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Those Who Rule - turn-based tactical RPG "with occasional blood effects"

Nortar

Arcane
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Joined
Sep 5, 2017
Messages
1,407
Pathfinder: Wrath




Got this in my Steam queue.

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ABOUT THIS GAME​

Those Who Rule is a turn based tactical RPG where you command a group of new recruits in a low-fantasy, morally gray world. Expand and level up your party, equip custom weapons, and outmaneuver your opponents, as you uncover the truth behind the endless conflict affecting your country. Do you have what it takes to overcome the overwhelming odds?

Fight Tactical Battles​

Plan out your actions with an initiative-based turn system. Minimize RNG by out-positioning your opponents.

Recruit and Train​

Recruit characters throughout the story, and train them to overcome even the toughest enemies.

Make Story Altering Decisions​

Navigate a complex, morally gray world where you will need to decipher friend from foe.

Features​

  • Turn-based combat where careful planning is rewarded, and RNG is reduced by positioning.
  • Level up characters to increase their stats and gain the edge on the battlefield
  • Explore a world full of seemingly never-ending conflict.

MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION​

The developers describe the content like this:
Medieval combat with occasional blood effects.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
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Perched on a tree
The battlescape looks just right, if the whole thing (movement + animations + inventory management) is fast enough, it'll be a nice surprise.

No release date...
 

Turn_BASED

Educated
Joined
Jul 2, 2022
Messages
212
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Baldur’s gate crossover confirmed. This dude went digging around the fields in Nashkel for sure.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Joined
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1822060/view/3401924220905249853

Chapter 1 Released for Open Beta!

Hey everyone!

Sorry for keeping you all waiting! I've been heads down trying to finish up chapter 1 to get it into the demo so I can hear all your feedback with a chapter that has more meat to the gameplay. The bad news is we didn't make the deadline to submit to Tiny Teams, the good news is that I still get to share it with all of you. <3 Here's a little preview of the gameplay.

This demo will include all the updates over the past 4 months, with a new shield system, characters, class abilities, terrain, and more! The main reason I wanted to get chapter 1 out so bad was because some of the most common feedback I received from people on Steam is that the play-test was too short. The inclusion of chapter 1 should give you a chance to try out your own tactics, as it's not going to be as guided as the prologue was.

Thank you all so much for believing in this game and giving some of your time to playing it and making it better. As a heads up, I will be going back to doing consistent dev updates, but I will be changing the cadence to a monthly update. I felt like with the bi-weekly update, I was only mentioning one or two things at a time, whereas I think larger updates will make it more likely I have a video to show alongside the walls of text I'm prone to write.

I hope you all enjoy your experience with the updated demo, and please share your feedback with me in the Steam forums, or better yet by filling out this survey where I ask some specific design related questions.
Survey link here.

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!

Cheers,
Eldin T.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


A video demonstrating a heavily requested improvement to the amount of clicks required for a unit per turn. Reducing the amount of clicks required to move and attack from 5 minimum to 2!
 

Nortar

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Sep 5, 2017
Messages
1,407
Pathfinder: Wrath
Release is estimated to be in 20 months.

https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/1822060/announcements/detail/3395178347875869372

Hey everyone!

This month I've been hard at work redoing some of the basics to be in their "polished state". There's a chance I'll make small tweaks here and there, but with the amazing feedback you've all given during the open beta I think we're close to finalizing a lot of UIs.

First I wanted to give an example of the new action bar flow. If you look closely, you'll see quite a bit going on that I'm excited to share. First, HOTKEYS. You can move through ability selection with 'Q' and 'E', as well as equipped weapons with the 'SHIFT' key. You can also select abilities directly with hotkeys ('1', '2', etc etc). The plan is to have these fully able to be mapped by release!

The second thing you'll see is that you're getting a nice quick combat preview with flashing health bars, and any potential status effects!

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Also came up with a new design for the Main Menu and Save Menu pages:
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In addition to the above there was a ton more smaller things improved upon.
Changelog
  • Ability charges now displayed to the user.
  • Weapon abilities are now functional! The first is the default "Backstab" for all one handed swords, that will increase backstab damage.
  • Personal abilities! Marcus received the first one, "Hot headed" gain 4 attack when initiating combat.
  • 12 new blood effects, and as many sound effects when a unit is hit.
  • Agile ability (Skirmisher) no longer asks for move input if the unit cannot move (in enemy's ZoC).

Future
  • Settings page in the main menu.
  • Show in use abilities (active and passive) in the battle preview UI. These will be hoverable to show tool tips later in development.
  • Clicking on enemies showing their movement/attack range.
  • Add more juice to the Level Up UI!
  • Change the turn order system to be easier to understand. Turn order will still be based on a unit's endurance (END) stat, but will no longer allow multiple hits a turn. It was happening too infrequently to matter.

I hope you're all enjoying the direction the game is heading in. I've started thinking about release timelines, and I'm hoping to be able to get to a spot where all the fundamentals are polished, and I can start expanding chapters again. I'm hoping to get to an average pace of 1 chapter per month. Working with my writer, we are expecting ~20 total chapters, so 20 months estimate would put us at ~2 years out. I'll solidify this more in the future, and hopefully get a release date set in stone for you all!

Best,
Eldin T.
 

Nortar

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
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Pathfinder: Wrath
There's a new trailer and a demo available on Steam.





Dev Update (October 2023)
Hey everyone!



Want to start off with a big thank you for those of you who took the time to leave feedback on the most recent demo release. I have released a patch addressing the most pressing gameplay issues, as well as implemented a lot of the given feedback. Here is a list of the changes in the latest build:

Changelog
  • Fixed an issue where you couldn't buy from the shop when transitioning from chapter 2 to 3, requiring you to reload the game if you wanted to buy.
  • Chest not opening in chapter 1 requiring a restart.
  • Slight health bar visual enhancement.
  • Up/down arrows indicating if you've received a flank/backstab advantage.
  • Added particle effects and a slightly higher screen shake to attacks.
  • Updated highlights to be more apparent when choosing abilities.
  • Can not open Reyson character info in base.
  • All classes show skirmisher on the level up UI.
  • When clicking a unit to show their range and they have stand and defend AI, don't show them as being able to move.
  • Mouse movement for camera should only work while the mouse is in the game screen.
  • Elias unable to attack Sven ch3.
  • AI not giving priority to death blows.
  • Two handed sword swings not hitting both targets when enemy does it.
  • Increased starting denari to 1500.
  • Refactored the combat modifier calculations. You shouldn't see any difference in game, but will allow me to show a detailed breakdown of where all the various combat buffs/debuffs are coming from so you know exactly how well you're utilizing your unit's abilities.
Future
  • QoL features left to finish from demo feedback. Ex: Clicking units will automatically move the selected unit and bring up the attack menu.
  • An "advanced info" button on the battle info UI that will show every bonus/penalty that effects attack, defense, hit chance, or avoid.
  • Class promotions added as a unit reaches level 10. This will include a UI where you will be able to see all classes in the promotion chain.
  • Weapon refinements!
My plan going forward in October is to finish the most requested QoL features, and implement the final two major systems in the game: weapon refinements and class promotions! These two mechanics are going to inject a lot of fun choices into how you want to build your characters.

For example of unit promotions, Illyana (Skirmisher) will be able to promote into three advanced classes (Hunter, Blade, or Rogue) at level 10, and then into three elite classes (Ranger, Swordmaster, Assassin) at level 20. Your choice of advanced class will not lock you out of any of the elite classes when the time for promotion comes, so you can mix and match to suit how you want to use each unit.

Each class will come with two unique abilities, new weapon types, and stat increases.

I'm also really excited for weapon refining. Throughout your journey you will be able to buy and loot refinements that can then be put into your weapons to grant them powerful abilities. Refinements will be able to be swapped between weapons so you can experiment with your builds. Some weapons will have lower stats, but make up for it with more refinement slots, and vice-versa.

Thank you all again for taking the time to share you feedback with me.

Best,
Eldin T.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
Played through the demo.
I would say this is mechanically pretty usual tactical JRPG with hexes and low magic.
Turn system is we-go-u-go instead of initiative based.

Kinda neat, but there's nothing memorable about this.
 

Nortar

Arcane
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Joined
Sep 5, 2017
Messages
1,407
Pathfinder: Wrath
Dev Update (February 2024)
Hello everyone!

First month of the year down, and Those Who Rule has made some large strides. I started the month mainly heads down on bug fixes, and wrapping up QoL around promotions, forging, and refinements, as well as adding the final "juice" to give life to the new UIs. That was all completed, and the new demo version was pushed out earlier today with the bug fixes and QoL updates that I've been working on the past couple months.

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We also finished the Hunter and Blade classes. Here is the Blade class ability "Frontal Assault" that allows you to attack three times if attacking a unit from the front, regardless of agility. Combine it with their other ability "Swift Strikes" that allows them to execute all their attacks before an enemy can counter, as well as a greatsword and you get a pretty powerful combo!

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Moving on, I've also started work on Chapter 4. Before moving forward with too much of the story I decided to go back and finish writing how the story will progress through the game, all the major plot points, and how the story will ultimately end. We now have the story completely finished, pending the little narrative decisions that get made in each chapter. With that in mind I've completed all the writing and dialogue for chapter 4, and now have the map/gameplay left to implement.

Changelist
  • Completely revamped skill icons.
  • Added indicators for the direction a unit is facing.
  • Two new classes added, along with their abilities: Hunter and Blade
  • Chapter 2 has received it's own battle music (now different from chapter 1).
  • Completing/failing an optional objective now has a success/failure popup.
  • Turn count and controls now shown on screen.
  • Re-wrote the prologue dialogue to align with the rest of the story now that it is planned out.
  • The training battles (Chapters 1 and 2) are no longer lost when one unit dies.
  • Training battles no longer have blood effects (prologue/later chapters still have it).
  • Introduced V-sync to hopefully address the CPU high load issues reported in the forums.
  • Added tutorials for navigating the base, forging, and unit death.
  • Updated all Steam store capsules.
  • Added a little extra mid-chapter dialogue to existing chapters for added character building.
  • Blood turned off for training chapters.
  • Refinements added to chapter 3 shop.
  • Fixed an issue where the frame rate was limited to 2 FPS.
  • Fixed an issue where punch was not working correctly against targets with "First Strike".
  • Small performance improvements.
I still have a goal of two chapters completed per month to meet the release goal of Q4 2024, so I'm tracking how long each element takes me so I can better estimate. All the dialogue for the new chapter took me roughly 4 days. The map has taken 3 so far, and I'm anticipating 1 or 2 more. If I'm aiming for a chapter every two weeks, that leaves about a week left for adding new characters, balancing the map, side quests, base conversations, and new map mechanics.

I think this is doable, but this month will be the ultimate test. If I can complete chapters 4 and 5 this month, then we are on track for our release date. If I start noticing it takes more time, I may have to adjust, so stay tuned for the next update! With all that said, I've been extremely motivated through Jan. I think we can do this.

Thank you all for your support.

Cheers,
Eldin T.
 

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