Incline MENACE - sci-fi turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers devs - coming to Early Access in Q3 2025

[darkpatriot]

wait i thought the first darkpatriot post (finally playable coz there is wahmen) to be sarcastic

he is serious?

Yes, I almost always play squad based tactical games with all women squads (or at least mostly women squads). If that isn't possible, I am usually not going to play the game.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

Since their inception computer games had women combatants, and it never was a problem. On the contrary it added to a setting.

Now that we're in the middle of a culture war, such things acquire much larger importance.

You don't have to participate in a culture "war," friend. You can acknowledge that both sides of the political divide are trying to get you worked up over woke shit and you can wish a pox on both their houses.

You support one side in the culture war, while pretending to be above it. You try to shame people by acting as if they're ridiculous when they acknowledge that there is a culture war, but we both know that you aren't saying a peep when game devs, politicians, actors etc. etc. sit on twitter and explicitly state that they hate white men. You downplay anything that one side does in this stupid fucking culture war when it's the current year and we know for a fact that it's ideologically motivated.

You're disingenuous, manipulative and hypocritical. You argue in bad faith. A genuinely awful human being. At least stand for the things you believe in, instead of this manipulative pretending-to-be-neutral bullshit. All of the above applies to anyone else doing this slimy "it's so silly that you get triggered by hearing a woman" act, too. No, it's not hearing a woman that's making people lose interest in the game; it's seeing that the devs are pushing the same tired "strong women in roles that men are logically suited to" propaganda that they've seen a thousand times. They've seen it and they know that it means that the devs are fully infected by the culture war. If you were as neutral as you pretend to be, you'd be just as tired of seeing it.

 

[Zombra]

Jesus christ. The last 3 pages are ONLY ABOUT PENISES. And this very post is only about posts about penises. One specific note to Alienman, nowhere does this game say it is a "realistic" social simulation of the 1940s US military. Guess how many times the word "realistic" is listed on the Steam page? Maybe you could do a search and find out. It says right at the top, it is a turn-based tactical game and penises aren't even mentioned anywhere. If you are here primarily looking for a way to go back in time to the good old days when women didn't exist, you are really looking in the wrong place.

Everybody, please, I would love for this thread to be about the actual game and no longer completely obsessed with penises. We fucking get it, you love penises but maybe you can find a thread just for that. I bet if you look real hard you could find a whole forum about them.

 

[Alienman]

That said, my chief concern for now is the gameplay.

I see no point in arguing the ratio of female space marines more, it's just an immersion issue for me, regardless of the creative freedom of the creator. Beyond that, gameplay is my main concern too, since it seems going by the tactical combat, there will be a lot less freedom to the sandbox elements. Only one special weapon per squad, and grenades will act as a special item. So if you carry a laser designator, the squad can't carry grenades etc. Stuff like this feels very gamey, and limits the fun of creating fun squad compositions. Not sure about the turn-based system either, as it will use alternating turns for player and AI. Not sure what’s the benefits of this system.

 

[Zombra]

Thank you Alienman for reading my mind while I was making my previous post and actually talking about the game

 

[mediocrepoet]

Jesus christ. The last 3 pages are ONLY ABOUT PENISES. And this very post is only about posts about penises. One specific note to Alienman, nowhere does this game say it is a "realistic" social simulation of the 1940s US military. Guess how many times the word "realistic" is listed on the Steam page? Maybe you could do a search and find out. It says right at the top, it is a turn-based tactical game and penises aren't even mentioned anywhere. If you are here primarily looking for a way to go back in time to the good old days when women didn't exist, you are really looking in the wrong place.

Everybody, please, I would love for this thread to be about the actual game and no longer completely obsessed with penises. We fucking get it, you love penises but maybe you can find a thread just for that. I bet if you look real hard you could find a whole forum about them.

No penises? Screw this, I'm going to play Cyberpunk.

 

[Tyranicon]

Getting massive C&C Tiberian Sun vibes, especially those missions where you rescue people behind easily escapable fences.

 

[GrainWetski]

Since their inception computer games had women combatants, and it never was a problem. On the contrary it added to a setting.

Now that we're in the middle of a culture war, such things acquire much larger importance.

You don't have to participate in a culture "war," friend. You can acknowledge that both sides of the political divide are trying to get you worked up over woke shit and you can wish a pox on both their houses.

You support one side in the culture war, while pretending to be above it. You try to shame people by acting as if they're ridiculous when they acknowledge that there is a culture war, but we both know that you aren't saying a peep when game devs, politicians, actors etc. etc. sit on twitter and explicitly state that they hate white men. You downplay anything that one side does in this stupid fucking culture war when it's the current year and we know for a fact that it's ideologically motivated.

You're disingenuous, manipulative and hypocritical. You argue in bad faith. A genuinely awful human being. At least stand for the things you believe in, instead of this manipulative pretending-to-be-neutral bullshit. All of the above applies to anyone else doing this slimy "it's so silly that you get triggered by hearing a woman" act, too. No, it's not hearing a woman that's making people lose interest in the game; it's seeing that the devs are pushing the same tired "strong women in roles that men are logically suited to" propaganda that they've seen a thousand times. They've seen it and they know that it means that the devs are fully infected by the culture war. If you were as neutral as you pretend to be, you'd be just as tired of seeing it.

Always the case. "Don't you think both sides are just as bad" types somehow always lean very far towards the woke. Concern trolling or whatever they call it.

Anyway, it isn't just that there's muh wahmen.. as always with retarded woke crap, it looks like a circus checklist. Gotta have a nig, gotta have a tranny(esque) and so on. So obvious they're ticking off boxes and it always looks fucking ridiculous.

 

[darkpatriot]

Since their inception computer games had women combatants, and it never was a problem. On the contrary it added to a setting.

Now that we're in the middle of a culture war, such things acquire much larger importance.

You don't have to participate in a culture "war," friend. You can acknowledge that both sides of the political divide are trying to get you worked up over woke shit and you can wish a pox on both their houses.

You support one side in the culture war, while pretending to be above it. You try to shame people by acting as if they're ridiculous when they acknowledge that there is a culture war, but we both know that you aren't saying a peep when game devs, politicians, actors etc. etc. sit on twitter and explicitly state that they hate white men. You downplay anything that one side does in this stupid fucking culture war when it's the current year and we know for a fact that it's ideologically motivated.

You're disingenuous, manipulative and hypocritical. You argue in bad faith. A genuinely awful human being. At least stand for the things you believe in, instead of this manipulative pretending-to-be-neutral bullshit. All of the above applies to anyone else doing this slimy "it's so silly that you get triggered by hearing a woman" act, too. No, it's not hearing a woman that's making people lose interest in the game; it's seeing that the devs are pushing the same tired "strong women in roles that men are logically suited to" propaganda that they've seen a thousand times. They've seen it and they know that it means that the devs are fully infected by the culture war. If you were as neutral as you pretend to be, you'd be just as tired of seeing it.

Always the case. "Don't you think both sides are just as bad" types somehow always lean very far towards the woke. Concern trolling or whatever they call it.

Anyway, it isn't just that there's muh wahmen.. as always with retarded woke crap, it looks like a circus checklist. Gotta have a nig, gotta have a tranny(esque) and so on. So obvious they're ticking off boxes and it always looks fucking ridiculous.

Your very post proves you are just as bad. You are terribly racist and misogynist.

Fortunately you and your ilk don't represent the right in general, but you make a very good example of how when the SJWs say that the people who oppose them are all racist misogynistic white nationalists, they aren't entirely off the mark.

The more you rant and rave any time some work of fiction is not dominated by white characters conforming to traditional gender roles the more you provide them an easy example to point to to claim they are correct about how terrible the people who disagree with them are.

If you stuck to legitimate criticisms of SJW; adding in racial and gender diversity where it doesn't make much sense (historical settings or changing the race/gender of pre-existing characters), adding pronouns, hamfisted political viewpoints included in settings/narratives to push the SJW agenda, or even unrealistic over representation of homosexuality in more realistic settings; you would be able to make the sort of claims you would like to against the 'both sides are just as bad' argument.

Instead, you push a narrative of white superiority, male superiority, and are against the very idea of diversity or tolerance.

So yes, you are just as bad, dummy.

Although, the cultural left has a much higher percentage of radicals and their radicalism is much more readily accepted, while the radicals of the cultural right, such as yourself, are much less representative of the overall cultural right. Most of those on the cultural right reject your ilk.

Although, these days most of the remaining active culture warriors on the right side of the culture wars do tend towards such radical views. The more moderate ones having been exposed enough to the radicals to have caused a majority of them to have disassociated with it.

 

[Reinhardt]

shouldn't it be in full tacticools subforum btw? it's not even on bb level so far.

 

[Reinhardt]

Fortunately you and your ilk don't represent the right in general

because hook-nosed brown shlomos like you subverted it long ago. "if you right you must stand with israel and support LEGAL wypepo replacement with pajeets!" "gaems without wahmynz and nigger trannies are gommunizm!"

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

shouldn't it be in full tacticools subforum btw? it's not even on bb level so far.

Still no idea if the tactics part is any good.

 

[darkpatriot]

shouldn't it be in full tacticools subforum btw? it's not even on bb level so far.

It should be, but the rule is that if the game devs call it an RPG then it gets included in the RPG forum or an appropriate RPG subforum. It is the admins' way to sidestep the "what is an RPG?" debate constantly happening on threads in this RPG forums.

 

[Melcar]

So this is not an RPG?

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

I just come to expect the military to be the same in the future, as it has been for thousands of years. Unless we have lore reasons for it being so. But I doubt it.

I have no idea why you're projecting your expectations on the genre that mostly has very low basis in the reality to begin with, even in games that were made in the 90s.

>it's scifi so anything goes so we must default to dogshit 21st century feminism every time
NO!!!

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

So this is not an RPG?

From Steam: "Lead a strike force against an alien threat in this turn-based tactical RPG from the developers of Battle Brothers. Answer distress calls across different worlds, train and equip infantry, deploy tanks and mechs, and plan and execute missions in detailed turn-based battles."

Title: MENACE
Genre: RPG, Simulation, Strategy
Developer: Overhype Studios
Publisher: Hooded Horse
Franchise: Hooded Horse
Release Date: Q3 2025


Hence an RPG according to the Codex self-identification criterion.

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2432860/view/515196931452961301

Dev Diary #3 - Tactical Combat Overview
An In-Depth Look at Missions, Units, and Combat Systems in MENACE.

MENACE revolves around two gameplay layers: the strategic part we discussed in the last Dev Diary and the tactical part, with the latter being the game's core.

Today, it is time to get an overview of the most important aspects of tactical combat in the game before we dive deeper into each topic in the following Dev Diary posts:

Objectives​

In MENACE, each tactical deployment and battle is called a mission. It is always part of a series of connected missions that comprise a so-called operation. Of course, missions and operations are procedurally generated for maximum replayability and new challenges.

Each mission has one or more objectives that have to be fulfilled to complete it successfully. This can be rescuing civilians and getting them to safety, defending a military base, or capturing critical infrastructure before the enemy advances. The times of killing everything that moves to win any mission are over (but don't fret; some missions still require you to kill everything). Bringing the best-suited squads, vehicles, and equipment for the task at hand will substantially impact a player's success in the game.

Combat Maps, Biomes, and Chunks​

The maps in MENACE are square-based, as you might have seen in the screenshots. However, we try our best to visually break up the underlying structure as much as possible to make the map look like an actual battlefield, not a chessboard.

A map's look is determined by its environment, which will differ for each planet. This might be temperate, desert, snow, or jungle. Each environment will branch into various “biomes.” A temperate biome could be “Rocky,” “Forest,” or “Plains.” Each biome will have challenges, like dense forests, obstructing rocks, or a lack of cover and hiding spots. These maps are completely procedurally generated.

Within these maps, we use “Chunks” to implement human-made structures. To that end, we created our very own semi-procedural editor for set pieces. With this tool, we can create a huge variety of human-made settlements, military outposts, factories, and more that all look different and have different setups. The important thing is that they make sense and are not random piles of buildings.

Action Points and Turn Order​

Sticking to the genre's origins, we implemented a classical action point system for units where every move and skill use costs a certain amount of action points. Once these points are depleted, the unit has to end its turn. It will re-activate in the next round and have its action point pool refilled.

Unlike most turn-based games, MENACE will use alternating turns between the player and AI. Each unit can act once in every combat round while the player chooses which one to pick. Once that unit has spent all its action points, the AI picks one of its units, and so on.

This creates a situation where the faction with more units has a distinct advantage as it can move all its leftover units freely as soon as the other side has spent all its action points.

Picking the right unit at the right time, manipulating the turn order, or baiting enemy units into certain moves is the masterclass of MENACE combat. It takes a lot of experience and will make the difference between suffering horrendous losses or being hardly scraped.

We will discuss our reasoning behind alternating turns in a later Dev Diary.

Units and Equipment​

Players can field two fundamentally different units, namely infantry squads and vehicles. Each infantry squad is led by a squad leader who also represents the unit in combat and is a distinct character who acts in events and more outside of combat.

The size of infantry squads can vary between 1 and 9 elements but will mostly be around 5. The unit shares one health pool, and one element will perish with a certain amount of hit points lost. This will reduce the unit's firepower as more and more fighters drop.

Squads can be equipped with a huge variety of squad weapons. Every member of the squad will use this weapon. Additionally, a squad can opt to equip a special weapon, replacing one of the squad weapons. These usually have a special purpose, such as a rocket launcher to fight armored targets or a machine gun to provide suppressive fire.

On top of the weapons, body armor can be equipped for additional protection and other benefits. Finally, accessories that usually focus on utility can be added. This can be a target designator, a motion scanner, or a set of frag grenades to fight enemies behind cover.

Besides squads, there are also vehicles, including walkers. These have a pilot instead of a squad leader and are always only a single entity on one tile.

Vehicles also have a health pool, but instead of losing elements, a vehicle will collect “defects,” aka injuries. Defects range from an overloaded targeting computer to a disabled engine or might even lead to a catastrophic explosion, instantly wiping the vehicle out.

Unlike squads, vehicles come in certain fixed configurations and can only take on accessories or “upgrades” on top. However, each vehicle will have different variants to ensure a large build variety.

Cover and Line of Sight​

Cover and lines of sight are crucial to the tactical combat in MENACE. Cover is provided by buildings, nature features, ad hoc barricades, and even vehicles. Unlike in other games, cover is very effective at blocking shots from the front, so dislodging an enemy in cover with a direct assault usually ends badly.

Instead, players will have to get creative. For example, they suppress the enemy and send another squad to flank them. Alternatively, players can throw smoke bombs to conceal their advance and take the enemy out with frag grenades that ignore cover.

Lines of sight are very lenient in MENACE. Units can see and shoot through all buildings and assets smaller than 3x3 tiles. Only larger structures or objects will block all lines of sight and fire. There has been a lot of development, testing, and trial and error behind this decision.

Still, ultimately, we feel this is the best solution for the scope of the game while putting clarity and predictability for the player first. Few things are more frustrating than expecting to see an enemy from a certain position, moving there, and then not seeing them.

Next week, on the 3rd of January, there will be no Dev Diary. We will take a little break for the New Year.

We wish you all the best and see you in 2025!

 

[ropetight]

From Steam: "Lead a strike force against an alien threat in this turn-based tactical RPG from the developers of Battle Brothers. Answer distress calls across different worlds, train and equip infantry, deploy tanks and mechs, and plan and execute missions in detailed turn-based battles."

Hence an RPG according to the Codex self-identification criterion.

So, gamers RPG-ers will basically play role of interplanetary 911.

I can't play Menace, it will remind me of another tragedy.

 

[ropetight]

Players can field two fundamentally different units, namely infantry squads and vehicles. Each infantry squad is led by a squad leader who also represents the unit in combat and is a distinct character who acts in events and more outside of combat.

The size of infantry squads can vary between 1 and 9 elements but will mostly be around 5. The unit shares one health pool, and one element will perish with a certain amount of hit points lost. This will reduce the unit's firepower as more and more fighters drop.

So, infantry in Menace is more akin to RTS model; Company of Heroes and Dawn of War come to mind.

Vehicles also have a health pool, but instead of losing elements, a vehicle will collect “defects,” aka injuries. Defects range from an overloaded targeting computer to a disabled engine or might even lead to a catastrophic explosion, instantly wiping the vehicle out.

Vehicles have more personality than infantrymen, maybe because they are more valuable in gameplay.

 

[Hydro]

Players can field two fundamentally different units, namely infantry squads and vehicles. Each infantry squad is led by a squad leader who also represents the unit in combat and is a distinct character who acts in events and more outside of combat.

The size of infantry squads can vary between 1 and 9 elements but will mostly be around 5. The unit shares one health pool, and one element will perish with a certain amount of hit points lost. This will reduce the unit's firepower as more and more fighters drop.

So, infantry in Menace is more akin to RTS model; Company of Heroes and Dawn of War come to mind.

Vehicles also have a health pool, but instead of losing elements, a vehicle will collect “defects,” aka injuries. Defects range from an overloaded targeting computer to a disabled engine or might even lead to a catastrophic explosion, instantly wiping the vehicle out.

Vehicles have more personality than infantrymen, maybe because they are more valuable in gameplay.

Squad leader is supposed to be the personality.

 

[Serus]

The argument about Jagged Alliance 2 is not entirely correct and frankly a manipulation in this context:
1) As have been already said, this is a tongue in cheek 80s action movie setting, not diectly comparable with Menace.
2) Women make on 20% of mercenaries in the main in AIM, the main merc company. Even less in the other one afair. Even less in joinable NPC (there is only one afair, that bitchy medic from the revolutionaries). Overall women make ~15% of combatants in JA2.
3) In addition to the above, most of them are either medics, snipers, ex playboy bunnies or wives of the boss who can't shoot. Which makes more sense in the context of "women in the army".

TL;DR You are manipulative scumbags who don't care about facts.

 

[Serus]

So this is not an RPG?

Even Battle Brothers was only "half-CRPG" or "almost-CRPG" and this one is supposedly even less so.

 

[ropetight]

Players can field two fundamentally different units, namely infantry squads and vehicles. Each infantry squad is led by a squad leader who also represents the unit in combat and is a distinct character who acts in events and more outside of combat.

The size of infantry squads can vary between 1 and 9 elements but will mostly be around 5. The unit shares one health pool, and one element will perish with a certain amount of hit points lost. This will reduce the unit's firepower as more and more fighters drop.

So, infantry in Menace is more akin to RTS model; Company of Heroes and Dawn of War come to mind.

Vehicles also have a health pool, but instead of losing elements, a vehicle will collect “defects,” aka injuries. Defects range from an overloaded targeting computer to a disabled engine or might even lead to a catastrophic explosion, instantly wiping the vehicle out.

Vehicles have more personality than infantrymen, maybe because they are more valuable in gameplay.

Squad leader is supposed to be the personality.

It looks like Dawn of War/Company of Heroes (Warcraft 3?), but maybe it will be more fleshed out.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Players can field two fundamentally different units, namely infantry squads and vehicles. Each infantry squad is led by a squad leader who also represents the unit in combat and is a distinct character who acts in events and more outside of combat.

The size of infantry squads can vary between 1 and 9 elements but will mostly be around 5. The unit shares one health pool, and one element will perish with a certain amount of hit points lost. This will reduce the unit's firepower as more and more fighters drop.

So, infantry in Menace is more akin to RTS model; Company of Heroes and Dawn of War come to mind.

Vehicles also have a health pool, but instead of losing elements, a vehicle will collect “defects,” aka injuries. Defects range from an overloaded targeting computer to a disabled engine or might even lead to a catastrophic explosion, instantly wiping the vehicle out.

Vehicles have more personality than infantrymen, maybe because they are more valuable in gameplay.

Squad leader is supposed to be the personality.

It looks like Dawn of War/Company of Heroes (Warcraft 3?), but maybe it will be more fleshed out.

they mentioned that the squad leader has personality, and actual characters that interacts outside of tactical phase

so it's like CoH/DoW but the Leader unit is unique (much like Characters being attached in Warhammer 40,000 board game from my understanding)