KickStarter Cyber Knights: Flashpoint - the latest tactical RPG from Trese Brothers - now available on Early Access

[ERYFKRAD]

It seems the demo is available since 25 of September... anyone tried it yet?

We've got an early stealth and combat demo up to participate in the tacticon event. The demo is pretty stripped down and focused only on the tactical mission part of the game. We are aiming for an early 2023 release to early access.

Tried it a bit. Certainly adequate.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

It seems the demo is available since 25 of September... anyone tried it yet?

We've got an early stealth and combat demo up to participate in the tacticon event. The demo is pretty stripped down and focused only on the tactical mission part of the game. We are aiming for an early 2023 release to early access.

Check page 12.

 

[cyborgboy95]

September Progress Report

Another month and another major set of features and content milestones have been completed! During September, we released 3 major alpha updates packed full of features, improvements from community feedback and content. Two of the major systems that we wrapped up this month are close to our hearts: difficulty and Trait mutation. Both have drawn a lot of inspiration and lessons learned from our last game, Star Traders: Frontiers. In addition, the UX team has completed the visual design for the both the main mission screens as well as the Matrix Mk2.

As always, there are far too many dev milestones to list them all here, but let’s check in on a few!

UX Redesign
For a long time, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint has been living with a functional, if not beautiful, game UI. Working with our UX team, we’ve now completed the discovery, wireframe design and finally the visual design for the main tactical modes of the game -- the real-life heist missions as well as the Matrix Mk2 hacking you can engage in during a heist.

We still have the challenging task of bringing the full UI design into the game, but all the assets are ready, and we’re prepared to start this week while the UX team is moving on to a very exciting discovery and wireframing process for the Safehouse.

Starting with wireframes for rapid design and iteration --

^^ Wireframe of main map + character status

^^Wireframe of hacking the Matrix Mk2

We progressed to the final visual design --

^^ Visual design of main map + character status

^^ Visual design of hacking the Matrix Mk2

And then into animations --

^^Which will especially helpful to bring the overlord Security AI "to life" as an adversary --

Difficulty System
We take difficulty systems very seriously in all of our games! During September, we carved out 6 difficulties, each one slowly ratcheting up the challenge curve across all aspects of the game. The final needed addition which is planned to be added during the Steam Early Access period is our classic Custom Difficulty setting to allow you to fine tune difficulty with extreme precision -- just like you could in CK classic with famous difficulty settings like Live Fast, Die Young (LFDY) that maxed out starting credits and enemy difficulty.

This is an area where we’ve listened closely to our Star Traders: Frontiers players over the years and we’ve made difficulty aspects even more nuanced than ever before. We’ve also added the #1 most highly requested difficulty feature from STF which is to enable slowing down or speeding up of the game’s story. This will allow players who want to take more time and explore more angles of the game without feeling a time crunch to play at a more relaxed pace and also let those who love the pressure of the tick-tick-tock-tick of a very short clock to prove they can play the game with a icy calm no one else can handle.

Difficulty settings can adjust a very wide range of game aspects including mission XP and monetary rewards, the cost of all types of goods and services, the speed of the story, your character’s base resistance to Trait mutations, Wounds, Armor Shredding and Death as well as increasing the enemy’s scaled Power Level, Matrix Power Level, enemy hitpoint pools and more. Between the 6 difficulty levels (Casual, Easy, Normal, Hard, Brutal, Chrome) and the to-be-added Custom Difficulty, you’ll be able to tune your play to your own style.

Trait Progression
We rolled out the Trait mutation system which is an evolution of the system we built for Star Traders: Frontiers but with a strong focus on delivering a compelling experience for a smaller squad. Throughout their career, your character's Traits come from their backstory, events in their life, battle wounds and from choices they make in their stories.

As your merc’s career progresses, events and story choices - surviving a mission, taking heavy wounds in combat, seeing a friend die in battle, succeeding at Legwork, maxing out your cyber, etc - will build up negative and positive points in two separate pools. When either of these pools grow large, they can cause Trait mutations which can either weaken or strengthen a positive or negative Trait. Different aspects of your base building choices at your Safehouse, choices you make in stories and medical care you’re willing to pay for can help manage these swings.

This system allows Traits to have varying impact on your character, change and mutate throughout your character’s careers as events take turns for the better or worse and still honor the Traits that make them who they are and carefully manage the number of Traits they have so there is room to add more at the right pivotal moments.

Power-Broker & Heist Surveys
We’re excited to announce that the surveys to gather the first round of input for the top tier rewards - Power Broker and Heist Edition - have been sent out to backers. Cory and I are personally reviewing every incoming response and it's clear already that these big rewards are going to lead to some extremely fun co-creative endeavors with our backers as we fill New Boston up with wild, eccentric and dangerous characters.

If you haven’t received a survey email but should have, please reach out to us here or email andrew@tresebrothers.com

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us. With this month’s update, we’ve sent out the surveys for Power Broker and Heist Editions and so those two reward categories have moved into in-progress status.

 

[cyborgboy95]

October Progress Report

What a spooky month! We’ve been busy with 4 major Alpha updates to Steam and hit some major development and balancing milestones for the game. Throughout the month we’ve worked on a major rebalance to all of the game’s weaponry to help all the gunfighting options have enough character and exciting strategic differences, extending the game’s scaling and Power Level system so longer games are continually challenging, refined the stealth gameplay, added story and dialog to improve the context of the game start. Now at the end of the month, we’ve officially started the massive UX overhaul project.

There are always way too many dev milestones to list them all here, but let’s check in on a few!

UX Implementation Begins!
The UX project has been a real beast -- it officially started in July 2022 with study of reference games, before launching into an exploration phase that resulted in large-scale wireframing of every screen, hover and interaction in the game. Now the beautiful visual design is complete for 2/3 of the game and with the latest Alpha update, we’ve officially started rolling in the first changes including a custom cursor that highlights nicely over clickable map elements.

This will be a long road to the animated, beautiful vision outlined by the project but the stone has started rolling!

Major “Gunfight” Milestone
After months of studying player feedback and reviewing all the combat rules and systems, we were excited to roll out a Major Milestone “GUNFIGHT” in mid-October to the Cyber Knight’s weapons system.

The goal of the design update was to further develop marked functional differences in weapon types which enable teams to push those weapons into niche roles based on the mods you install. We had been chipping away at this update through September but it was time to finish the rest in one big sweep. In this major update, we made major changes to the rules for:

• Accuracy, including adding Glancing Hits
• Full Auto, including ability to surge damage on single targets
• Well, pretty much all the weapon stats actually :D

With changes to the fundamental rules for Accuracy, Full Auto and major stat rebalances including ranges, shot volume, recoil rates, Armor Crit %, reload AP, it was an exciting moment for players to re-evaluate their load outs and see how the new system fit their play style. A lot more weapons are exciting and viable for a lot more reasons now and the field of smart tactical choices is much wider.

Controller Support
With the alpha now running officially on Steam, we’ve been excited to be working with players across the spectrum of controllers on testing out the game -- XBox, Playstation, Steam Controller and the Steam Deck as well. With the help of the alpha community, we’ve already made some configuration tweaks on the Steam end and are preparing to improve the smoothness of our controller support throughout the game as part of the UX project.

Stealth, Auto-Duck, Projection
Stealth is a key component of many heist team’s strategy and we’ve continued to refine and improve the stealth game throughout October.

Some big rule changes have been put in place, including a rule that states that Suspicious enemies (they’ve heard something but aren’t really aware there is an intruder) are still considered Surprised. It may sound small, but it’s a +25% Accuracy boost and enables weapons like Blades, Sniper Rifles and Pistols to use their Stealth Critical rules

We’re also working to phase out any need to manage your running / crouched state. This is a hassle and only really matters when you are moving, which is control you can exercise when setting and confirming a movement destination but not something you should ever need to otherwise worry about. To ensure that being crouched has no impact on combat or stealth, your team members will not automatically duck if an enemy is about to see them and being crouched would keep them hidden. With a hiss of something like "Head down!" they just drop out of sight. Ah, simplicity!

Finally, we’re catching up more and more to visual style and polish, so it was exciting to make the Vanguard’s Projection Talent look very cool.

Creative Surveys All Sent
Last month, the final major creative survey went out to invite the Power Broker and Heist Edition backers to start their creation process for allies, villains and heists. This concludes the round of survey offerings for 2022, which have covered adding names to the game, Recruitable Characters, Buffed Recruitables, and now the Power Broker and Heist. The final major survey will be for Encode Your Legend in early 2023.

All of these will be on-going projects as our team sorts through the raw creative input, reaches out if we have questions and then imprints those ideas into the game for all to enjoy.

If you haven’t received a survey email but should have, please reach out to us here or email andrew@tresebrothers.com

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us. This month, we’ve started working on the Digital Artbook as we have finally gathered all of the concept art and 3D renders needed to assemble the final product. We can’t wait to share that one with all of you!

 

[CoronerZg]

Looking good. Just wish they hired another artist for character faces... cause those are kind of immersion breaking tbh. Oh well, helmets and shit.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Looking good. Just wish they hired another artist for character faces... cause those are kind of immersion breaking tbh. Oh well, helmets and shit.

They're not Solasta grade though

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1021210/view/3624864452092133926

November Progress Report
Moving to wrap up UX design, rolling lessons-learned from alpha into game, adding storylines and missions quickly now

Another month! The last quarter of the year always goes by in a flash. During November, we’ve had a special focus on wrapping up the UX design process, implementing lessons we’ve learned throughout the alpha process and adding new storyline content to the game.

There are always way too many dev milestones to list them all here, but let’s check in on a few!

UX Design Goes Safehouse
The UX design phase is beginning to truly wind down as our implementation phase is rapidly ramping up. We have a huge amount of UI work to do to make the game as beautiful and flowy as the designs but it is going to be very worth it. Most recently, the UX design time has been focused on the Safehouse and here are some of the latest drafted wireframes (not the visual design, just design of elements, spacing, organization, flow -- that is, this is not intended to be beautiful at this stage).

Cleaning out your safehouse for expanded operation

Shopping and comparing weapons

It's just Business with Origami Joe, an underworld contact

Planning your next heist

A plan comes together - paying bribes, calling in favors, running legwork and more

New Storylines
The game is growing daily and is a voracious beast for more content. Storylines, recruits, and new maps are coming online as fast as we can handle them. We’re very excited to be passing through some major milestones and assembling the most complicated story and heist content yet this month.
November saw the addition of a new “Deaddrop” storyline from your Gun Runner and if the month had another day or two left in it, November would also see the “Carnivore” storyline about a corrupt cop (the update is in final tweaks and testing now...). The “Undercutter” storyline can proc with a friendly Gun Runner who pitches you a hard to beat one-time deal to acquire a powerful E-Rifle weapon (more below).

These new storylines are also seeing your squad’s Face coming into their own as a powerful player in the strategy and story layer. The team's Face now appears prominently in your Roster, can access their Training and cannot multi-class. The Face is your team's negotiator, fixer and voice on the comms during missions. Their special skill tree is dedicated to the strategy layer and has no tactical abilities on it. In this new storyline, you'll have the option to use your Street-focused "Razor Bargain" ability to force the best deal even if it cuts a bit too deep. The new “Carnivore” storyline will introduce and see the first use of Milsec-focused “Hardliner” ability.

The old UI is functional but not great or pretty
E-Rifles and IO-Chargers
One of the latest storylines added introduces the first chance to get your hands on an E-Rifle. This hi-tech class of weapons are mid-ranged armor melters with limited full auto capability (3 shots) and a penchant for Pure Damage and killing drones. However, E-Rifles have a limited number of reloads on a mission (all stages of the mission, not just one) so carrying one is a known trade-off and puts a lot of weight on your other weapon to work in more situations than not.

Tagging along with this new type of limited-ammo weapon, the new IO-Chargers went up for sale at your local Gun Runner which shakes up the item meta for Cyberswords and anyone planning to carry E-Rifles. The IO-Charger is a mobile battery unit capable of filling the current ammo bar of your weapon. For a blade with an IO-Batt, this completely recharges the blade and enables you to use another round of Talents which rely on these critical charges. For an E-Rifle or any other reload-limited weapon, the IO-Charger will refill the current ammo bar only. If you have 2/3 reloads for the E-Rifle, you can empty the first magazine and then reload it with IO-Charge to stay at 2/3 reloads.

For anyone carrying a blade (Cybersword or not!) or an E-Rifle, an IO-Charger is very likely to be a requirement in your limited item carry.

Alpha Lessons: Downed becomes Bleeding Out
We’ve learned so much over the 11 months of the alpha and are constantly reapplying that learning back to systems, features and content in the game. In November we had time to come back to an important system - what happens when one of your characters takes a deadly hit. Previously in the Alpha, this would knock you into a “Downed” state that required healing before you could take action again (you could heal yourself). We heard a lot from the alpha player about the reasons this wasn’t fun and were excited to roll out the new Bleeding Out rules this month. If you take a hit that would potentially kill you (reaching 0 HP), you get a surge of HP (up to 30% of your total) but also a nasty debuff, naturally called Bleeding Out. As soon as you receive any healing, Bleeding Out is purged.

Bleeding Out costs you 20 HP a Turn and will kill you if you are not healed - it is only a matter of Turns. The debuff also slaps you with a -2 AP and -2 MP penalty but most importantly allows you to take any action or use any Talent. You can run, shoot, Overwatch or throw a grenade. Our mercs go down fighting, thank you very much. Fun!

But consider healing yourself quickly or calling an ally for help -- if you take another wound that brings you to 0 HP while you are Bleeding Out, you roll your Death Save and are likely to die (see your chosen Difficulty here).

Creative Surveys Deadline
We have set a deadline for the completion of the creative reward surveys. We will be sending a private Kickstarter update next to be sure everyone sees this.

Throughout 2022, we have sent out Google Forms surveys to collect information for your Kickstarter rewards. Depending on your backer tier, you will have received naming surveys, recruitable character surveys, and/or Ally, Villain, and Heist surveys. If you have not received a survey, you believe you should have, please message us here, email andrew@tresebrothers.com or reach out to Liviana on Discord so we can make sure you get them.

We want to do everything we can to make sure that your characters and stories are integrated into the main story beats of CKF as much as possible. To ensure this can occur, we will be closing all of these surveys at the end of the year 2022. If you have not yet filled them out, please do so before the end of the year. If you have any questions about how to fill out the surveys, did not receive your surveys via email, or need clarification on what we are looking for, please email andrew@tresebrothers.com or contact Liviana on Discord.

This deadline does not include Encode Your Legend reward which has not yet been started and is slated for 2023.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us. We’re continuing to work on Digital Artbook Assembly.

 

[cyborgboy95]

Happy New Year!

Wow, what a year! Cyber Knights: Flashpoint launched into its alpha phase January 4th, 2022. It’s such a natural time to reflect on everything that’s happened in Cyber Knights this year and to look forward to the next year.

So, let’s do it!

1 Year of Building With Our Alpha Backers
A scroll back through this year’s monthly updates will show you just how many milestones we’ve hit since starting the alpha. Players have helped us shape nearly twenty heist levels, over 100 class talents and hacking programs and a good 75% of the game’s intended features at launch.

Alpha players’ feedback & gameplay have led us to add a few new features to game as well. Some have been small but fun, like being able to hurdle fences. Other additions have been more core to what makes Cyber Knights unique, like the pre-heist legwork system that allows you to build your relationship with contacts, earn pre-mission advantages, and flesh out storylines taking place beyond the tactical gameplay.

On the tactical maps, feedback from the alpha has led to numerous quality-of-life changes and a major revamp of the combat/weapon rules, helping us iterate the gameplay to its most-fun.
We even got the chance to make a public stealth & combat demo available on Steam a couple of times this year, particiapted in the first TactiCon and were featured in the PAX East Rising indie showcase (an interview from the PAX floor is included below).

Current Content Pause; a Fresh Start Coming
Now, during the months of December and January, we’re holding off on Alpha updates so we can integrate a few overhauls too large to roll out incrementally.

We’re aiming to resume regular updates in a month or so, with a big package of changes and new content for the game. It’ll be a fresh starting point for all Alpha players, a chance to come back and check out the latest and greatest with revamped core systems and a fresh UX and one of the last major milestones on our way to Steam.

The Road to Launch
This is the year Cyber Knights is coming to you and to Steam! Upfront, we want to let you know it’s not going to be this quarter. The wide scope of the UX & design project has turned out to be a much more extensive process than we anticipated – the payoff in how intuitive and enjoyable the game’s deep, complex systems will be immense, but it does take time to create, iterate, and get right across the entire game.

Although that’s taking more time than we anticipated, it is going very well. As you’ve hopefully seen in the previews we’ve shown, we’re feeling this will be the best-designed Trese Brothers game to date.

Wireframe design for pre-heist planning

Visual design of mid-mission status page

Wireframe of the Knight's revamped class tree

Another area that has expanded beyond our initial projections is the iterations on the stealth systems and related enemy AI improvement. We set quite a challenge for ourselves creating a game that seamlessly mixes tactical combat, stealth and hacking into one mission experience. Getting the balance right of just one of these pillars is hard enough. It’s been essential for us to spend extra time on in the alpha on stealth, increasing the variety of security device challenges, making sure enemy units behave intelligently and convincingly as they hunt for your team, and tweaking stealth so that it feels fair and fun is a broad balancing act.

We’re not ready to share the specific launch timeline yet, but we will continue to keep you updated here and in Discord as we close in on it. We know you want the game; as a small indie studio I can’t tell you how much we want to hurry up and release it! But the game only gets a single launch. That launch significantly impacts its lifetime success & future, and so we’re making sure the game we deliver is the game that’s ready for you to have a blast with.

An Update on Our Team in Ukraine
With all of the hype for this game’s UX quality and while looking at the progress behind and ahead, we need to take a moment to mention our amazing art & design partners based in Ukraine.

It’s now over 10 months that Ukrainians have had to defend their country from Russian invasion & bombardment, enduring loss and horrific war crimes with perseverance and determination. While so many of us enjoy the escape and entertainment of games in the warm safety of our own countries, people just like us are dealing with tremendous hardship and worse so that we can have that luxury.

We continue to stand in support of our colleagues and peers and ask that you do the same. Project HOPE[www.projecthope.org], Direct Relief[www.directrelief.org], and The Kyiv Independent[kyivindependent.com] are all worthy non-profits our team has donated to and recommended. Most of our colleagues are relatively safe in Lviv at the moment, though Russia continues to target energy infrastructure across the country to try and create a winter of suffering. Even with everything going on in their lives, these folks regularly go above and beyond for us; we really hope that soon this year their country will be able to return to peace.

Creative Surveys Closed
Per the deadline we shared in November, all creative reward surveys (except Encode Your Legend, which is not yet available) have now closed. If you have any questions, we’re in the #backers channel in our Discord to help.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us.
We have continued to work on the Digital Artbook and are cutting new pages weekly.

 

[Abu Antar]

January update is here.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1021210/view/3662024857541920813?l=english

January Progress Update
Busy in the new year, continued Alpha pause, UX implementation progress, fuzzier stealth L2 mission pipe!

This month passed fast! With Alpha updates on pause and the workshop doors locked up tight, the entire team has been heads down working madly on everything from technical memory management to visual effects and level polish.

As we arrive in 2023, there are now 7 team members working on Cyber Knights: Flashpoint across design, coding, UX, animation and level design - so let’s take a spin through some highlights of the month!

As the team grows, so do the branches in our source code control

UX Implementation
We’re excited to have welcomed a new Unity engineer who is focused on the UX implementation to the project in December. With his help, we’ve been accelerating the conversion of the UX to the new design, adding UI features and improving the data flow to the player and also making it look great.

Still the project is massive - spanning the tactical mission map, Matrix Mk2 hacking and the safehouse with all of its interconnected systems. This is no small mountain to climb! The final piece -- the extensive set of safehouse wireframes -- just entered the final stages of visual design last week. However, the results are looking awesome; the design includes considerations for controllers and multiple screen sizes (TV, PC, mobile). We are getting nearer to completing the implementation of all the tasks for the main tactical mission map which would be an exciting milestone.

L2 Mission Pipeline
Throughout 2022, the level design team planned, designed and crafted over 70 levels (fun fact: that’s more than in our previous squad tactics game, Templar Battleforce). These levels were brought up to the playable stage and many of them were loaded into the game in the Alpha’s “Mission Playtest” menu while others have just been played by the internal team.

At the start of January, we engaged the “L2” mission pipeline. This second pass on level design includes a review of each level’s themes and its location within New Boston, integrating the level into the larger scene and surroundings, final level lighting, volumetrics and VFX, a close review of the level’s security, matrix and reinforcement flows, and finally optimization and performance testing.

In addition to all these improvements, during this phase levels are also being plugged into story missions — finalizing its scripting, special cut-scenes, complications and secondary objectives.
We’re in a good place with levels; the L1 pipeline, with thanks to all of our alpha players’ feedback, has produced a vast trove of well-constructed “raw material” for this L2 pipeline to refine. Now that the L2 pipeline is up and running, it will keep running straight through Steam Early Access, loading more and more content into the game.

Fuzzier Stealth
Stealth mechanics are tough! They’ve been getting better throughout the Alpha as we’ve soaked up the feedback from our players, studied other greats in the genre and worked hard to figure out how to achieve the right feeling in Cyber Knight’s turn-based gameplay.

Our latest improvements makes our stealth systems “fuzzier,” adding much-needed padding to the concept of being spotted by the enemy. This style of AI alertness is used by some of the best stealth games in the genre and has greatly improved the feel for Cyber Knight’s stealth. Where previously, a single raycast from a mile away could get you spotted by an enemy (so frustrating!) being spotted is now a function of your distance from the enemy and the exact time exposed to the enemy’s view. The farther you are away, the longer you need to be in their view to be well-and-truly spotted.
This creates a few key scenarios that didn’t exist before -- (1) if you dodge between some crates at a distance from the enemy, they might not see you or they might just become Suspicious and investigate that area (2) if you’re in a decent hiding spot and the AI moves past you, sweeping over you with their sight cone, you need to be in a more exposed position to be truly spotted.

This gives all your mercenaries more room to wiggle in the stealth system, which is important. Starting mercs also now all come with stealth weapons equipped (silenced pistols, silenced SMGs, blades) and even classes like Soldier now have at least one stealth-capable Talent in their class tree.
Going hand-in-glove with these improvements is the upgrade to the UI to warn players about detection when they are planning their movements. Removing the guesswork from moving in stealth changes the nature of the gameplay, rarely are you now failing stealth due to a simple mistake (“Ah crap, I shouldn’t have run that close”) or miscalculation (“I didn’t think he’ll patrol that way!”) but instead as a forced sacrifice (“I’m out Talent charges and time, I have to run for it”) or due to a strategic planning failure (“I shouldn’t have split the Vanguard off the other way...”).

Basic bounds help keep the game camera in the playable area - there is a heist here, pay attention ;P

Continued Alpha Pause; a Fresh Start Coming
We’re continuing our pause on alpha updates for now, aiming for an “Alpha V2” fresh start that will give you a big package of improvements and new content all at once. When the time comes to resume the Alpha, we want to get every Alpha player back to the game for a big V2 hurrah and playtesting bash as we march to Early Access.

Everyone who’s participated so far has given us a ton of great feedback, bug reports, playthrough data to work with. So hang tight for now; when we welcome you back it’ll be to a game that’s taken a big leap forward, and your feedback will be that much more valuable in determining any changes we still need to make before launching to EA.

Creative Surveys Closed
Per the deadline we shared in November, all created reward surveys (except Encode Your Legend, which is not yet available) have now closed. If you have any questions, we’re in the #backers channel in our Discord to help.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us.
We’ve completed about half of the pages that are planned for the Digital Artbook, including character, faces and cybernetic concept art and are working toward wrapping up that project.

MORE ABOUT THIS GAME

 

[cyborgboy95]

February Update

We are excited to share February’s progress and development with you. The team has been hard at work ensuring that the game meets the high standards of Trese Brothers for quality, depth of systems, replay and world building story.

The UX project is moving along smoothly and the entire feel of the main stealth-and-fight mission gameplay is hugely improved. As reported last month, our level designers are working daily on the L2 Mission Pipeline to create compelling stories spread across impressively challenging and beautiful areas of New Boston.

Overall, it’s been another big month and we’ve made a ton of progress. Let’s take a spin through some of the highlights!

Alpha v2 Update
In late February, we shared a private stream with the Alpha team to show off some of the finished progress, some of the work-in-progress and some things we are planning to work on in the coming months. This stream update really focused on the UI improvements to the game and the upgraded levels.

It was great to get together with the backers and get live feedback on what we've been working on. The new features that are bundled into the UX implementation got a lot of attention and positive vibes from the crew.

Cont. UX Implementation
The UX implementation project is continuing -- it’s big and will go on for months now. Critically it includes major feature improvements, so it is not just a reskinning. The gameplay aspects -- easy of play and quality of feedback/hints presented to the player -- are improving dramatically with the project, all of which are key to providing the strategic planning experiences of a heist that is so key to Cyber Knights: Flashpoint.

We are closing in on finishing the main mission map changes and the next step will be to tackle the Matrix.

Cont. L2 Mission Pipeline
The L2 pipeline is roaring along daily. New stories are assembling and each demands that the levels it needs sign up with their 17-point checklist, ready to be reviewed in depth. In this L2 pass on levels, we’re focusing heavily on quality in every single level, being really picky and turning on our perfectionist cyber-eyes. It is paying off!

Improving Controller and Keyboard Support
The Alpha included enough control binding features and basic support for controllers for us to test what we needed, but it was far from finished. This month we have implemented a system we call control glyphs that are capable of representing any bound control in Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. A glyph could be a keyboard key, a controller axis, a complex multi-key binding with modifiers or mouse click. The controller glyphs can communicate the accurate glyph for your controller, mouse or keyboard and blend into a game’s overall UX. It has not been a simple feat to get the game to display your customized keyboard bindings, hot swap those to controller bindings based on your type of controller or handheld -- XBox controller, Dual Shock, Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch -- and back again if your hands wander back to the keyboard and mouse.

Ignore our ugly controller glyphs, the nice ones are coming!

In February, we have cracked this one as one of the last major hurdles in first class controller support for the game. As part of the UX reimplementation project, we’re also streamlining controls, simplifying the way controllers work and reducing overlap between bindings.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us.
We’re continuing to work on and refine the design of the Digital Artbook pages and push this reward toward completion.

 

[cyborgboy95]

March Progress Update

Sometimes it feels like these late winter months go too fast. How is March over already!? It has been a very productive month with every team member hard at work on adding new features, creating exciting content, and polishing the game in preparation for the Alpha v2 return.

The biggest two internal projects - the UX implementation and L2 pipeline are chugging along. We’re definitely in the grind now, which is a heads-down “crunch” to the end but without the crazy overtime or deadline induced stress.

Another big month and a lot of progress - let’s check out some highlights!

New Game: Picking your Backstory, Origin Story and Team
This month we’ve made big strides improving the new game setup for the Cyber Knight’s alpha. Where previously there were few options and every game started the same, we’ve now introduced three sets of choices which combine to create very different starting points for each game.

The first is your Backstory, which tells the story of your life before you reached this point. Were you raised on the unforgiving streets of the Wards under a radioactive sky, were you brought up in the plush luxury of a corporate tower preparing for your aptitude tests or trained up as a milsec contractor?
Your Backstory will define some of your initial Contacts when the game starts, your starting Attribute package and many of your character’s metadata tags describing their faction, connections, skills and more. There will be numerous backstory options.

The second choice is your Origin Story which answers the question of how you came to have a Cyber Knight’s quantum rider surgically and irrevocably spliced into your spine. The first Origin Story in the game will be Syndicate Debts, in which you and your friends have pulled together everything you had and taken a massive loan from a Syndicate financier to afford the installation of a Cyber Knight’s computer. The stretch goal “Valkyrie Zero” and the Kickstarter add-on “Horizon Cypher” are both Origin Stories. There will only be a handful of origin story options.

As well as explaining your new cybernetic, your Origin Story sets up one of the big story arcs for the first act of the game and this story will include a set of Contacts -- be they friends or enemies.

The final set of choices will be to pick your team from a list of available character templates. You’ll be filling up the slots for your team from a few locked slots -- your team needs a Face, a Vanguard and a Hacker -- as well as a few free slots -- your pick of Soldiers, Snipers, Cyberswords, another Vanguard, etc. There will be numerous character template options.

Each templated character you pick will have a starting name, character visual (both of which can be changed), their own Backstory, special starting equipment, optional cybernetics and at least one Contact that they know.

As a sum total -- your Backstory, Origin Story and team picks will give you a strong starting foundation for your covert merc team and aims to deliver on classic tabletop RPG feels -- you’ll have friends and enemies, faction connections, a variety of skills and abilities and trouble already knocking at your door.

Cont. L2 Mission Pipeline
The L2 pipeline is going to roar onward from here for... well, possibly years from now. We’re working every day to design new levels, challenges, and improve and refine the ones we have while also beautifying everything. Levels are now assembling into awesome heist storylines full of surprises and complications and it's feeling great.

In a new and exciting development, we’ve added new tools for the level designers to be able to add, move, or remove key elements such as enemy spawning locations, patrol paths, security devices, and loot boxes in any map based on the storyline it is being played in. This is a huge boost in replayability for the levels; when combined with the existing ability to change entry, exit, and objectives based on the storyline, now these level spaces can be reconfigured to have completely different objectives, challenges, and rewards, such as a raid to steal loot, an escape route out of a heist, or a kidnapping mission, to name a few examples.

Cont. UX Implementation
March saw major progress across the UX implementation project, we are now nearly complete with the mission map UX with only less than 10 items still kicking around needing attention and of course, some bug hunting to wrap up. That has allowed us to move on to the Matrix UX where progress has been rapid so far. The Matrix Mk2 HUD has taken shape, we’ve completed the addition of missing features for hack-only missions and we’re closing in on starting the big central node map which is the core of the work and the key part to beautify.

A very ugly WIP Hacking screen with some of the HUD elements replaced -- there are nice things starting to gather in the corners but the main of the screen is not pleasing

The final visual designs for the Safehouse screens are being handed off for review on a daily basis now, and we’re building up a growing style library of shared components that will help speed up the implementation once we get into the more menu-focused tasks in the safehouse.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us.

We’re continuing to work on and refine the design of the Digital Artbook pages and push this reward toward completion.

We have also started work on the Lorebook in earnest now. It will be quite a process -- gathering the lore notes from many sources, paper and separate Google Docs from all these years working on this game world and pulling them together into a single, well-organized tome of lore.

 

[cyborgboy95]

April Progress Update

Our apologies this monthly update has run a little late due to some team travel. April was a massively productive month with the entire team at work adding content, balancing, tuning and working hard on spreading the new UX across the game. We're getting closer to our big Alpha v2 return every day.

Another big month with lots of progress toward the next major milestone, Early Access release! So, let's check out some highlights from April!

Twitchy and Blendy!
Our animator has been hard at work improving and polishing the game’s animation as well as catching up on animation areas where we have been lacking. Three big categories that needed work were idle twitch, getting hit and dodging animations, which have now both been added to the game during April.

For idle animations, we’re excited to see how much it helps the natural feeling of all the turn-based actors in a level to have them looking around, checking their weapons and checking their corners.

For both hit and dodge, we’ve used a mix of additive animation layers which give us the ability to “add” the animation on top of any other animation. Characters or enemies running through overwatch fields can react to taking hits mid-stride or those who dodge can duck low and throw their hand up a defensive posture while sprinting across the field. In addition, for animations like taking hits we’re blending between 8 different animations depending on the exact direction of the hit to give the best-looking results.

Exciting Class / Talent Updates
In the latest iteration of the alpha, we had just 40 Talents spread across 5 classes. When we come back online, we’re aiming to have rewritten and added a total of 60 Talents to massively expand your build options and create more and more excellent options in your kit. The current plan for Early Access launch includes 6 classes and 90 Talents, averaging 15 killer abilities each. Here are some highlights we worked on in April --

A Knight can now spike the quantum countermeasure signal from their spinal rider to create an Atomic Stutter and stop a human or drone target in their tracks at range for a few seconds. This burst signal can’t be repeated rapidly but the Stunning effect at range is a powerful piece in the Knight’s kit.

In the case that your Vanguard is spotted by security, their passive Overdrive Talent will kick in to boost their Initiative. With a major Initiative boost, you’ll be the first to take action on the next Turn or if you’re slated to act later in the Turn you may “jump the line” and become first in the Initiative timeline and immediately it’s your turn to act. Surprise!

Soldiers are hardened leaders on the battlefield, and their Roll With It passive Talent allows them to automatically reduce incoming damage from a hit before it is applied to their armor. With extra level points dedicated to build up Roll With It, you can train this Talent to the point of negating a ranged hit completely.

There are multiple ways to cut IC when hacking the matrix but one of them is just to unleash devastating attacks, spinning out scripted mayhem in an all-out assault on the enemy network. Hackers who take this aggressive approach can now buy themselves some momentary cover from spiking Quantum Security Tally by using training up their passive Scapegoat Talent which allows them to reroute and cancel out some of the incoming Tally.

AI Testing and Simulation Tools
This month, we’ve been building out some additional simulation tools that let us play with the AI’s decision making and choice trees outside of the regular game context. This lets us test and iterate faster on these important decision points and also to drop these simulation tools into any level at any stage of production-- from basic block out to fully decorated and completed -- to see how the AI would react to different areas and scenarios. This is key as it allows us to embed the AI thinking into very complex 3D scenarios and understand what it might to do to both better tweak the decision making process or the level itself.

One such simulation tool just shows the sight range rules for any given position within a map.

Another simulation tool calculates how an AI will consider flanking depending, given its position and player position.

Another simulation plans an AI's hunting routine, the process by which it will approach a security event (looking for a dead guard, heard something suspicious, was that gunfire?) and how they will path back and forth across the area in question seeking enemy contact for a number of turns.

Reward and Stretch Goal Progress
For completeness, we include the progress bar infographic in each and every update. If you have any questions about rewards or stretch goals, check out the graphic or reach out to us.

We’re continuing to work on and refine the design of the Digital Artbook pages and push this reward toward completion. We are also working on the Lore Book and finding ways that more of its content can end up in the game’s Journal screens.

 

[Skorpion]

Looked kind of cheesy last year but this seems to be shaping up to something Im getting interested in. Thanks for the updates

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

A new demo is coming!

Knights, we're excited to announce Cyber Knights: Flashpoint will be included in the upcoming Steam Next Fest, an online demo festival running June 19th - 26th.

This will be the first new demo we've offered for the game in over a year, and it's the first big milestone on our road to release later in 2023. All of the game-shaping feedback our alpha players have given us, all of the new design & UX work to make this our best-looking game yet, and several features even our alpha players haven't seen yet are all waiting for you to try.

The demo will offer:

• Your first big heist to pull off! Find out how our turn-based squad tactics plays. See if you have the skills to use creative stealth, a variety of weapons, and the turn order itself to accomplish objectives in each map and get your crew out alive.
• Six squad members in your roster; each brings a unique set of talents to your crew. In the full game you'll have opportunities to recruit new members, as well as access to multi-classing, extensive skill trees, weapon modding, cybernetics -- everything you need to build out the perfect squads for your playstyle and the needs of the jobs you're taking on.
• A glimpse of your main character's origins as a Cyber Knight. These elites of our dark future's underworld are rare and highly sought after. Knights have capabilities no one else in this world does -- but it comes at a cost.
• A first look at your safehouse; in the full game you'll have access to base-building features to expand this underground hideout, providing more opportunities to upgrade your team and expand your capabilities to take on bigger jobs as you make a name for yourself.
• A preview of the choices you'll need to make in this shadowy world of mercenaries, secrets, and cyberpunks. How far will you go for a chance at a better life? What are you willing to risk for the extra credits or knowledge that could make a big difference for your crew? Who will you stay loyal to? Who can you trust?

Don't miss it!
We'll be sharing some lore, extras, and maybe even some dev streams over the next couple of weeks. Join our Discord[discord.gg] or follow @CyberKnightsRPG on twitter to stay in the loop.

We can't wait to show how far the game has come. While we're still hard at work fine-tuning and polishing the full game ahead of our Early Access release, it's already a thrill to offer the best-looking and most advanced set of tactical combat capabilities we've ever featured in a Trese Brothers game.

Especially if you're new to our games, as you try the demo we want you to know we are listening to feedback! We're active every day in the Steam forums and in our Discord, and we love making improvements and additions based on player feedback. This demo isn't just an opportunity for us to show the game off; it's your opportunity to make a mark on it.

We'll see you on June 19th! If you haven't already, wishlist & follow Cyber Knights of course! <3

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tresebrothers/cyber-knights/posts/3841571

Steam Next Fest Demo is Live!​

Knights and Backers!

First - let us apologies if you've heard about this 2231 times already. But, we want to be sure every backer who wants to check out the demo gets a shot at it this week during Steam Next Fest! So, head on over to Cyber Knights: Flashpoint demo on Steam to download and start your career in the underworld of New Boston today.

If you haven't tried the demo yet, it offers:​

• Your first big heist to pull off! Find out how our turn-based squad tactics plays. See if you have the skills to use creative stealth, a variety of weapons, and the turn order itself to accomplish objectives in each map and get your crew out alive.

• Six squad members in your roster; each brings a unique set of talents to your crew. In the full game you'll have opportunities to recruit new members, as well as access to multi-classing, extensive skill trees, weapon modding, cybernetics -- everything you need to build out the perfect squads for your playstyle and the needs of the jobs you're taking on.
• A glimpse of your main character's origins as a Cyber Knight. These elites of our dark future's underworld are rare and highly sought after. Knights have capabilities no one else in this world does -- but it comes at a cost.
• A first look at your safehouse; in the full game you'll have access to base-building features to expand this underground hideout, providing more opportunities to upgrade your team and expand your capabilities to take on bigger jobs as you make a name for yourself.
• A preview of the choices you'll need to make in this shadowy world of mercenaries, secrets, and cyberpunks. How far will you go for a chance at a better life? What are you willing to risk for the extra credits or knowledge that could make a big difference for your crew? Who will you stay loyal to? Who can you trust?

Thanks for trying out the Cyber Knights: Flashpoint demo and we're especially excited to hear your feedback as a backer! Post some comments here or hit F10 in game :D

Andrew & Cory Trese

Trese Brothers Games

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[agris]

the systems appear to be solid, but man - those characters look like straight-up plastic dolls. the specularity is cranked way too high!

how is that still a thing in 2023?

 

[agris]

the systems appear to be solid, but man - those characters look like straight-up plastic dolls. the specularity is cranked way too high!

how is that still a thing in 2023?

 

[Jinn]

Yeah, sadly the aesthetics have never measured up with this game. Kind of a bad thing in a stylish genre like cyberpunk. Bit of an excitement killer, but hopefully the gameplay is the great redeemer.

 

[udm]

Yeah, sadly the aesthetics have never measured up with this game. Kind of a bad thing in a stylish genre like cyberpunk. Bit of an excitement killer, but hopefully the gameplay is the great redeemer.

The art isn't that great, but I'm even less certain that gameplay will be the great redeemer after playing the demo

It's a shame because I was anticipating this after Battleforce Templar which was very good.

 

[Harthwain]

Yeah, sadly the aesthetics have never measured up with this game. Kind of a bad thing in a stylish genre like cyberpunk. Bit of an excitement killer, but hopefully the gameplay is the great redeemer.

The art isn't that great, but I'm even less certain that gameplay will be the great redeemer after playing the demo

It's a shame because I was anticipating this after Battleforce Templar which was very good.

Battleforce Templar's art isn't amazing either. I don't mind the visuals being a bit meh as long as the gameplay is solid.

 

[Jinn]

Battleforce Templar's art isn't amazing either. I don't mind the visuals being a bit meh as long as the gameplay is solid.

I would say that my only problem with it now is that it's a little more in your face being fully 3D. Trese Brothers have never been known for their great aesthetic, but now that it's "cyberpunk" and 3D, this is something they should have been extremely conscious of. I'll support them for great gameplay, but they need to know that if they're going to tackle a genre such as this, they need to be mindful of their aesthetic presentation, plain and simple. The plastic character models and lack of cohesion between the concept art and the game art makes it very apparent there isn't something quite working there.

 

[agris]

Well said Jinn, and to the brothers’ credit, they’ve recognized the issue of plastic models on the steam forums as recently as Tuesday, saying they plan to work on them.