solasta into different acts and started from the very beginning of the game: creating the party, playing the introduction, exploring the beginning of the campaign, exactly like the player will do when they start playing the final game.

We're working on Act 1 as we speak, but we're trying to limit spoilers.

The Next Stage

Therefore, our new MVP objective (what we are working on right now) is building what we call the “Exposition” of the game, meaning the first few hours the player will get to enjoy. This requires creating many new systems, content, and levels compared to what we had for the Kickstarter. Among others, we must have character creation and customization, classes and archetypes, introduction and tutorial, world map and navigation, first campaign missions, and lots of stuff I cannot speak about right now. I know that a lot of you might be very eager to play Solasta, but we want to make sure to reach a certain level of quality before placing it into your hands – and we also don’t want to have too much of the game spoiled for you. That being said, keep an eye out for updates – we do want to give our community a little something!

That is pretty much it for today, aside from another topic that emerged from Kickstarter feedback: Content and Modding. This subject has become a priority and we are also working on it - we will provide you with an update sometime later.

Thank you for your attention!

Tactical Archimat

New vote: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/posts/2708887

[December Community Vote] Choose the Wizard Archetypes! (Ends Jan 13)

Hello there folks,

It's been quite some time since our last Community Vote, hasn't it? Wait, what's that? There haven't been any Community Votes since our Kickstarter Campaign? Oooohhh bummer. That won't do, that won't do at all!


Head to our Forum Thread to cast your votes!

1. You must be logged-in in order to vote.
2. The vote will run from Friday December 13th to Sunday January 13th 12:00 am PT.
3. You can vote for two out of three archetypes.
4. You can't change your vote after casting it.
5. Feel free to argue your case as to why the Archetypes you chose are by far superior to the last one in the comments below to educate the others (but stay civil).

Community Votes
When we stated back during our Kickstarter that we wanted to build the game with you, our community, we really meant it. Not "build the game FOR us" though - that's a very important difference - as we do have a solid creative vision for Solasta. Rather, we have all sort of cool ideas (at least we hope they are!) and a limited amount of time to implement them, so we thought... why not let you, our future players, decide on that!

And that means we have a little something prepared for you every month until Solasta is released, starting this very month of December with a choice between three Wizard Archetypes. As you already know, one Archetype has already been revealed in our Kickstarter Demo - the Shock Arcanist, wielder of potent and destructive evocation spells. Now, the time has come to decide what the other two will be.

Trust us when we say, we've already had a hard time narrowing the candidates down to three. It is now up to you to choose the remaining two who will make it into the game at launch.

********************************************

The Archetypes

Greenmage

Stonemage

Loremaster

 

[Infinitron]

https://forums.solasta-game.com/forum/community-vote-choose-the-wizard-archetypes-ends-jan-13

The Archetypes

Greenmage

By Edalliath Keenmind, Loremaster of the Arcaneum

To the sylvan elves, magic weaves through every aspect of life. In addition to a powerful range of nature-related spells, the greenmages are versatile scouts and archers. Choose this archetype for a character who is useful in the outdoors as well as a good support combatant.

The tradition of the greenmages originated among the sylvan elves. They patrolled the borders of sylvan elf lands, using magic to confuse and discourage trespassers. Their magic evolved to use the forces of nature against enemies, drawing on the sylvan elves’ deep connection with the natural world. When the Cataclysm struck, the corresponding mana drain prevented arcane magic from working. The greenmages compensated by developing their non-magical skills in woodcraft, stealth, and archery. As magic returned, the greenmages kept these mundane skills honed as a complement to their returning magical powers. Those dire times had taught them a powerful lesson about the limitations of magic.

The greenmage tradition is no longer exclusive to sylvan elves. In the post-Cataclysm world many greenmages, especially those in the sylvan elf communities of the Snow Alliance, shared their knowledge with humans, and even with a few dwarves and halflings.

Greenmages are resourceful individuals, at home in the wilderness. They are skilled in outdoor survival, and deadly opponents in both magical and mundane combat. Even rangers respect the greenmages’ wilderness skills.

Greenmages commonly wear light, flexible types of armor that do not interfere with their arcane abilities. They are also extensively trained in archery. Their close relationship with nature has led them along some unusual paths, and they are reputed to have mastered certain spells that other wizards might consider unsuitable. Their skill in both magic and archery is rumored to lend their arrows unusual properties. In addition, some claim to have seen greenmages absorb blows that should have been mortal, and keep on fighting undaunted.

GAMEPLAY

To the sylvan elves, magic weaves through every aspect of life. In addition to a powerful range of nature-related spells, the greenmages are versatile scouts and archers. Choose this archetype for a character who is useful in the outdoors as well as a good support combatant.

Stonemage

By Heironymus Shearwater, Loremaster of the Guild of Antiquarians

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first stonemages were dwarves. Their race has a natural affinity with rock and stone – so much so that some of the earliest dwarven traditions maintain that the first dwarves came into being when mana suffused the underground world and caused a few rocks to achieve sentience. Be that as it may, the dwarven mastery of stone magic is fully equal to their skill as stoneworkers.

Since the most ancient times, dwarven stonemages used their magic to shape tunnels, protect against rockfalls and cave-ins, and find valuable ores and gems. They were also vital in defending the hill dwarf kingdoms against the expanding Manacalon Empire of the high elves, burying their foes alive and sealing off the entrances to their underground realm.

In the centuries since the Cataclysm, Solasta’s races have learned to work together in order to survive and thrive. The path of the stonemage is now open to anyone who can find a teacher, and many elves and humans, as well as a few halflings, have become masters of this magical tradition. It has been claimed, only half in jest, that some dwarven masters particularly enjoy teaching elven students, both for the difficulty they have in pronouncing ancient dwarven spells correctly and for the satisfaction of proving that not all magic is elven in origin.

While the tradition originated underground, the powers of a stonemage are just as useful within a stone building. Being keenly attuned to the vibrations of rock and stone, a stonemage can spot a flaw, a trap, or a hidden entrance quite easily under most circumstances, and even manipulate those natural vibrations to weaken or collapse part of a tunnel, cave, or building. They have a superior command of spells relating to stone, rock, and the element of earth, and experienced stonemages can draw the unyielding resilience of rock into their own bodies, fortifying them against enemy attacks.

Regardless of their race, stonemages tend to exhibit qualities that are normally associated with the dwarves. They are tough in mind and body, determined, unyielding, and reliable. They usually listen more than they speak, and know more than they tell. In battle, they can turn any rocky environment into a weapon against the foe. A stonemage is a welcome addition to any party of adventurers that is contemplating an expedition below ground.

GAMEPLAY

Masters of earth and stone, mages of this tradition are - quite literally - in their element in a stone building or an underground complex. They are able to spot dangers others would miss, draw on the strength of stone to protect themselves, and turn the surrounding rock into a weapon against their foes. This is a perfect archetype for exploring caverns and ancient ruins.

Loremaster

By Heironymus Shearwater, Loremaster of the Guild of Antiquarians

The study of magic is an exacting one, and no wizard can achieve mastery without a great deal of learning and research. For some, the pursuit of knowledge becomes an end in itself, and these wizards are known as loremasters.

This magical tradition is younger than many others, at least in its current form. While there were some wizards in the days of the Manacalon Empire who devoted themselves to the accumulation of knowledge, the knowledge of the high elves was immense, leaving little to be discovered. All that changed with the Cataclysm of a millennium ago. With so much knowledge lost in the Empire’s collapse, recovering as much as possible became the key to power in the post-Imperial age, and the path of the loremaster became a matter of survival rather than a purely intellectual pursuit. Their skills are much in demand, and it is not uncommon for loremasters – especially young and ambitious ones – to join expeditions into the Badlands and search for lost knowledge among the ruins of the Empire.

To say that all loremasters are highly educated and skilled researchers is to state the obvious. Their minds are rigorously trained to absorb and recall information on any topic, including spells. At higher levels of mastery they can call spells instantly to mind and cast them with little or no preparation.

Each of the delegations to the Legacy Council includes a staff of loremasters charged with examining the objects and documents brought back by Council-sponsored expeditions. Others teach at universities or other scholarly institutions or advise at the courts of rulers, and some make a comfortable living using their superior ability to scribe scrolls or mix potions.

To a party of adventurers, a loremaster offers an unrivaled understanding of history and magic, useful spellcasting support, and the ability to make sense of ancient inscriptions and other clues that can help them understand their surroundings or warn of danger nearby.

GAMEPLAY

It has been said that knowledge is power, and Loremasters are masters of knowledge. They learn spells more easily than others do, and can cast some without needing to prepare them. They also have an advantage when scribing scrolls and concocting potions. This is an ideal archetype for a player who is interested in discovering ancient mysteries rather than throwing showy and destructive spells around.

 

[Bara]

Refresh my memory are we getting four archetypes for each class, with one of the four being those available from the SRD/OGL ?

Or just three of the custom made archetypes?

 

[Myzzrym]

3 archetypes for each class to start with (minimum). Wizards don't get the SRD Archetype because only Evocation is available, meaning it would be weird to have 1 school of magic but not the others.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

3 archetypes for each class to start with (minimum). Wizards don't get the SRD Archetype because only Evocation is available, meaning it would be weird to have 1 school of magic but not the others.

Forgive me, but I don't understand this statement. Can you please elaborate? Sorry if I'm being obtuse.

 

[Bara]

For the SRD it only lists the School of Evocation magic as the available archetype free for everyone’s use. But the others like Necromancy would require they to be fully licensed to use.

As such they felt it would be weird to use only Evocation without the archetypes for the other schools of magic being available.

So basically we’ll have the basic wizard class as detailed in the SRD but when it comes to select an archetype it’ll be three homebrew options only.

Which makes sense to me and personally hope we get the Loremaster archetype as detailed above as it sounds the best to represent the generalist wizard.

Plus scroll and potion making makes for great retirement funds after adventuring.

 

[Hamlet]

The 5e Wizard has three good sub-classes: Evoker (blaster), Diviner (controller), and the Bladesinger (fighter/mage), it doesn't look like they even covered the fundamental bases for an iconic D&D class. And not using the Evoker sub-class, when they have express permission to do so? A horrible idea, really. And, no, the Wizard makes an awful archer out of the box, and changes to make then a better archer will hurt the Ranger class.

 

[Bara]

Well the Shock Arcanist is what they're using instead the of School of Evocation sub-class.

They have rules for it and others on DnD beyond.

Going by comments on their thread for voting seems Loremaster is the most popular while Green & Stone having fair split.

 

[Ysaye]

Well the Shock Arcanist is what they're using instead the of School of Evocation sub-class.

They have rules for it and others on DnD beyond.

Going by comments on their thread for voting seems Loremaster is the most popular while Green & Stone having fair split.

I just assumed that the Shock Arcanist was their take on the Evoker?

The main criticism of the Greenmage is that it is "a poor excuse for not having a Druid". Given that the D&D druid was never interesting I am not that disappointed. In fact it would have been cool if the had made the greenmage an sylvan-elf-only mage, but I suppose that would be considered discrimination (The arcane archer should also be only high elven). And dwarves just shouldn't be mages.

In a way:
Evoker (Blaster) = shock arcanist
Diviner (controller) = Loremaster
Bladesinger (fighter/mage) = Greenmage.

Anyway - glad everyone wants the Loremaster - that means I don't have to vote!

 

[Grunker]

Extremely weird choice to make their own archetypes instead of using OGL ones?

 

[purpleblob]

I voted for Greenmage and Loremaster

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

I voted for Stonemage and Loremaster.

 

[Elex]

Extremely weird choice to make their own archetypes instead of using OGL ones?

because OGL only have one so they are forced to create their own.

 

[Elex]

The 5e Wizard has three good sub-classes: Evoker (blaster), Diviner (controller), and the Bladesinger (fighter/mage), it doesn't look like they even covered the fundamental bases for an iconic D&D class. And not using the Evoker sub-class, when they have express permission to do so? A horrible idea, really. And, no, the Wizard makes an awful archer out of the box, and changes to make then a better archer will hurt the Ranger class.

abjuration, illusion, conjuration (unbreakable concentration), warmage ( adding int to iniziative is insane for a mage) are also good subclasses, evocation is a waste for a wizard: all classes can deal damage but only the wizard have 300+ spells for do stuff.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Extremely weird choice to make their own archetypes instead of using OGL ones?

It makes sense when you want archetypes to be connected to lore.

 

[deuxhero]

the others like Necromancy would require they to be fully licensed to use.

Or homebrew replacements. The names and general idea of the schools themselves are still covered by the 3.5 OGL material.

 

[Grunker]

Extremely weird choice to make their own archetypes instead of using OGL ones?

It makes sense when you want archetypes to be connected to lore.

It's a lotta work for a small team bottlenecked by features that didn't have to be done in a game that isn't really about the lore. Unless they copy-paste OGL archetypes and just give them other names, of course, which they totally should

Extremely weird choice to make their own archetypes instead of using OGL ones?

because OGL only have one so they are forced to create their own.

Really? I stand corrected then. Most the core archetypes are available for free on legit website, I took that to mean they were covered by the OGL

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Really? I stand corrected then. Most the core archetypes are available for free on legit website, I took that to mean they were covered by the OGL

Only things in the SRD(or other OGL licensed document, obviously) not specifically marked as product identity are OGL content.
Also, not so well known: game mechanics are not protected by copyright law in USA, merely the text describing them may be.

 

[Elex]

Extremely weird choice to make their own archetypes instead of using OGL ones?

It makes sense when you want archetypes to be connected to lore.

It's a lotta work for a small team bottlenecked by features that didn't have to be done in a game that isn't really about the lore. Unless they copy-paste OGL archetypes and just give them other names, of course, which they totally should

Extremely weird choice to make their own archetypes instead of using OGL ones?

because OGL only have one so they are forced to create their own.

Really? I stand corrected then. Most the core archetypes are available for free on legit website, I took that to mean they were covered by the OGL

it’s easy to find but it’s not legit.
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wizard:bladesinger

it’s not legit for example.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace/source/sword-coast-adventurers-guide#Bladesinging

this one is legit.

 

[Infinitron]

End-of-year summary: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticaladventures/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/posts/2713516

One Year of Solasta - 2019 Recap

Hey there folks, Myzzrym here! 2019 is almost over, and what a year it has been. Care to join me on a trip down memory lane?

Before that, we have two important messages:
1. If you haven't already, please make sure you have completed your CrowdOx survey - we won't be able to send you your Kickstarter rewards later if you don't! There's still a little more than 500 of you who have yet to complete your survey. If you have any issues, know that you can always contact us directly at contact@tactical-adventures.com.

2. Our latest Dev Update is out, drop by our Website to read it! I'll put some screenshots here for you to enjoy, don't hesitate to click on them to see more

Spoiler

One Year of Solasta - A walk down memory lane

I first joined the company back in March 2019, and jumped straight into preparing the reveal of Solasta: Crown of the Magister - and trust me, we had a lot to prepare for. The only piece of information available online about our upcoming project at that time was an interview with Mathieu (our CEO) by VentureBeat dating from November 2018, where he pitched a Tactical RPG game on PC that would blend combat systems like XCOM with stories like Baldur's Gate. Those who ventured into our corporate website would also find an old (and now outdated) illustration, which conveyed our intentions for Solasta - a game centered around a party of four adventurers, exploring the depth of a dungeon and facing dangerous foes.

Both the verticality and lighting aspects were already present in this visual target.

It was on June 25th that we revealed our project to the world, by launching Solasta's official website with an announcement video and our animated trailer on Youtube. I invite you to watch those again, if only to see how much the game has evolved since - I even wrote a short article about the animated trailer back then! There are actually very few screenshots from that time, as we were in the middle of transitioning from the levels we made to show the prototype to partners, to working on the Ruins of Telema for the Kickstarter Demo - you can still find some of these on our website, although they will be replaced soon! Here you can see bits and pieces of our two prototype levels, Hidden Cave and Orc Hideout (which had no Orcs in it), as well as some very early shots of Telema.



From there, we very quickly announced two things: that we were preparing a Kickstarter Campaign, and that we had a free Demo to go along with it. Truth be told, we were very busy during summer time. This was because we did not have until September (when our Kickstarter would launch) to work on the Ruins of Telema - we actually needed something stable as early as end of July to prepare for... Gen Con, Indianapolis.

We've had the good surprise of meeting folks from D&D Beyond, WASD20 and Captain RoBear!

Gen Con was the first time we've put our game in the hands of actual players outside a few testers (mostly friends and family). It was both scary and exhilarating, and we soon found out Tabletop fans were just as excited as we were about Solasta! Our small setup with two computers was clearly not enough as we had people come and wait in line to try out the demo - some would even arrive early in the morning before us to make sure they could play! All in all we had a great time, and we're actively looking to go to Gen Con again in 2020.

We'll be back. Well, at least we'll try very hard to be back.

This was only the first of three stops in a very, VERY busy month of August. After Gen Con, Mathieu headed to Gamescom in Germany. There he would meet a lot of journalists curious about seeing more about the game - landing us one of our most popular articles from IGN, as well as several others. For our French fans out there, we also had the chance of appearing in the JeanBaptisteShow video about Gamescom RPGs, alongside bigger titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Bloodlines 2. Our last stop was Pax West in Seattle, which would announce the start of our Kickstarter Campaign.

If you're reading this, chances are you saw this image somewhere on the net!

September 3rd, our Kickstarter went live! It was both one of the most stressful and interesting experience I've had so far in my video game career. Up until the very last day we would be making sure everything was perfect (it wasn't, nothing is ever perfect), combing every nook and cranny for small mistakes and issues. And what a start we had! More than 1,500 of you backed us in the first 3 days, alleviating a lot of our initial worries. The campaign was going fine, we quickly released a patch to improve the camera for the demo... And we announced a partnered stream with Critical Role. On September 13th we sat awake at 1:00 am to catch the stream live, and a wave of Critters flooded our campaign in support right after - it was very hard for us to leave our computers that night, as we wanted to keep chatting with these new fans.

Our Art Director did a fantastic fan art of Beau and Cadeus for that occasion. Yes, Beau is standing on a box.

On September 23rd, we reached our campaign goal of $200,000! From there on out, it was time for Stretch Goals - and you managed to unlock 10 of them!

• Character Creation: Paladin, Ranger & Half-Elf at launch, with Sorcerer as a free DLC post-launch
• Content: Lawkeeper & Academic background, Remorhaz monster and Legendary Item questline
• Feature: Party Banter & Full Orchestral Music Upgrade

And last but not least, Cohh Carnage as a Guest Voice Actor! For those of you who may not know him, Cohh is a popular streamer with an immense love for cRPGs, and he has supported many other projects on Kickstarter in the past, such as the well-known Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Divinity: Original Sin 2 (which he very recently played through again).

We all drank in celebration at the end of the campaign, though our cafeteria is much less glamorous than this tavern.

And so, on October 4th, the Kickstarter Campaign was over. After all that craziness, we went back to a more regular schedule of Dev Update articles to keep you informed about the latest additions to Solasta. We also took down the demo on October 18th as our final game would further and further distance itself from what we had back then, as was already the case with our new spells' VFX that replaced the old placeholder ones.

I hope you enjoyed looking back at 2019 as much as I did. See you next year!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

https://www.solasta-game.com/news/54-dev-update-4-farewell-2019-welcome-2020

DEV UPDATE #4 - FAREWELL 2019, WELCOME 2020!

Hello there everyone,

Welcome to our last update of 2019, where we'll show you not only the latest news of Solasta but also a full recap of this eventful year, bloopers included! Strap up, you're in for a ride! Important info: If you haven't yet completed your CrowdOx Survey, please don't forget to do so quickly! We can't send you any Kickstarter rewards if you don't complete it.

Environment & Levels

When we talked about dungeon crawling and exploration in Solasta, quite a few of you were worried about the entire game taking place inside a dungeon. Time and again we've said that this was not the case... Now is the time for us to prove it with a screenshot of a new level!

Whatever you do. Do. Not. Fall.

Of course, that's not the only thing we've been working on. We've been talking about our capital city a few times in the previous updates, so here is a very - and by that I mean VERY - early glimpse at it. Please keep in mind that almost everything here is placeholder for the moment.

I see skies of grey, clouds of grey. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Spoiler

Art Direction - Research & Concept Arts

When it comes to art direction, you're probably expecting sketches and illustrations (and you would be right). But did you also know that lighting & ambiance are important parts of the art direction? This is actually something that is quite difficult to get right, and we've been doing a lot of iterations on existing levels to make sure our future players will get to enjoy exploring our dungeons as much as we do.

Here is a level we've previously teased, with new fog and lighting (in-game screenshot, we forgot to remove the cursor...)

Can't wait for people to try it out! Some of you also asked for us to show some female haircut since we only showed male ones last time. Well, you know what they say - ask and you shall receive!

Which one do you prefer? #1 is my personal favorite!

Monsters & Enemies

When we revealed our friendly Goblin last week, we forgot to include his concept art! As a reminder, most if not all 3D models are created from a 2D concept art if they are important elements of the game.

Look how happy he is to meet you! I tell you, Goblins are misunderstood in today's society.

And here is how he looks like in-game! Well, almost - I mean, we still need to give him a set of clothing, as much as some of you may entertain the thought of having naked goblins running amok, I do believe that's not what we're going for.

This is what we call an "idle animation", which is what the goblin will do as long as he's not given a particular order.

Angry goblin, coming through!

Spells

Alright, enough talk. Let's end today's Dev Update with a new spell effect! You can click on the gif to watch the high-quality MP4 versions of the clip.



Color Spray

December Community Vote - Choose the Wizard Archetypes

For those of you who may have missed it, the December Community Vote is ongoing until January 12th 2020! Select two of three Wizard Archetypes that will be implemented in Solasta, right here on our Official Forums. Will you choose the Greenmage, the Stonemage or the Loremaster?



Don't miss your chance to vote!

 

[Dodo1610]

This is seriously some of the best PR work I have seen for a crowdfunding project, really hope you keep this up for the entire length of the development.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

What is this, am I... looking forward to a game? That hasn't happened for a long time. :D