KickStarter The Waylanders - historical fantasy time travel RPG inspired by Dragon Age: Origins

[The Wall]

I don't know, maybe there should be a contest / giveaway between all the Codex members about that mystery scriptwriter...

Why whenever I look at your company's Kickstarter and your posts I see:

 

[conan_edw]

Who's the hidden guy? NWN2, KOTOR2, New Vegas. None of the other writers in the image worked on those. Chris Avellone are you on this too??

It will be weird given that he's been kind of a PR to bring attention in most of his recent works. But I don't know if anyone else fits the description

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Update 13

There are some videos in the update that I couldn't embed.

New formations!
As you already know, the formation system is one of the most innovative features in The Waylanders.

When we release the Kickstarter campaign, we showed you three formations available in the pre-alpha demo: the orb, the arrow head and the phallanx formations

Orb formation:

Arrow head formation:

Phallanx formation:

In this update, we want to show three new formations. And we can assure these formations are different to any traditional formation you've seen until now. Keep reading!

Sorcerer Tower
[Video on kickstarter]
The Sorcerer Tower is a long-range static formation, made to be protected while it deals great magical damage.

Tree Formation
[Video on kickstarter]
The healer Tree Formation allows you to have a flexible and strong unit, highly resistant to magic and capable of supporting all other units. Advantages to using this strategy vary depending on which allies take part in the formation.

Star Formation
[Video on kickstarter]
The ranger Star formation allows you to constantly shoot in any direction, plus you can use an ability to switch from having a movable to a static unit, allowing you to attack enemies located at great distances.

*Keep in mind these formation are a WIP, so they are subject to changes.

These formations are very different between them and brings variety in the combat system. We would like to read your opinions in the comments!

 

[daveyd]

The mystery writer is probably Cleve.

 

[frajaq]

I'm sorry but the way these formations move is just hilarious to me

 

[RNGsus]

I'm sorry but the way these formations move is just hilarious to me

Reminds me of an isometric this:

 

[kolakosky]

Update 13

There are some videos in the update that I couldn't embed.

Thanks for uploading! Fixed those videos about the new formations.

frajaq About the hilarious formation, I guess you refer to this one below, arrow formation. The "normal" speed is really natural, but when you use the special attack within this formation all characters run together really fast, and yeah you have a point, to be honest it reminds me a little bit of those Benny Hill classic scenes, anyway it will be smoother soon

 

[kolakosky]

These are the missing pictures in case anyone is looking for 'em, I don't know why they were removed from my old post and now I can't edit.

Sorcerer Tower

The Sorcerer Tower is a long-range static formation, made to be protected while it deals great magical damage.


Tree Formation

The healer Tree Formation allows you to have a flexible and strong unit, highly resistant to magic and capable of supporting all other units. Advantages to using this strategy vary depending on which allies take part in the formation.


Star Formation

The ranger Star formation allows you to constantly shoot in any direction, plus you can use an ability to switch from having a movable to a static unit, allowing you to attack enemies located at great distances.


*Keep in mind these formation are a WIP, so they are subject to changes.

These formations are very different between them and brings variety in the combat system. We would like to read your opinions in the comments!

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

I stopped the video when i saw mike ladiaw

 

[kolakosky]

Game improvements and exclusive add on!

The people behind The Waylanders pour their hearts and souls into every single detail of the content they create. Characters, environments, textures, VFX, lighting… Sometimes, even after finishing an asset, they analyze it and look for ways to make it even better.

Ever since we showcased our pre-alpha demo at game conferences such as Gamescom and the Tokyo Game Show in 2018, we have made several improvements to certain elements of the game. Today we’ll be showing you some of them!

Hillforts are one of the constructions you’ll see more often in the Celtic period. They all have been remodeled and retexturized to add some variation and make them more interesting-looking. It might be difficult to fully appreciate the difference seeing them here by themselves, but we can promise you that the overall look of the village will drastically change in the final version of the game thanks to this kind of small details.

On top of this, we have also improved the 3D models of our characters. All their bodies have been redesigned to showcase a more detailed style (check out those fingers and toes!). This new style will most definitely boost the overall quality and look of the game.

New amazing add-on!

This is not just any add-on. This is a life-size replica of a Mourian sword!

We have reached an agreement with Tier Lab, a company specialized in the handcrafting of swords, armors and other objects for cosplay, exhibitions and even approved items for LARPing!

Best of all, no sword will be identical to any other. Tier Lab, as opposed to many other companies that make every item from a single cast, handcrafts every single item. That’s right, your Mourian sword will be different to any other, it will an exclusive unique item!

SIZE
Sword length: 91 cm
Blade: 65 cm
Hilt: 14 cm
Weight: 375 g
If you need a visual reference to get an idea of its actual size, here is one:

MATERIALS

Glass fiber core, polyethylene foam, leather and lead hilt for balance and latex paint.

We’ve known Tier Lab for years, they are good friends of some people on the team and we can 100% guarantee the quality of this beautiful handcrafted collectible.

We hope you love this new add-on as much as we do!

How do I choose an add-on? It's easier than you probably expect: if you want any add-on, you have to add the price to the reward you've selected. Let's see an example:

Emily wants to select the $30 reward to get the Celtic Guardian Edition. But she wants to get the Mourian Sword too! She needs to select the $30 reward and add the sword price. This means $30+ $150 = $180

Then, when the Kickstarter campaign is over, we'll send you a form to select the add-on you want.

Anyway, if you need help with the add-ons, please contact us! We’ll be happy to help.

 

[kolakosky]

Campaign is now at 87% with 3 days to go!

update #15:
ALPHA access, German translation and free location


After a great weekend, we are super close to our goal! And we want to thank you for your amazing support with 3 new surprises: a new awesome add-on, a new FREE ingame location and the translation of the game to German!

We are adding an important location on the map of The Waylanders, which will expand your game experience.

Finisterre (or Fisterra, in Galician language) comes from Latin: 'finis terrae'. Which means, 'land's end'

Finisterre is a rocky peninsula on the coast of Medieval Gallaecia, and is said to be the end of the world. It is as far west as anyone has ever been able to travel on the mainland.

The rocks in Finisterre are known to be imbued with power, and witches have constructed countless stone formations there in order to conduct evil magickal rituals.

To reach Finisterre, one must follow Saint John’s Way. The early Christian apostle, James, made a journey from Compostela to the coast, and marked his journey with altars. Some early Christians travel this path on a pilgrimage to become closer to their God, but it has become so overrun by witches, that it’s considered incredibly unsafe. The altars left by Saint John are now mostly used for dark sacraments, instead of their intended purpose.

Exploring Saint James Way will be dangerous, and full of conflict with those who would like to watch the land burn. But, it may be worth the treasures that await you, and the knowledge you will gain from your own journey to the edge of reality.

The Waylanders will be available on German!

We have received huge support from the German community ever since we announced The Waylanders. At 2018’s Gamescom in Cologne thousands of people tried out our pre-alpha demo and provided us with invaluable feedback. We have also received thousands of comments and messages about the translation of the game into the German language. And on Kickstarter, the German speaking countries have played a major role in the campaign. After the US and Spain (our motherland), Germany is the country with most backers. So we wanted to reward you with a German translation of The Waylanders.

That’s why the stretch goal is now early unlocked and will be available for all of you!

Many of you have requested it, and now you can have it: The Waylanders Alpha access! From now on, you’ll find it as an add-on available to add to any pledge above the $20 early bird.

You only have to add $10 to your reward and you can enjoy The Waylanders before anyone else!

The Alpha add-on will give you access to the demo 6 months before the launch of the beta.So you can be part of the development of the game and start playing on 2019!

If you need any help including an add-on to your pledge, it’s actually quite simple. An example:

Mike selected the $20 early bird (congrats, you'll get the game at a great price!). But he wants to get the Alpha Access for $10. He needs to manage his pledge and add $10. So, he needs to pledge $30. Then, when we finish the campaign, we'll contact all of you to know which add ons you selected.

We would like to close this update by asking you one more time to please help us during this last few days of the campaign. We are super close! In fact, if each and every one of you added the $10 Alpha Access, we’ll automatically reach the goal! We can do it if we work together!

We hope you like the new add on, the free location and the german translation

 

[Ranarama]

Will there be a voltron formation too?

 

[kolakosky]

Will there be a voltron formation too?

Well, the "tree formation" could be the ancient kind of the Voltron formation

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=463

The Waylanders Interview
by Farflame, 2018-11-12

Farflame interviewed Sergio Prieto, CEO and narrative director of Gato Salvaje Studio, about The Waylanders, which is currently in its last days on Kickstarter.

RPGWatch: I will start right away with a question concerning an issue players have. It seems that there is a certain skepticism nowadays towards "unknown" indie studios, especially RPG makers. Also if I'm not mistaken your studio didn't make an RPG before. So how would you convince these people? Can you briefly introduce your studio and tell us why you started a CRPG project and why you believe you can do it?

Sergio Prieto: Well, this is a logical concern, we have had many years of experience in video games, and the main thing we have learned is that you can't launch a project while having doubts, and I mean doubts about any aspect of your game: your gameplay, your script, your production pipeline... everything. And with this project we had a focus right from the start, to make sure that we are doing the right things all the time. We looked into having enough, and the best people possible, to create a game like this. We hired Mike Laidlaw and our other consultant, not only because of the script, but also to know if our production process is the best for this kind of game. Mike came here to our studio in Spain during two weeks and had interviews with all of our team, he saw our planning and raised warnings and concerns. Then he help us to build the High Level Narrative in order to make sure that we would have the game that we wanted.

Apart from that, we showed the game at Gamescom to a lot of people, to receive feedback. We focused on gameplay at that moment, because we wanted to see people playing the game and see their reaction. Now we are on Kickstarter to validate the project again, to know if people really want our project.

We looked into the experience of people that were in the lead during production at Bioware and Obsidian and at the feedback of the players; because before anyone would have any concerns, we wanted to be sure that we didn't have those concerns as well. Right now we are incredibly proud of what we are building. The proof is that there was a lot of media interest that were shown our pre-alpha in Germany or Japan and they really liked what they saw.


RPGWatch: I like that you use mythology and locations from your home region. But where did you get the idea for two time periods? I have no problem with that, it could be very interesting if done right, but most studios would probably create a pure Celtic RPG. Were you interested to see how the game world evolves over time or something?

Sergio: I started to think about this game several years ago to use the Celtic and medieval eras, because our country has a lot of great legends located in those two periods. So I read a lot about the differences of the two time periods and when I was finished, I was totally surprised about the incredible social differences between these two moments in time. I realized that the most interesting thing would be to confront people with the contrast of those two periods. The reaction of our characters and how they adapt to the two worlds is something that I really think will be awesome to experience for any CRPG player, like myself.



RPGWatch: Can you compare the Celtic world of The Waylanders to the usual fantasy worlds? It seems it wont be a 100% realistic Celtic setting, I'm OK with that, something new and authentic is a plus. So what are the main differences (compared to usual fantasy) or main strong points of your setting?

Sergio: The first thing that all our writers told us is that our lore is really refreshing to them. The Waylanders will be a fantasy game for sure, but the players could look at the characters, locations and legends and receive a lot of new information that they probably didn't know before playing our game. We are using Celtic mythology, like Fomorians or the Tuatha de Danaan but we are focusing on legends and monsters that were never told in a video game before, and I really want to see the people's reaction with the Mourians, or a location like Brigantia.



RPGWatch: You have sorcerer and healer classes in the game and there will be some magic in Celtic times. But does it change somehow in the medieval period? Because it would seem strange if you could simply hire a sorcerer in a medieval city and cast spells on the street. So I wonder if there will be less magic in medieval times and/or if you could be punished if the wrong person sees you doing magic in that time period?

Sergio: It's a really good question, and yes, the two time periods will have deep differences. The Celtic - Medieval confrontation will be a Magic - Religion confrontation and a Fantasy - Reality battle as well. The magic will be a really great thing in the Celtic age, but will be persecuted in the Middle Ages. I have a line of one of our characters that I really think reflects exactly this point:

"This age... it makes its bold claims of 'progress'. Where once nature and its flame was our ally, now they set it upon us. (Disgust at a burned witch by priests) What culture seeks to kill its own past..."

Spoiler

RPGWatch: Formations are an important part of your combat system. What can enemies do to counter them? I mean to not make formations overpowered? Can enemies use formations too or cooperate somehow?

Sergio: Some enemies will have abilities that break formations, but the most interesting part will be when the enemies come with their own formations, which combined with the player's formation, will become a challenge. The formations will have a rock-paper-scissors mechanic and some formations will be better in countering the formation of an enemy than others. Obviously the biggest novelty in our game are the formations, but I really believe that the depth of our combat is in mixing these formations with the advanced classes.
All of our gameplay is focused on letting you experiment and achieve incredibly powerful combos using all of the formations and the characters' abilities.



RPGWatch: Is there some form of level scaling or respawn for enemies? And is loot random or hand placed?

Sergio: The enemies will have no respawn and there is no scaling, so you need to do as much missions as possible to scale up sufficiently for some parts of the game. The loot will be randomly placed, but the very special items will be hand placed, so they become a prize you can obtain in the very difficult or special missions.



RPGWatch: It seems that gameplay is focused mainly on combat and dialogues. Are there some non-combat skills, non-combat activities, some puzzles etc.?

Sergio: Yes we'll have environment puzzles for the characters and formations. Sometimes as part of the main mission but sometimes also to avoid combat or to reach hidden areas. Probably we could consider romance to be a non-combat mechanic as well, but there will be also ways to build your characters outside of combat.


RPGWatch: You have 4 experienced writers/collaborators - Mike Laidlaw, Emily Grace Buck, Josué Monchan and one unknown individual. BTW this unknown person is probably Chris Avellone because he is in everything nowadays. But enough jokes, back to the questions. Can you tell us a little about duties of these collaborators? Are they interested in some fields or do they basically work on everything? Was the basic story of The Waylanders done before you got them on board?

Sergio: As I told in the first question at the very beginning they helped us with the production pipeline. During the script creation, Mike and our other collaborator were working hard on the high level narrative; Josue and I were working more on the little things like abilities, descriptions in the inventory and things like that. When we reached the end of the high level narrative we thought about needing another person to work on the close encounters, and that's the moment we contacted Emily. The experience she brings is incredible. But even with the work was split up like this, we are all reading and giving feedback. Right now, for example, Emily is giving incredibly valuable input to the high level narrative.

About the story that we had before the came on board: I had the villain, the motivations, the beginning, the end and the main character detached from the time line, with all its magic-religion confrontation that I told you about. But they totally helped to build that and made it into something very, very solid.



RPGWatch: Usually, the challenge for RPG developers is to make quests interesting, avoiding too many generic kill/fedex quests. How do you cope with this challenge? Are there some basic design principles you try to adhere to?

Sergio: Totally, one of the main things we told our self at the beginning was that we want to have a lot of character missions that depend on your relationship with the companions, very similar to the loyalty missions of Mass Effect. You will have a loyalty mission with all your companions, but if you get a closer relationship with them, you will receive more missions and they'll become more important. We want to have the characters at the core of our game in many point of views.



RPGWatch: Given the fact you have some non-human mythological races, I wonder if you would like to alter dialogues somehow to reflect that? I mean like using some words from their language to add flavor to the text or something?

Sergio: All the races have their own symbols; you'll have different lines depending on your origin, but not only because of your race. Even if you create a human, you can be a Greek mercenary (for example) and that will be different compared to being a Celtic sorcerer. As far as having a reference in the game goes, for the Greeks the tower in Brigantia will be "The Heracles' Tower" but for the Celtics it will be "The Breoghan's tower" and they'll have discussions about the different legends and what the correct name is.


RPGWatch: There is/was some debate about writing in RPGs. So I would like to ask if you prefer pretty short replies (text) when writing dialogues (to tell a "maximum with a few words") or more abundant "old-school style" with more paragraph(s) of text?

Sergio: I think that we'll be a bit in the middle. I love the old school but we'll have a lot of lines to record so we'll need to be a bit pragmatic at times. Probably in the lore, the books and all that, which don't need audio recording, we'll have a large amount of text to get deeper into that we are showing.



RPGWatch: Kingdom Come showed that pure historical RPGs can be successful. I remember that some people claimed that it will fail because "nobody is interested in Czech history". Of course, this idea was completely wrong. Do you think that in next years we will see more historical games from "unknown settings" like Brigantia? (BTW Celtic themes are also probably not that popular in gaming like in music for example.)

Sergio: Oh yes, I think right now there is an audience that is big enough for developers to have different approaches to RPGs. I'm sure that indie developers will have the opportunity to grow, showing different and exciting proposals. As you say at the beginning, it is difficult to trust new studios, but at the same time I'm feeling that we have the duty to present new and unknown proposals to the genre, because it's the way to find our own identity and to find the players that want this new stuff from us.



RPGWatch: If you would have a big budget, what game would you like to do (after The Waylanders)?

Sergio: Well, I have a great project in mind after The Waylanders, but the reality is that The Waylanders is the game that we always dreamt about. We do not just create a game, it's our culture and our legacy, and we want to share it with all the players around the world. Right now it is the game that has all our emotions and efforts in it for the last 8 years, so we are incredibly excited and focused on it.

 

[a Goat]

Okay this formation shit looks wacky. May try it out on release.

 

[Incendax]

Why do I feel like the mystery writer is Avellone, but they are going to pay him with Kickstarter money, so they can’t say anything unless the Kickstarter is successful?

 

[Dagobert]

They cannot say his name because of his current contract obligations ( Techland )

Edit: or it's Gaider lol

 

[Kaivokz]

The formations look janky and awkward to use. The narrative elements seem interesting, but the awkward combat puts me off.

 

[Neanderthal]

It being inspired by Dragon Age the ultimate formation will be the sodomy circle, doubt their kickstarter'll cover cost of all advertising they're subjecting folk to.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Waylanders is a party-based RPG inspired by beloved classics such as Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights 2 or Baldur's Gate.

I would pay money for this RPG not to be made.

 

[Yosharian]

Any pitch that starts 'inspired by Dragon Age: Origins' is suspicious to me. I played the game a lot way back when, but it's hardly inspirational. Same for NWN2.

 

[kolakosky]

Final 48 hours and only 10K to go!

Update #16 - 13 de nov de 2018


Goblins and... almost funded!

The Goblins are cute, magical creatures intrinsically tied to nature. They wear outfits and masks made of bark, sticks, and leather.

Sometimes people don’t realize that they are speaking to a goblin- at first glance, they often look like children wearing costumes and playing pretend.

Adult goblins still move like children- they often run, jump, or skip instead of walking like proper human adults. Their high pitch voices and playful nature also contribute to this common misconception.

They are pranksters, and will do whatever they can in order to give themselves and their friends a good laugh… sometimes without realizing the harm they can cause. If they do hurt someone, they’ll feel bad about it. But empathetic foresight is uh… not their strong suit.

Despite this, goblins are clever and relatively mature. They are capable rogues and explorers, and they are brilliant at lightening the mood when necessary. Basically, they’re good people to have around in any adventuring party.

The largest population of goblins exists in the beautiful coastal city of Aunes, so many of them are used to sunlight, the ocean, and a calm lifestyle. The possibility of joining an adventure that could take them out of their comfort zone and allow them to experience new, fun places with totally different surroundings would be of great interest to many goblins.

Now that you know about this new race, we’ll like to give you a little present: a goblin companion will be include in the game for free!

So you now might be asking… What’s a companion? Well…

Companions are important characters that can join your party, and that you can have close relations with. They’ll provide you with more hours of gameplay, since they have their own character quests (these will have a similar format to Mass Effect’s loyalty missions). If you have a close relationship with them, you will get further quests and they’ll become an important part of your gameplay experience. And this goblin is the very first companion we are adding to the game!


HELP US ON TWITTER!
90% reached!! We are almost funded! And we would like to ask you for help to get visibility on Twitter:

Join this discussion thread and comment

Retweet this!

It's an easy way to help us spreading the word. We appreciate your comments and retweets!

We hope you like the info about goblins and the free companion :D

 

[kolakosky]

The formations look janky and awkward to use. The narrative elements seem interesting, but the awkward combat puts me off.

Hey Kaivokz, that's nice because we believe the narrative part to be the strongest one of our project, but those aspects you point to be weak (an indeed they are at this point) just because this is a pre-alpha version so the real problem is that they need more work time. Please consider most of the assets shown will be upgraded, fixed and others will be re-designed and absolutely different in the final game.

For example, whe are polishing all the animations, we realized that the sword-master who recorded all the combat takes for this game use to limp a little bit on his right leg so we are correcting all the moves which shown that small "mistake". Otherwise, that "benny-hill-alike" arrow formation has been redesigned, once the kickstarter it's over we will start a monthly development newsletter to show all the progress

 

[kolakosky]

It being inspired by Dragon Age the ultimate formation will be the sodomy circle, doubt their kickstarter'll cover cost of all advertising they're subjecting folk to.

Well, you might have a point because history books say that celtic tribes use to believe in free love, and not only poligamy but orgies and sure "bro-to-bro" engagement were allowed at that time, it's when the christian religion arrives those manners start to become forbidden... and this game moves between those 2 eras (pre-roman empire celtic, magical, free love - medieval christian society, faith, loyalty etc), that dicotomy will be an important part of the narrative, but not sure it that will affect formations, who knows LOL.

 

[kolakosky]

Mr. Brian Fargo joins #TeamWaylanders

Waylanders is just 4K USD to go!