Game News Iron Danger combines Finnish mythology, steampunk and tactical combat with time manipulation

[Jrpgfan]

That combat video is painful to watch and likely even more painful to play.

 

[hepphep]

Heya all, one of the devs (lead programmer) here!

Nice to see that there are lots of discussion. And I love that video and short descriptions make people have different kind of opinions, as the worst thing would be that it would not bring out any feelings!
That said, I think I can shed light on few things that might be misleading and what we are aiming with things.

Finnish folklore
The game is not meant to be exact copy of Kalevala or any other parts of Finnish folklore. I'm personally a big one of Finnish folklore of which Kalevala is of course only one part (even though integral). As pointed nicely in here it is very much Lönnrot's story that has been build by collecting and combining different kind of poems from very different regions and sources. Also, the new Kalevala (the current one) had major overhaul back then to make it more "selling" for audiences abroad. I think they mostly wanted to get it to compete with middle-european epics back then. So, we are inspired by Kalevala for sure, but as much we are inspired of tons of other sources and studies of old folklore.
However, we are focusing more on making a new and exciting world that pays homage to the old stories, but does not try to follow them strictly. So, if you are expecting fully authentic Kalevala tale or fully authentic Finnish folklore (which is actually very different concept depending on who you ask as there is not really that much of written history from far in the past) you will be disappointed. If you are expecting to find a new and unique world where you can spot connection to those folklores, then you most likely are going to be pretty happy.
In addition, we aim the things to be even more heroic and epic (as Lönnrot and friends wanted to when they made the new Kalevala) as it makes much more entertaining experience.
If we get more people excited about Finnish folklore and Kalevala due to that, we are more than happy. We actually got already one comment in Steam community from someone who had never heard of Kalevala and had now read it when heard of it from Iron Danger related stuff.

Game mechanics
The game is very much turn based and much more puzzle-like than most of the games out there. I'd personally say that the time manipulation brings in totally new kind of tactical element. So actually I'd expect that those who love turn-based RPGs with tactical combats (and I'm one of them) are actually ones who will love the game most.
The video might seem chaotic in the sense that things happen simultaneously and it is something that might be bit confusing. Partially this due to the fact that the mechanics with time manipulation is something unique that you have never before tried. It is not that confusing at all when you are in control of the things yourself. This has come especially clear when we have had tons of people to play the game at Gamescom during the week. The positive feedback has been really stunning.
I had feeling before releasing the video, that people might be confused of just seeing it.But we still wanted to share the real gameplay instead of some edited "advertisement".

And most importantly, if any of you guys are visiting Gamescom today, we'd love you to visit our booth and give it a try. And it'd be even better if you'd like to share your experiences (be they good or bad) with others here.
Of course, if you already tried it out at Gamescom, the comments are more than welcome.

But thanks all the comments and discussion so far, it is nice to read them! And if you have any questions in your mind, just ask and I'll try to answer them as well as I can.

 

[Roqua]

I didn't see turns or anyone taking anything that looked like a turn, initiative, or anything that makes this look like something other than RTwP. The Burning Wheel has simultaneous TB. Copper Dreams seems far more plausible as simultaneous/concurrent TB system.

I'm not saying it looks bad; I will buy it and probably like it if there is good chardev - but if this is simultaneous/concurrent TB then so is almost every RtwP game including all the IE games, Kotors, Drakensangs, etc. And actual simultaneous TB games like is seen in few rpg but lots of wargames have been calling themselves the wrong thing.

If I am wrong I'd like to know what makes this simultaneous TB that isn't apparent in the video.

 

[hepphep]

I didn't see turns or anyone taking anything that looked like a turn, initiative, or anything that makes this look like something other than RTwP. The Burning Wheel has simultaneous TB. Copper Dreams seems far more plausible as simultaneous/concurrent TB system.

I'm not saying it looks bad; I will buy it and probably like it if there is good chardev - but if this is simultaneous/concurrent TB then so is almost every RtwP game including all the IE games, Kotors, Drakensangs, etc. And actual simultaneous TB games like is seen in few rpg but lots of wargames have been calling themselves the wrong thing.

If I am wrong I'd like to know what makes this simultaneous TB that isn't apparent in the video.

Good points and insights, let me try to explain as well as I can.

You are giving all the commands as in usual turn-based game as due to time manipulation you can pinpoint them, which turns things much more to turn-based than RtwP. In usual RtwP you can pause and give commands to characters and hope that the things in world progress so that your commands matches nicely and then be big chunk of time in sort of autopilot. In that sense we are much more in line with games like DOS series, where you give exact commands and only commands that you give are taken. The game pauses after your active character has finished their latest commands. After that you can give new commands to that character, rewind and make new decision or switch to other character and go in spot of time where you want to give that command. It very much brings the precision and thinking of turn-based tactical approach even if everything happens simultaneously.

To pick an example of this, you aim fireball with your caster to group of enemies. When fireball is hit you see that it knocks big'n'bad enemy to some given direction. Now you pick your other character, move back in time and place him to good position to smack the knock backed enemy in midair with his mighty hammer. So, in the sense it adds more tactical depth for thinking how to solve the combat situation. Of course it is also very different from your usual turn-based game, but there is this exact same tactical approach without the feeling of hurry that you (or at least I) usually get with RtwP.
In my opinion turn-based is closest thing to compare of existing ones, but of course we are playing with never before seen mechanics so there really is no direct comparison in other games. All this makes it bit hard to sometimes to put it in exact category.

Of course this answer is very much based on my own experiences with games that I've played, so if you have some better references to check that you think have something similar please point me there! I'm always eager to learn more of other games. And I must admit that personally I'm more of the turn-based guy as RtwPs feel bit too chaotic for me. Even though I play some of them every now and then as some of them have so nice stories and worlds that I want to experience them.

But it is really good that your brought up your impressions on this. As you notice, it is still quite hard for me to sometimes be able to explain it in very short way and all of these discussions are very helpful in trying to find better ways to do that. Oh, and did my description make any sense to you?

 

[Roqua]

But it is really good that your brought up your impressions on this. As you notice, it is still quite hard for me to sometimes be able to explain it in very short way and all of these discussions are very helpful in trying to find better ways to do that. Oh, and did my description make any sense to you?

Thank you for the explanation. Hell, just having the game want your input and for you to have decide the actions of the characters instead of the game deciding for you is good enough for me to not consider it standard RTwP. I assumed the player was pausing in the video, not the game.

Some months ago a game was released - I forget the name. It wasn't a bad game. It was about future NYC where most of it was underwater. It claimed to be concurrent TB but played exactly like RtwP games including auto-attack. There was no significant difference or noticeable difference from any system that was always called and considered RTwP.

While I would love to see a traditional wargame or pnp concurrent/simultaneous TB system implementation in a game - what you described sounds very interesting. And the video shows a high amount of involvement/input required by the player which makes me happy.