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

[Ninjerk]

Random thought Craig Stern, have you guys thought of distributing animated avatar packages from TT to subtly disseminate your art quality (without having potential players even need to look for a review/video/etc. Kind of a viral marketing-- "Where is ur av from, m8?")?

 

[Craig Stern]

Note that the last version seems kinda... er... broken, at least when loading existing savegames. If you have the game on gog or bought it through the bmtmicro store, I'd hold off on updating until those problems are fixed.

Suggestion: use the Convert Save Files button on the title screen to convert your old saved games to the new format.

 

[Zetor]

Suggestion: use the Convert Save Files button on the title screen to convert your old saved games to the new format.

I did that, it didn't seem to do anything though.

 

[Ellef]

Yeah the convert button doesn't seem to bring up any menus or do anything.

 

[Craig Stern]

Yeah, no menus--it just runs and then that's it. If you check Documents > My Games > Telepath Tactics > Saved Games, there should now be XML saved game files with the data that was in your old SOL save files.

 

[Baptismbyfire]

Surprised that no one, not even the developer, mentioned that the game is on sale for $8.99 at GOG for four more hours.

 

[Zetor]

Yeah, no menus--it just runs and then that's it. If you check Documents > My Games > Telepath Tactics > Saved Games, there should now be XML saved game files with the data that was in your old SOL save files.

I'll check that when I get back from work, but I have a suspicion that even if the save files are updated, AIR is actually using save files from a different location... this came up earlier when I tried to delete my earlier campaign save files (starting anew for the LP) and they still showed up ingame. I had to fire up Process Explorer to find out which game files the game was really using, and they were loaded from some really arcane location (some kind of internal cache of Adobe AIR, maybe?)...

e: and to clarify, I did push the button and tried to reload the savegame before -- same issue. Also, it's now impossible to exit the pre-battle inventory management screen, the close button doesn't do anything; maybe this is related to the new UI scaling? (I'm running in windowed)

 

[Mustawd]

Surprised that no one, not even the developer, mentioned that the game is on sale for $8.99 at GOG for four more hours.

Most devs suck horribly at marketing, unfortunately.

On the other hand, if you buy it from Steam and leave a positive review, that arguably helps more over the long haul because that improves the game's positive-to-negative review ratio (and thus, its visibility).

Have enjoyed this game for months, and totally forgot how important reviews are. Added my own. Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Craig Stern]

Have enjoyed this game for months, and totally forgot how important reviews are. Added my own. Hope that helps a bit.

Thank you!

 

[Craig Stern]

Okay! Good news: I've fixed a bunch of the issues you guys reported in version 1.04, and will have version 1.041 online before the end of the day.

In less-great news, unless you're interested in some painstaking manual editing of your version 1.04 saved games, you very well might need to restart the campaign when this patch hits. (Sorry about that.)

 

[Zetor]

Ow. Well, I can probably migrate the files by hand, or maybe write an xslt if it's something more complex. Pre-1.04 savegames will convert correctly though, right?

Edit in response: Thanks for the quick fix, that doesn't seem too bad (basically just a regex replace)! I'm in a minor bind here since I don't want to restart my LP, so I definitely want to keep going (there are crowd favorites and everything :p)

 

[Craig Stern]

Ow. Well, I can probably migrate the files by hand, or maybe write an xslt if it's something more complex. Pre-1.04 savegames will convert correctly though, right?

Just as long as they're still on your hard drive, yeah. The only real issue with the version 1.04 saved files is in the requirements attribute for items in character inventories: for some of them, each race and class was inappropriately delimited using commas, while others used forward slashes (which is also, in hindsight, a problem). Going forward, they're all delimited with colons a la

Wooden Shield,Off Hand,r:Human:Lissit/c:Swordsman:Fencer:Spearman:Pikeman:Cavalier:Mantis Knight:Hero:Champion,,,,0,100,0,0,5,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,,Shield Wood,+5 to maximum health.

 

[pakoito]

Rather than CVS why don't you use something more standard that doesn't have extensibility problems?

 

[Craig Stern]

Okay! In case you missed it, I pushed another update last night, one which fixes the reported issues in version 1.04; click for the details on version 1.041!

Rather than CVS why don't you use something more standard that doesn't have extensibility problems?

You mean CSV? I mean, I'm pretty much committed to using delimiters of one type or another at this point. The next engine I design, I'll probably make much more extensive use of XML node attributes in lieu of delimited text strings.

 

[pakoito]

CSV means comma-separated values, which is programmer shorthand for rolling your own values separated by an arbitrary delimiter.

If you're looking into XML, you should check YAML too. It's equally a good fit, with the plus of being more human readable and the minus of worse toolset. JSON is a subset of YAML 1.2 and conversion is trivial, so you give people the chance to use known tools to parse and play with your save files.

 

[Zetor]

If you're considering XML persistence in the next project, I can sorta vouch for schema-based stuff like JAXB (or its AIR equivalent). The main drawback is that you have to create the XSD (schema) first and go from there -- extending the schema can get bothersome.

Just as long as they're still on your hard drive, yeah. The only real issue with the version 1.04 saved files is in the requirements attribute for items in character inventories: for some of them, each race and class was inappropriately delimited using commas, while others used forward slashes (which is also, in hindsight, a problem). Going forward, they're all delimited with colons a la

Wooden Shield,Off Hand,r:Human:Lissit/c:Swordsman:Fencer:Spearman:Pikeman:Cavalier:Mantis Knight:Hero:Champion,,,,0,100,0,0,5,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,,Shield Wood,+5 to maximum health.

Thanks, a simple regex search-and-replace does the job! Does this also apply to the "Modxxx" fields? They were partially comma-separated in the previous version, ie.

Javelins,Weapon Hand,c:Spearman/Pikeman,,,Spear,6,80,0,0,0,0,0,0,8,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,ModRngForAttack,+:2:Spear,Javelin,A pack of light, sharp javelins. Strength +8, Spear Range +2.||Lockpicks,Weapon Hand,c:Assassin/Whisper,,,Pilfer,10,60,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,5,ModDmgForClass,+:50:Chest,Lockpicks,Do 50 damage to locked chests with Pilfer.

(I think the commas in the javelin description also need to go)

 

[Craig Stern]

Oooh, good catches there;I'll fix that ASAP.

 

[Drowed]

One thing that I can say about the look of the game, about its sprites, as a "fan" of the Fire Emblem series, is the lack of "impact" that they have right now. In Fire Emblem (and other games in its style, like the "Super Robot Wars" series), the battlefield view is much like in Telepath Tactics. But at the moment of the attack itself, there is a change:



I showed the game to some of my friends who are also fans of the Fire Emblem series, and most of them had a similar reaction: "oh, it looks kinda interesting, but rather dull". Which is odd, because really, the sprites of Telepath are undoubtedly superior to most games in its style. They're extremely more detailed and the animation is much smoother and well designed. After a few minutes of conversation, we came to a consensus that the games in the Fire Emblem series (and other similar games) had that "zoom" that show the attack from another perspective and gives a certain satisfaction. This has nothing to do with the game combat itself, it's a purely visual/aesthetic issue. I cannot say that this is something universal, but it is, at least, the vision of a group of fans of a similar game.

In my case, I will end up buying the game someday, but I just didn't do it yet because my list of "games to finish" only increases, due to so many releases. There are many interesting games out there right now.
And this is something that didn't happen for decades.

 

[Craig Stern]

The fixes just keep on comin'! We're up to version 1.042 now: http://sinisterdesign.net/telepath-tactics-v-1-042-patch/

And here's the changelog for version 1.041, in case you missed it: http://sinisterdesign.net/telepath-tactics-v-1-041-patch/

really, the sprites of Telepath are undoubtedly superior to most games in its style. They're extremely more detailed and the animation is much smoother and well designed. After a few minutes of conversation, we came to a consensus that the games in the Fire Emblem series (and other similar games) had that "zoom" that show the attack from another perspective and gives a certain satisfaction. This has nothing to do with the game combat itself, it's a purely visual/aesthetic issue. I cannot say that this is something universal, but it is, at least, the vision of a group of fans of a similar game.

Yeah, I ultimately made the decision not to have separate attack cut scenes in the game for a number of reasons, the biggest of which have to do with the difficulty of representing AOE attacks, backstab effects, sidestab effects, elevation effects, knockback effects, and other things that mostly don't appear in Fire Emblem games (and which FE's developers thus don't have to worry about accurately depicting in their attack cut scenes). It wouldn't have been impossible for me to make work, mind you, but it would've been difficult and a major drain on my limited resources. Basically, this is another one we can file under "prioritizing deep mechanics over polished presentation."

(That said, it's my hope that the game's new, more "zoomed in" presentation in fullscreen mode will help improve peoples' feelings about the graphics.)

 

[Craig Stern]

Hey, looka that--it's the version 1.043 patch!

– fixed the bug where characters killed in Casual Mode would duplicate in the saved game files (along with their attacks and inventory) going forward into subsequent battles.

– fixed a bug where saving in a new slot at the start of a procedurally generated battle would produce a save file from which you could not load the procedurally generated battle.

– fixed a bug in which custom character lighting set for a given scene could get saved to a save file going forward, then get parsed incorrectly, thereby turning a character into a black silhouette.

– related to that last bug: fixed a parsing issue in which the game would interpret a sequence of numbers delimited by commas as a single number.

– fixed weather effects freezing after concluding turn 0 dialogue.

– fixed bug in which the game would sometimes freeze if an enemy was killed with an iron jaw trap.

– fixed AI quirk where computer would treat potential targets that were stunned or frozen as if they could counterattack.

– fixed a bug in which a weapon breaking would not result in the weapon’s stat modifiers being removed from the wielder.

– Goniff Bastid now sells Caffeine Pills when you encounter him in the woods after fleeing Igor’s fortress.

– fixed a bug with StatFXIgnoreRes that caused it to make status effects always hit instead of just ignoring elemental resistance.

– fixed a minor typo in the Coria Tavern cut scene.

– fixed a typo which caused apples to restore energy when used.

– fixed typo in shop descriptions of the rapier.

 

[Craig Stern]

Annnnnd another patch--this brings us to 1.044:

– fixed screen being off-center when game starts up in fullscreen scaled mode.

– added in code to have the game’s various menus adjust position to remain mid-screen when the game is scaling up its graphics in fullscreen mode.

– fixed bug where an incorrect Silithis ending shows up if you end the game with Silithis dead and Sarn Kamina alive.

– buffed up the Mechanic Captain at the start of the Tarion battle, gave Tarion a wall of three Greater Red Spriggats to keep him from being KO’d on turn 1 via the adrenaline pill exploit (and to make the final approach to his location somewhat more challenging).

– added in a check to make sure the game doesn’t accept non-numbers when loading up a saved seed. (If something that’s not a number erroneously gets saved as the starting seed, the game will now just generate a new one.)

– fixed a bug in which the first character in the character data section of the saved game file would mistakenly be saved as the starting seed, causing the game to behave as if they’d been wiped from the saved game entirely.

Also: a bunch of stuff laying the groundwork for persistent procedurally generated areas. (You can read more about it here.)

 

[Mustawd]

Also: a bunch of stuff laying the groundwork for persistent procedurally generated areas. (You can read more about it here.)

 

[Slimu]

From all the reviews I've read the game seems interesting, but the only thing that stops me from buying it is the save system. From what I understand, there is no option to save in the middle of a mission and exit the game. Do you know when(if) this feature will be implemented? I've seen in the updates that the save system format changed, but nothing about saving anytime.

 

[Craig Stern]

Tough to say; these recent changes to the save system and the implementation of persistent seeds were crucial to making mid-battle saving a reasonable possibility, though.

 

[Zanzoken]

Another opinion on the graphics --

Fwiw I am a big fan of the FE series and have spent dozens of hours on its various iterations. I feel like I am definitely in the target audience for TT -- but I don't own it yet, and have really only been exposed to it via marketing materials -- i.e. trailers, feature list, and the demo (which I only played a little bit of).

This criticism is purely intended to be constructive, mind you -- but to me the graphics come across simply as nothing special. They are well done from a workman-like perspective I guess, but they just don't "pop" in a way that really makes an impression on me.

Here are a couple of screenshots I found online to help expound on this:

Telepath Tactics
http://imgur.com/ZND5nqX

So like I said, the TT graphics look decent, but I don't really like how straight up and down everyone looks, or how they're clearly always facing in cardinal directions (I get why this is necessary from a mechanical standpoint, but it's visually unappealing). And I think the sprites fall into this unfortunate middle-ground between realism and stylization, where they aren't realistic enough to give you that "it's soooo real" feeling, and they aren't stylistic enough to have a unique aesthetic. So the end result just feels very generic.

Now here's Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon on the DS...
http://imgur.com/KirTr3K

The FE sprites just feel like they have so much more personality. The amount of detail is just right in the sense that each class is clearly distinguishable and has its own flair, but it also leaves a vague enough imprint that my mind wants to "fill in the gaps". The sprites actually look ready for battle and feel much more like characters than simple game pieces.

I realize at the end of the day, this is all subjective and I only mean to give feedback in a constructive, positive way. It's really not fair to judge a small indie game made by a handful of developers against a behemoth like Nintendo, but at the same time I guess it's the reality of the marketplace.

I think the takeaway for me is -- I will end up buying your game at some point, because it's in a genre I like and I think it will be mechanically interesting. But as a potential customer, there's nothing about the presentation to grab hold of me and make me want to buy it right this minute. And I think that's something you really need if you're going to break through on Steam and hit a satisfying number of sales.