Banner of the Maid
Update log on July 13th
[new] You can now use consumable items that add experiences/stats in the Roster interface.
[new] Debuff duration now shows in the status list.
[new] Trophy loot progression now shows in the pause interface.
[change] Status list interfaces now have fixed size.
[change] You can now hide the dialogue interface by pressing down the right mouse button or cancel button.
[change] When you change skills and leave the panel, skill icons will automatically align to fill up the blank slots.
[change] Diagonal tiles are now considered flanks.
[fix] Fixed the bug that sometimes causes ambience sound lost when loading saved data.
[fix] Fixed a bug with the pixeled figure of Pauline in certain conditions.
[fix] Fixed the display position of the Gallery.
[fix] Fixed an UI bug when you click the page up/down buttons too fast.
[fix] The effect duration of Misguide is now properly shown as 2 turns.
[fix] Fixed the description of Command, Eviction, Superiority and Rise.
[fix] In the DLC mission "Defense Line of the Heroes", Dutheil's starting position cannot be changed anymore.
[fix] Fixed a bug that when you move to the destination via position-switching skills, the command menu isn't closed automatically.
[fix] The boss in chapter 22 now has a unmovable skill.
[fix] Fixed the bug in chapter 23 that causes the reinforcements appeared in turn 12 won’t move.
[fix] Fixed the figure of enemy artillery boss in chapter 26.
[fix] Fixed the skill description display issue when playing with controllers.
[fix] Fixed some text display issues.
[fix] Added the rainy sound effect to The Oriental Pirate DLC missions.
Art Diary: The Making of Pauline Bonaparte
* * *
First thing I should do is introduce myself. My name is JiuJiangzi, and I am the lead artist of Banner of the Maid at Azure Studios. This was my first project as a lead, so I’ve learned quite a lot along the way! I have taken care personally of creating the ladies of the game, while the masculine characters were mostly drawn by another colleague.
When we started this project, we spent a lot of time researching and studying this era, looking for a way to recreate their elegance and complexity. As I studied their clothes and styles, I fell gradually in love with this charming (if quite complex) age. On the other hand, we had to make some compromises to appeal to modern audiences without losing the unique charm of their fashion. Finding a balance was difficult, but I think we managed it!
I want to share with you some of the character designs I created; we’ll focus mostly on Pauline Bonaparte, our heroine – but also a real character, although Napoleon’s sister was quite different from our Pauline, as she was more a socialité than a military leader. This was the real Pauline:
Our Pauline became a military hero after a trip to Toulon to visit her troops, where she found herself in charge of some troops in the middle of a chaotic battle. Her design is the most detailed in the game, even if she is not (on purpose) the most beautiful lady of this story. When we started working in her, we drafted the character with different clothing schemes inspired by Napoleon’s early military uniform. Some of the elements of these preliminary drawings have remained, like the small bow tie and jacket.
Once we had reached a character design we were happy with, I started drawing her in different situations to see how to reflect her personality. I thought of how she would look like when she was involved in the war for the first time and she thought it was too late to change dresses before
rushing to the battlefield, and how her face could suggest heroism, wisdom, calmness…
Finally, I dug deeper into this character study, trying to highlight both her firm and strong beliefs and her tender manners. I also redesigned the hairstyle so it echoed the real Pauline’s curly hair while showing its own personality. We also had to create two sets of clothing, one for the battlefield and one for social settings; for the latter we went for an exquisite, but not too luxurious style, as she is supposed to be accommodated enough but not of noble birth. The last touch was finishing the design for her military clothes.
This is all for today; on another occasion, I want to show you the making of another character from the game. I hope you have enjoyed this short trip through our design tables! Good luck in the battlefield, and see you soon!
《圣女战旗》Steam夏季特惠
steam2020年夏促已经开启，本次夏促中《圣女战旗》已开启31%OFF的史低折扣！
除了本体外，DLC云自海上来也已经开启20%OFF的折扣。
等等党们别犹豫了，是时候出手了！
夏促结束时间：
7月9日上午10:00（PT）
优惠折扣：
本体31%OFF
DLC云自海上来20%OFF
Banner of the Maid gets a 30% discount
That said, there will be exciting news about the game very, very soon… join us on Twitter, Facebook and our Discord channel so you don’t miss anything!
Update log on June 12th
[new] You can now repeatly play the challenge missions of "A Sailor's Gossip, Part 4" and "Miss Elisa's Journal" via the Salon interface. Mission rewards won't be given again though.
[change] Now you can see the category of the item/trinket reward in mission briefings.
[change] Added a notification when you lit the 4th candlestick in Chapter 11.
[change] The English text now displays faster.
[fix] Fixed the description text regarding chase-attack speed checks.
[fix] Fixed an display issue of certain terrains like Artillery Sites when they're occupied.
Update log on June 4th
Please be advised that due to the changes of certain missions, when you load a saved data of the following levels, the mission will restart:
A Sailor's Gossip Chapter 1, 2, and 4.
V1.9.6 Update
Fixed a bug that caused the advisor notice in A Sailor's Gossip, Chapter 4 not showing properly in English.
In A Sailor's Gossip, Chapter 4, the 2nd time that any skill cast by the Mist Pirates will have their areas of effect shown when dealing damage.
In A Sailor's Gossip, Chapter 4, the last whisper will be cast by the Mist Pirate in the upper area.
V1.9.5 Update
[new] Added 3 new achievements: Break In, Unfinished Business, Master of Deception. If you have already completed the missions for Break In and Master of Deception, these achievements will be automatically unlocked.
[change] You can now restart Chapter 1 and 2 of A Sailor's Gossip from the Deployment interface. Added advisor hints.
[change] In A Sailor's Gossip, Chapter 1, there won't be reinforcements of either side in Turn 8.
[change] In A Sailor's Gossip, Chapter 2, added food supplies with special effects like Sardine Pie on the map. Adjusted some unit values.
[change] In A Sailor's Gossip, Chapter 4, fixed the icon of Reaper's Blade and its Attack is now affected by Armor.
[change] In A Sailor's Gossip, Chapter 4, fixed the icon display when you have defeated the Mist Pirates on one side.
[fix] EXP now shows properly when you are at MAX level in certain UI.
[fix] Counter-attack preview now display properly when affected by skills that modify attack range.
[fix] Combat preview interface now refreshes properly when using controllers.
[fix] Fixed some camera starting position issues in certain missions.
How to unlock new achievements by loading saved data (saved in ver1.9 or lower) :
Break In:
-Load a saved data have completed Chapter V of main story.
Master of Deception:
-Load a saved data have completed the quest "Diary of the Nameless".
Unfinished Business:
-Load a saved data have completed the ???? chanllege in Chapter XVI.
Broadcasting A Sailor's Gossip
Happy Birthday, Banner of the Maid!
The core members of Azure Flame Studio are all hardcore gamers who started our gaming life in the 1990s. We started working in the industry about 10 years ago, but after a few projects that weren't anything special or exciting to us, we felt that we would eventually burn out, losing our drive and passion for developing games. Circa early 2017, we sat together and discussed what each of us really, really wanted to do. Turned out, we all wanted to make a game that would bring us back to the good old times of the SNES Era.
We didn't want a sword and sorcery setting, though -- that was just too common, well-trodden territory. On the other hand, we didn't want it to be too sci-fi, because we felt that it didn't fit the nostalgia theme. So we started looking for some setting that would allow us to mix cavalry, firearms, fancy uniforms, a rich historical period with lots to build upon, but on the other hand, that would allow us to add fantasy elements. We suddenly realized the French Revolution was a perfect stage for all this and, to our surprise, a setting that has not been visited too many times in games before.
Hard at work at the office
Once the background settings were decided, the storyline and quests were relatively easier to come up with. It was basically done by Borris Hou, our chief designer/lead writer. From there, the development process went quite smoothly: even though it was our first time as an indie team developing a single-player game, we had enough experience as developers under our belt to tackle this challenge.
Actually, the most pressing challenge we faced was not about development, but more at the business side of things: as many indie devs out there, we were always short of budget and had to find ways to make ends meet all the time. Because of that, there was some content that we wanted to implement in the game that in the end had to be scrapped. For instance, there was a deck-building, sword-fencing minigame planned, and its game mechanics were already completed, but we had to abandon it.
The game grew in our hearts during this time, and it actually changed here and there because of that. For instance, the possibility of saving certain character's life was a last-minute addition to the game: at some point, a big part of the team "revolted" because they didn't want him to die, so we decided to add a way to save him just one week before release!
First key art of the game
After lots of hard work, we finally released the original Chinese version of the game. It was a great success, something for which we are incredibly grateful; so we decided to release the game too in the West. Unfortunately, the game is massive in terms of text, so outsourcing its localization was out of our means... which of course did not stop us! We decided to tackle the English localization all by ourselves. It took us a great deal of time and effort, but finally, with the kind help of an editor, Christan Michael Voss (who happened to have enough free time and liked our game), we managed to complete the English version.
The Westen release was not as successful as the Chinese one, but it was successful nevertheless. We read all the comments and reviews on the Steam page and the posts on the community board, and we're happy that the majority of players are satisfied and felt our love for the genre – that's why we started the project in the first place!
And now... what? First of all, it's not exactly a secret that Banner of the Maid will eventually arrive to consoles. We cannot talk more about that at the moment, but we recommend you stay tuned to our social media and CE Asia's for more details about this in the near future. But that's not all -- we're also designing "Banner of the Maid: The Italian Campaign"... which is not a video game but a complete and standalone board game! We are working hard to make sure that it meets your expectations and becomes the great game our community deserves. It'll be released this year in China, hopefully soon in other regions.
Developing games in times of the pandemic
We would also like to continue telling the stories of the Maids and expanding upon the universe of Banner of the Maid. But having the budget and means to do it will depend on the success of Banner of the Maid, of course, so if you want to see more about it... help us spread the word about the game and spend a minute writing your review here on Steam!
To celebrate this special day, CE Asia will be broadcasting today A Sailor's Gossip (starting at 3 pm CEST) the questline that we had to cut out of The Oriental Pirate because we couldn't finish it in time because of the pandemic (which was added for free to the DLCs content last week). It's been a wonderful, very exciting year for us, and we feel like this is just the beginning. Thank you very much for being a part of it -- without your continued support and love for the game, we wouldn't have made it this far!
1st Anniversary Coming!
Update log on May 22nd
The Oriental Pirate DLC:
Added “A Sailor’s Gossip” quest line to the DLC, which will be unlocked after Chapter 18.
The quest line includes 4 missions that will be gradually unlocked with your main campaign progress.
[new] You’ll be able to find the special MUSYNC cross-over event item in Free Combat: Offensive missions.
[new] You can now switch to Story Mode from Officer Mode in the Options menu.
[change] When you are already in Heroic status, now you can use skills that consume Morale even when you don’t have enough Morale. In this case, the Heroic status will work as 100 Morale.
[change] The defeat conditions of Chapter 3, 5, 8 and 18 are changed. Existing saves during these combats must be restarted to take effect.
[change] skill adjustment:
Intelligence Gathering now provides Attack +1.
Dine now lasts 3 turns.
Tolerance now takes 9 damage at maximum.
Projectile Calculation now lasts 2 turns.
Terrain Advantage now provides Hit Chance +25.
Round Shot Supplement now also increases movement.
[change] When Mu Zhiyun joined your army, a default weapon will now be added to your inventory.
[change] Exiting the trade interface won’t play NPC voices anymore.
[change] You won’t be able to deploy Mu Zhiyun when the DLC is not successfully loaded.
[fix] Fixed the display error of Heroic Attacks when using weapons like Golden-stripe Sidearm.
[fix] Fixed some voice errors in dialogues.
[fix] Fixed some flickering image issues in certain dialogues.
[fix] Fixed a controller issue in the character status interface.
[fix] Fixed the sound effect of fires in some missions.