Shieldwall Chronicles: Realm of Madness

[LESS T_T]

The latest from Wave Light Games, the Canadian developers of cheap mobile-oriented tactical RPGs like Demon's Rise and Strike Team Gladius. As I understand, their previous games are more of collections of tactical battles. This seemed like one too but the description says it now has "open world exploration" and some side quests. Whatever that means, they're only showing combats in the trailer.

And yeah, it seems visual/UI took many inspirations from D:OS2 and BG3. It looks quite different from mobile-oriented look of the previous games.

Gather a party of hardy adventurers and venture to the desolate wastes of northern Tarren, a realm ruled by the demon kings and their twisted champions.

Explore an open world freely while pursuing either the main quest or numerous side quests as may suit your fancy. Earn glory and riches as you lead your party into ancient ruins and face the monsters that lurk there.

Write your legend in the blood of your enemies as you face the corrupted denizens of a land steeped in dark magic. Your tactics, courage, steel and sorcery are your allies in the northern wastes.

Choose from a host of varied character classes from among the many races found in the northern wastes. From men, elves, orcs and dwarves to outlandish creatures such as iron golems and even those possessed by the demonic. Each class has unique strengths, weaknesses and abilities that you must leverage to earn victory.

The northern wastes were warped beyond recognition by the foul magics released by the sorcerers of the elves and humans in their last great war. The unchecked and reckless use of sorcery tore the realm apart and corrupted its very nature. Worst of all, the magic brought the demon kings into existence ... creatures of immeasurable power and malice. They rule the north now and their armies march ever southwards in their endless desire to bring war and death to the entire world. Holding back this tide, are the men, elves, dwarves and other races who now stand together, united by a common foe.

You will venture into this realm and face its horrors. You will gather a party of heroes that will battle and overcome the dangers of the northlands. Face braying beastmen, demonic champions and monsters formed of dark magic in tactical, turn-based combat.

• Explore an open world freely, pursue the main quest or one of the many side quests.
  
  
• Earn glory in tactical, turn-based battles.
  
  
• Face countless horrors as you explore ruined castles, fetid swamps, corrupted forests and dank caverns.
  
  
• Earn gold and loot from defeated enemies and use it to better equip and customize your party.

I'd assume it's still more of combat-oriented thing but it seems like they're slowly upping the game with each release.

 

[Abu Antar]

Looks cool. I'll keep an eye on this.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1597020/view/2995438207827401652

Development Update - Early Battle Levels
Some work in progress shots of the early battle levels. All located in a northern pine forests full of ruins.

Here are some images of early battle levels. The campaign begins with a journey through a northern forest that is full of savage tribesman. Ancient stone circles and abandoned villages are scattered among the trees. The tribesmen practice death magic so will summon undead skeletons and zombies to aid their warrriors in battle.

In this level, the players disrupt a ritual being performed by the savage witches that lead the tribesmen. Wizards in the game are both extremely dangerous and very fragile. Their magical attacks can be devastatingly effective and penetrate the heaviest armor easily. However, even the strongest mage can be felled with a well placed sword blow or arrow so they need to be protected.

Here, the players find an abandoned village that is infested with zombies. They are resilient and strong but thankfully focussed on melee so lack wizards or ranged weapons.

In this level, the players come across a farmstead on the side of the road and discover it inhabited by bandits. The bandit warriors range from untrained warriors to veterans that carry excellent weapons and even reasonably good armor.

 

[Pink Eye]

That combat looks stylish as FUCK!

 

[Pink Eye]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1597020/view/4696675601991307219

Progress Update - Character Designs:

Character Design Preview:
Here are some early design of characters for the game. The vampire noblewoman and druidess are planned as playable classes while the marsh goblin and bandit veteran are for enemy encounters. The marsh goblin is the base prototype for an entire faction that is still being developed so please provide any feedback so we can further refine the design.

Vampire Noble:
This is the second attempt at making a playable vampire class, with the first being the Vampire Knight in
Demon's Rise - Lords of Chaos. We hope that a lot of the new game mechanics will allow us to more fully flesh out the concept into a really interesting playable class in this game. The design reflects both her wealthy and noble upbringing and the corruption of her vampire curse on her features. Traits such as the glowing red eyes, pale skin, expensive clothing and close fitting plate armour convey the notion quite well. She will be armed with a dueling rapier with her off hand slot being used to carry either a dagger or perhaps a magical tome or arcane item to bolster her magical powers. She will be very powerful in melee but have inherent weaknesses that she will have to plan around. We may even introduce a vulnerability to light mechanic so she will stronger in underground and night levels and suffer a debuff in daylight battles.

Druidess:
The druidess design borrows heavily from celtic and roman influences. She is meant to be a class of wizard that draws power from nature but exists in the civilized world. Tattoos, a wolf cloak and the skulls on her staff convey the more primitive aspects of her design while the rest of her clothing is more mundane. Her powers will be far more melee focused than other wizards and will involve invoking animal spirits to boost her strength, summoning forest creatures as allies in battle and spells focused around boosting strength, vitality and ferocity of herself and allies.

Marsh Goblins:
Here is the first design for the marsh goblin faction. They will be an enemy found in early levels in swampy areas and forests. They will be physically weaker than humans but faster in melee. They will be able to bring powerful allies such as trolls and other swamp beasts into battle and will employ poisons in their melee and missile weapons.

Veteran Bandit:
Here's the design for another woodland bandit. He has a heavy celtic design influence in his armour and weapons. While not equipped in heavy armour, he brandishes a powerful, two-handed axe that has very high armour penetration, especially when supported by his natural strength. He should be a tough challenge for adventurers in the early phases of the game.

 

[copebot]

This looks great. Kind of scant on details for something releasing so soon, but this is exactly the kind of game that I'd want to see. There are a lot of things that could suck about it, but at least the general idea is good and the art style is reasonably solid.

 

[Pink Eye]

Yeah. I like it too. Character models look pretty neat.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Was Shieldwall Chronicles: Swords of the North any good?

 

[JarlFrank]

Was Shieldwall Chronicles: Swords of the North any good?

I played it, as well as Demons Rise, because I got them for real cheap on a Steam sale. Decent tactical RPGs.

You select from a variety of pre-made characters. Each character has a male and female model, and there's a good variety of different ones available: melee fighters, ranged fighters, spellcasters etc. In between encounters you can buy new equipment and level up your characters. The main gameplay consists of tactical battles that are comparable to, say, Expeditions Conquistador in how they feel and play. Unlike most modern tactical RPGs with their nuXCom style 2AP systems, this one has proper action points that can be used for movement, attacks, skills etc.

It's not great by any means, but it's a solid game worth playing if you like tactical turn based RPG fights.

 

[LESS T_T]

Delayed to next year: https://steamcommunity.com/games/1597020/announcements/detail/2975177081640240624

Updated Release Date
Due to various reasons, we have decided to shift back the game's release date to Q2 2022.


New Release Date:

Unfortunately, we have had to move the release date for the back back significantly. We expect the game to release now between March and June of 2022. The original date was set this year because one of our team members was able to commit 8 - 10 hours a day on the project due to being laid off during the lockdown. This is no longer the case and as we are just a 2 person team, there is no realistic way we could meet the original date.

So instead, our team will be able to work 3 to 4 hours a day, as we have done in past games, and so we think a Q2 release next year is realistic. Sorry for the delay and for not coming to this conclusion earlier. Unfortunately, with job hunting, it's hard to predict things ahead of time and one can go from being unemployed to employed very quickly.

On the positive side, the extra time will allow us to spend more time in development and conduct a longer beta test period so the final product should benefit.


Shadow Elf Character Design:

Moving onto a more positive note, we thought it would be nice to show the designs for the shadow elf character class. We are still fleshing out the design and are considering making her a gunpowder missile class or a rogue class. Let us know which you think would be a better fit for her.

Undead Designs:


Here are some undead we worked on as well. The armour and weapon designs are meant to be that of an older culture so we used bronze and early iron age weapons. Otherwise, fairly typical zombie designs. Hope you like them.

 

[Pink Eye]

Shame. Ah well. I still have Colony Ship to keep me entertained till then. Hopefully with this delay the game comes out with more polish.

 

[mondblut]

Would.

Also, not a shitty scenariofest? Def would, unless their "open world" means a map with a bunch of icons to click and choose preset encounter from, as in certain other "open world" game talked about recently.

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Serus]

Lol, it seems that i have one game by those developers. Never played it, is cheap, probably got it on some sale too. Damn, this is the "problem" with computer games today. In the early 90s i was trying literally every game i got my hands on. Now, i have, as many people do, dozens of unplayed games on steam and gog.

Looks nice, potentially interested.

 

[Angelo85]

Yeah I also got one of the Demon's Rise games. It played and felt like a cheap asset flip / shovelware game.

 

[Abu Antar]

Check out a clip of Shieldwall Chronicles: Realm of Madness, currently in development from
@WaveLightGames!

Gather your party and explore freely in an open world and decide your fate in tactical, turn-based combat. #5SecondsofGameplay #indiegame #turnbased #crpg #tacticalrpg

Spoiler

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Pink Eye]

Wow. a whole year of waiting for news and they deliver a GIF that's blurry, hard to watch with low resolution, and is seconds long. Th-th-thanks...

 

[Konjad]

Seems like it's dead and gone.

No news for a long time and developers' site is down, so I assume they ceased to exist.
https://wavelightgames.com/

Their last news from August 2021 said

We expect the game to release now between March and June of 2022.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1597020/announcements/detail/2975177081640240624?snr=2_9_100000_

 

[Gandalf]

Seems like it's dead and gone.

Hopefully not, I was really looking forward to play as Kruno: