Indie Heroes of a Broken Land

[Mustawd]

It isn't the final stage, you are going to need 4 parties to beat the game. (Imagine my surprise...) For me, that meant 8 fighters, 8 mages, 4 clerics and 4 thieves.

Just read this part...Are you serious? Ugh, fuck that.

Yes I can confirm that; skin color, hair, gender, name, etc. can all be customized in this game.

Umm, how? Where is that option? Again, this game needs some serious documentation. I had no idea you could do that.

The tedium got to me as well when I played and I was glad when I finally beat it. Can't imagine playing this game on the larger worlds, it would take forever. That said, I really liked the idea of a strategic layer on top of the blobber gameplay, I feel like the game falls just short of greatness, which is too bad.

This game needs a lot of things to make it great. However, it seriously needs an option for quick resolution of a dungeon. Like in Age of Wonders. Or maybe I'm just saying that because the dungeons all starting feeling the same, outside the Pillars.

 

[Gunnar]

Yes I can confirm that; skin color, hair, gender, name, etc. can all be customized in this game.

Umm, how? Where is that option? Again, this game needs some serious documentation. I had no idea you could do that.

It's in the Adventurers Guild. It's a button on the left hand side with two arrows on it.

The tedium got to me as well when I played and I was glad when I finally beat it. Can't imagine playing this game on the larger worlds, it would take forever. That said, I really liked the idea of a strategic layer on top of the blobber gameplay, I feel like the game falls just short of greatness, which is too bad.

This game needs a lot of things to make it great. However, it seriously needs an option for quick resolution of a dungeon. Like in Age of Wonders. Or maybe I'm just saying that because the dungeons all starting feeling the same, outside the Pillars.

Yeah the dungeons need more variety of monsters, traps, puzzles, etc. to keep them interesting. As it stands there's only a few hours of blobber gameplay here before you're just doing the exact same things over and over. Still, not bad at all for procedurally generated dungeons and a first iteration.

 

[WingedPixel]

You can modify your characters if you build an Adventurers Guild. Making customization available through a building was a mistake I think. You should be able to just change their appearance at will.

I also think the final dungeon's total party count is partly based on the world size, so you might only need 2-3 parties on smaller world?

I believe that auto battles are a crutch for bad dungeon gameplay (which I agree that HOBL has due to the lack of variation). The repetition is a combination of monster variety, graphical variety and general lack of things to do in a dungeon. The dungeons need to be either smaller or have more purpose. Or both. Unfortunately graphical and monster variety is at some level a money issue and one of the more expensive things to address.

I think one big flaw in HOBL was the long-game pacing. The single dungeon pacing was pretty good in IMO - you kill stuff, get loot and level up at a pretty reasonable and engaging pace. The town building goals as not too bad either, where you slowly build up your town over time, every dungeon or two, giving you access to new stuff. So the mid-game has at least the goal of building up your town. However the long-game progression is poorly paced. There are like 5 main-quest dungeons, all of which more or less force multi-party mechanics on you, and they do come mostly out of nowhere. This is partly due to a lack of a real story, there are not main-quest plot points spread out through the world making the end-game feel like it comes out of nowhere.

The other big flaw in the pacing is the total time require to beat the game. Even a tiny map takes 10-20 hours, much of which can be end-game grinding. This wasn't the original plan, I wanted smaller world to take 2-6 hours, so people could play a quick jaunt of an RPG. I think my mistake was fixing the world size before actually balancing the dungeon crawling pace, so by the time I had dungeon crawling and level-up pacing how I wanted, the smaller maps were actually full length RPGs.

 

[Mustawd]

I think your points are spot on. And I think it's the reason why the first 3-4 hours are a ton of fun. Afterwards, it gets really repetitive, but I still have plenty of fun in 30min - 1hr bursts. So there's a good foundation in there somewhere.

Glad you have a good and objective analysis of HoBL. Looking forward to your next game WingedPixel .

Anything you can share about it? Will it be a blobber similar to HoBL? Or something very different?

 

[WingedPixel]

Its absolutely a blobber. The 30-second elevator pitch would be the same as that for HOBL1, so it's a true sequel in that sense, same genre, same basic design ideas. I see HOBL1 as more of a polished prototype in many ways, so the general ideas and design philosophies that are in the original I hope will also be in the sequel.

That's not to say there won't be a bunch of changes - character progress is completely different as will the basic look of the game, it won't be a retro/pixel art style (but it won't be AAA 3D photo-real either, of course). Beyond that I think most of the changes will be me attempting to address the limitations of the original, lots and lots of experience born tweaks.

I have other, larger aspirations for the sequel or course, but my first goals are the make a "better HOBL1". I hope to have a Steam Greenlight-level trailer/showing this year, but it's part-time dev so we'll see how it goes. One thing about the sequel's development is I'm under no pressure to release soon, so I'll announce stuff when I feel it's ready.

 

[Mustawd]

Nice. Looking forward to it

 

[Naraya]

I "finished" the demo playthrough. Had a very pleasant experience overall. The potential is high, however I can see the complaints about the repetitiveness. That's why I'm going to wait for HoBL2 which hopefully fixes those issues.

Currently having great time with LoL. I love the art style in this game <3

 

[Mustawd]

Also, WingedPixel the final dungeon is level 11. My highest party is on average level 8. Is the level supposed to be indicative of how high all the parties need to be? Or is it like three parties of level 5 peeps could still beat it?

 

[WingedPixel]

Dungeon levels tell you the level of the monsters inside. You can usually punch a couple of level above your weight if you use lots of magic potions, but it might be a bit of a challenge. Esp for the level 5 parties.

One think I've found interesting is that almost nobody every splits/mixes their parties up after assembling them. Because you could probably level up those lv5 heroes faster if you mix them with some lv8s and do harder dungeons...

 

[Dorateen]

One think I've found interesting is that almost nobody every splits/mixes their parties up after assembling them.

I don't know if this would work, the way dungeons are generated, but what about class-restricted areas?

Like the way Might & Magic II did it. That would make it necessary to leave some party members behind, and bring in others to fill the spots.

 

[Gunnar]

One think I've found interesting is that almost nobody every splits/mixes their parties up after assembling them. Because you could probably level up those lv5 heroes faster if you mix them with some lv8s and do harder dungeons...

This is how I played, and that's why I recommended naming characters for their class and color coding the classes so you can build the parties quickly from the character sorting screen. Maybe people don't use it because its hard to see what you have at a glance from that character sorting screen.

 

[WingedPixel]

One think I've found interesting is that almost nobody every splits/mixes their parties up after assembling them.

I don't know if this would work, the way dungeons are generated, but what about class-restricted areas?

Like the way Might & Magic II did it. That would make it necessary to leave some party members behind, and bring in others to fill the spots.

I probably should have said re-mix or re-assemble parties rather than split. Having class restricted regions feels very forced?

A lot of this probably comes from hero ability generalization as they increase in level, where I feel that hero's should become more specialized as they increase in level. Ideally with a focus more on hero ability and skills rather than raw level determining usefulness.

 

[Dorateen]

One think I've found interesting is that almost nobody every splits/mixes their parties up after assembling them.

I don't know if this would work, the way dungeons are generated, but what about class-restricted areas?

Like the way Might & Magic II did it. That would make it necessary to leave some party members behind, and bring in others to fill the spots.

I probably should have said re-mix or re-assemble parties rather than split. Having class restricted regions feels very forced?

True, it is forced in the sense that the player is forced to drop those characters and recruit others in order to carry on. But in terms of an in-game explanation, I suppose that would depend on context. For example, Lord Hoardall's dungeon has zones that prohibit Robbers and Clerics from passing. It was said this is so he could have the upper hand on the people most likely to take money from him.

Anyway, it's probably not the right approach for Heroes of a Broken Land. This feature is just something I enjoyed.

I'm looking forward to hear about your next project.

 

[Thac0]

Steam decided to recommend this to me today, how does it compare to Legends of Amberland?
It seems to have very similar weaknesses (shallow and samey tactics, grindy gameplay) and same strengths (addictive in 1 hour bursts) with less polish and maybe more depth?
Also is the second game in Early Access better?

 

[Fluent]

Hey guys! So, I played this game a bit tonight, and wow, it's NEAT! Anyone here played it? It really offers a lot in one package. The dungeon crawling is great, very fun and combat and resource management always stay interesting. Clearing dungeons and finding relics and hidden treasures is always fun and it offers a wide array of strategic elements as well. Building up your settlement, recruiting new heroes, multiple parties (!!!), this game is going to be a TREAT if you play it with a background of enjoying strategy and/or dungeon crawlers. I recommend checking it out. Peace!

 

[RNGsus]

 

[Elwro]

Looks snazzy. Thanks!

 

[Arthandas]

procedurally generated worlds and dungeons

Random dungeons in a blobber hahahaha

 

[Elwro]

Well, Dungeon Hack was strangely addictive...

 

[Arthandas]

Well, Dungeon Hack was strangely addictive...

Yeah, real-time and random dungeons, two of the best qualities for any blobber.

 

[Yeoman]

Hero-focused runs in Master of Magic are my favorite so this game sounded perfect for me.

However, as I played the demo, I noticed that the dungeon levels are directly proportional to their proximity to your starting settlement. In my opinion, this TOTALLY destroys the exploration and sense of discovery of the game.

 

[unseeingeye]

This actually looks interesting, despite the procedural generation which beyond Daggerfall doesn't usually appeal to me.

Shame it is only on Steam, though..

 

[fabrulana]

I see this has actually been released quite long ago... The second one is now in Beta with better graphics. Some positive reviews on both.

 

[Fluent]

Hey guys. Thanks for the responses! The dungeons I tried, which were a cave and a goblin keep, both felt like normal, old-school dungeons. They didn't feel procedurally generated, that's for sure. Treasure was where it should have been, doors were logical, the only thing that slightly felt a bit odd were the high number of levers to pull. But the levers are there to open doors in other parts of the labyrinth, so it doesn't really detract from the experience or anything.

Hope some of you check it out despite the proc-gen dungeons. It is turn-based, strategic combat and it gave me a decent challenge in the small amount I played. I can only see the game getting better and better as I play more. Thanks for checking it out!