Information Heroes of a Broken Land Announced: Turn-based Multiple Party RPG

[Johannes]

I prefer to more or less know from the get-go what options I have for character development, so I can have some plan for character builds without too many restarts.

If you want secret classes it'd make more sense if you'd need to find special trainers or such to switch to them, suddenly discovering a new class when visiting a characters stat screen seems like just obscuring a core concept of the game for no reason.

ALso it makes the char system look more shallow and boring than it actually is, to a first time player.

 

[warmonger3]

Edit: Check weapons after class change, everything is unequipped. That's the one thing I didn't check.

 

[WingedPixel]

I do also enjoy planning my characters progression, and I think listing the available classes (or at least most of them) is the way to go. Fiiguring out how to earn the promotion I'll leave for the player to discover.

And you're all right in that I need to add a help/instruction screen

 

[warmonger3]

Heroes of a Broken Land

Alpha 0.6.0 is out, with lots of updates!

* New Recruits - you can now select the class of Lv1 recruits, plus new recruits now have the chance of special traits - both positive and negative.
* Rescue Parties - Party death is no longer final, you can now form rescue parties and retrieve your fallen heroes by finding their final resting place and returning them to town
* Level Up - you now control how character attributes are assigned on level up, giving more control over your player's progression
* Improved quest system with a new quest log, this will allow for better, more complex quests, including a more involved main quest.
* A new playable race: The Golem. Golems are not living creatures, they are built-to-order automatons that you can customize for your needs.
* Loot quality and quantity rates have been tuned, so you should be getting better treasure more often
* Plus lots of minor and major fixes to the game


Andrew Ellem - wingedpixel.com

 

[warmonger3]

Wow, I really cannot stop playing this version. I'm one of the people sending in the bug reports. Version is 6.2 now. Andrew has done an outstanding job developing and listening to ideas.

 

[WingedPixel]

I'm really glad you're liking it warmonger!

Heroes of a Broken Land is still in Alpha, but the core gameplay is quickly solidifing, and I think the current version is fairly representative of the final product - at least gameplay wise. The graphics are being improved, especially the hero portraits, and an updated will be released soon. I do really want to get as much feedback on the general gameplay and especially mid and late game balance.

So to all you rpgamers who enjoy M&M or Wizardry style dungeon crawling, but haven't tried out HOBL please do. In all honestly the opinions of the fans of classic dungeon crawlers are really important to me! As a solo developer actually tesing all the various party combinations especially at higher levels is pretty much impossible, so any feed back is very much appreciated.

 

[laclongquan]

Town building: Choices and options

Choices and options are important factors and need not limit itself to one-game-only.

Say you have limited number of slot for buildings, and once you upgrade your full set of mage buildings you dont have enough to build warrior buildings. And you cant destroy to rebuild. That's good. That's one aspect of choice and consequences.

Alas (or luckily) you get town raids. Hearing the development of your magical building, an army lead by regenade wizards/monster/competing heroes, attack your towns to loot the buildings, then raze it to the ground. You have choices and options now:

- invest beforehand into the few building slots left for defensive structures (Ballista Towers, Encircling Wall of protective runes...). Then when the invasion happen you lead your band to defend. high cost, low loss, reduced loot.

- Leave the slots alone and defend the town with your band. low cost, potential high loss, and high loot.

- Leave the town alone so they raze the mage's buildings to the ground. Rebuild it from the warrior building sets. low cost, high loss, and high investment to get another set.

You see? With this, you have resource sinks for late game, since once you get there you have more than enough money but not enough choice. A very important factor to consider.

Of course, early game the buildings are a big part of your investment so normally you defend it.

ONe thinking is this: early game you build and defend. At middle game, you build then get destroyed to rebuild. And late game, since you buy all you can from those set of buildings now you just build and keep buildings with permanent benefits.

 

[WingedPixel]

I know a lot of people have compained about the portraits, and I heard you loud and clear.

What do you think of the new portraits?
http://wingedpixel.com/new-portraits-preview/

 

[Cosmic Misogynerd]

They look really nice. I forgot to get a copy of the game, an issue I plan to fix in a few hours. Nice work!

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I know a lot of people have compained about the portraits, and I heard you loud and clear.

What do you think of the new portraits?
http://wingedpixel.com/new-portraits-preview/

Lovely! Good work!

 

[laclongquan]

Can we add our self-made portraits into the game?

 

[WingedPixel]

Yes, I plan on supporting user made portraits.
You'll also be able to customize the auto generated portraits.

 

[warmonger3]

Crooked Bee
Heroes of a Broken Land

Alpha 0.7.0 has been released.

* New Hero portraits
* A UI rework is underway and 0.7.0 has the first preview
* Character development is now more important, attributes are more influencial making level up attribute point selection more important and meaningful
* Skill selection on level up, now you will select which skill to learn on level up, allowing you to customize your hero how you want
* Lots of new skills, especially for fighters and other melee classes: counter attacks, weapon specializations and more
* Lizards are now bezerkers - they attack automatically, but are powerful
* Treasure rooms at the end of the larger dungeons
* World event system as been added, you will be faced with hard and interesting choices related to kingdom management
* Numerous small bug fixes as well


Andrew Ellem - wingedpixel.com

 

[Dorateen]

This keeps looking better and better!

 

[Overboard]

v0.7.1 is out.

This is mostly a bugfix release to Alpha 0.7.1, and is save game compatible so you can continue your games.

• You can win the game now: Added end game sequence (artwork is still unfinished)
• Fixes to combat – mostly related to status effects
• About a dozen new world events added
• Four new monster types added
• Numerous small bug fixes as well

 

[WingedPixel]

I've just released Alpha 0.9.1, you can player it here in your browser.

• • Added status effect icons (bless, stun, etc) to indicate character status
  • Stunned characters cannot counter attack
  • Character customization from the Adventurer’s Guild
  • Increase base world movement points by 33% (6 -> 8)
  • Show victory stats when dungeon is cleared
  • Golem factory changed, skills are now based on Golem level
  • Tool-tip help added to most UI elements
  • Improved UI icon images (still a WIP)
  • Improved scrollbars (a bit…)
  • Building and World UI screen cleanup, making the UI more consistent (not done yet!)
  • Cleanup Character stats screen, split Skills into separate tab for more detailed descriptions
  • Fix some transition issues with HUD background
  • Fixed Treasure Hunt quest
  • Improved dungon defeat and win screens
  • Plus lots of minor tweaks and fixes

What’s next? There are still quite a few features to add before the game’s done, my next focus will be on

• Party selection at start – allow the player to choose the classes of their initial party
• Improve the dungeon object variety, more interactive objects (this will be on going throughout development)
• Fix the dungeon graphics, there are quite a few minor gliches that are bothering me

Of course the game is still in development and I love to hear suggestions. So give it a try and let me know!

 

[Desktop Commander]

Increase base world movement points by 33% (6 -> 8)

Out of curiosity: When will the new town screens you teased us with last time make it into the game and will there eventually be more character classes to choose from (or perhaps advanced classes via promotions)?

 

[WingedPixel]

The new town backgrounds will probably be in the next version, possibly with new building art too. I was waiting on the final verions, but I might put in the preview backgrounds anyways if they're not ready in time.

There are 15 character classes already, I don't plan on adding anymore before release. There are 4 human base classes and 2 upgrades for each, plus 3 non-human classes. Some of the promotions are easy to find, some require work, and some require special buildings which may or may not exist in a given world (small and tiny worlds aren't large enough to have everything, larger worlds should have one of everything).

 

[Desktop Commander]

The new town backgrounds will probably be in the next version, possibly with new building art too. I was waiting on the final verions, but I might put in the preview backgrounds anyways if they're not ready in time.

There are 15 character classes already, I don't plan on adding anymore before release. There are 4 human base classes and 2 upgrades for each, plus 3 non-human classes. Some of the promotions are easy to find, some require work, and some require special buildings which may or may not exist in a given world (small and tiny worlds aren't large enough to have everything, larger worlds should have one of everything).

Oh, ok, I had no idea every human class already had two promotions; that does indeed sound quite sufficient then.

While I haven't had the time to play this game much lately, I'm quite amazed at the amount of content you managed to cram into it (ventured into my first multi-party dungeon a few days ago - what a great idea!) and I hope the alpha funding is working well for you so far.

 

[WingedPixel]

Oh, ok, I had no idea every human class already had two promotions; that does indeed sound quite sufficient then.

While I haven't had the time to play this game much lately, I'm quite amazed at the amount of content you managed to cram into it (ventured into my first multi-party dungeon a few days ago - what a great idea!) and I hope the alpha funding is working well for you so far.

There's no way for you to have known how many classes - there's no real documentation. Which reminds me I need to update my bullet points on the game description!

The alpha funding is umm, going? I wasn't sure what to expect going in to it, so I can't say it's been a failure. I think the early feedback I've gotten has been very valuable, even if the actual funding has been somewhat disappointing. I'm in the process of getting on Desura, it'll be interesting to see if that makes any difference. The experience has really reinforced how hard it can be to launch a game from nothing, no existing fans or followers, and aren't a social media guru, especially as a solo developer.

 

[Misconnected]

The alpha funding is umm, going? I wasn't sure what to expect going in to it, so I can't say it's been a failure. I think the early feedback I've gotten has been very valuable, even if the actual funding has been somewhat disappointing. I'm in the process of getting on Desura, it'll be interesting to see if that makes any difference. The experience has really reinforced how hard it can be to launch a game from nothing, no existing fans or followers, and aren't a social media guru, especially as a solo developer.

Attention & visibility are pretty key things. I just bought into the alpha 5 mins ago, and would have far earlier. But despite haunting this place a lot, I'm pretty sure I hadn't noticed your game until today (or at least not realised what it was). And I certainly haven't seen or heard anything about it anywhere else.

If you could get RPS to notice you, your alpha funding would probably increase a thousand-fold. Or just getting plastered across the Codex front page would likely double it - assuming I've correctly guessed you have somewhere between 1-50 sales currently, of course.

Grimrock demonstrated there's a sizeable audience for something like HoaBL. But currently I'm doubting you've snagged the attention of more than a couple of hundred of us.

 

[WingedPixel]

Grimlock's success is what conviced me that a game like this at least has a chance in today's market and I wouldn't be wasting my time building one.

You're pretty close with # of sales (48 as of this morning), which obviously isn't an impressive number. I got some semi-decent coverage from sites when I first announced the alpha at the end of April, but my programmer graphics turned off a lot of people. So I got some proper artists contracted and worked on fixing the art. Most of the art has been redone or will be redone within the next few weeks. At that time I'll call it Beta version and do another PR push, try and get people to review/preview .

Hopefully more sites will pick up on my release then. Major sites usually don't report on minor releases so you only get a few shots at coverage unfortunately.

 

[Niektory]

Is it supposed to run in Linux? I've tried a bunch of different browsers, but the CLICK TO PLAY image disappears when clicked and nothing happens.

 

[Metro]

Ratcheting up the graphics a tad is definitely a smart move before you make another publicity push. I think the new avatars are great and if you can just polish the rest of the visuals (including the UI) to a similar level you'll be fine.

 

[WingedPixel]

Is it supposed to run in Linux? I've tried a bunch of different browsers, but the CLICK TO PLAY image disappears when clicked and nothing happens.

Unfortunately I don't think the Unity web browser plugin supports Linux.

The full game will have a Linux version. When I hit Beta I'll create an actual demo version of the game, I'll be sure to have downloadable demos for all 3 platforms.