The Hand of Merlin - turn-based Arthurian/cosmic horror roguelite RPG

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/600610/view/3092290966025484007

Dev blog 111 - Final Boss Redux
Hi all,

It's Robert again - but now, I've put on my "game designer" hat and tackled the Final Boss! (To help out our other game designer who is, of course, knee-deep in the mucky innards of Endless Mode.)

In any case, we had heard feedback that the battle of Jerusalem felt a little lackluster. We had also heard from some players that they didn't feel much of a pull to do another run after having beaten the game once or twice. So, we sought to change that.

We set out to accomplish these two things:

1) Make the final battle feel more epic, and more engaging.
To achieve this, the mechanics of the final battle are now quite different. Of course, all the recognizable elements are still there: there are still Pylons, and you still have to use the Holy Grail to strip the Pylons of their immortality, and you still feed the Grail mana by killing Abominations that keep pouring in. But this is where the similarities end!

Before, each Pylon was relatively easy to kill, and while they came in ten different flavors, their differences did not really require you to change up your approach. Other than that, the boss itself was just a background entity which did not participate in battle directly. But the new, redux'd battle will have you face off against the eldritch monstrosity head on!
The fight itself has 3 main phases.

The first phase is a single Mega-Pylon: a massive, living structure, with a lot of Health/Armor and tons of damage potential. There are two variants, and both have unique reaction abilities that you cannot ignore. One will prepare a ray attack against the attacker each time it's hit, meaning you have to be careful with your action points or you'll get stuck in the blast zone and ripped apart.
The other will spawn a temporary cover underneath the attacker, knocking them back, and then prepare a nova-style blast, damaging anyone not in cover. Again, care must be taken! But - both of these powerful attacks will also damage other Abominations, meaning you can make these Mega-Pylons work for you through careful positioning. And you will need to do this, as the wave spawning is relentless. But remember, every kill gets you a point of mana, which lets you power up the Grail and wreak holy havoc with it.

The second phase is another of these Mega-Pylons (the variant you didn't see in Phase 1). These first two phases are really there to teach you the mechanics and not overwhelm you, while also giving you a chance to deal some damage and/or break immortality on the Pylons, before finally, the Boss itself emerges... And then you face off against all three at the same time! Without going into too much detail about what exactly the Boss does, let's just say it should make the battlefield feel dynamic with ever-shifting covers, while also drawing power from any Pylons left alive. Make sure to read those tooltips!

2) Make winning a run feel more rewarding.
As for this point: well, if the final battle itself feels more engaging, that's certainly rewarding in and of itself. But, we wanted to do even better! So, we're adding special rewards that you can gain by defeating the final boss: new skills and relics that you can unlock and add to the random pool!

So completing a run successfully means you have new toys to play with in the following runs. Yes, this means we'll also be adding new abilities to complement and augment the skills you can already learn through ranking up. These won't just be variations of the same abilities; we've coded in some new mechanics, too. And the design principle between these additions has been one particular pillar of design: teamwork. Or in other words: more synergies between classes! But more on that topic in a later blog post.

So there you have it. Pretty big changes are coming up! Let us know what you think about these on our Discord server[discord.gg] or here on Steam.

Robert

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/600610/view/3181237691969421144

Dev blog 112 - Classy
This post is written by Mia, our gameplay designer.

Hello there!

A good number of feedback we’ve received has mentioned a problem regarding classes. Specifically, that they aren’t different enough or lack some class-specific mechanic. We wanted to tackle this problem, but doing so without fully reiterating every ability, since we are approaching full release and running out of time.

So just as every hero has their own unique passive, now so will each class have a passive related to it.

• Warriors
  For warriors, the loudest complaint we’ve heard is the lack of a zone of control - or rather, attacks of opportunity! And guess what folks, warriors are getting exactly that!
  The first enemy (per round) that tries to move next to a warrior will get whacked.
  Of course, we already had an ability that did exactly that. “Stand Ready” is being removed and replaced with a new ability - “Provoke”, which is also a very requested feature, a taunt!
  
  
• Rangers
  Rangers, primary damage dealers, are getting a strategic teamplay element to them - flanking.
  For each ally an enemy unit is adjacent to, the rangers gain bonus damage and accuracy against that enemy.
  
  
• Mystics
  For mystics we had several options, but settled for a passive which plays into positioning and teamplay.
  Morgan Tud will share his (old) passive with the other mystics now. On attacking an enemy with “Singe”, nearby allies are granted “Mending” which restores armor gradually.
  As for Morgan, he’ll be getting a new unique passive of his own, “Thornwarden” which plays into his abilities.

Along with these changes, we’ve also got some new unlockable abilities for each class you can look forward to!

We love hearing feedback and thoughts from you all, so drop by our Discord server[discord.gg] and let us know what you think!

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/600610/view/3186867830748570722

Dev blog 113 - Steam Deck
Hi all,

Robert here, this time to talk about - Steam Deck!

Yup, that's right: we got the opportunity to test our game on Valve's fancy new piece of hardware, and I have to say: it's a pretty powerful device, and with all the optimizations we'd already done for the other consoles, The Hand of Merlin already runs on Steam Deck at a smooth 60 FPS.

Some of you - the lucky ones - may already have a Deck in their hands, and if you do, you'll notice that Valve assigned us a yellow "Playable" tag. But over the last few days, we've been working on getting the few reported (minor) kinks out, so that we can have that nice green "Verified" tag.

So let's unpack the journey of porting to Steam Deck, as short and pleasant as it was.

First things first, we've already been working on supporting Linux natively. Although we haven't ticked the box to make this official on the store page yet, the native Linux (and macOS) executables have been available for some time now, and a few of our dedicated fans have been helping out with compatibility testing. This means we do not require Proton (a Windows emulation layer) to run our game on SteamOS / Steam Deck. In other words, there's no risk of an emulation layer introducing bugs or instabilities, plus there's zero overhead, which improves both performance and battery life.

Secondly, the biggest gruntwork was updating our Steam API support from a fairly old version (that came by default in Serious Engine 4) to the newest one required by Steam Deck. This allowed us to correctly identify the input controls: both the touchscreen and the gamepad, and I have to say - planning ahead really helped us out here. With Steam Big Picture mode already supported via our dynamic UI scaling system, font legibility was no issue at all. Having already done full gamepad support, once we updated the Steam API, the controls also Just Worked(TM).

Fortunately, Serious Engine also already has built-in support for touch input, and it helps that our UI does not require more than a single mouse button for most operations. There was just one small but important tweak we had to do: if using the touchscreen, you now always get a small confirm / cancel button before executing a move or attack action. This really helps prevent mistaken actions.

On top of this, our engine works just fine with multiple input sources, so switching between the touch and gamepad controls on the Steam Deck felt really smooth and seamless, so much so that I found myself using the right analogue stick for quick and precise camera panning, and the touchscreen for most UI interactions.

And finally, as I talked about in a previous blog post, we had done some significant optimizations in a push to bring the game to consoles. To properly support Steam Deck's hardware, all we had to do was correctly identify its GPU and set up appropriate default graphics settings. And voila - smooth, stable 60 FPS! Well, unless of course you limit the FPS from the Deck's Quick Access menu in order to preserve battery. But even if you do - the visuals won't change. The game will look just as good, but the battery will last longer.

So, there you have it. Full support for Steam Deck incoming. For any questions or comments, find us on Steam Discussions or our Discord server[discord.gg].

Robert

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/600610/view/3186868459903141873

Dev blog 114 - New Abilities
This post is written by Mia, our gameplay designer.

Hello there!

Two weeks ago we mentioned there will be some new abilities coming to The Hand of Merlin, today we’d like to tell you a little more about them!

There are at least a dozen new abilities (not counting the upgraded versions) coming to the game, warriors gaining the most since they needed a few more abilities in their pool to match the Rangers and Mystics.
These warrior abilities which were missing will be readily available in the ability pool right away, the other abilities however will need to be unlocked!

By saving worlds (winning) you’ll begin to unlock new relics and new abilities. This will allow further exploration of combinations and synergies, different builds and strategies.
For every hero that survives the final battle, you’ll have a 66% chance of unlocking a new skill for their role, the other 33% is getting a new relic unlock.
Should you for example already have all the mystic skills unlocked, instead you’ll have a guaranteed relic unlock (unless you’ve already unlocked everything, that is).
You can unlock abilities on any difficulty, so if you'll be in a hurry Easy Mode is an option as well.

All of this is susceptible to change if we see that it’s not as rewarding as we thought it would be.

Some of these unlockable abilities are:
Warrior - Hook
Disrupt and pull your enemies to your warrior. Set up combos with your rangers or drag them through fire. There’s numerous ways to use it, offensively and defensively.

Ranger - Partner Up
The new abilities of the rangers play around teamwork, and Partner Up is a great example of this.
Designate another hero as your rangers Partner, whenever your Partner is attacked the Ranger will shoot at the attacker in revenge.

Mystic - Incense
Most of the new mystic abilities are heavy on support duty.
Incense is an aura which applies a debuff to all enemies in its radius, lowering their accuracy and evasion. This’ll help your rangers nail those Quick Draw shots and your warriors to evade attacks.

Each upgrade of these abilities adds another function to it, giving you more ways to strategize.

We’re still ironing out some of the new abilities, as well as having our VFX artist hard at work trying to make them all look good as well. It’s a work in progress, but we’re quite happy with how these new abilities act and interact with each other and the old abilities.

If you’re curious and want to know more before the update itself is out, feel free to poke up on our Discord server[discord.gg] where we might share more.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/600610/view/3182365494587314517

Dev blog 115 - Monster History
Hello there, players.

My name is Kaz. I’m a 3D and concept artist who was working on the Hand of Merlin from its very beginnings. For today’s blog post I gathered up some very old concept art to take you through our monster design journey.

When the game was still in its diapers, we had no concrete idea what style or atmosphere we wanted our enemies to portray. We had general narrative pointers - but no aesthetics to accompany them. This was an important decision to make early on because enemies are, of course, a very important part of communicating the nature of the danger you’re facing and for complimenting the overall story of the game. We knew we wanted them to feel completely alien to our heroes, but still aesthetically fit together with each other to make it clear that they come from the same place. Very dangerous and strange place. A different universe, even.

We went through dozens of distinct ideas, ranging from the remains of prehistoric animals to creepy half-functioning robots from the future. Even a combination of the two, perhaps animated by some unknown alien force. We gave crystals and elementals a go, carnivorous plants, tar and slime, rock/lava themed goliaths, insects and even some fleshy horrors inspired by the Silent Hill series. At one point we even entertained the thought of animal hybrids, though we decided those looked too familiar and not scary enough, even if explained by external alien corruption.

It’s important to note that the design of the abominations was heavily influenced by the technical and gameplay limits, as well. For example, the fact that the enemies were supposed to fit a square-shaped tile underneath them made any ideas for monsters with elongated bodies unviable.
A lot of quick sketches were made, many of which were never even fully coloured, let alone finalised.

Picking a colour theme for our abominations was important as well. We wanted the creatures to sport hues which were as uncommon in nature as possible, to make them more alien. This colour palette would also be the identifying aesthetic of the “corruption” itself - the strange force seeping into our healthy world and gradually killing it. The monsters were to be its deadly harbingers.

After a lot of testing (with fire-orange and neon green being a dominant choice in the beginning), we opted for the dark purple, red and black. We felt that the combination of these colours represented the right amount of darkness and mystery, while looking very unnatural and dangerous when placed on the world and skirmish maps against the rocks and foliage. It really popped out in contrast to the healthy green and made the scenery look infected, sickly.
The monsters born from this unnatural darkness would be a combination of aliens and insects, with a dash of something reminding the players of plants and vines. Something, we believed, would be the strangest and scariest from the perspective of the people in the medieval times who had no concept of any monsters beyond their era-appropriate mythology.
We also decided to avoid giving them eyes (with the exception of the Redcap, our eyeball-pancake), realising that the monsters looked much more scary and unrelatable if they had no identifiable face.

Most of the early concepts never saw the light of the day, being pushed under the rug with the rest of the discarded ideas. However, some early drawings were a nice base for the evolved purple designs later on. Once we had our general aesthetic flashed out, we could make new designs or modify some of the existing initial ideas to fit the needs of the gameplay mechanics assigned to the particular monster.

Here’s an example.

Our game designer, Mat, needed a monster which could run around freely and attack from a distance. This fit nicely with the existing birdlike (or dinosaur) concept we already had, since it looked quite agile and was designed to shoot quills. However, Mat wanted this monster to have a lot of health at its disposal, while not being particularly well armoured. Hence, its sturdy armour plates were removed or shrunk, while its overall mass was increased by adding tumours and wild flesh. This made the enemy look like it could soak more damage to its HP, while also playing on the morbid/sickly aesthetic.
Next, Mat wanted this creature to be able to infect the heroes with a lingering ailment from afar, but also to push away the units in its melee range without causing a lot of damage. This lead to the quills and needles of the original design being dropped, in exchange for something big and blunt. In this case, to stay true to the dinosaur inspiration, a set of heavy protruding tail bones were added.
For the lingering negative status effect the poison of choice was… Well, poison. More accurately, venom. A dash of sickly green was added to the swollen tumours to represent the venom sacks; and with that the monster design for the Basilisk enemy was finalised.

Here’s a picture of this enemy as it looks now in the game.

 

[LESS T_T]

Full release on June 14: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/600610/view/3186871640293448669

 

[Grunker]

Game looks intriguing, but what's with the ass ugly ui

 

[Infinitron]

Released:


https://af.gog.com/game/the_hand_of_merlin?as=1649904300

 

[Lacrymas]

Is it still ultra deterministic? Not that deterministic combat is necessarily bad (look at Gladius), but it was very bad when I played the demo because damage was everything and it got boring in the third combat scenario.

 

[Abu Antar]

Is it still ultra deterministic? Not that deterministic combat is necessarily bad (look at Gladius), but it was very bad when I played the demo because damage was everything and it got boring in the third combat scenario.

Idk, but the demo completely put me off the game.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

the monsters look sort of cool, but the characters and game give me that 'modern ghey' vibe..would want to like game though if anybody has played it..

 

[Darth Canoli]

Nobody's playing this?

If nobody bites the bullet, I might do it in a month or two.
It looks interesting.

It's 40% off until the 21st of june...

 

[Lacrymas]

The demo didn't impress me at all, so I see no reason to play it ;d

 

[SixDead]

So this game got Zero Codex attention. To bad for developers, they probably shouldn't realease this game too close to King Arthur Knight's Tale

 

[Arthandas]

Hello?

 

[Antigoon]

Already bundled with Deadfire and a couple other games for 12USD.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/tinybuild-x-versus-evil-smashup

 

[Efe]

Currently %50 off on steam,
Does anyone recommend?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Currently %50 off on steam,
Does anyone recommend?

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-based-tactical-rpg-from-neocoregames.135399/

only Arthurian game made in years that doesn't shit all over the setting/stories/characters

 

[Efe]

I need a way to disable animations for that one
plays too slow

 

[Nikanuur]

I've given this like an hour or two so far. The initial feel seems a bit off-putting, probably due to various graphical styles being grafted on top of each other, but other than that, I like the mix of elements. The gamebook-like parts yield items, bonuses, debuffs, unlocking heroes, pieces of the story, etc. The rogue-lite elements, such as the characters carrying their levels over to the next run after the first is finished or has failed. The tactical combat ala XCOM seems somewhat simple in the beginning, but all the good things are in place, and so it is a promise that things will get more complex: 1/2 and 1/1 cover, AoEs, melee, ranged, buffing and debuffing, using items, using the overseer spells similar to Master of Magic. All in all, it doesn't seem like a game that would leave anyone breathless and hooked up for countless hours, more like a pleasant "let's play a run here and there".

Edit: I've played several more hours, and yep, definitely not something I'd spend long gaming sessions aghast over like X-COM2 or the latest Arthur. I wonder if the combat gets more complex after all. My heroes are at level 8, I'm now sometimes killing simple monsters in two hits instead of four, all the while having some others stunned or DoT'd, I've got some stronger AoEs and notable buffs. This is good, no arguing there, but the hints of later tactical extravaganzas haven't come to pass. Maybe it's all going to get better yet, and if not, at least reading the little stories, savoring the imaginative Lovecraftian monsters, and perusing through the interesting tidbits of Arthurian lore here and there will keep me engaged at least for a little longer.

Edit II: Erm, the heroes actually don't retain their levels. I apologize for the misleading info. I wonder what's rogue-lite here except unlocking new heroes and the "overseer" Merlin's spells.

Funny thing:
I accidentally sold the Grail, got myself a neat haul of 146 coins, and bought two good weapons. The next thing I know is that the game told me that without the Grail, the world descended into chaos, and my party died.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Is it good? 60% off on Steam:

 

[Nikanuur]

Is it good? 60% off on Steam:

It's an alright, smaller thing to have installed in the library and to return to from time to time. Nothing is really bad or genre-insulting; most of the stuff is okay at least; the Lovecraftian monsters are nice to look at, etc.
The more you explore, the more the combat tends to become puzzle-like instead of tactic-like. You will always be only three with some occasional help, but there will be more and more monsters at one time down upon you.
Some writing is witty, atmospheric, or engaging; it compelled me to search for stuff from the 'real' Arthurian legends to compare.