Suddenly we are on the third week of the Corral Countdown, one-fifth of our way to the release of Boot Hill Bounties. Now that we’re really starting to get into it I can finally talk about some major things I’ve had to keep quiet.
But first I want to talk about a nice but simple feature - Battle Bonuses. These are titles you get at the end of every battle that say something about how each character performed. They’re basically like the after battle bonuses from Super Smash Bros Melee.
They are usually complementary:
Status Master - Caused 5 different status ailments in battle
Perfect Dodging - Evaded every attack
Savior - Revived other characters four or more times
Wall Breaker - Defeated an opponent while they were blocking
But can be embarrassing:
Whipping Boy - You were the only party member who was attacked.
Punching Bag - Took twice as much damage as the next biggest punching bag
Status Sufferer - Got more than 5 different status ailments
Wimpy KO - Defeated an opponent with a weak attack
Unfortunate Folly - Was knocked unconscious trying to dodge but stumbled
Or just plain kind of interesting:
Pacifist - Never used an attack
No Sweat - Dodged an attack that cost 10 Power
Burn Out - Defeated an enemy using fire
Coffee Needed - Started the battle unconscious or asleep
Power Scrooge - Allowed the character to charge to 10 Power
Long Ranger - Only used long-ranged attacks
There are currently 34 bonuses to collect. They are mostly for fun but they do serve a few small purposes:
They teach players about combat
Gives something for players in co-op something to compete over. Who can earn the most battle bonuses? There’s even a battle bonus for earning twice as much bonuses as the next player! A multiple bonus bonus!
There is a Steam achievement for collecting all 34 battle bonuses among your players.
And finally, there’s the Bonus High Striker game...
Hop on a train over to the circus where you can play Ivan’s Bonus High Striker game. Just pick up the mallet and hit the lever. If the puck strikes the bell, you win a prize!
But your strength comes from how many bonuses you’ve collected. Each of your characters will need to have collected a lot of bonuses before they finally win at Bonus High Striker.
Tomorrow it’s time to reveal another hat. By now, you probably noticed that’s what we do here on Tuesdays at the Corral Countdown!
The town of Swellsville is the first town featured in Boot Hill Heroes and it’s back again in Boot Hill Bounties, of course. But the town has been completely redesigned. This isn’t the first time I’ve remade this town, so I thought it would be interesting to talk about how and why it has changed so much.
The original intent was good. Make a great big town that gives the player a ton of things to do and places to explore. I wanted a BIG town to create a BIG sense of adventure. The bigger the better!
With that in mind, here’s the first design of Swellsville that was made in 2011 or 2012. Can you believe it's been that long?
You’ll notice how huge the town is and also how much the art style has changed. The Earthbound influence was much greater in this early version. What I found from early testing is that while players were impressed by the scope of this town, they were also a bit intimidated by it.
Maybe it felt almost like a chore to go through all these buildings, leaving no stone unturned. And it quickly became apparent that filling each of these buildings with rooms and people would be an immense effort and there just wasn’t enough content to go around. Another design was made and this is the version that was in the game.
What I learned from Boot Hill Heroes was that bigger was not always better. Quite the opposite. Too much freedom, too many things to explore can feel almost like a burden to a player. And it slows down the pacing of a game. The obligation to explore becomes more of a chore than an adventure. In Boot Hill Bounties I wanted to have more laser-focused content, rather than have it spread all out over the place. I also evolved the art style even further.
So here is the version of Swellsville in Boot Hill Bounties. Look how much it has changed since the original!
The smaller size makes the interesting parts of the town more focused. There's something worth engaging in every few steps whether its a shop, restaurant or citizen. Swellsville has a saloon to buy food, a clothing store for armor, a hardware store for weapons, a general store for ingredients, a train depot for transportation, and a ton more that I still have to keep a secret.
Swellsville wasn't the only town that got smaller. Check out the Chepakwik Village from Boot Hill Heroes.
And here's the village in Boot Hill Bounties. Again it was shrunken down.
So that’s the end of week two of our countdown as we crawl towards that December 1 release date. This week we learned about a ton of stuff in the game but also how towns like Swellsville also got smaller. What will we find out next week?
Corral Countdown 42: Nonlinear Chapters
Typically RPGs are either linear, with plot events happening sequentially as the player goes from point A to point B. Other RPGs are open world, where the player can explore a world and interact with it as they see fit. Boot Hill Bounties falls in the former column ...well, mostly.
While Boot Hill Bounties does have a storyline that can be broken down into five chapters, you can actually complete four of these chapters in any order. There is an initial prologue chapter that starts the story, but once players arrive at their first town, they are given the freedom to go almost anywhere in Bronco County. Where the player decides to go next determines which chapter they will play, and they won’t be able to start a different chapter until the current chapter is complete.
So while definitely not an open world adventure of total exploration, Boot Hill Bounties does give players more freedom than you might expect to explore its world and decide which clues or places the player wishes to follow.
Will you take the train to the shady outlaw town of Cyprus Flats to follow a lead on Scorpion Saint?
Will you go to the Chepakwik Village to learn the whereabouts of Burning Crow?
Will you investigate a strange occurrence at the mine in Prospect Bluffs?
Or will you decide to speak to Colonel Middleton and convince him to stop his war against the Chepakwik?
Without giving too much away, each chapter focuses on tracking down and fighting a different member of the Saints-Little Gang. I like to think of it like a Mega Man game where you decide which Robot Master to go after. Although you eventually have to defeat them all, it’s still nice to have some choice about the order it’s done in.
Speaking of going to town, in tomorrow’s Devlog we’re going to look at how Swellsville has changed since Boot Hill Heroes and why I made it smaller.
Corral Countdown 43: Camping
You probably noticed from the box art reveal and a lot of screenshots that camping plays a big part in Boot Hill Bounties. Camping really captures the spirit of adventure and makes you feel like you’re on a great journey, so I wanted it to play a role both in theme and game mechanics.
Throughout Bronco County, players can find spots to camp. These spots are often found outdoors, but you can also camp indoors. This isn’t really camping it’s indoors, but the idea is that the characters are hunkering down for the night and taking a load off.
As the characters sit around the campfire and gaze at the stars, there are many things you can do during these camping scenes (like save your game, of course). However, I’m going to talk about most of them in later Corral Countdowns.
But you can already guess that camping is great time to talk to your party and see how they’re doing. They’ll talk about what’s currently going on in the storyline and share their thoughts on these events.
Sometimes events can unlock longer conversations Kid can have with Rosy, Doc or Moon (or even Rusty) where they share more of their deeper thoughts about things. Or they may even play some games or tell ghost stories!
Sometimes unexpected visitors even show up while camping. This is how a lot of secret sidequests are unlocked!
What else do you think you can do while camping? If you’ve been following the Corral Countdown, you should already have at least one good guess!
When you’re ready to call it a night, the party will crawl into sleeping bags and go to sleep. And I’m going to do the same. Tomorrow we’ll talk about nonlinear chapters. What does that mean? Pretty much what it sounds like.
Corral Countdown 44: A New Hat for Doc
Last week we revealed one of the many new hats that Kid will obtain in Boot Hill Bounties, this week we’ll talk about one of Doc’s new hats. What hat can you picture Doc wearing? Do you want to know what it is? Well, you’ll have to click the Spoiler image!
Welcome back to the second week of the Corral Countdown where we talk about something new I want you to know about Boot Hill Bounties every week day, up until release. This also begins our first week of outside player testing as I continue to polish the pacing and difficulty as well as root out any last bugs.
Now if you’re new to the series, you may not know that Boot Hill Bounties actually continues the story started in Boot Hill Heroes. But I want players to know that playing the first game is NOT a prerequisite to enjoy Boot Hill Bounties. Great care has been made in designing an experience that gets new players caught up with the story and gameplay. And given the size and scope of Bounties, you could say Boot Hill Heroes mostly serves as a prelude to the saga.
But players who did complete Boot Hill Heroes surely want to know, what happens to all the money, items and skills they acquired in that game? Is there a way to import them into Boot Hill Bounties?
The answer is YES! If you have save file on your PC for Boot Hill Heroes, you can import that save data. You simply select “Import” from the title screen and choose your save data. You also don’t need to have completed Boot Hill Heroes to get your stuff.
Now you won’t start with your old gear from the first second of gameplay. You’ll have to finish the prologue chapter, return home, and then you’ll get access to a chest with all your vittles. This will definitely give players a head start as they begin their new adventure.
Items and gear are easy to import, but what about Vantages? As mentioned last week, Hats and Vantages function differently in Boot Hill Bounties. Hats previously did not gain levels, so I had to get creative in finding a way for that experience to translate.
If you don’t import a save file, the characters begin on Level 10 (so if you import a save file where your characters are less than level 10 you would be at a disadvantage!). Also, you can obtain every single hat that was available in Boot Hill Heroes, but you’ll have to buy them from Lockhart’s clothing.
Tomorrow we’ll be unveiling another new hat. This time, it’s a hat for Doc. Can you guess what it will be?
Every Friday during this countdown to release I want to focus on more of the development side of Bronco County. Here, I’ll talk about the process behind developing some aspect of the game and the thoughts behind it.
There are around 300 or so residents of Bronco County to meet! So how did I make so many? In the video below, I’ll walk you through the process…
Making Bronco County feel alive and full of personality is an important aim of Boot Hill Bounties. And to make towns feel lively, they need people. Non-playcharacters (NPCs) are found everywhere and great effort was put into making even the most minor character have a unique look, name, personality and purpose for enriching the game.
Often characters do not simply deliver a line of dialogue and are never interacted with again. You’ll encounter them again at different times in different places just as you would any real person. For example, you might find Freeman Starks working at his job over at Prospect Bluffs but also find him having a drink at the Skunkwater Saloon in Cyprus Flats from time to time. Also, characters might reference family members that you can find in other towns that you can also meet. These are the subtle details that bring Bronco County to life.
This brings us to the end of our first week at the Corral Countdown. Look how much we've covered about the game in just five days! Can you believe that there are still 45 more updates to go. What will we talk about next week? Keep following this blog up until release day on December 1.
Corral Countdown 47: Food and Perks
Perks are special status conditions that help characters in battle in different ways. For example, ‘Determined’ make stances remain in effect longer while ‘Kinship’ increases the effectiveness of healing Vantages.
A Broad Range of Emotions
There are about 22 different Perks characters can get that make them feel ‘Spry’, ‘Resilient’, even ‘Incombustible’! And perks are typically given from interactions with other characters or from the food characters eat.
A Smorgasbord of Culinary Delights
Food can be purchased in many restaurants in Bronco County, but it now can also be stored in the inventory and eaten later. Different restaurants offer a diverse menu based on their local cultures. So you can find traditional food like Corn Bread and Succotash served up in Swellsville, while exotic treats such as Honey Roasted Peanuts and Chili Cheese Fries can be found at the circus. What food do you think is served in rundown Cyprus Flats or the Chepakwik Village? There are over 40 things to eat!
Picky Eaters
But Kid, Moon, Doc and Rosy each have their own taste preferences. Kid prefers savory food but dislikes spicy food. While Rosy likes spicy flavors but hates sour food. The effectiveness of the Perk is determined by how much the character likes the food!
Perks offer another way to customize and strengthen your party. And while characters start out with only three slots for Perks, there is a way to increase this number that I will talk about later in the countdown!
We talked a little about how restaurants give personality to various towns in Bronco Counties, tomorrow I’ll introduce you to some of the residents.
Corral Countdown 48: Hats and Vantages
I mentioned yesterday how hats played a big role in Boot Hill Heroes as a way to learn new Vantages to grow and customize your character. In Boot Hill Bounties, hats also play a large role but work a little differently and function more like traditional RPG “job classes”.
Each hat, rather than each character, has its own customizable set of Vantages. So if a character takes off one hat, and plops another on their head, they may play very differently. Even though, Boot HIll Bounties still only has four playable characters, it has dozens of hats that are similar to playing as a different character.
Now each hat, like a job class, can also level up as the hat gains Vantage Points (VP) during battle. New Vantages are unlocked when a hat gains a level and the player must decide which of these Vantages should be set since, at first, only four Vantages can be available at once.
Number of Set Vantages Expands
But hats can also unlock extra spaces for new Vantages. So it’s possible to increase the number of available Vantages at once to up to six. But you have to get your hats to pretty high levels before this happens!
Deluxe Vantages
Also, at high levels, hats will transform some of its earlier Vantages into Deluxe Vantages. Deluxe Vantages can be transferred to any other hat. For example, the Stetson unlocks the Vantage Trip at level 4, and at level 8 Trip evolves into a Deluxe Vantage. So now Trip can be set in another of Kid’s hats, like the Boater or Bird’s Nest.
Deluxe Vantages retain some of the overall customizability of Boot Hill Heroes, while also making individual hats feel distinct. Players should try to have certain hats customized for certain situations.
Level 10 Signature Vantage
The maximum level a hat can reach is level 10. On level 10, a hat unlocks its most devastating and powerful signature Vantage. This Vantage is always unique to that particular hat. But levelling a hat to 10 is no easy feat and it’s more likely players will switch between many new hats before sticking with a single hat until it reaches level 10.
Well that was a lot of game mechanics to get through! Now I’m starving for something to eat. But I’ll have to wait until tomorrow!
Corral Countdown 49: A New Hat for Kid
Those who played Boot Hill Heroes will remember that hats played an important role in character growth and customization. Each hat taught characters new Vantages that changed the way they played and introduced new strategies.
Although they will work a bit differently, Boot Hill Bounties brings a bunch of new hats and this entry we’re going to talk about one of them. For those who want to go into the game completely fresh, SPOILERS AHEAD!
