Broken Roads - turn-based Australian post-apocalyptic RPG with "unique morality system"

[HeatEXTEND]

Broken Roads has the potential to become the next Disco Elysium​

beurk

 

[rusty_shackleford]

This game has combat.

which means it's actually an rpg unlike the game it was compared to

 

[Infinitron]

Leanne Taylor-Giles, James Giles, Amos Wolfe, Colin McComb, Tim Sunderland and Craig Ritchie answer Broken Roads questions from the Discord and Steam communities.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:26 Will you be at PAX AUS 2022
02:18 Will the Devs enjoy a cold one on release?
03:37 Have you spoken with the companies who've inspired in-game items?
05:30 Is there any particular CRPG that inspired you the most?
09:34 What is the biggest piece of content that had to be cut from the game because of scope?
16:55 How entwined is the alignment system with the companions, are they ride or die, or do they have their own thing going on?
19:31 Do more dialogue options become unlocked if you level specific skills like Charisma or Intelligence etc?
22:06 Is there something interesting or unique about the combat system?
24:19 What's your favourite thing about the game?
29:45 Tell us about the soundtrack
34:38 Is the pacifist playthrough available to all quadrants of the moral compass?
38:01 Can I pet the camels/animals?
38:44 Does Broken Roads hbave a fixed camera/360, zoom in/out, and what are the min/max party numbers?
41:36 Is there going to be an open beta?
42:39 How did the world end?
45:50 Will there be pet companions?
47:18 Is the protagonist the leader of the convoy?
51:16 GUNS GUNS GUNS! What kind of guns are there and what kind of combat skills are there?
55:02 Will there be a crafting system?
58:28 Thanks for tuning in and all the support!

 

[Infinitron]

Our art team discuss their work on the game by running through Ardath, one of the towns in Broken Roads. They discuss level design, environment design, character and creature modeling, and a whole lot more, and wrap up by answering a few questions from the Broken Roads Discord community.

0:00 Intro
1:10 Ardath Character designs
5:31 Character models
7:24 Texturing process
9:33 3D assets & VFX in Unity
11:35 Level Design & Environment Design
19:55 Buildings and Props
22:59 Very serious and professional textures
24:13 Makeshift musical instruments
27:53 Honest Wade's Shop concepts and props
33:13 Creatures (spider warning)
38:19 Non-spider creatures
50:01 VFX tools & vegetation
55:19 Q&A

Included in the stream are:
Bianca Roux, Art Lead (https://twitter.com/BiancaRoux4)
Cassandra Lee, Concept Artist (https://twitter.com/_Cassandra_Lee_)
Ryan Gee, VFX & Technical Artist (https://twitter.com/CephalopodSalad)
Sara Laubscher, Lead Environment Artist (https://twitter.com/sarandipity_art)
Sir Maszrum (Mariusz), Art Director (https://twitter.com/DeathRoadsGame)
Tim Sunderland, Audio Lead & Composer (https://twitter.com/sundaysundae87)

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev...rne-international-games-week-2022-steam-event

BROKEN ROADS FEATURED IN THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK 2022 STEAM EVENT​

After an excellent event in 2021, Drop Bear Bytes were again invited to showcase Broken Roads this year as part of the Melbourne International Games Week ‘22 Steam Event.

We held two live streams - an AMA with our Australian/North American team members and a roundtable with our South African/European art team - and participated in Death n Dirt, a panel on pre-, mid- and post-apocalyptic games.

On top of this, our Narrative Director, Leanne Taylor-Giles, hosted a GCAP 2022 Narrative Design Q&A titled ‘Storytelling: Beyond Words’ earlier today, and is moderating a PAX Australia Panel titled ‘Making and Breaking Connections: The Art of Betrayal’ on Friday, October 7th.

We recorded our MIGW streams and have uploaded them to our YouTube channel, and have also embedded ‘Death n Dirt’ below. Both of our streams have the talks fully timestamped if you want to skim through for a specific topic.

BROKEN ROADS TEAM AMA FOR THE MIGW 22 STEAM EVENT​

Leanne Taylor-Giles (Narrative Director), James Giles (Gameplay Animator), Amos Wolfe (Senior Unity Developer), Colin McComb (Creative Lead), Tim Sunderland (Audio Lead & Composer) and Craig Ritchie (Game Director) answer Broken Roads-related questions from the Discord and Steam communities.

BROKEN ROADS ART TEAM MIGW 2022 STEAM EVENT​

Our art team discuss their work on the game by running through Ardath, one of the towns in Broken Roads. They discuss level design, environment design, character and creature modeling, and a whole lot more, and wrap up by answering a few questions from the Broken Roads Discord community.
Included in the stream are:

• Bianca Roux, Art Lead (https://twitter.com/BiancaRoux4)
• Cassandra Lee, Concept Artist (https://twitter.com/_Cassandra_Lee_)
• Ryan Gee, VFX & Technical Artist (https://twitter.com/CephalopodSalad)
• Sara Laubscher, Lead Environment Artist (https://twitter.com/sarandipity_art)
• Sir Maszrum (Mariusz), Art Director (https://twitter.com/DeathRoadsGame)
• Tim Sunderland, Audio Lead & Composer (https://twitter.com/sundaysundae87)

PANEL: DEATH N DIRT​

A discussion of pre-, mid-, and post-apocalyptic games with Vasili Karavasilis, Oscar Brittain and Craig Ritchie, hosted by Chris Wulf:

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/drop-bear-bytes-at-gcap-and-pax-2022

DROP BEAR BYTES AT GCAP AND PAX 2022​

L-R: Marigold Bartlett, Leanne Taylor-Giles, Wren Brier and Simon Boxer

Well, this year's Melbourne International Games Week, GCAP and PAX are over. Most of the Australian Drop Bear Bytes team were in attendance, with Narrative Director Leanne Taylor-Giles hosting two panels with Marigold Bartlett, the Art Director at Ghost Pattern (who just released Wayward Strand), Wren Brier (Creative Director of Unpacking), and Simon Boxer (Creative Director at Twice Different, who made Ring of Pain and are working on The Dungeon Experience), one at GCAP and one during PAX.

We’ll post the video of the PAX panel to our YouTube channel as soon as we’ve done some cleanup and minor editing.

Drop Bear Bytes has been a fully distributed studio since its founding in early 2019, and much like gamescom in August, this was the first time some of the team had ever met in person.

L-R: Dean Baron, James Giles, Leanne Taylor-Giles and Eloise Campbell

There were many excellent panels and talks which the team attended (see the list below) and many of these will be uploaded in the coming months (although you may need to pay for access...) - but the highlight of PAX Australia is always the indie area.
It's always great to see what smaller studios have been up to, and the indie area shows off just the best of Australia. This year there were so many amazing games, each with their own unique identity.

It was awesome to see World War I survival horror CONSCRIPT on display again. Drop Bear Bytes was next to them at gamescom, and they ended up next to the fine people of Innchanted at PAX.

The competitive-minigame-’em-up ShapeVS was always getting a lot of attention throughout the show. They need to watch out or someone’s going to poach their developer…

Ricochet Rodeo, a PVP platform shooter with strong Nidhogg vibes, was another one drawing the crowds - that’s our Lead Unity Developer Amos with the blue backpack.

Several studios took memorable approaches to marketing, from Godfeather’s “Feed the boids” seed packets:

To Bustin’ and their “roll wrapping service” (sadly, no one had any toilet paper to spare):

And, of course, everyone’s (Dean’s) favourite, Duck with Helmet from Knight Crawlers:

Click here for a list of exhibiting indies and publishers.

GCAP TALKS ​

Amos’ picks:​

https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/event/18buo/a-personal-philosophy-of-excellent-engineering
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/event/18bv6/lets-do-some-crimes-the-wonders-of-abusing-c-generics
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/...ithout-sacrificing-it-intentional-team-design
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/event/18bvO/optimising-your-game-after-it-ships (seconded by Leanne)

Leanne’s picks:​

Watch the opening keynote at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1607708111 (keynote starts at 46 minutes in)
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/event/18bur/data-driven-narrative-and-narrative-analytics
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/event/18bvF/25000-lines-of-vo-in-an-aussie-indie-game
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/...w-diverse-ensemble-casts-create-living-worlds
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/event/18bxx/accessibility-as-a-first-principle
https://gcap2022ambition.sched.com/...nciples-towards-better-technical-support-docs
Watch the closing keynote at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1609749176 (keynote starts at 7 minutes in)
And that’s it for GCAP and PAX for this year!
- The Drop Bear Bytes team

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Can only imagine how big the grin was on infinitron's face when he got ready to post that update.
So, this game is gonna suck, huh?

 

[C.H.A.R.L.I.E]

a convention for post pandemic holdouts

 

[cretin]

Can only imagine how big the grin was on infinitron's face when he got ready to post that update.
So, this game is gonna suck, huh?

Could've told you that ages ago. Nothing good is ever going to be made by millennial Australians living in Victoria, POZ central.

 

[gurugeorge]

*Looks at pictures*

*Quietly removes game from Wishlist*

 

[manifest]

Infinitron should be here commended for bringing the literary quality of this post to our attention. To be sure, it is not every day that oft-vapid self-promotion approaches the highest heights of the written word as art. Here we are stricken by the unmistakable Melvilleian tribute in Drop Bear Bytes' reporting: a 1:1 counterpoise to Chapter 55 of the great American novel, "Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales".

 

[Fargus]

*Looks at pictures*

*Quietly removes game from Wishlist*

Good call

 

[cyborgboy95]

Character Attributes in Broken Roads

In this update we’re giving a rundown of the attributes in Broken Roads, the three categories of skills the attributes play into, as well as a brief look at some of the skills derived from them. Please note: we’re in the middle of reworking much of the UI, so the images shown here are not representative of the finished product.

Attributes are the core stats that determine a character’s build. As with many RPG systems we know and love, they determine hit points, movement points, a character’s ability to perform actions based on what attribute that action is associated with, and so on. In Broken Roads, attributes also determine the baseline integer for skills in each tree (or ‘category’, explained below).

We wanted each attribute to be significant both in and out of combat, with skills and abilities to suit the kind of build a player wants to have, or the playstyle they may be going for in any given run through the game. Want to build a charismatic but not too smart mercenary-type with a fixation on serving the greater good? We want that to be completely viable. Or a wily, self-interested merchant who can handle any type of gun with ease but is so weak they can’t fight themselves out of a wet paper bag? Also entirely viable.

THE SIX ATTRIBUTES

Strength (STR)
Affects Action Points, melee and thrown weapon damage (for non-explosive projectiles), lifting heavy objects, bashing down doors, and pretty much anything that involves flexing a bit of muscle.

Agility (AGI)
One for the acrobats and athletes, this is the major determinant of Movement Points, increases accuracy of thrown weapons, and works alongside Strength to determine a character’s base score for Fortitude skills.

Resolve (RES)
This measures how well a character can withstand pain, their success in facing both physical and psychological adversity, and their ability to stay calm under pressure.

Awareness (AWR)
The stat that allows a character to notice things around them, for example improving aim and general use of guns, spotting a camouflaged creature or enemy, and knowing when someone's lying. A character’s Awareness and Resolve scores are added together to determine a character’s base score for Temperance skills.

Intelligence (INT)
Simply put, how smart a character is and how well they apply themselves to support tasks such as first aid, tinkering/repairing things, and of course constructing convincing arguments in dialogue.

Charisma (CHR)
This stat determines how good a character is at talking their way in, through, and out of difficult situations. Charisma can also increase the success chance of numerous dialogue checks. Along with Intelligence, Charisma determines the starting value of a character’s base score for Wisdom skills.

BROKEN ROADS' THREE SKILL CATEGORIES

Fortitude: Strength & Agility

Fortitude skills include Melee Mastery (bonus damage, accuracy, critical hit chance and Initiative while wielding a melee weapon), Barbican (shrug off damage like a brick shithouse) and Opportunist (help yourself to a free swipe at enemies doing a runner).

Wisdom: Intelligence & Charisma

Wisdom skills include Tinker (use swanky devices, pick locks, add additional utility slots in combat), Biology (increases the amount healed by restorative items, and at higher levels grants a chance not to consume a restorative item on use), as well as Leadership (set an example for those around you, granting Initiative and other bonuses in combat, as well as unique dialogue options at certain moments throughout the game).

Temperance: Resolve & Awareness

Temperance skills include Shooting Mastery(not only improving how handy you are with a gun, but grants various passive abilities as you increase the skill), Drunken Master (grants various bonuses obtained from consuming the different kinds of beverages on offer in the game) and Flow State (after two consecutive ranged attacks that hit their target, the character receives a bonus to accuracy on each attack until they miss).

ASSIGNING ATTRIBUTE POINTS

At the start of the game, you will have a total of 40 points to allocate across these 6 attributes - it’s a point-buy system, so no dice rolls during character creation. Then, each level up, characters gain 1 attribute point and 5 skill points. Just as at character creation, increasing attribute points during level up also increments each skill in the skill categories mentioned above.

There are five skills in each category, and each has a score calculated by the sum of the two attributes that make up the category. This score is the minimum a skill of that category can be - thus in this example below (base of 11 in Strength +1 as a Hired Gun bonus, and base of 12 in Agility +1 as a Hired Gun bonus), all of the player’s Fortitude skills would start from a baseline value of 25.

Similarly, Resolve and Awareness make up Temperance, and this character has 3 RES and 6 AWR, making for a baseline of 7 for all Temperance skills, and 4 INT and 6 CHA for a baseline of 10 in Wisdom.

Note that the Opportunist and Shooting Mastery skills receive Hired Gun bonuses as well, granting +5 and +10 respectively during character creation:

In January we’re going to do a blog focused on each skill, each derived stat, and the various active and passive abilities granted as your character progresses. We’ll share those details with you very soon, along with - hopefully! - our new UI designs and artwork.

Things can - and probably will - change all the way up to launch as we test and balance, so don’t be surprised if the actual values/numbers/skill names used in this blog aren’t the same when the game releases.

Thanks for reading!

- The Drop Bear Bytes team

 

[Verylittlefishes]

whoa it is still alive

 

[Van-d-all]

Broken Roads has the potential to become the next Disco Elysium​

No. Fucking. Way.

Say what you will about Disco being RPG or not, it's writing being pretentious, or mechanics being superficial but overall the game's unique narration, creative setting, memorable characters and critical approach to various ideologies serve purpose way beyond the scope of a game as medium, just like good books or movies do.

And Broken Roads? I've been tracking the game for a while, and I wish it all the best, but from what I've seen so far, it's just a notch more ambitious in mechanics from your typical Fallout clone.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/december-2022-art-round-up

BROKEN ROADS DECEMBER 2022 ART ROUND-UP​

We’re wrapping up a very eventful year for the studio as we gear down for the Christmas break. 2022 saw us secure a partnership with Versus Evil, grow our team, exhibit at gamescom and of course up the quality of the art in Broken Roads to levels we never imagined when we started off as a 2D, tile-based game back in 2019.
For this blog we chatted to each of our artists, our level designer and our producer to get a feel for some of their highlights from the back half of the year.

RYAN GEE, VFX & TECHNICAL ARTIST​

"Working on set dressing older scenes that have been in a partially unfinished state for as long as several years has been very satisfying, and it's been very rewarding to see how far we've come over the life of the project in terms of quality and art fidelity. Being able to pack details into every corner and fill up open spaces with interesting bits and pieces has in my eyes really helped to bring the narrative we've heard about to life. I'm really excited for players to wander through these places and start to pick up on the stories of the people who live there, not only through the main narrative but through the little stories the environment itself tells.”

“It's been really satisfying seeing how far we've come over the last 3 years, and I'm really proud of the point that we've gotten the game to now, through lots of ups and downs. I'm sure everyone on the project has had their own expectations of what they would like the end result of the game to look like, but it's been really cool to see things reach the level of detail, style, and complexity I'd always hoped we'd be able to achieve (and to be and have been part of getting there!)."

SARA LAUBSCHER, LEAD ENVIRONMENT ARTIST​

"As the environment designer for this narrative-based game, I believe in storytelling through world building, so that the player feels immersed in the world and its stories. Because our game has a fixed camera angle, we can really leverage traditional rules of composition in order to lead the player’s eye toward areas of importance within the environment. Especially with the interior scenes that we have been working on recently - I try to design them in such a way that Ryan can leverage light sources to create focal points that can enhance mood and story. It's incredibly rewarding seeing the whole team's art come together in a scene!”

“I have really enjoyed researching Australia in my environment design process. I’ve looked at small town bake sales, underground homes, glow worm caves, Mars terraforming simulators - you name it. My internet history is all over the place. I think that’s my favourite part about our game, there are so many unique aspects to Western Australia, it's cool to try convey them in a way that would make a local go, ‘Oh wow! That looks like my town after the apocalypse!’“

CASSANDRA LEE, CONCEPT ARTIST​

“A fun task to work on was concepting the strange sphere that appears as an object of interest in the Merredin Governor’s HQ environment's display cabinet. It was a creative blue sky task that allowed me to be really free with exploring all kinds of intricate details and textures to make this sphere stand out and look special.”

“When thinking about the object from the perspective of how it's going to appear in game, it was important to dial things back a bit and make sure the details where readable from a far distance.”

THOBILE SIMELANE, 3D MODELER​

"Seeing all the assets that have been created by the team assembled to generate the designed environments has been such a pleasure to bear witness to. I've enjoyed seeing the models I've helped create come to life. Having come from a film and television background, it has been quite interesting to see how the gaming industry works. The process is similar but different in its own right. I've enjoyed learning this new pipeline.”

“I am currently modeling a macguffin that has challenged me to a satisfying degree and has made me fall deeper in love with this game. I try to make sure the base of my model is exceptionally done so that it makes the following steps much easier to go through, be it the sculpting faze or even the unwrapping stage. The most satisfying part of my job as I have indicated above, is seeing the final product come together. When all the different departments’ work comes all together to form the complete picture is my happy place."

BIANCA ROUX, ART LEAD​

"I am incredibly proud of the milestones we have achieved in improving the overall quality of the game. We decided to make the move to full 3D in 2021, and have found that this has benefitted us greatly. 3D models allow for more accurate lighting and shadows and that is clearly evident in this scene of the Governor's HQ.”

“We wanted this scene to feel of importance and adding the great big window behind a large classic desk achieves for a great focal point of a person of power. We are constantly chatting about ideas and how to make the scenes feel more lived in and believable. We like to imagine the characters in the game and how the overall scene would tell their story. Angela Smith is very dignified and has great pride showing off her collectables, whereas if Malcolm Hogan were to become Governor, you would see a great deal of hubris and indifference. This scene is evident of great team work and I am very honoured to be working with such talented artists."

LUKE DORMAN, LEVEL DESIGNER​

"Merredin is an interesting level to talk about as its come a long, long way. Myself and Jesse [Moore, Narrative Designer] have talked at length about where to move the buildings around to make them easier for the player to access, what placements of buildings and landmarks make sense and will be seen by the player, and where characters should be standing, sitting, and walking to.”

“The overall layout of the level has remained mostly the same, and while we’re still making changes, adding polish, and bringing it up to our new standard of quality, its identity has remained the same since its first version from over two years ago."

OLIVIA UNWIN, PRODUCER​

“It's been a great pleasure Producing the Art Team. The quality of work has skyrocketed and the team has worked so hard to nail a high standard of Art quality across every map area and interior in the game. Everywhere from the roads you walk to the interiors to explore, we have put so much work into making everything that extra bit beautiful.”

---

And that’s it from Drop Bear Bytes for 2022! Hope you all have a fantastic, restful end of year, and we will catch you again in January!
- The Team at Drop Bear Bytes

 

[Verylittlefishes]

there is some uncanny valley feeling about how objects are interacting with terrain they are placed upon. also the shadows and lightning are weird, especially on the last screen.

 

[HeyCheckOutHowHardICanPee]

also the shadows and lightning are weird

Not only are they really blurry, low detail and lacking ambient occlusion, but they're also just straight up not attached to the objects themselves.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

these screens look just laughable unprofessional combined with the pathetic quotes assembled from SJW press templates. this game looked like shit 2 years ago and still looks like shit now. I don't believe it is worth attention keeping a track of this title.

"the quality of work has skyrocketed", my ass.

 

[cyborgboy95]

During your travels you come across an old service station; You & your companions aren't the first to discover it and you won't be the last, either. I wonder what secrets it holds

 

[Cael]

They could just dig up the old Fallout Tactics sprites and start with that instead of remaking the wheel that is turning out to be a bit... broken.

That Strange Sphere screenshot, for example, the guy and his chair looks like they are floating, and the table's shadow is wrong.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

is it still alive

 

[cyborgboy95]

Broken Roads March 2023 Update
Hello from all of us here at Drop Bear Bytes! Been a couple months since we shared an update here (you can follow us on Twitter or Instagram[www.instagram.com] where we post a new screenshot almost every week) so please enjoy this look at what the team have been up to!

First off, we’ve been preparing more of the creatures you’ll encounter in Broken Roads, from the usual domestic and farm animals to WA’s wildlife, and of course some of the more… ‘out there’ inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic future Australia. Here’s our feral pig, modeled by Art Lead Bianca Roux and textured by Lead Environment Artist Sara Laubscher.

We’ve also been revisiting the UI across the board, reworking almost everything in combat from the ground up. Here’s a shot of the team during a recent art review looking at the proposed icons for some of the skills and abilities in Broken Roads. Big fan of the ‘miffed’ icon, personally…

One of our newer devs, Dean Baron, who joined us in November has been diving into improving our quests, XP and level up systems (somewhat essential classics of the RPG genre!) and getting them where they need to be for some exciting things we want to show off a little later this year.

And here we have a spoiler-free look at a very late-game conversation written by our Narrative Director, Leanne Taylor-Giles. This snapshot of a conversation is taken from articy:draft, the narrative design tool we’re using on Broken Roads, and gives a hint at the level of reactivity and choice available to players based upon earlier moral decisions - or immoral decisions, if that’s your thing. Each of the blue, purple, red or yellow nodes corresponds with a quadrant on the moral compass. Grey is an NPC node and green is a standard dialogue option. ‘Fun’ fact: this one point in this conversation is about three times as large as shown here…

And finally, a look at one of the new interiors the team completed. We couldn’t be happier with the leaps forward the art team have made bringing these environments to another level. Scenes are looking better than ever and our newest additions to the art team - Thobile Simelane, 3D Modeler and Kyle Zeeman, Texture artist - are creating beautiful props to populate the world. Once again, credit to our VFX & Technical Artist Ryan Gee for the lighting, VFX and finishing touches that tie it all together.

Thanks for reading!
- The Team at Drop Bear Bytes

 

[Verylittlefishes]

hey piggy piggy pig pig pig
where art thou

hey, dev, you are not reading this thread, aren't you? new screenshots have all the same problems we listed above.

 

[Ladonna]

Needs more Razorback