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

[Heroic Liberator]

Few games can match Disco Elysium's mastery with words

Thank the Lord for that indeed

Don't you worry. The future is looking bright))

Bonus

And that's without mentioning stuff like Rue Valley and Christoffer Bodegård's Esoteric Ebb.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Don't you worry. The future is looking bright))

All the Codex is waiting with bated breath to discover which of these studios wins the services of PrimeJunta.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/broken-roads-november-2024-update

Broken Roads November 2024 Patch & Dev Update​

We’re very happy to bring you another polish update to Broken Roads, including increased font size when using the Large Font setting (especially handy on Steam Deck), improved companion reactions depending on player choices, removing some of the ‘teleporting’ moments that some players found rail-roady, TONS of combat, weapon and consumable balancing, plus a couple of spoilery bits and pieces we won’t mention here.

What’s Been Happening with Broken Roads’ development?​

We have racked up hundreds of pages of feedback, notes, suggestions and draft material for improving Broken Roads, and now is the time to implement. We’ve been focusing on improvements that don’t require translations for now, with a lot of focus on improving the weapons and consumables (in terms of AP required, damage, range, reload time, and dollar value).
We’ve also worked on removing some of the moments in the game that used to instantly transport the player to the next location or to complete a quest objective. This approach involves a lot of testing as many things can go wrong, so it’s slow work, but there’s more of this to come.
We’ve also identified some specific quest, journal and objective issues that can still be made considerably clearer for players (we’ll be focusing on Lake Deborah, Merredin and Southern Cross for the next patch).

Steam Deck Verification Update​

Broken Roads is now officially classified as Playable on Steam Deck, with the feedback that some of the text and controller glyphs were still too small even with the Large Font option enabled. We’ve addressed all of the points requested by Valve and are resubmitting for full Steam Deck Verified status along with this patch going live.

What’s Next?​

More polish and bug fixes, but also the bulk of the work to expand on and improve pretty much every area of the game. We’re doing all of this in English only at first, and will be releasing these updates on the English-Only branch. There’s a new feature in Steam that allows players to seamlessly switch branches without any technical knowhow, and that’s what we’re focusing the next update on.
Without having to get the text translated or put through localisation QA, the turnaround will be much faster. We’re also no longer limited by word count restrictions and can flesh out all of the dialogues we couldn’t at launch, and have the freedom to completely rewrite entire characters, conversations and quests to make the game as good as it possibly can be.
Once this is done, we’ll get to work on localisation and translation and of course patching consoles to get to the same point.
Thanks again for your patience and to everyone who continues to support us as we press on with making Broken Roads the best it can be.
Craig Ritchie,
Game Director
Drop Bear Bytes

Patch Notes​

Steam version number: 1.3.12628
GOG version number: 1.3.12638
Epic version number: 1.3.12640
WARNING: SOME SPOILERS INCLUDED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PATCH NOTES:
- Increased various font sizes and controller glyphs for Steam Deck. These can be accessed by all users when the Large Font checkbox in the settings menu is ticked.
- Increased the size of some tutorial images for better readability on portable devices.
- Reworked all companion reactions in the Merredin convoy banter to make them considerably less likely to respond unfavourably towards the player.
- When leaving Merredin interiors, the game no longer teleports the player character back to the convoy area for convoy events. These now only occur when returning to Merredin from the overworld map, except for two specific story cases.
- Gated certain rude or tactless player options behind low Charisma checks.
- Fixed a bug where characters could incur attacks of opportunity when getting closer to their targets.
- Adjusted the contents of Col’s shop (Hunters and Collectors) and various Vendor inventories in Merredin.
- Adjusted the prices of many consumables in the game.
- Adjusted HP recovery and secondary benefits of various consumables.
- Adjusted the prices of almost every weapon.
- It now costs less AP to switch to secondary weapon than to reload for all weapons except Pistols.
- Changed Blasers and SR98s (as well as the upgraded versions) to require 2AP to reload.
- Changed min and max damage for numerous weapons, including Spiked Clubs, SR98 upgrades, and Hunting Rifle upgrades.
- Changed the Min, Max and Optimal ranges between weapon types to further distinguish between them and require differing strategies.
- Reduced the damage of the SR98 +3 to be more in line with other max upgraded weapons.
- Reworked Revolvers to now have a small Knockdown chance, a larger optimal range and a wider damage range than Pistols.
- Revolvers now require 2AP to reload.
- Pistols are now the only ranged weapons that require 1AP to reload.
- Shotguns have from 10% Knockdown chance to 30% Knockdown chance depending on the upgrade.
- Spears are now optimal between 1 and 2 units away from the target.
- Mad’s Bat and Makeshift Axe have a range from 0 to 1.5 units and are always optimal when in range.
- All other melee weapons require being 0 to 1 units away from the target and are optimal in this range.
- All Cleavers now inflict bleeding.
- Hammers have from 10% Knockdown chance to 50% Knockdown chance depending on the upgrade.
- Spiked Clubs have 5% Knockdown chance to 30% Knockdown chance depending on the upgrade.
- Many small tweaks to difficulty of various combat throughout the game based upon where the average player level and party composition would be at that point.
- Small adjustments to enemy combatants' equipment and loot throughout the game.
- Changed a few animations for some of Merredin’s residents and NPCs.
- SPOILER: Priss no longer kidnaps the player if they talk to Scott Measure a second time. This can still be triggered by antagonising Angela Smith after the first meeting with Priss.
- SPOILER: Fixed a bug what was incorrectly determining Angela Smith’s reactions to the player when they threaten or antagonise her prior to the pub debate.
- SPOILER: Removed a dialogue break when talking to Mick after Priss first threatens the player.
- SPOILER: Reworked companion calculations in the final dialogue in Kalgoorlie to decrease their likelihood of abandoning the player character.

 

[Tyranicon]

As a business decision, this sounds like they're just shoving money into a dead horse.

As a dev decision, it says something good about the team that they're not abandoning the game and want to make it better.

So best of luck, maybe over time they'll make it work for them.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Talk about polishing a turd.

 

[GloomFrost]

Talk about polishing a turd.

hahaha Brilliant !!

 

[Vulpes]

As a business decision, this sounds like they're just shoving money into a dead horse.

As a dev decision, it says something good about the team that they're not abandoning the game and want to make it better.

So best of luck, maybe over time they'll make it work for them.

They're funded by the Australian government, so continuing to work on this game actually pays their bills.

 

[Rahdulan]

As a business decision, this sounds like they're just shoving money into a dead horse.

As a dev decision, it says something good about the team that they're not abandoning the game and want to make it better.

So best of luck, maybe over time they'll make it work for them.

It's especially amusing to contrast them with Stygian devs.

 

[Infinitron]

It's especially amusing to contrast them with Stygian devs.

By this, Rahdulan of course means the developers of Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, not Stygian Software the developers of Underrail.

 

[SilentSeeker]

It's especially amusing to contrast them with Stygian devs.

By this, Rahdulan of course means the developers of Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, not Stygian Software the developers of Underrail.

Aww, I was hoping the Slasher of Veils had gone into software development.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/4-december-2024-hotfix-update

The 4 December 2024 Hotfix is now live on Steam, Epic and GOG​

We know It’s only been a few days since our big November patch but we wanted to get this update live as soon as possible. Four of the issues were reported by community members on Discord or Steam, so a huge thanks to everyone who reports bugs or problems they encounter during their playthroughs.

- The team at Drop Bear Bytes

Patch Notes​

Steam version number: 1.3.12743
GOG version number: 1.3.12746
Epic version number: 1.3.12747

WARNING: SOME SPOILERS INCLUDED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PATCH NOTES:

- Fixed an issue where some users would not see an option to return the bullet casings to Hunter.
- Fixed an issue where the Moral Compass leaning could be inaccurate after loading a saved game immediately after Character Creation.
- Adjusted the loot that some early game enemies are carrying.
- Replaced one of the ropes that can be found on the skeletons in their random encounter. Players will find a small first aid kit and a few extra dollars instead.
- Changed the name of two Kulja enemies to avoid confusion with other characters (Ripper is now Trash Magnet and Hunter is now Sniffer).
- Removed multiple incorrect instances of “shot” bringing up the Aussie ‘cylopedia.
- Corrected Alex Wilson’s (the wounded merchant in Aldersyde) inventory to only have empty water bottles.
- Minor adjustments to the positioning of some of the dead bodies in Brookton to reduce instances where they appeared slightly above the ground.
- Corrected some instances where animals would have the inspection icon instead of the audio icon when they play a sound.
- SPOILER: You can now only send the feral kids to Lake Deborah if you have visited it at least once.
- SPOILER: You can now only send the feral kids to Kalgoorlie if you have visited it at least once.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/10-december-2024-hotfix-and-steam-reviews-update

10 December 2024 Hotfix and Steam Reviews Update​

We’ve just released another small polish patch on Steam, GOG and Epic, and also wanted to share an update on our user reviews.

Recent Reviews hit Very Positive​

We’re extremely happy to see the upturn in positive user reviews on Steam.
While the number is still of course small, having enough people post reviews recently to see the shift not just to Mostly Positive, but Very Positive has been incredible.
The number of players to reviewers has varied quite a lot throughout the year, with the unsurprising trend of unsatisfied players leaving negative reviews more often than happy players post a positive review..
In April and May we were looking at 30-40 players per review, which is around the Steam average. As the patches improved the quality of the game we started to see a significant drop off to the point where recently we’ve seen one review posted for every ~90 to 100 players. What matters, though, is that more and more people are recommending Broken Roads, so a huge, sincere thank you to everyone who does so.

After the rough launch, we released a number of patches and hotfixes based upon player feedback, adding in requested features, more dialogue, VO and additional combat, plus fixing numerous bugs. The above image shows that 75% of players between 28th April and now have reviewed the game positively.
By the late May patch we had added over 10,000 words to the game, opened up the Overworld map in the origin stories, additional companion reactivity, fixed literally hundreds of bugs, more ways to resolve certain quest objectives, and much more.
The team continued to update the game to a total of 10 patches and hotfixes, and the reactions during and immediately after the recent Steam Autumn Sale have blown us away. It’s very rewarding to see the efforts pay off and the comments in the Steam discussion threads getting more positive, so thanks to everyone who has been supporting, posting bugs, making suggestions and generally just engaging with the community as we continue to improve Broken Roads.

We’re very proud that the patches have created such a steady increase in player sentiment to the point where 82% of players after the May patch have recommended the game on Steam. There’s nothing more beneficial for us at the moment, so if you liked Broken Roads and appreciate the improvements made since launch, please post a review.

Patch Notes​

Steam version number: 1.3.12859
GOG version number: 1.3.12869
Epic version number: 1.3.12867
WARNING: SOME SPOILERS INCLUDED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PATCH NOTES:
- Fixed a logic issue with Lake Deborah main quest not showing the next objectives at certain points.
- Added additional objectives for Lake Deborah to make it clearer how to progress The Revealed Religion.
- Polished some party and NPC locations during the first arrival and opening sequence at Lake Deborah.
- Polished some of the player options when discussing returned books with Talia in Lake Deborah library.
- Removed prompts to ask questions related to gaining entrance to Southern Cross once the player has already completed the quiz.
- Corrected some enemy inventories to line up with their equipped weapons.
- SPOILER: Reduced the time between returning Machiavellian books in Lake Deborah and triggering Talia telling the player that Brooke was reading them.
- SPOILER: Reduced the time it takes to construct Lake Deborah’s watchtowers from 48 to 24 hours.

We’ll keep patching and improving in the coming weeks and months. Thanks again to everyone who has played and reviewed Broken Roads!
- The team at Drop Bear Bytes

 

[Lord_Potato]

It's good they did not abandon the game after the rocky launch. World needs more Fallout-likes in different, exotic locations.

 

[Cael]

It's good they did not abandon the game after the rocky launch. World needs more Fallout-likes in different, exotic locations.

And drop bears.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

It's good they did not abandon the game after the rocky launch. World needs more Fallout-likes in different, exotic locations.

And drop bears.

Wasn't BG3 enough?

 

[Cael]

It's good they did not abandon the game after the rocky launch. World needs more Fallout-likes in different, exotic locations.

And drop bears.

Wasn't BG3 enough?

That was a pussy, not a drop bear.

 

[Lord_Potato]

It's good they did not abandon the game after the rocky launch. World needs more Fallout-likes in different, exotic locations.

And drop bears.

Wasn't BG3 enough?

In Broken Roads you don't romance a drop bear. And if you tried it would rip you to shreds.

 

[GhostInTheHell]

It's good they did not abandon the game after the rocky launch. World needs more Fallout-likes in different, exotic locations.

And drop bears.

Wasn't BG3 enough?

In Broken Roads you don't romance a drop bear. And if you tried it would rip you to shreds.

They actually removed all "flirtatious/sexual advances" from the game https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/the-broken-roads-august-2024-patch-is-now-live
This happened shortly after they hired new narrative consultants: https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev...new-narrative-consultants-big-hotfix-and-more

 

[Fargus]

Imagine hiring woke narrative consultants when your game was already Vulvalini on steroids.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Maybe they should try and replace the cover art again with something that has more zing to it?

 

[Fargus]

Maybe they should try and replace the cover art again with something that has more zing to it?

Yeah, replace the male on the art with another stonk wommyn and rename the game to Buckbroken Roads.

 

[Cael]

Maybe they should try and replace the cover art again with something that has more zing to it?

Yeah, replace the male on the art with another stonk wommyn and rename the game to Buckbroken Roads.

Buckbroke Mountain Roads.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

They actually removed all "flirtatious/sexual advances" from the game https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/the-broken-roads-august-2024-patch-is-now-live
This happened shortly after they hired new narrative consultants: https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev...new-narrative-consultants-big-hotfix-and-more

That's.. impressive.

 

[Serus]

As I understand, if the Australian government won't go bankrupt soon, this game might eventually become almost-semi-decent. Fallout clone. Less than 20 hours. No good gameplay for the most part. Some woke content(?). Attempt at doing an original morality system. Suppposedly good ("but not Disco level") writing. Ok worldbuilding. Fake choices and end sliders.
Did I get that right?
I'll pass.
A shame because postapo Australia and graphics are ok and it "had potential" and, etc...

 

[Vulpes]

They actually removed all "flirtatious/sexual advances" from the game https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev-blog/the-broken-roads-august-2024-patch-is-now-live
This happened shortly after they hired new narrative consultants: https://www.brokenroadsgame.com/dev...new-narrative-consultants-big-hotfix-and-more

Wasn't that sort of dialogue directed solely towards male NPCs? Even if you yourself played as a guy? Good fucking riddance to that faggotry I say.

Imagine hiring woke narrative consultants when your game was already Vulvalini on steroids.

There weren't any opportunities in this game to flirt with women to begin with from what I can remember, so this decision actually makes the game less gayer.

As I understand, if the Australian government won't go bankrupt soon, this game might eventually become almost-semi-decent. Fallout clone. Less than 20 hours. No good gameplay for the most part. Some woke content(?). Attempt at doing an original morality system. Suppposedly good ("but not Disco level") writing. Ok worldbuilding. Fake choices and end sliders.
Did I get that right?
I'll pass.
A shame because postapo Australia and graphics are ok and it "had potential" and, etc...

This game is bad at every front. The gameplay is bare bones, the "music" is very repetitive, the quests involve a lot of mindless walking back and forth, the story is boring and none of the companions are interesting. On top of all that, it's got perhaps the single most sterile post-apocalyptic setting I have ever experienced. I can't remember the exact date, but a nuclear war was supposed to have taken place several decades before the game starts and yet you honestly couldn't tell nukes destroyed the country with how everything is so well-maintained, especially after such a long time. There's "slavery" in this setting, but even that manages to be uninteresting as most of the "slaves" are actually just indentured servants or convicted felons forced to do manual labor. It's like the very first Mad Max movie (dystopian Australia where the government collapsed in on itself), but with everything cool removed from it and replaced with thinly veiled Abo idolatry.