Game News Balrum is on Steam Greenlight, coming late summer

[Infinitron]

Tags: Balcony Team; Balrum

Balrum is a sandboxy oldschool RPG that was Kickstarted back in 2013. Its development has been quietly humming along since then, and it's now scheduled to be released at the end of summer. In anticipation of the release, the developers at Balcony Team put up a Steam Greenlight page for the game yesterday. Here's the new teaser trailer they created for it, along with the game's description:

Balrum is an old-school, hybrid turn-based, open world, RPG. Balrum features a living fantasy world with deep tactical combat and dozens of side quests next to an epic main quest. In addition to traditional RPG features Balrum has deep crafting which allows the player to craft their own custom items. Balrum also features farming your own crops, building your home, and survival mechanics complemented by the game's main features. In Balrum you control a single character, but your character will have a faithful animal companion as a pet. Your pet is fully controllable and adds greatly to the complexity of the combat.

Features:

• Real-Time world with Turn-Based Combat
• A huge Open World to explore with dozens of Dungeons
• Your Choices define your Class
• Dozens of Side Quests and an epic Main Quest
• Building
• Farming
• An animal Pet as your loyal companion
• Deep Crafting Systems (Alchemy, Cooking, Weapon Crafting, Armor Crafting, Item Combining)
• Day/Night Cycle with Weather System
• Survival Mechanics

Go vote it up. If you'd like to see more of the game, Balcony Team have also uploaded a whole bunch of short gameplay videos to their YouTube channel.

 

[himmy]

Sooo Divine Divinity meets Farmville? Eh, I can work with that. Voted.

 

[thesheeep]

Sure vote, seems interesting enough and I'm a sucker for this art style.

 

[mindx2]

That actually looks pretty good. Voted.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Downvoted

 

[Elhoim]

Voted.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Upvoted. Hope they don't get hurt by the massive amounts of releases in this year, though.

 

[Thane Solus]

Upvoted. Hope they don't get hurt by the massive amounts of releases in this year, though.

Well, imagine what will happen next year...

 

[Pope Amole II]

Well, imagine what will happen next year...

The bubble will burst, pretty much (which is why I'm somewhat glad that we were once again left in the cold by yet another artist and haven't began to do a proper Wasteland successor). Maybe not next year, maybe the year after that but I just don't see the market to support that many RPGs. It's still a niche genre and, most importantly, these games are all, like, 30-40-50 hours. And that's on the lower side - something like Underrail can easily consume 150-ish. That's just the specific of the genre. And even if you have money to buy them all, having the time to play them is, well, a wildly different matter.

 

[Andhaira]

Well, imagine what will happen next year...

The bubble will burst, pretty much (which is why I'm somewhat glad that we were once again left in the cold by yet another artist and haven't began to do a proper Wasteland successor). Maybe not next year, maybe the year after that but I just don't see the market to support that many RPGs. It's still a niche genre and, most importantly, these games are all, like, 30-40-50 hours. And that's on the lower side - something like Underrail can easily consume 150-ish. That's just the specific of the genre. And even if you have money to buy them all, having the time to play them is, well, a wildly different matter.

Well, we only got a lot of crpgs last year. Shadowrun, MMX: Legacy, Divinity, Blackguards and PoE off the top of my head. Each had issues upon release, which while patched did leave a sour taste in one's mouth. I would expect that if developers don't start releasing complete products rather than beta's, that is what will bite them in the ass as people will stop buying.

In any case, even a crpg fan who works a full time job should be able to make time for 2 full proper crpgs in one year, though not more than that, (maybe even less given that there are so many other distractions around us, including games of the non rpg genre)

So what I am saying if the bubble does burst, it will be the indie game and Steam bubble, given the mass of games being released. Not the rpg bubble. Aside from literally unfinished products being churned out (Arkham Knight for example), games have increased in cost despite the fact that online distribution should mean much less costs to be born by publishers and developers .

 

[ROARRR]

Voted!
It is based on the Eschalon engine right?!
It looks like it had a big facelift whitch is gooed!

 

[KickAss]

Looks as if it tries to be a little bit of everything, and not very good at it..
Any info on combat besides "turn based"? Nothing on their site. From the video it looks to be of the "click on enemy and an animation happens" variety, aka no elevation/cover bonuses, targeted hits, action points and skills..

 

[Infinitron]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/updates/483253619/1437318306

Balrum in the Top 100!
19 JULY - BALCONY TEAM

Thank you everyone for voting! Balrum is on its way! If you can, please keep spreading the word.
We would like to show you two new screenshots. Both of the screenshots showcase dungeons.
Some of these dungeons in Balrum have quite challenging puzzles.

 

[Lurker King]

What a strange and interesting little game. If it were a species, it would be a variant of hybrid flower.

 

[quasimodo]

Voted!
It is based on the Eschalon engine right?!
It looks like it had a big facelift whitch is gooed!

It has nothing to do with Eschalon. It just looks like it.

 

[almondblight]

The bubble will burst, pretty much (which is why I'm somewhat glad that we were once again left in the cold by yet another artist and haven't began to do a proper Wasteland successor). Maybe not next year, maybe the year after that but I just don't see the market to support that many RPGs.

I believe Vogel used to make a living off of ~4,500 sales a game (full price or near it). SitS is around that number now, I believe; AoD is ~15,000. True, Vogel had a very particular model (spend almost nothing on assets and crank out a game a year). Still, it seems possible for indie RPG makers to find their niche and survive off of relatively meager sales, depending on their budget/development model.

 

[Morality Games]

SiSL might actually be doing well on GOG, which has an actual community devoted to playing old RPGs.

Well, imagine what will happen next year...

The bubble will burst, pretty much (which is why I'm somewhat glad that we were once again left in the cold by yet another artist and haven't began to do a proper Wasteland successor). Maybe not next year, maybe the year after that but I just don't see the market to support that many RPGs. It's still a niche genre and, most importantly, these games are all, like, 30-40-50 hours. And that's on the lower side - something like Underrail can easily consume 150-ish. That's just the specific of the genre. And even if you have money to buy them all, having the time to play them is, well, a wildly different matter.

Codexers are at burst levels, but the rest of the market isn't because most RPGs aren't in the AAA or AA market. SiSL hasn't even blipped on the radar of an overwhelming majority of everyone.

 

[ROARRR]

Voted!
It is based on the Eschalon engine right?!
It looks like it had a big facelift whitch is gooed!

It has nothing to do with Eschalon. It just looks like it.

Yep and Basilisk games even like it!

That does looks a lot like Eschalon. Seems to function in a similar turn-based method too. Cool!

Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I look forward to giving it a run through when it's released! Thanks for the link, Rune_74.

source: http://basiliskgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7555

 

[General Maxson]

Well I voted, as this really looks nice and interesting. I really dig the artstyle, looks great, like a fairytale simulation or something.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Well, imagine what will happen next year...

The bubble will burst...

What bubble?

Serpent in the Staglands - 4,104 ± 1,394
Lords of Xulima - 30,220 ± 3,784 (at the cost of participating in at least one bundle)
Underrail - 24,126 ± 3,381(two bundles)
Antharion - 1,119 ± 728 (just released but still...)
Battle Brothers - 10,944 ± 2,277

 

[Pope Amole II]

What bubble?

Serpent in the Staglands - 4,104 ± 1,394

Let's take the easiest example here - it was made by two people full-time for two years (actually, more than that as, when they started to kickstart their game, they already had some sort of prototype or whatever). Those people live in USA (which is a shitty place to be an indie dev, though). Even with 5400 copies, that's about 87k dollars after giving their share to the steam (I don't even calculate taxes or whatever). For two people. For two years. In USA. What bubble, really?

And mind you, we're in the beginning of the huge indie wave yet, not in the middle or even near the end of it (when the fatigue will reach its peak).

I believe Vogel used to make a living off of ~4,500 sales a game (full price or near it).

Vogel was more or less 1 man, made a game per year and shared his profits with no one ('xcept for the taxes, of course). He also charged 25 bucks per game and let's not forget about inflation - 25 bucks during the times of Geneforge releases is not what they are now.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What bubble?

Serpent in the Staglands - 4,104 ± 1,394

Let's take the easiest example here - it was made by two people full-time for two years (actually, more than that as, when they started to kickstart their game, they already had some sort of prototype or whatever). Those people live in USA (which is a shitty place to be an indie dev, though). Even with 5400 copies, that's about 87k dollars after giving their share to the steam (I don't even calculate taxes or whatever). For two people. For two years. In USA. What bubble, really?

And mind you, we're in the beginning of the huge indie wave yet, not in the middle or even near the end of it (when the fatigue will reach its peak).

That's precisely my point: sales are low, there's no bubble. 4,000 copies is nothing. Indie RPGs tend to sell poorly for 3 reasons: poor graphics (given a choice most people will go for the eye candy and games made with multi-million dollar budgets), non-existent media coverage (that's the hardest obstacle to overcome), poor marketing -> low awareness.

 

[mindx2]

I agree with VD here. There is NO bubble. Are we getting more "real" cRPGs than we have the past decade... yes, but to say we're at the point where "the market [can't] support that many RPGs" is ridiculous. Press-wise only 4-5 have gotten any kind of coverage in the last few years and that certainly isn't a bubble. There haven't been that many cRPG games released over the last 3 years (not counting the AAA crap masquerading as a cRPG), in fact I can count the number of games released on my hands and toes... and I don't even have fingers!!

 

[Decado]

Yeah, some people don't know what the fuck a "bubble" is.

 

[Infinitron]

Obviously what Pope Amole was trying to ask is whether all of these new indie RPGs can break even. Whether or not you want to call a possible miscalculation of the market a "bubble" isn't really important.