KickStarter Vigilantes: neo-noir, turn based tactical RPG

[Nutria]

the gas cans and oil barrels from Vigilantes

I forget if I ever mentioned this. There was a lot of stuff that came up but I was too busy actually enjoying the game to make a note of it. It seemed really weird to me that the gas cans and oil barrels do negligible damage once you get past the early game. I don't suggest I know a good solution to that, but it's annoying and very noticeable when there's the explodey thing right next to a guy and you're better off just firing one bullet into him instead.

 

[Timeslip]

the gas cans and oil barrels from Vigilantes

I forget if I ever mentioned this. There was a lot of stuff that came up but I was too busy actually enjoying the game to make a note of it. It seemed really weird to me that the gas cans and oil barrels do negligible damage once you get past the early game. I don't suggest I know a good solution to that, but it's annoying and very noticeable when there's the explodey thing right next to a guy and you're better off just firing one bullet into him instead.

It's a fair point. Guess there could be different variations of the objects, or the damage could scale based on a variable.

 

[Timeslip]

Got stuck doing end of year admin stuff for a couple of days, but have a basic implementation of destructible cover working, including the ability to target cover directly and visually destroying the cover. If you just shoot/bash the cover it crumbles, but if you toss a 'nade, it blasts fragments all over the place. It's difficult to come up with a scenario in which destructible cover wouldn't make it in to the game at this point.

 

[Timeslip]

Working on building interactions between fire, water and electricity at the moment. No guarantees, but going good so far. There are quite a few more enhancements under consideration, which collectively will substantially beef up the depth of combat.

Have a good Christmas!

 

[Timeslip]

Hey. Hope everyone's healthy and doing alright in the current situation.

It's been a while, but have been hammering away at the new game. Expect to announce it and set up a Steam page with some early screenshots and footage in the next 3 weeks if all goes to plan.

 

[anvi]

Cool. After that make me a new Slipstream 5000?!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hey. Hope everyone's healthy and doing alright in the current situation.

It's been a while, but have been hammering away at the new game. Expect to announce it and set up a Steam page with some early screenshots and footage in the next 3 weeks if all goes to plan.

 

[Timeslip]

Cool. After that make me a new Slipstream 5000?!

Never played this one, but like games like this with a loop consisting an arcade race-combat section then a bit of resource management to upgrade your vehicle. Bonus points if it's top down and has cars. Like one called Mad Cars (I think), but haven't seen a decent modern implementation of it.

 

[anvi]

Yeah. I don't really like racing games of any kind but that one was awesome. It is probably doable by one guy with modern software.

 

[Timeslip]

Yeah. I don't really like racing games of any kind but that one was awesome. It is probably doable by one guy with modern software.

Yep, easily. Would imagine there's very little complexity outside getting computer controller cars to steer and multiplayer (if you wanted to add it).

 

[anvi]

I guess multiplayer is expected these days, but I just loved doing the campaign and earning better flying vehicles. The maps were really good though, I think that's what kept me hooked. I loved the weapons and the things on the ground that boost you super fast.

 

[Dickie]

How much talking/story will be in the new game? I liked the minimal distractions in Vigilantes. I don't like sitting through a bunch of yapping that keeps me from murdering dudes. The level of talking in Vigilantes and Knights of the Chalice is what I prefer, so I was curious.

 

[Timeslip]

How much talking/story will be in the new game? I liked the minimal distractions in Vigilantes. I don't like sitting through a bunch of yapping that keeps me from murdering dudes. The level of talking in Vigilantes and Knights of the Chalice is what I prefer, so I was curious.

Hey Dickie. More than Vigilantes is likely, but much less than the more text heavy games in the genre. Perhaps in the range of 1.5 - 2 times as much as Vigilantes.

 

[Dickie]

How much talking/story will be in the new game? I liked the minimal distractions in Vigilantes. I don't like sitting through a bunch of yapping that keeps me from murdering dudes. The level of talking in Vigilantes and Knights of the Chalice is what I prefer, so I was curious.

Hey Dickie. More than Vigilantes is likely, but much less than the more text heavy games in the genre. Perhaps in the range of 1.5 - 2 times as much as Vigilantes.

Good to know.

 

[Timeslip]

It's happening again.

 

[Lhynn]

Timeslip Did you check out Troubleshooter? its very similar to Vigilantes, but they have some interesting combat mechanics and character building tied to gameplay and other cool stuff.

 

[Timeslip]

Timeslip Did you check out Troubleshooter? its very similar to Vigilantes, but they have some interesting combat mechanics and character building tied to gameplay and other cool stuff.

I've seen it pop up on Steam, but haven't bought it yet. I'll check it out.

 

[anvi]

Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.

 

[Timeslip]

If anyone is on reddit, would you consider giving this a signal boost?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/545600/view/2885074013964981522

Vigilantes v1.07 Update
Hi everyone,

It's coming up on two years (yikes!) since the release of Vigilantes, so you probably weren't expecting another update, but here it is. The focus of the update is new content: perks, weapons, and equipment along with a few fixes. You can find more below:

[Perk] Death Wish: Increases damage when the character's health is below 60%. For each 10% less health than the threshold, all damage is increased by 8%
[Perk] Next: Gain 15% damage increase until the end of the next turn by incapacitating an enemy.
[Perk] Shrug it off: No negative debuffs when the character is wounded and debuffs for severely wounded are halved
[Utility Item] How to Blow Stuff Up: This book increases explosive damage by 15%
[Utility Item] Burning Man Figure: Increases fire damage by 20% when equipped.
[Utility Item] Laser Sight MK II: Increases ranged CTH by 8%
[Weapon] Vintage Fire Axe
[Weapon] Eurocorp Nemesis +
[Weapon] Tactical Baton SE
[Crafting Options] Laser Sight MK II, Nemesis +
[Fix] Fixed an issue preventing scrolling to the bottom of the combat panel of the help screen (Komissar Gebet)
[Fix] Fixed a typo on Caia Winters' occupation (Komissar Gebet)

You may be aware that I've been working on a new game, Prometheus Wept, since finishing Vigilantes. It's a turn based RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world in which all digital technology has been destroyed by a virus. I'm currently working towards a demo, and then a release on Steam Early Access. Here's a link to the Steam page, if you'd like to check it out and add it to your wishlist. Please keep in mind that the visuals are quite rudimentary at present!

 

[udm]

Keep fighting the good fight, Timeslip!

 

[udm]

Finally came around to starting a proper playthrough of Vigilantes. I'm so glad I held off playing too much of the earlier versions. The game now feels much more properly balanced. I think the last time I played it, Attacks of Opportunity and Interruptions weren't even introduced yet.

Good shit, it's far from perfect but I'm having more fun with this than a lot of other tactical games. Best description I can think of is that it's like a simpler X-Com with item porn.

 

[udm]

Timeslip Just finished the game (on Vigilante difficulty). Thanks for the game, it was a lot of fun. I don't think I'll be returning it anytime soon though as I was playing it for 3 days straight, 8-10 hours a day. Pretty burned out by it lmao.

Thoughts on the game starting with the positives:
+ Mentioned before in this thread, but the art and music really grow on you, fitting well with the theme of the game.
+ Numerous character build options, though more useful perks to encourage different play styles would have been welcome. Still, what's available already allows for many viable permutations, and I love it. Melee characters were so much fun to play!
+ I definitely feel this is more tactical than nuXCOM due to how AP scales. By the end of the game, Edgar was swimming in AP. He was practically running across the map swinging his vintage axe like a maniac.

Spoiler

Seriously, get a load of this guy!

+ Also, on a similar note, the game doesn't place so much emphasis on cover. This was something I hated about nuXCOM and similar games, where cover was so important that thematically they felt more like puzzle games. In Vigilantes, I appreciate that it's the positioning that's more important, even in the absence of cover.
+ Skills and stats are well-balanced overall. There aren't any dump stats that I can think of.
+ This isn't going to be a popular opinion, but I think deterministic damage works well here. With the number of enemies the game throws at you during the endgame levels, knowing with certainty how you'll fare when a shot lands helps to mitigate some of the RNG pain (I once missed two 95% shots in a row )
+ It has that sense of discovery that X-Com/Jagged Alliance had as you unlock more weapons and items to buy and craft. I would have liked to see more stuff though!
+ Love the random encounters that breaks the monotony of non-stop combat. I like how certain skills affect the way these encounters play out. Again, more would have been welcome for sure.

Now on to the negatives:
- The lack of randomisation really hurts this game. As I mentioned earlier, I'm quite burned out because I must have played through most of the maps at least thrice.
- It becomes quite popamole later in the game, especially after your vigilantes become Team Ubermensch. I think this could have been resolved with combat encounters that have multiple objectives, so that you won't always be stuck near the spawn point. As it is, because of how overwhelmingly outnumbered your team tends to get, and due to the lack of fog of war, there's no real incentive to change vantage points once you've gotten set up comfortably. Maybe harder difficulties would change this, IDK.
- Experienced the annoying glitch of enemies shooting/grenading through walls twice. Screenshots below (blue indicates where shots had landed and red indicates where enemies are/were)

Spoiler

- Items-wise, it is possible to see everything the game has to offer in one playthrough, which is a shame as it reduces replayability.

Again, I had a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to Prometheus Wept. :D

 

[Timeslip]

Hey udm - glad you enjoyed it and cheers for the balanced feedback.

I get a burned out feeling with games with the X-Com loop after a while. Do you think part of the problem is the extreme focus on combat? Don't get me wrong, I love turn based combat, but when I spend too much time doing the same thing... The majority of the extra systems in Vigilantes were added to break up this loop, as much as was possible at least.

While there probably won't be much randomisation in PW, there will be branching paths, so you can't see everything in one playthrough. One choice you will make in act 1 will determine which of two allies will join you, with the other either being removed from the game, or if there's enough time, pursuing you and trying to thwart you. The way it's looking right now is that allies will be much more mechanically unique from one another than they are in Vigilantes. It's likely each will have between 4-8 unique perks and some of these perks will unlock abilities which significantly change how they play.

I've been working on quest/encounter design recently and there will be far more choices for how you can use skills in dialogue this time around. Also, I'll be working to maintain a reasonable parity between melee and ranged. I get that some people like the improved realism/survival feel of only using melee weapons as a last resort, but to me it seems far too small a gain to severely reduce build variety and tactics.

Was the top screen a grenade and the bottom a bullet?

 

[True Ukrainian]

The burn out feeling from XCOM style games is because the difficulty curve is inverted. The player is challenged early on, but that feeling disappears as their team levels. What works in the early game now just works even better. The limited type of missions also adds to the burn out.

Someone mentioned Troubleshooter in this thread and that game manages to get round burn out using a huge spike in difficulty at the mid game. The player is forced to reassess pretty much all their assumptions about combat once the game takes the gloves off.