Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Bound By Blades
Play the new Bound by Blades demo during the Steam Next Fest
To celebrate the Steam Next Festival, players will be able to play the new demo of Bound by Blades. Be sure to be one of the first to try it out.
Bound by Blades is an Indie Action-RPG with a focus on intense boss battles. Experience the thrill of Boss Rushes with the wholesomeness of a cozy Indie RPG as you confront ferocious foes, collect loot, and craft new epic gear to fortify yourself for the challenges ahead.
The demo will be live until 10pm CET/10am PDT October 10th, 2022.
Bound by Blades is scheduled to release on Steam in Q4 2022.
A New Developer Update & Release Coming Soon!
Developer Update & Upcoming Release!
It's been a long long time since we've had an official developer update, so let's get you caught up!
We Are Content Complete
We've been content complete for a few months now, this means the game has all the content in it, and is in the final stages of bug squashing and polish readying up for release later this year!
Bosses
Please welcome our newest bosses!
Necromata Necromata, a winged monstrosity of demonic proportions brings her flames of fiery rage to battle you.
Lithos Lithos harnesses the power of elements and magic, allowing him to cast a large variety of spells using his grimoire to change the elements of his attacks.
OriKara OriKara represents the combination of the Icy Queen Kara and the Molten King Ori who will challenge you with their opposing elements to destroy you.
And there's one more epic battle for you to fight, but that's for you to discover in your own journey through Ashmyr!
Story
We've had the wonderful opportunity to work together with Reece Bridger to bring all of the characters in Bound by Blades to life with hints of compelling backstories, and a thrilling tale of adventure. And each playable character of the Bound has their own personality they bring into conversations now!
Every NPC brings with them their own unique story, so make sure to talk with them between battles! Here's a few of the new characters you'll meet in the castle of Fangsfate!
Garoth The general of the Bound, leading and training warriors in the city of Fangsfate!
Rothma The Enchantress, wielding her power of being a Myrthos to connect to her ancestry and enchant your gear with powerful buffs!
Oryss The one in charge of Fangsfate, ensuring protection of the inhabitants and welcoming any new arrivals!
Other Cool Stuff
So much stuff has been updated, here's some more to check out!
Updated Character Select Now you can see the armor of each of your characters and freely swap between them in the selection screen!
Localization With the help of our publisher, Assemble Entertainment we can confirm localization has been added into Bound by Blades, and we'll soon announce the languages supported! Here's a clip with just a few implemented so far!
Set Bonuses This one is definitely one of the most exciting features we've added, every boss has their own unique set bonuses and they get pretty wild! Equipping 2 pieces gets you a small bonus, and equipping all 5 gets you a major bonus!
Pets Pets Pets We've included the new evolutions of pets, along with being able to have 4 of them, and pet missions where you can send them out to return with materials!
The End Game Systems The end game systems bring upon the Tower, which is 25 challenging levels of bosses, where you fight either a single powerful foe or several in a row! And the Endless Dungeon, where you fight waves of increasingly powerful monsters with rewards after each wave you clear! But to reach these, you'll need to get past the story bosses and their daunting Ex variations with altered abilities!
Multiplayer Lobby System We've worked on updating the multiplayer menus and built out the lobby system so you can now search through rooms or create your own room name, make it public for anyone or hidden for just your friend to join!
Announcement Trailer
And if you haven't already, watch the Announcement Trailer for a quick glimpse of some of the new stuff in action!
Thank You!
Thank you for checking out this update, and I hope you're all as excited as we are for everyone to get to journey through the world of Bound by Blades!
Bound by Blades — Charming and Cozy Boss Rush Indie RPG announced!
Today, together with developer Zeth, we are revealing something special for RPG lovers: the brand-new indie title Bound by Blades. Launching in Q4 2022 on Steam and releasing later on Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS devices, Bound by Blades is a boss-rush-style RPG with an emphasis on challenging combat and crafting.
Embark on a journey through the magical world of Ashmyr, a once thriving land now left desolate and teeming with Ilcyon, bloodthirsty enemies scattered across the globe. Defeat formidable bosses, meet imaginative NPCs, and learn the lore behind Ashmyr’s mysterious downfall in this charming yet challenging game!
Watch the Bound by Blades announcement trailer now:
About Bound By Blades
Bound by Blades follows the core gameplay of slaying bosses, harvesting their remains, and leveling/crafting gear. While not being as hardcore as the genre kings, Bound by Blades offers a fun and more casual approach to players who are looking to experience boss-rush gameplay. Created by solo developer Zeth, the title is a passion project aimed at giving players a more accessible entry into boss-centered RPGs. Told through an enchanting digital-sketchbook art style, follow the young Bound through their journey in Ashmyr to learn about the beginnings of the vile Ilcyon and other mysterious entities.
Features of Bound by Blades:
Beast Slayer: Slay colossal monsters through perilous combat, and learn their maneuvers in order to survive the battles and come out ahead. Harvest their remains, and utilize them to craft a sweet new set of gear!
Intuitive Controls and Unique Combat:Bound By Blades is designed for players of all skill levels, allowing any adventurer to embark on this challenging journey. Employ a variety of maneuvers like Quick and Strong Attacks, Combos, and Unique Combo Finishers.
Adventure Together: With a two-player co-op option, enlist a travel companion and slay monsters together in Ashmyr.
Choose your Fighter: There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” playstyle in Bound by Blades. Acknowledging this, select and swap between the game’s three main characters, each with their own unique battle styles and gear: Teo the Kuza cat, Guren the Fangorian bunny, and Space Oxbourne ox.
Wishlist Bound by Blades on Steam now, with a planned release set for Q4 2022.
We've been working hard on BBB and have a new playtest available on steam!
It's limited to the first 100 players right now, so if you want a chance to try it out and give feedback, click on the link below and register to join the Playtest!
For a very long time we've been hard on funds, but we've recently received a small investment that allows us to release our game unimpeded. The majority of the team was able and willing to take rev share, so we only had to cover for animations with additional funds. This now lets us complete all 10 core bosses, pets, and all the cool characters in the city with beautiful animations - which relieves a massive amount of stress while building out the game.
The Castle of Fangsfate
This castle is now coming together with new friendly faces coming to life!
Enchantress Shop
The new enchantress shop is now in game, letting you enchant your equipment with a variety of random buffs and transmog it, to customize your look without sacrificing any stats!
Enchanting can grant up to 3 enchants at once, each with up to 3 tiers of power. You may end up cursing at the gods of luck
Transmogrification (transmogging) lets you make your item look like another! Have a decked out set of gear, but feeling like a change of costume? This will hook you up!
Difficulty modes
Difficulty is a delicate beast, and we're finding that multiple difficulty modes are necessary to allow players of all kinds to enjoy BBB. While we still need a lot more feedback and testing in these modes, we can now more easily adjust them to help support more players.
Boss 6 - Mawrakor
Mawrakor is our latest boss now in game bringing a nature themed approach to battle!
Flower Rain
Equipment in the works!
Pets
We've added in pet food (with different recipes requiring boss parts), which lets you level up your pets! Each stat has a different effect and value, Power increases their base attack, agility increases their frequency of attacks, magic increases the power of their specials, and energy increases the length of buffs or shortens the CD of their special depending on which special your pet has.
And what would pets be without some additional types? Next in our to-do list of animations!
Boss 7 (In Progress)
This boss takes on the living armor theme with a demonic twist. His attacks are prototyped already in game, now just waiting on animations!
Merchant (In Progress)
We've just started building out the merchant shop, he'll carry some valuable goods like the Forgetful Potion which lets you reset your stat points, and some fun pet items for now. We'll be adding more to his array of goods in the future.
Smaller Polish
We've updated healthbars with the Dark Souls effect for a bit more polish
We reworked character layering in the city and battle, so now moving around will correctly show you and your pet behind and in front of bosses/NPCs!
(That was a lot of gifs to collect and shrink!)
Thanks for checking out the update!
Check out the game, give some feedback, and say hello! Join our Discord!
Developer Update 21 - Online Multiplayer, New City Hub & More!
Developer Update 21
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Online Multiplayer
2 Player online multiplayer now working in game
Cross platform support to play between any platform
We’ve worked on lag compensation to limit bugs and visual oddities in multiplayer
Client side controls, so you never feel latency when playing
Ready up menu for battles
New Castle of Fangsfate
New City hub area to explore
New characters and shops to be added into it
5th Boss Vaeryth
Vaeryth features brand new ability types
Ground blasts, AoE tail swipe, traps and more
Pets
You now have a Lamgi companion that follows you in town, dreamland and battle
The pet has abilities to buff, heal, or deal damage
Experience & Leveling
You now gain experience and level up from battles
Leveling gives you stat points to use as you like to build your character
Story Illustration Cinematics
We’ve started adding story cinematics featuring illustrations
Only rough art currently until our story is finalized, then we’ll polish it up
Other Improvements
Free movement added in town, dreamland and the city so you can freely explore
Battle now has animation cancelling for much better responsiveness
Keybinds now customizable for keyboard and controller
Damage numbers added so you can see how strong your attacks are
Critical hits and critical hit chance added
Minor stats added on equipment to add a bit more to them
Talys and Vaeryth gear sets added for all characters
Developer Update 20 - The Third Playable Character Kota and More!
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Introducing the third and final playable character, Kota
A heavily armored guardian from the Oxbourne Tribe
Combo his boomerang attacks by timing them with the return of the disc
Block a large amount of attacks, and absorb energy by doing so
Release the stored energy through your strong attack, launching projectiles back at the boss
Equipment Sets for all characters and Updated Blacksmith
4 Full unique equipment sets for all 3 characters, with their own visuals and descriptions
Separate loadouts saved per character for more customization
Blacksmith now with final art and animated, along with a new background
What's Next
We're now working on building out the Story
Backstory has been made, story and dialog are being written with it
Adding simple slide cinematics and updating dialog overall
I want to announce that despite our KS not being able to reach the funding we need, we will continue development on a smaller scoped version of BBB to release in a shorter time span.
I'll be selling my car to help give our team a little more support to keep us going through release, but the real heroes making this dream a reality is the team. They're all willing to make sacrifices because they believe in working on our game together and thanks to each one of them, Bound By Blades will be released in the end.
So what will Bound By Blades be?
The goal for BBB was always a battle heavy focused game, with lighter elements to help support it. The End game dungeon system was designed to sustain a large amount of replayability while still feeling fresh and fun, similar to great roguelites like Slay the Spire and Rogue Legacy. Our demo fit perfectly as more of the training grounds and proof of concept for our game, and is a good example of what we'll be expanding out with the dungeon system.
For content, our plan is to create the 7 new unique bosses, as well as unique armor sets for each of them. This also means we'll be cutting the larger features like Multiplayer and NPC partners so we can focus directly on content instead and deliver in a shorter time frame.
Our new schedule will take us around 1.5 years to fully develop out and release. We'll be aiming to have most content done in year 1, and then move onto the dungeon system. After that we'll work on revisions, polish, and any additional changes/additions from feedback until we're ready for a final release.
This plan is still fresh, so there may be changes as we continue development, but I will keep everyone updated as any may come through, as well as continue our Dev video updates on Youtube and posting on Twitter and Discord.
Follow Us!
If you're interested in following us through release, the best way is Discord as you can directly talk to us there, but Twitter and Youtube are great too as they help expand our community even more :)
