KickStarter Lost Eidolons - Fire Emblem-inspired turn-based tactical RPG by Koreans

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Harthwain]

I love stylized hand-written maps.

I am overall impressed with how well the presenation of the game is done. Apparently a Korean studio can visually depict Western aesthetic (and human features in general) better than most Western studios. Being able to pull the illusion of a fully-fledged battle from essentially a bunch of units fighting in turn-based mode is also remarkable achievement. Hopefully the meat of the game will be half as good as its visual aspects.

 

[ODS Pat]

Greetings, just wanted some feedback on something.

We're in-dev right now. In the last beta, we received plenty of feedback that the quality of the cutscenes wasn't up to par (minus the absence of music or VO, which will be added later). Animations felt stiff and unnatural. We're thinking of cutting out some of the minor cutscenes and replacing them with two-way conversations instead (a 3D model on one side of the screen talking to a 3D model on the other side, with a dialogue box and blurred background of the setting). And spending additional time and resources improving the major cutscenes to meet peoples' expectations in terms of quality.

Do folks generally not mind those kind of static conversation-style cutscenes?

 

[Harthwain]

Greetings, just wanted some feedback on something.

We're in-dev right now. In the last beta, we received plenty of feedback that the quality of the cutscenes wasn't up to par (minus the absence of music or VO, which will be added later). Animations felt stiff and unnatural. We're thinking of cutting out some of the minor cutscenes and replacing them with two-way conversations instead (a 3D model on one side of the screen talking to a 3D model on the other side, with a dialogue box and blurred background of the setting). And spending additional time and resources improving the major cutscenes to meet peoples' expectations in terms of quality.

Do folks generally not mind those kind of static conversation-style cutscenes?

StarCraft 1 was basically talking heads and people still loved the conversations, because the dialogues and the voice acting were superb:

Spoiler

Original War had impressive cinematics (considering the style they were done in), but most of the in-game interactions were just characters' portraits and a bunch of text on screen. And even then it was up to the voice actors themselves to deliver the actual character of a character through their voices. In my opinion this is what separates good voice-acting from bad/mediocre one.

Spoiler

So in my opinion you should be good by not doing full-blown curtscenes for every single conversation and focusing on important ones. Then again, I might not be speaking for the majority here.

 

[Infinitron]

Do folks generally not mind those kind of static conversation-style cutscenes?

I think it's safe to say that pretty much everybody on this forum will tell you they don't!

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

Updated the graphic of the forecast arrow indicating enemies which are targeting your units, from solid lines to 3D arrows. Fingers crossed that folks notice these minor improvements!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oceandrivestudio/lost-eidolons/posts/3367783

November 23rd Dev Update Livestream

Greetings, Tacticians!

It's about that time of the month where we get together and talk about the latest and newest developments in Lost Eidolons on our local Twitch channel!

When:

• 6:00 PM PST, Tuesday November 23rd (US West)
• 9:00 PM EST, Tuesday November 23rd (US West)
• 2:00 AM GMT, Wednesday November 24th (London)
• 11:00 AM KST, Wednesday November 24th (Korea)

We have a lot to showcase this month! In the months following the last Closed Beta, the development team has made a ton of headway in improving existing systems and creating new content for Lost Eidolons. New ways of storytelling, new illustrated cutscenes, improvements to systems that our community wasn't super fond of, finalizing UI concepts, and more!

For those of you who missed last month's broadcast, please refer to this chaptered supercut of it uploaded onto YouTube:

Any questions that anyone has about the game or its development are free to be asked in the comments here or in the #town_hall section of our Discord server and we'll definitely answer it during the cast.

Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/oceandrivestudio

 

[cyborgboy95]

Before and after. We're excited to share the improved skill UI that we're working on implementing in Lost Eidolons!

 

[Harthwain]

Maybe it's just me, but I liked how the UI looked before.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Before and after. We're excited to share the improved skill UI that we're working on implementing in Lost Eidolons!

Wait so the big change is they made the language Korean?

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Infinitron]

Another crowdfunded game cancels its planned Early Access. Release delayed to Q3 2022: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oceandrivestudio/lost-eidolons/posts/3373595

Updated Release Plan

Greetings Tacticians,

Today, we’re discussing why we’re delaying Lost Eidolons to late Q3 of 2022.

Recently, we published an article that detailed a thorough review of the feedback we received from players during Closed Beta 1. Our goal with this post was to really show folks, “Great! My feedback is actually making a difference!”. You can see some of the big changes we’ve made in just a month’s time in our latest dev stream from last Tuesday.

Our previous estimated timeline was Q4 2021 Closed Beta and Early Access by Q1 2022. While we did meet our planned beta date, what we learned from it was that we were still too ambitious, aiming for a Q1 2022 Early Access. It’s not ideal for those who’ve been anticipating the game, but an additional delay so that Lost Eidolons can meet everyone’s expectations is far more important to us than rushing a release.

Before and after of the character status UI after improvements based on feedback!

This is our first project as a budding new game studio. We want to do it right and to the best of our ability. Closed Beta 1 came with a lot of positive feedback, but it also revealed several shortcomings that must be addressed.

As such, the new plan for release is as follows:

• There will be two more beta tests. They will be for both PC and Xbox, and will be a further demonstration of just how much we’re leveraging your ideas and feedback to polish Lost Eidolons. The first one in Q2 of 2022 won’t have additional chapters to try out, but will instead feature a host of improvements across the board to what you may have seen in the first Closed Beta. The second one in Q3 of 2022 will introduce additional chapters and content, but not everything so that testers have more to look forward to when the game comes out.
• On the subject of release, we’re currently estimating late Q3 of 2022. This will no longer be an Early Access launch, rather a full launch with all the content that was planned, available from day one. We believe Lost Eidolons should be enjoyed as a full, beginning-to-end experience. Pairing that with the schedule delay led us to this decision.

We’re going to allocate more of our time and resources towards making a game that our community can be proud of supporting and enjoy playing. A well-told story, masterful tactical turn-based gameplay, and an engaging unit management system are the three creative pillars that we want to nail properly. We’ll continue to keep you all informed on our progress, as we have already been doing by sharing new updates via both the dev streams as well as new articles each month, so that folks can digest new information in both video and text format.

Thank you for understanding why we’re doing this. If you have any questions about the new development timeline or any of the recent updates, please join our Discord or Tweet at us. Our staff is always available to chat!

- The ODS Team

 

[ODS Pat]

There's a few key reasons that led us to this decision.
1. The game simply wasn't good enough yet, and this comes predominantly from the level of feedback we got during the last Closed Beta. We aggregated scores across every part of the game from combat, to camp, to unit management, story, etc. Many of these parameters need improvement. The idea of prematurely releasing the game in a half-assed Early Access state wasn't going to cut it.
2. It's an episodic game split into 27 chapters. The original plan was to release it in three chunks throughout Early Access, with each chunk of chapters ending at a cliffhanger spot. But this combined with the previous point, if the game wasn't up to standard and released piecemeal as a story-focused game, we were worried that people would try it, finish what there was, but then forget about the game and not pick it back up when we later released the remaining chapters. It's a game that should be enjoyed fully from beginning to end, not stopped because not all the story is there yet.

The reason why we considered Early Access previously was because we wanted to work very closely with everyone who would've tried the game during Early Access on a month-by-month leading up to full launch. The original launch date hasn't shifted much, but we've pretty much gutted out the Early Access part altogether and will keep developing and working with our volunteer testing group on game builds leading up to the immediate full launch.

We only get one shot really for strong first impressions, and we really don't want to squander it.

We're sorry if this is disappointing news. It's on us for underestimating the amount of time we needed not once but twice now. However we're confident in this choice and would rather people be disappointed from Early Access being taken out than disappointed that the game isn't in a polished state come Early Access.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Another crowdfunded game cancels its planned Early Access.

There's a definite trend there.

 

[Infinitron]

Another crowdfunded game cancels its planned Early Access.

There's a definite trend there.

Volunteer beta testers + periodic Steam festival demos providing a good enough alternative.

 

[fantadomat]

Another crowdfunded game cancels its planned Early Access.

There's a definite trend there.

Volunteer beta testers + periodic Steam festival demos providing a good enough alternative.

Well EA is pretty bad for most devs. They tend to ignore that fact that EA sales are like 90% of the sales they will get from the game. And end up pouring resources in making the game thinking that on full release they will hit it big. Also there is loss of novelty,when you release a EA game as finished,it is seen as something old,while a finished new game gathers more hype.

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Infinitron]

https://oceandrive.studio/2021/12/21/2021-year-in-review/

2021 YEAR IN REVIEW


Seasons greetings from the ODS Crew!

With the world in a tizzy getting a handle on global health affairs, game developers everywhere were also met with new obstacles in the creation of their games. 2021 felt like NG+ on Hard mode!

Despite that, our little studio was able to unveil our first game, Lost Eidolons, at the ID@Xbox gameshow back on March 26th!

Following that was a successful Kickstarter campaign to help spread awareness about Lost Eidolons and the budding new studio developing it. It was the first time any of us had ever tried a crowdfunding campaign, and all of our community’s hard work spent spreading our campaign helped put us over the goal.

The final moments as our Kickstarter campaign came to a successful end!

We wanted to dedicate a special thank you to the volunteers in the ‘Benerio Grand Company’. Over 300 of you became the driving force behind our first Closed Beta which came at the tail end of September. Not enough gratitude could be expressed to thank you each for your hard work.

It was your input that gave a wild wake-up call and helped us come to grips with the fact that Lost Eidolons still needs a lot of work.

If you’re reading this, then thank you for supporting us all throughout 2021. Whether you found us on Kickstarter, Twitter, Steam, Reddit, or any of the RPG game forums (you know who you are), it was an absolute pleasure to talk to all of you about what you thought about our passion project.

2022 will be our year to show you what we’ve got. Look forward to Lost Eidolons and maybe some unique stories and content from our game development journey next year!

Have a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

The ODS Team

Spoiler

We couldn’t get a tree in our studio this year… hope this will suffice!

P.S. – We poked around and asked a few members of our team their thoughts on the year. Check out their messages below!

“Joining start-ups always come with risks. What made you trust your gut to join ODS?”

Pat: Literally a childhood dream of being part of a team making a tactical turn-based RPG. That dream, realized! Also, prior to this I only worked in live service games, so the opportunity to branch out and work on crafting single player experiences instead of managing online games felt like chance to grow.
Roy: I really liked the idea of working with people who had a vision in what they wanted to build. From the initial interview, I learned that the company is made up of people who have worked in the industry for a long time, and wanted to pursue their vision and make games they wanted to see made, not games driven by profits.
Joyce: In most game companies, a localization process is an after-development step, and due to this process, loc team usually first considers a dev team’s needs. However, Ocean Drive wanted to set a loc team/process within the development team/process, promised me the complete ownership on localization and direct communication channel with the creative director, and it was a rare opportunity for me to directly work with the dev team, joining the game development process. So I couldn’t miss the chance!

“Is there anything special or a custom message that you want to share with our community?”

Sujan: Thank you so much for all of your support thus far! We’ve been working really hard and will continue to work harder throughout the new year! I hope you all are looking forward to the many misadventures of Eden and co! Thank you for being an Ocean Driver ♥
Jungsoo: We really appreciate being part of the Ocean Drive Studio’s community, and giving us great feedback and insights!! We have much more to share next year! Happy New Year!
Kay: I hope players are following our news about Lost Eidolons and how we are working hard to implement the community’s feedback to the game. It’s truly a great opportunity as a development team to build the game from the get go to the launch with the core fans and community.

“What are you most excited for when it comes to Lost Eidolons in 2022?”

Brandon: I cannot WAIT for voice acting to get implemented in the game. I think it’s going to bring the characters to life in a whole new way, and I’m really excited to see how players react once we’re able to announce the cast.
Jace: Official game launch and being able to play game with my sons!
Hyun: Adding voice-overs to the game! I can’t wait to finally hear what Eden and gang sound like.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oceandrivestudio/lost-eidolons/posts/3410385

January 20th Dev Update Livestream

Greetings, Tacticians!

It's about that time of the month where we get together and talk about the latest and newest developments in Lost Eidolons on our local Twitch channel! This one is our first one in 2022, so it's a great time for us to catch up since we haven't seen each other since last year.

When:

• 6:00 PM PST, Thursday January 20th (US West)
• 9:00 PM EST, Thursday January 20th (US West)
• 2:00 AM GMT, Friday January 21st (London)
• 11:00 AM KST, Friday January 21st (Korea)

This month will be a lighter showcase! Because we'll only be showcasing the updates we made last month in the shortened work month of December, it'll be just a small catch-up with a few new developments. The developments that we make this month will be condensed into February's livestream!

For those of you who missed the previous broadcast back in November, please refer to this chaptered supercut of it uploaded onto YouTube:

Any questions that anyone has about the game or its development are free to be asked in the comments here or in the #town_hall section of our Discord server and we'll definitely answer it during the cast.

Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/oceandrivestudio

 

[cyborgboy95]

We redesigned the Lost Eidolons logo from the ground up with lore in mind to hopefully stand out and be much more memorable at a glance!

 

[Infinitron]

https://oceandrive.studio/2022/01/27/a-message-from-ods-pat/

A MESSAGE FROM ODS PAT

Greetings everybody,

Today is a different type of announcement. I’ve been serving as the Community Manager since a little before Ocean Drive Studio announced its first game, Lost Eidolons. In that time, I fell in love with the philosophy of the studio in taking a players-first approach when developing video games. I came from a background in live service games, MMOs specifically, where the environment and community was much more fast paced. I loved them very much too, but it was, without saying, a fatiguing journey.

Ocean Drive Studio for me was an opportunity to spread my wings and learn a little bit more about the video game industry. I took a chance to follow ODS Jungsoo here because I wanted to be a part of making something memorable. Every step of the way leading up to today was riddled with important lessons and a lot of joy watching Lost Eidolons grow day after day.

But at the same time, I’m also a streamer. I’ve been a streamer on Twitch for over 9 years now, approaching a full decade! I found myself at an impasse between a job that I’m comfortable with that I love the work we’re doing as well as the people that I’m working with, and an opportunity to branch out and try my hand at being a full-time content creator.

To me, this is a gamble and a risk, but one that if I don’t take it, I’ll always look back wondering ‘what-if’? My experience and time in this industry will potentially allow me to return to a normal 9-5 if things don’t pan out well, but if I abandon this opportunity to try my hand at being a streamer, I may never know what could’ve been.

I spoke to the others at ODS, and they very bluntly told me to follow my passion. They supported my decision to give it the old college try.

Today, I will be departing ODS and pursuing a new adventure to discover my potential. But, this isn’t goodbye. I love the team at ODS too much to leave them hanging. So while they search for a new Community Manager to take over my role, I’ll still be working with them as a streamer, continuing endeavors like the monthly dev update livestreams. I’ll still be around in general, but my official title will be as someone external supporting ODS and its projects.

This is my chance to take a year to see where this will lead me. And, if things don’t work out, then here’s to hoping that ODS is looking to hire again in the future, haha!

Best regards,
Pat

ODS Pat

 

[Infinitron]

https://oceandrive.studio/2022/02/01/in-the-driver-seat-jae-ceo-and-jin-sang-creative-dir/

IN THE DRIVER SEAT: JAE (CEO) AND JIN SANG (CREATIVE DIR.)

Happy Lunar New Year! New year, new blog!

Welcome to a new series we’re calling, In the Driver Seat. It’s a monthly post where different members of Ocean Drive Studios talk about their work, the game, and a little bit of themselves. Sometimes it’ll be a blog, sometimes it’ll be a vlog. Sometimes it’ll be informative, sometimes it’ll be fun. Sometimes it’ll be long, sometimes it’ll be short. You get the idea.

Game development is a long journey and we’d like to share this ride as much as we can, however we can. Hopefully, you will enjoy the drive and find the destination that much sweeter when we get there.

And who better to start us off than Jae our fearless leader, and Jin Sang the creative force behind Lost Eidolons. Here they are, sharing their thoughts for what’s in store for Lost Eidolons and more in the new year!

Video inside.

 

[cyborgboy95]