The current sockets are already diffently colored for the player and enemy units, more or less subtly so (see metal vs mossy gravestone above your post). Too subtle still for your taste, I take it?
Dev Blog #6 Progress Report – Whats happening at Battle Brothers
This week we give you an update on whats been going on with the project recently, what progress we’ve made and what we’ll be working on next!
Media Mentions
Last week we got the first mentions of Battle Brothers on some external pages and we are pretty excited about that. To start off, Craig Stern of indieRPGs published an announcement article on the game including some screenshots and a gameplay video. Thanks again, Craig!
Secondly, we got a front page news article on RPGwatch that drew quite some attention to our project. The news articles on their page travel down pretty fast but they surely have a large audience. Thanks, RPGwatch !
Finally, we got a mention on a Korean site. We don’t speak Korean, but from what we could gather it’s the announcement of Battle Brothers as well. And probably some facts like this going to be the best game ever.
Tactical Combat
During last week we made some additions to the tactical combat. First, as we already revealed, the Necromancer of the Undead faction made it into the game with all his skills and AI in place. He isn’t that hard to kill and neither does he do a lot of damage by himself. What makes him really dangerous is his abillity to revive fallen combatants, no matter what faction they belonged to, as shambling Undead. If you don’t take him out quickly you’ll eventually get overwhelmed by a horde of re-animated dead bodies, including your own fallen Battle Brothers. In the upcoming open pre-alpha of the tactical combat you will have the opportunity to fight this guy and find out the best tactics to beat him.
We are constantly adding little things like new skills, weapons and equipment to the game. Last week we put a new two handed weapon in the game that comes with a unique and utility-oriented skill set, although it doesn’t do the most damage. This is the Bill, also called English Bill or Bill-Hook. It is a gruesome pike-like weapon with a blade and a hook attached. The Bill grants its wielder two skills, “Impale” and “Hook”, that both have a lot of utility to them. With “Impale” you can attack from two tiles away, outside the range of any other melee weapon currently in the game, so your Battle Brother can stand behind the frontline in relative safety and still get attacks in due to the long range of the Bill. The second skill, “Hook”, is used to pull an enemy that is two tiles away one tile closer. This is great way to break enemy formations (those Shieldwalls!), drag enemies down from higher elevation or pull them away from your archers should they manage to pin them. We’re sure that players will find a lot of situations to make good use of the added tactical options provided by the Bill. Of course, the same goes for the AI, which will use Bills as well to drag your Battle Brothers out of tight formations!
Speaking of AI, this is something we’re constantly tweaking as well as development continues. Already, the AI is quite competent in using the skills available to it and has no qualms about knocking Battle Brothers down ledges to get to a better position, split shields with axes if faced with a Shieldwall or retreat to a defensible position if it gets overwhelmed. Aside from implementing the Necromancer’s AI, this week we’ve tweaked the defensive behavior and taught it to use Spearwalls so it can have any charge stop dead. That is, if the enemy is intelligent enough – Zombies certainly aren’t. We should have a whole article devoted to our AI design eventually.
Finally, work also continued on our inventory system. With no funding for the game yet, progress is somewhat slowed by the fact that not everyone of us is able to devote as much time to Battle Brothers as we’d like, but we’re making progress here as well. In a future article we’ll cover the inventory with all the juicy details!
Worldmap
We recently shifted our focus on the design and construction of the worldmap and strategic gameplay. Although we had a rough idea of the gameplay we wanted for the strategic part from the beginning, there’s still a lot to do here. What visual style do we want? An old map style? A more realistic representation? How do we implement this technically? Do all the gameplay features we thought of fit together for a coherent whole? Do the tactical and strategic layers feel sufficiently connected? Is it going to be fun this way?
We have some pretty exciting stuff up our sleeves but it is too early yet to show it to you as we’re still constantly changing things around. Just this much: The strategical part of the game will not have to hide behind the tactical combat part!
Music and Sound Effects
Aaaand a quick mention regarding music and sound effects. What effects you might have heard in our gameplay videos are placeholders, sounds we put in the prototype to get a general idea of how things would feel with sound. We are now slowly extending our antennas in various directions to get some talented sfx artist and/or composer on the project who will create something uniquely fitting for Battle Brothers. However, we’re still in a pretty early stage regarding this and we want to get the gameplay right before focusing on presentation and sound.
Blog Post #7: Worldmap reveal and strategic gameplay
So far we only talked about the tactical combat part of the game because we focused on developing it first, it is already fully playable and there was a lot to talk about. Now is the time to present the strategic part, also known as the worldmap, which we currently focus on. Everything that follows is heavily work in progress so don’t take it as set in stone. If there is anything you’d like to see in the strategic part of the game, let us know in the comments below!
What is the purpose of the worldmap?
When coming up with the basic gamedesign we took a lot of inspiration from classics games like X-Com and Jagged Alliance. Both of these games rely on two interlocking systems: A tactical and a strategic part.
While the tactical part takes place on a really small area where you control individual Battle Brothers and make decisions within a fast paced close combat, the strategic part shows the bigger picture where you have to make long term decisions like where to go, what battles to pick and how to make use of limited resources.
The main purpose of the worldmap is to give context to the tactical battles. It determines your troops, the equipment and skills of your troops, the enemy you fight, the goal or mission of any battle, the terrain, the weather and light conditions and the rewards you get for victories. Also, it gives long term consequences to anything that happens in battle; Brothers gaining experience and skill only matters if they keep those between battles, and Brothers dying has an impact beyond the current battle, for your whole campaign. Whether you win or lose a battle can also impact the worldmap and what future battles will occur. For example, destroying an enemy encampment will have it seize sending raiding parties to nearby villages and estates, increasing local security and stopping the drain of wealth, which in turn increases the quality and amount of available equipment and supplies for local merchants, as well as the rewards that villages can offer you for future tasks. Failing to destroy the encampment could mean that the village will eventually be razed and become unavailable as a place of commerce, safety and recruits.
However, the strategic part isn’t just to supplement the tactical one, and certainly not just a filler between tactical encounters. We want it to offer enough depth in gameplay to be interesting in its own right, to offer choice and consequences, and to require formulating strategies in order to succeed at it. In contrast to the tactical part, it is more of a management and strategy game and as such has a different pace to it, offering variety and a different perspective on the game world. Lets go a bit deeper and take a look at the elements that make up the worldmap.
Layout of the world
The worldmap in Battle Brothers covers the scope of a single continent with a geography and climate similar to that of your average middle-european country. It is procedurally generated at the start of every new game so that you have a fresh map to play on every time.
We have different types of terrain with which the map is painted according to various rules; for example, mountaineous terrain will often appear in a connected line forming a mountain ridge, and a village will usually be surrounded by farmland. Of course, we also have dark forests, open plains, treacherous swamplands and rivers curling downhill. To learn what a forest actually means in gameplay terms, see the gameplay section below.
In this world we place villages near fertile land and rivers, as well as bigger towns, and guardposts and keeps at positions of strategic importance. Roads connect these beacons of civilization, often snaking around the dark forests but sometimes having no choice but to lead right through them – despite the dangers that might lurk within.
The premise
“You take on the role of a leader of a small mercenary warband that finds itself in a country that has been abandoned by most regular fighting forces due to an oversees war. This vacuum of power leaves the country ripe with opportunity for any man who can wield a sword to earn good coin. But you are not the only power that is taking advantage of this opportunity. There are way bigger forces at work beyond the horizon that threaten to engulf everything in darkness..”
While the worldmap is dotted with a number of minor enemy parties, from independent roaming monsters to bandit encampments, there is also what we refer to as The Greater Evil, which will become increasingly dominant as time goes on. The Greater Evil is one of several possible armies which starts an invasion of the worldmap in an attempt to completely control and/or destroy it. So far, you’ve only seen some of the Undead army – however we have several more armies planned which differ significantly in how they behave both on the worldmap and in tactical battles. No, this game is not just about fighting the Undead!
General gameplay
Within the world your band of Battle Brothers is depicted as a figurine with a (customizable!) banner – and so is any other party you can encounter and interact with. All parties move around the map in pauseable real time. If you’ve played Mount & Blade before you should have a good idea how it’ll work.
While the general layout of the world is revealed from the start, most of the world is covered in fog of war except for a circle of vision around your party and also around the major settlements. When traveling across the country you will encounter other parties and locations, some friendly, some hostile. Usually they will be revealed when entering your field of vision, although certain terrain (like forest) can make it more difficult to detect them – and thus offer opportunities for ambushes. As you discover new locations, like long-forgotten ruins, they will remain visible on your map as a point of interest.
With the worldmap we are going in the direction of a “simulation” in a dynamic world instead of a pre-determined sequence of events or scripted quests that just pop up. We want to offer a world that feels open and alive, a world that you, the player, can actually influence. One where you don’t feel alone or feel like you’re doing all the work by yourself. Therefore, all parties, settlements and factions have their own agenda.
For example, merchants travel on the roads between settlements, but not just for show. As they reach their destination, they increase the local wealth with their trading, which in turn increases the selection of equipment and supplies available, and the rewards that the settlement is able to offer for any tasks. In the same vein, consider an encampment of robbers in the nearby forest. That encampment will send out parties to raid farms, fields, the settlement itself and the merchant caravans travelling the roads. As the village is raided and merchant caravans never reach it, its wealth plummets, its people become poor and can offer the player little. On the other hand, as the bandit raiding parties return home with their spoils, the encampment gains resources and can send out more and bigger raiding parties in the future.
The settlement will likely issue a call for help and offer a reward for helping against constant raids, which the player can follow up on. However, this is not a “quest” in the classical sense, and neither the village nor the robbers exist just for the purpose of this. The player could just as well have found and killed the robbers on his or her travels through the forest by chance, or perhaps the village militia could have fought them off. In this case, the settlement might never have experienced a big loss in lives and wealth, and wouldn’t have needed help. Since a wealthy settlement has more to offer the player in terms of trading, equipment and recruiting options, the player has an interest in helping out the people not just because he or she was promised a reward for a specific task.
This is just one example for how we are planning to generate opportunities and gameplay by giving each party or faction their own agenda and their own resources to achieve their goals. Again, we want a dynamic, living world where you stumble across adventure opportunities all the time. On top of that, your actions form the world around you and the balance of power between all the interacting factions that are populating the country.
Worldmap features
Besides traveling the country and kicking monster ass there are a couple of gameplay features that the player has to employ to be successfull.
Troops
You can hire troops in most friendly settlements for a certain amount of gold. When hiring you do not know the exact character stats of the Battle Brother-to-be, which are randomly determined, although we might give you a rough indication based on character biography. Some recruits even have negative character traits like being tiny or short sighted. Others may be better suited for mercenary work and have traits like being athletic or strong.
The worldmap also allows you to manage all your Battle Brothers. You can rename them, equip them with weapons, armor and accessories. On top of that you can select new skills once they reach a new level. We’ll have a whole blog article dedicated to our level and skill system eventually!
Crafting
The worldmap allows you to craft any number of equipment for which you have the recipe and crafting materials available. Recipes for crafting can be found throughout the world, bought in settlements and looted from fallen enemies. Some more exotic recipies are the product of research (see “scholarship” further down).
Crafting materials can be obtained through looting, salvaging old equipment or be bought in settlements. There are various crafting materials, some easy to get like wood or iron, and some rare and only to be acquired by slaying extremely dangerous and powerful enemies.
Followers
Your band of Battle Brothers can also be accompanied by a small number of followers. Each follower will give a strategic advantage for worldmap gameplay and won’t be part of the tactical battles. There are various types of followers, each with different advantages. For example, a Scout may increase your party’s field of vision and increase your movement speed on difficult terrain (like forests). A healer, on the other hand, will increase the recovery speed of your wounded Battle Brothers and will lessen the danger of lasting injuries.
You will meet followers throughout your journeys. Maybe you run into them in a settlement or you free them from an enemy encampment.
Scholarship
Scholarship is the study of dusty tomes and ancient artifacts, best described as the equivalent to “research”. If you choose to do so, you’ll find a wide array of projects to be studied; there are clues scattered all throughout the land as to the location of legendary and ancient artifacts that could turn the tide in your campaign. Experimenting with exotic ingredients, like leftovers of magical enemies, might yield possible crafting recipies and ultimately equipment which bolster your Battle Brothers.
Further development
This is rough overview on the strategic part of Battle Brothers, and most of the above elements probably deserve a blog article on their own to be explained in detail. Let us know what you think about our plans so far, about your suggestions and what topic you’d like our next article to be!
A Battle Brothers After Action Report
This is an imaginary After Action Report (AAR) of a couple of ingame days in the full version of Battle Brothers. It describes in a prosaic way the events that will and can actually happen in the full game. We want the players to live through their own stories and not experience something we made up – a whole world that is different for everyone and each story is unique to your particular playthrough and playstyle.
So enjoy the read and let us know what you think!
The Aftermath
Is that a light in the distance? Magnus rubbed the rain out of his eyes and tried to identify the source of the yellow light he thought he saw a couple of seconds ago but it had already disappeared behind the slow moving rain curtains that have had been falling all day. Right next to him, his companions Torstein and Bjarn staggered along the muddy road followed by Carl and the oxwagon that held all their equipment and what was left of their supplies. The lack of fresh food, shelter and a decent night’s sleep took a huge toll on the men’s morale. No one had talked in hours except for the occasional cursing about the weather, their situation and the indifference of the gods in general.
After what seemed an endless time trudging along the road, Magnus smelled fire. When raising his head he had to blink twice before realising that they finally arrived at Wiesendorf, the small settlement they planned on reaching 2 days ago.
Everything was going its way until Bjarn, who was scouting ahead at the time, told them about a strange set of ruins that looked like a burial site he discovered in the hills nearby. To reach the ruins they had to delay their trip and lose another two days, but they hadn’t made a silver piece in a while and the dwellers of the hills were known for burrying their dead with all sorts of riches for the afterlife. In the end, greed won over reason and from that point everything went downhill. There were seven of them when they made that decision.
A world ripe with opportunity
With most of the soldiers and young men being sent away to conquer a land Magnus never even heard of, the time was high for men who where ready to take fate into their own hands. Most settlements still maintained small militia forces, but the land beyond the town gates often had no protection, noone to keep the order of things. Hunger after a bad harvest can turn a good man into a thief, and a thief into a murderer, and there were few good harvests to be had these days with so many men sent beyond the great sea. Thiefs, cutthroats, highwaymen and worse set up camp all over the countryside. But there was also a decent coin to be made with safeguarding villages, caravans and merchants that travelled the land. This was the new order of things. At heart, Magnus always felt the urge to protect the innocent and helpless. A knightly notion, and a naive one some would say, but this was him. If a filled coin purse comes with a clear conscience he would be the last to say no.
Magnus assembled a diverse band of sellswords over the past months. Most of them not trained soldiers, but all of them decent men who knew which end of the sword goes where. All of them wanting to take fate into their own hands. Although they never officially made Magnus their leader, they all seemed to listen to his suggestions and so far they fared well this way.
The weeks leading up to those dreadful events at the ancient burial site had been a dry spot regarding silver pieces. The band encountered neither caravans in need of protection nor anyone else that would hire them. Not even pillagers or bandits to hunt on their own and exact a toll on. When Bjarn came back with the news about the ruins, the men’s eyes started to shine with the prospect of riches guarded only by piles of dust and the shattered bones of men that ended their watch long ago. Only Carl, an older and well-traveled scribe, tried to warn them about things much worse than outlaws. Things that were said to only come out at night, to rise from the graves with a hunger for the flesh and warm blood of the living, things from beyond this world. Laughing at the old man’s tales, the men broke camp and made their way towards the hills.
Fortune Favors the Bold
When they arrived at the ruins at dusk they set up a small camp nearby with Carl staying back and guarding their supplies. Bjarn, having his short bow at the ready, moved some paced ahead of them and scouted the area for any immediate threats like resident hill dwellers, or others also looking to loot the ruins. He had the best eyesight of them all and during his years as a hunter learned to move quietly through the brushes without being detected. The other six approached the burial site carefully in a spread out line.
At the center of the line was Magnus, armed with a short sword and a small wooden shield. He put on the worn metal helmet he found in a bandit’s camp some time ago. Little did he know that it would save his life later that night. To his left and right walked Torstein and Hjalmar, the youngest of their band, both not having seen even their 20th summer. They held their hatchets so tightly that their knuckles turned white and nervously looked at the sun that slowly faded away behind a mountain ridge in the distance, immersing the whole scenery in an orange tint.
To the far right Erik strided along, resting his massive two-handed axe on his mighty shoulder. As a woodcutter he knew how to use that axe. When it came down to it, there was little difference between a tree trunk and a man – or at least so Erik never got tired of claiming. The left end of the line was held by Heinrich. Although the years finally caught up with him, he was the only real soldier in this little company. The years had seen him do little else than fighting for coin, whether paid by noble lords or scraped together by villagers that feared for what little they had, and so joining up with Magnus and the others had come naturally. He needed the coin and this was the way he had always earned it. His face showed no emotion as he slowly walked towards the ruins in a rustling chainmail, the only one with armor that wasn’t made out of some poor deer’s hide.
Suddenly something moved in the woods to their left, less than a stone throw away. They immediately stopped and turned towards the dark woods where it seemed that a man was standing between the trees just looking at them. Bjarn shouted at the man to come out and show himself but there was no reaction except a moaning sound. They all looked at Magnus waiting for him to tell them what to do next when a tree to the right of the strange man started moving, and then another one.
The fading light tricked their eyes, it was not the tree moving but more human figures that had been standing completely still. As the figures shuffled forward and out of the woods into the last bit of light, Magnus saw their horribly disfigured faces that were covered in rotten flesh. Bjarn was the first to react while the others stood there in shock and disbelief. He pulled the string of his bow as far back as he could and let loose an arrow at the nearest of those things. The arrow hit it right in the chest but the creature just moaned and continued on towards Hjalmar who was closest to the woods. Only when the creature nearly reached him did Hjalmar come to his senses and stumbled backwards. Before any of the others could intervene, the undead managed to grab Hjalmar’s arm, pulling him close as he struggled, and buried its rotten teeth deep in his neck. His scream broke the numbness of the others and they charged at the walking dead that kept stumbling out of the woods.
They made quick work of the first line of undead that made it out of the woods and then rallied around Magnus to catch their breath. Hjalmar lay still on the ground with his face slowly turning white. There was nothing they could do for him, he was dead. The break was way too short, more undead came stumbling from the depths of the woods and headed right at them. They quickly aligned in a battle line and braced themselves for the incoming attack. As the face of the first zombie made contact with Heinrichs shield buckle they heard a loud scream from Erik’s end of the line. Erik struggled to get rid of one of the monsters that was clinging to his leg and biting him repeatedly. With one jump Magnus was at his side and smashed the thing’s head with a blow of his sword. Only then did he realize that it was not one of the zombies from the woods, but poor Hjalmar who had come back from the dead to attack Erik from behind. Magnus and Erik looked at each other and both knew that things looked grim for Erik. “Run” said the brawny man while tightening the grip on his axe “I will hold them back as long as I can! Run!”
“No way” replied Magnus and threw himself at the closing undead.
The next thing Magnus remembers is being shaken roughly by Bjarn whose face was covered in dried blood and mud. He slowly regained consciousness and tried to get his bearings. Blurry shapes around him turned into lifeless bodies, arrows, discarded weapons and smashed shields. Except for Bjarn he only saw Torstein who was leaning over something that was lying on the ground. Magnus tried to get up and groaned while scrambling to his feet. “We need to get out of here fast” said Bjarn. “Erik, Heinrich…?” asked Magnus, but Bjarn just shook his head. With Bjarn and Torstein supporting Magnus, who must have received a blow to the head, they stumbled away from the battlefield that was soon swarming with even more of the walking dead.
The Battle Brothers
The battle by the old ruins was neither their first, nor their last, but it was the first they fought together. They started out as strangers, united only by the prospect of easy riches. The things they saw, the things they did and the things they went through together turned them into brothers. Battle Brothers.
Dev Blog #10 Progress Report – An Update on Battle Brothers
Time for another progress update on everything Battle Brothers – UI, inventory, sound effects and more!
UI Improvements
We’ve reworked parts of our tactical battle UI to show you more helpful information in your upcoming engagements. The combat event log can be expanded now to show all previous entries, and we show a count of the number of Battle Brothers and opponents left on the field to keep you updated on how the battle as a whole is going. If the player hovers over a target to attack, we now detail all things, positive and negative, that factor into the hitchance – so there’s no guessing anymore, and you’ll know why you miss those shots and what you can do to improve your hit chances.
We experienced first-hand in one of our early closed tests that players don’t read manuals anymore. That’s why we chose to have every function also as a clearly visible button embedded into the UI – rotating the map and raising and lowering the camera level, for example. Once players are familiar with the game, we’re pretty sure they’ll use hotkeys to quickly access those functions – but until then, buttons should make everyone aware that these functions exist in the first place, and tooltips will explain their use and what key they’re bound to.
Inventory and Character Screen
The inventory and character screen is going to be a central hub for equipping and developing your Battle Brothers. The equipping part will also be featured in our upcoming combat demo, and that’s what we’re working on still. Beyond the demo, every time one of your Battle Brothers levels up, you’ll be able to pick a passive skill (also known as a perk or feat, if you prefer) out of several skill trees here in order to shape them the way you want.
Our basic design of the inventory screen looks like this – though, as you can see, it shows placeholder data currently and we now have to fill it with real one from the game.
On the left you can see our paperdoll-to-be. We have slots for body armor, helmet, main-hand, off-hand, ammo and accessory. Below, there are also 4 backpack slots for additional gear you want your Battle Brothers to carry around, like a spare shield.
On the top right you can spot where all the character stats will be listed. Already we show the most important ones on the tactical battle view, but the more intricate ones (like view range and defensive stats) can be found and read about here. Below the character stats is a list of all active skills (depending on equipment), passive skills (depending on how the character has been leveled up) and status effects (like being stunned) that the character has.
Paul [take a look at his art thread], our artist, is working on finishing up the weapon and armor icons for the inventory system. Each individual item in the inventory will be depicted the same way also on the battlefield, and we have loads of varied color patterns for all helmets and shields available so that you can run wild customizing your men and giving a unique look to your personal gang of Battle Brothers. The screenshot below should give you an impression on how the armor icons evolve from sketches in the top row to the final quality we’ll have in the game at the bottom row.
New Bloodsplatter Effects
Medieval battles are brutal affairs, and we want our game to reflect this visually. We want our battlefields to be littered with discarded shields and arrows, and our combatants to really look the part if they’ve just barely survived a deadly encounter. As you guys know, we already show damaged armor and injuries on the characters. Since last week, we also display blood on weapons that have spilled blood. When characters have spilled lots of it, they’ll now even be sprayed with it themselves. It’s not over the top and looks reasonably subdued unless the character wears white – but skeletons especially look extra fierce now after they’ve slaughtered a few men.
We hope that these effects will do their part for the feeling of achievement after a won battle when you look at your battle-worn and blood-covered men that prevailed against all odds!
New Sound Effects
Having a rich scoundscape is really important to us, especially since we can’t convey visually all the intensity of a pseudo-medieval battle we’d like to without fully animated combatants. Previously we only had placeholder sounds in the game, so it is a big step forward for us to now have our very own sound effects for most weapons and skills in the game!
We’ll continue to add new sound effects and replace placeholder ones along the road, so you can expect steady improvements as we go. Of course, the upcoming combat demo should now also sound quite a bit more engaging!
If you have any questions regarding Battle Brothers just head over to the Battle Brothers forums or just drop us an e-mail at contact@overhypestudios.com!
You really need floating damage numbers, IMO. Immediately visible feedback on attacks is sorely lacking
That sounds retarded. I don't play a tactical or strategy game to look at fancy graphics.
