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KickStarter Telepath Tactics Liberated - deterministic tactical RPG inspired by Fire Emblem

Zetor

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
1,706
Location
Budapest, Hungary
Zetor:

Where is the other assassin? Was it
the named assassin in the Coria Dogs basement fight? I couldn't talk with her and just wound up killing her. I can't really remember other named assassins in the game but maybe I just wasn't paying attention and killed them. Or possibly the game was misleading on talking being the only path to enemy recruitment.
Yep, that's right.
Look at her name (Naila Hashmal) -- you need to use Gavrielle or Farasat to talk to her.

I do agree that Emma's AOE motivation (Inspire) is insane -- it just costing 4 (?) energy is completely bananas. You're effectively giving new turns to up to 4 units, now THAT is a force multiplier in action! It's only mitigated by the fact that Emma is one of the better tanks in the game, and she can't meatshield too well when you're using her as an Inspire-bot.


So the party I'm running with right now (at the Coria dogs fight):

1. Emma + Sabrina, of course.
2. The Fire Mage - great damage - but based on posts here, I might be better off replacing her with the cryo mage instead?
3. The spearman - pretty awesome. Returns attacks done two squares away, the impale ability is pretty useful, can attack from behind others and is a great tank.
4. The cavalier - can do a "sortie" where she heads out and backstabs, then gets back into formation. Can go long distances. But her charge ability seems useless.....
5. The bowman - turning out to be pretty awesome so far. I haven't made use of the long range bow yet. But his triple shot ability rules! Also that air shot one that goes long range, it means he is always doing something useful regardless of positioning.
6. Lakshmi Bana - was nice and useful at first, but she is really being far outshined by the bowman who has racked up cool special abilities. So she is relegated to being a generic ranged attacker.
8. The Shadowling - great as a highly mobile healer.

Any recommendations for characters I should switch out at this point? I have everyone except Dakarai alive (didn't find it worth keeping him due to the crap base mobility). How much of the game have I completed?
That's actually the core of my team in my current playthrough, and they're all performing pretty well. Some notes:
  • The fire mage is mandatory in some of the later maps not just because of her damage (and she gets one of the best damaging AOE spells in the game, though it costs a ton of energy), but because she's the only unit in the game that can thaw out frozen units. Give her the frost orb for extra reliability.
  • Charge is very useful, but not in combat against mooks. Consider that it's a ranged attack that pushes the enemy back one tile and has a good chance to stun them. With Scarlet/Edwin's mobility, you can use this to push tough enemies off ledges, or (relatively) safely stun them so that your other units can approach them without risk. It's typically my opener against tough bosses. Also don't forget that cavaliers can get pretty tanky with partial plate and helms/shields!
  • Bowmen and crossbowmen have their niche, and it's typically "taking out squishies at mid-range". Lakshmi is essentially a physical caster class -- tons of damage, but range is somewhat limited. She's essential for dealing with enemy spriggats. She's also much better protected than other ranged attackers (can wear helm, chainmail). Make sure you're using Poison Shot on enemies to make the hits count; it hits a lot harder than her default attack. Oh yeah, the Powder Shot ability can be invaluable for one-shotting enemy fortifications... or destroying a bridge tile under a tough enemy. It's also decent damage against foes that are resistant to piercing damage like golems or spirits.
 
Last edited:

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Yeah; I try to push out patches quickly when I know there's a serious issue. (Version 1.050 was preventing new players from starting a campaign, which is decidedly bad.)
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
I finally completed the game. It was very good, in fact it's probably my 2015 GOTY so far (I haven't played SiTS nor AoD yet).

What I liked :
- The fights are intense because of permadeath, I like that my mages are pieces of meat if I don't properly protect them. The difficulty is consistent with permadeath.
- The maps are good, I always like when a TBS game alternate between big maps with a lot of weak enemies and small maps with potentially stronger enemies. Besides it's cool to choose a fairly different number of characters from a map to another.
- Overall I liked the AI (because it's merciless), except for
some enemies who don't act as groups, I mean that when you're within reach of an enemy he will come to attack you whereas the enemies near him don't come closer ; this happened a lot in the last battle especially.
- Spending my money was a real puzzle, it was very fun.
- The story is pleasant (nice small scope), the humour in particular is rightfully diluted throughout the game.

What I didn't like :
- I feel like the game was too short, and I think that's half-fair because I got many skills near the end that I hadn't the time to play with, and half-unfair because
one of the reasons is that the end of the story is good contrary to some (J)RPGs where you mandatorily need to do huge things such as saving an entire world and killing a god after completing your own quest, so I was surprised that it was the end of the game ; besides I read (here?) that it was long game, I wouldn't say that it's a long game.
- It's already mentioned a little above but consumable items are probably too strong (or too cheap) because you can use them "freely".
- I need to mention that I had recurrent slowdowns to the point that the game was barely playable at the end of very long battles.
- I didn't like the automatic override of save data, I would have preferred to be able to save as I want between battles (but not during battles, of course, nothing except Save And Quit/Continue (And Erase) in that case).

I leave this screenshot :
hekNF8A.jpg


Look at her name (Naila Hashmal) -- you need to use Gavrielle or Farasat to talk to her.
ah ok, considering what she said when she died I was almost sure that she was recruitable, I especially finished the fight one time without killing her, but in fact throughout the entire game I never had the idea to speak without anyone else that Emma and Sabrina, I have probably missed other characters that way.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Nice! I'm super glad you enjoyed it. :thumbsup:

I leave this screenshot :

Ah, that looks like a manifestation of the Flail bug I fixed in version 1.050 (the bug would've carried over if you'd acquired your Flail prior to me fixing the bug, unfortunately).
 

Kalasanty11

Learned
Joined
May 1, 2014
Messages
154
I also really like the game. Too bad that it almost has no community. I wish the game would become second Wesnoth, with craptone of user made campaigns. Now, we are limited only to two :(
 

Kalasanty11

Learned
Joined
May 1, 2014
Messages
154
Wesnoth is free and open source, which makes it very attractive for modding. Telepath Tactics is neither, so it'll struggle, unfortunately.
:(
Going back to Wesnoth after I've played Telepath Tactics for a while, made me realize one thing clearly - I miss deterministic approach of this game. There is nothing as annoying as missing three 60% hits in a row or getting hit twice while having 70% of chance to dodge.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
It looks like the user created campaigns didn't really take off.

Craig seems to have put his computer game adventures on hold for now and is creating a real board game now.

True Messiah is a strategy board game of cult warfare for 2 or 4 players.

What’s the premise?
It is the near future; Earth. Years ago, scientists successfully constructed the Belief Engine, a machine that warps reality based on peoples’ strongly held beliefs. The machine was turned on for testing, but it proved too sensitive: widespread belief in the depravity of man and fears of social collapse suddenly took on the full force of objective fact, and science skepticism rendered the Engine’s creators helpless to intervene. Without resort to a shared external reality, civilization crumbled like a sand castle in the tide.

From the ruins have now arisen cults led by charismatic, messianic figures possessed of seemingly divine powers derived from the still-functioning Engine. You are one such a figure—the true one, the Messiah. It is God’s will that you build temples and marshal followers, then mold their beliefs to perform miracles and destroy your rivals. They’ll be doing the same, but don’t worry–God is on yourside…

Card-Spread-P-Benefactor-Mem-Hole-Born-Again-Edict.png


True to his convictions, it will be deterministic.

As in chess, combat in True Messiah is quick, brutal, and 100% deterministic. The only randomness in True Messiah is situational, arising from the shuffling of the marketplace and of each player’s miracle pool.

Some art is pretty good:

Evocative. Bizarre. Horrifying. Our art style is inspired in part by the works of Zdzisław Beksiński–here are just a few of the dozens of pieces of original art we’ve already produced for the game:

3nOly7H.png


eVtbHaa.png


It looks like he'll do a Kickstarter later this year for it.


http://sinisterdesign.net/products/true-messiah/
 

Mustawd

Guest
Looks cool. Like the artwork. Not into boardgames/card games, so I'll probably be giving this a pass. Good luck to him though.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Craig seems to have put his computer game adventures on hold for now and is creating a real board game now.
...
http://sinisterdesign.net/products/true-messiah/

Sorta! I've reached the limits of Flash's usefulness with Telepath Tactics, and so I'm teaching myself Unity for my future projects. Meanwhile, I designed True Messiah 13 years ago, back in college; commissioning some art for it and releasing the thing while I teach myself a new programming language and development environment seemed to me like a productive way to spend my time. :)
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Craig seems to have put his computer game adventures on hold for now and is creating a real board game now.
...
http://sinisterdesign.net/products/true-messiah/

Sorta! I've reached the limits of Flash's usefulness with Telepath Tactics, and so I'm teaching myself Unity for my future projects. Meanwhile, I designed True Messiah 13 years ago, back in college; commissioning some art for it and releasing the thing while I teach myself a new programming language and development environment seemed to me like a productive way to spend my time. :)

Good luck with both of your projects (learning and the card board game). I'll probably skip the physical game, but look forward to your next RPG.
 

Fug

Educated
Joined
Jan 22, 2016
Messages
87
Location
Finland
Craig seems to have put his computer game adventures on hold for now and is creating a real board game now.
...
http://sinisterdesign.net/products/true-messiah/

Sorta! I've reached the limits of Flash's usefulness with Telepath Tactics, and so I'm teaching myself Unity for my future projects. Meanwhile, I designed True Messiah 13 years ago, back in college; commissioning some art for it and releasing the thing while I teach myself a new programming language and development environment seemed to me like a productive way to spend my time. :)
I played your flash games all the time when I was younger, they're fucking excellent and I am gonna buy your newer games sometime soon. I think I actually sent you an email at some point when I was a kid because the final boss was taking me so goddam long to kill to question you if it was supposed to have as much HP as it did, and my short attention span was kicking in.
 

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
Went back to the game after a few months. Last time I checked my saves were fine. Now they are gone. I Regret spending my money on this game.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Went back to the game after a few months. Last time I checked my saves were fine. Now they are gone.

The most likely reason I can think of that your saved games would be gone is if you updated from a really old version of the game (pre-1.04) to the most recent one without converting your old save game files. (There'll be an option on the title screen called Convert Save Files if you need to do this.)
 

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
Went back to the game after a few months. Last time I checked my saves were fine. Now they are gone.

The most likely reason I can think of that your saved games would be gone is if you updated from a really old version of the game (pre-1.04) to the most recent one without converting your old save game files. (There'll be an option on the title screen called Convert Save Files if you need to do this.)



No, converted the save files. This happened after. Thanks for your help though.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
No, converted the save files. This happened after. Thanks for your help though.

So the XML save files from My Documents > My Games > Telepath Tactics > Saved Games just...vanished?
 

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