This is the first pass on the plushie, (we're having the legs become a bit stumpier and cuter)
The plushie is available as a Kickstarter Add-on, at $50 which includes the shipping cost! To add an order for the plushie, you can change your pledge amount to add in the $50 above the current tier you are pledged at. After the Kickstarter when surveys are sent out, you can add a note that you ordered the plushie.
Multiplayer
And a feature I've wanted to show for a long while now (showed a bit on the live stream), this is a prototype of how the multiplayer would work, created by a good friend, Feoras.
The 2 capsules on the corners are the players, myself in California and Feoras in Germany. Lag is minimal as only the initial attacks, initial movement and such are synced, while the game allows for all moving projectiles and characters to be self reliant as there is no free movement to constantly sync.
Players show dodging when they turn blue, Enemy turns red when you hit him, and green when your friend hits him. We also wanted to avoid colliding with each other, so we designed the system to allow players to technically "stack" together, or in our world, behind each other with your character always remaining fully focused and your friend being slightly offset and shrunk to avoid too much visual collision.
Kickstarter Demo Build Update and Backer Updates!
Hey there! We're 20% of the way to our goal with 23 days still go, make sure to check out our Kickstarter and get your copy on PC at $15 and save 25% from release price!
We've just confirmed with our team the first languages we'll support on (or shortly after release)! These are more so what our own team is able to do itself, as we build the system out later on we'll be looking for more options so let us know what you want supported!
English, French, and Chinese!
Keep Spreading the Word About BBB
As our Kickstarter moves on we're getting more streams, videos, contacts and more about the game! Keep up the word, make sure to tell your friends and post online about the game too! We need all the support we can get to make sure we fund! :)
Zeth - Developer Background
For this update I want to talk a little about myself (Zeth), my background, and what drove me to create Bound By Blades. I made my start almost 10 years ago at Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds as an unpaid intern doing QA work for several months. Shortly after my internship ended, my boss at the time left and started his own company known as Tic Toc Games which you may know from the awesome game Adventures of Pip. He hired me as a QA tester, and I quickly I rose through many roles such as level and game design and eventually becoming a game director.
Tic Toc Games was another family to me, but we worked primarily on mobile games for publishers, and the intentions behind the designs were always heartless and only focusing on monetization. From the beginning I wanted to design a mobile game that was single purchase only, that took inspiration from the Monster Hunter series and brought it to mobile without the annoying virtual joysticks or buttons to ensure it felt smooth to play. That was where the 4 corner combat system came from - to utilize the corners of your device comfortably. Those were ideas I had early into QA, and added to throughout my experience in the mobile industry, as I started becoming heavily depressed and unhappy as I learned more about how those games impacted people. Eventually I took leave of absence for a well needed break, but the more I thought about returning the worse I got.
I then looked into other companies outside of mobile, but having mobile as my background left me with no luck. Eventually I took the biggest leap I ever have in my life, and checked out an online C# programming website, codeasy.net. After a few days on there, I jumped into Unity tutorials in which I was learning how to click on a circle to make it grow - that single tutorial became the boss script, in which you tap/click to take off the boss's health. One step at a time, every day for 2 years, I kept working on building it out: porting it to mobile, adding new areas, crafting, harvesting, hiring freelancers who eventually became our amazing team members, and finally reaching the goal of a solid playable demo to release on our Kickstarter that we have now!
My whole intention is to help push the entire game industry in a better direction, to battle against exploiting people with methods like loot boxes and impulse purchases, as well as devious tactics, exclusivity, and everything else that is primarily against the players.
I also want to thank my family for helping support me throughout everything to help let me save money from living costs and spend it instead on helping realize the beautiful world of Bound By Blades, I would not be here without them!
Cute Finny Voice By Astreigha
Here's a cute Finny Voice by one of the amazing people who streamed our game, Astreigha
Thank you everyone who has helped support this crazy dream of mine, and all of the effort and hopes my whole team has put in together to deliver an amazing experience for everyone to enjoy!
And if you ever have questions, suggestions or even just want to chat with us, please join our Discord where we're very active!
The Demo For Kickstarter Is Live on the Steam Page!
Make sure to check out the playable demo on the Steam page if you haven't already! We've spent 2 years developing it out, with a nice light story and easy first bosses and then ramp it up with some crazy challenge bosses with unique attack variations to really give it the end game spin we look to create.
After 2 years of development building out the Bound By Blades demo and polishing for all of the amazing feedback, we are ready to hit Kickstarter!
Spread the word and prepare, as we have an awesome trailer, demo, and Kickstarter page full of beautiful art and gifs for you to check out!
Demo Gameplay and Our Kickstarter Coming This Month!
Watch the Dev Update Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A8cZoBSQo8
This video focuses on showing the core features within the demo and gameplay while talking about the planned features and upcoming Kickstarter!
Kickstarter coming later this month!
Near the end of this month will be our Kickstarter's launch, we're waiting until we're a bit closer to it before we announce the date so keep an eye out for us!
The Agile Archer, Guren
For now, check out some of our concept art that we'll show on our Kickstarter page to help explain some of the planned features, characters, and more!
The Impenetrable Tank, Kota
Slay the Spire inspired map for the End Game Dungeon System
Try Out the Demo on Discord!
Eager to try out the demo early? Join up on discord here and you’ll be able to download it! Our only ask now is to not stream or upload a video until our Kickstarter is live for the best chance at us succeeding!
The Planned Features for Bound By Blades
In this post I want to list out all of our planned goals for the final release of BBB. Our demo works as a solid proving ground of the combat system and core gameplay, but there is so much more we want to build – and I’ll explain them all here.
I’ll be going through all of this in detail in the upcoming Kickstarter launching this September, but I want to give everyone a hint now of what we’re aiming towards. First simply listing out what we already have implemented and playable in our demo –
What’s in the Demo now?
We’ve built out the Four Corner Battle System with 3 unique bosses, and challenging variations for each of them, along with a rating system to give some replayability in the demo.
The Town of Tumbra has Eldros and Finny to talk to, while not fully story realized – this does show how the story will be told.
Harvest materials and potions in Dreamland with a precision system to time for more materials.
Blacksmith with crafting and upgrading, including 3 sets of unique gear and runes to choose from.
List of the Upcoming Features
2 Player Co-op Multiplayer
AI Partners and Friend Cards
End Game Dungeon System similar to FTL/Slay the Spire map combined with Diablo 3 Greater Rifts randomization and progression system
Equipment with Crafting, Upgrading, Enchanting, Stats, and Set bonuses
3 Playable Characters with their own play styles
10 Unique bosses and 10+ challenging and new variations
Light Story
Battle Broods (Pets)
2 Player Co-op Multiplayer
This is my favorite feature I have planned, for me an Action RPG can go to so many levels of enjoyment with a friend in co-op that it’s necessary to add. After Kickstarter, this is my main focus to develop and build out first.
The game will work online, through a peer to peer system, most likely working with Photon for Unity to help all platforms work smoothly. We’ll be looking into cross platform support as well, but it’s not something we can promise to deliver on until we prove it out first.
I feel that disconnecting online may be a concern for when playing multiplayer on the go, so we’re creating AI to both play with while offline, and to take over for a friend if one of you gets disconnected!
AI Partners and Friend Cards
Not only can you bring along AI partners of the NPCs you meet in your journey, but also exchanging Friend Cards with your friends will let you bring their character into battle with you while offline!
End Game Dungeon System
The real focus of Bound By Blades, designed to push many hours of replayability, player increased difficulty levels, randomized elements to keep you on your toes, and an assortment of materials to craft and upgrade your gear with. This is where Multiplayer in BBB will shine, you’ll both need to endure the onslaught of battles to reap the rewards!
The end game system is a mix of the FTL/Slay the Spire map along with the player progression levels of Diablo 3 Greater Rifts. Choose your own path, battle random bosses, work your way to a quick break in town to restore potions or go right for the final boss! Survive and you’ll have the materials to craft and upgrade some new gear, and the next level unlocked to take on.
Equipment
Our plan for gear is to add Set Bonuses for equipping full sets of a boss’s gear, and individual stats for each item. Combining these goals into the End Game system, we’ll be randomizing the stats you get, along with needing the right bosses to show in the dungeon to harvest their materials for the set pieces you most desire.
That’s not to say defeating dungeons without those bosses in it won’t help you – you’ll still earn upgrade tokens based on the dungeon level you clear, which allow you to push past the upgrade limit and help endure the fights to come.
We’re also planning to add an enchantress, whom will enchant your gear with buffs that you prefer to use. Adding this along with the runes which each have their own effects will help you customize your playstyle and builds to determine what you can push the highest with!
3 Playable Characters
Concepts for our second character, Guren
Teo is the only character shown in the demo, with a powerful, but slow weapon. So what about all the players who want to feel fast? Or the ones who want to play safe? We’ve got you covered, each with their own unique attacks and abilities.
Our second character is in concept phase now, an agile archer named Guren. And our third will be a tank character with weapon and shield.
10 Unique Bosses and 10+ Challenging Boss Variations
We’re aiming for 10 core unique Ilcyon and introduce those as your story progresses. The real fun is what the variations will bring – these are in no way just stat increases, but huge amounts of functional reworks to bring to life the challenging fights that really push our battle system to the limit.
Our end game system will rely on having a large variety of bosses, so we’ll do our best to not only have a solid amount on release, but to keep adding more over time.
Light Story
Story throughout BBB will be a lighter element, mainly used as a prologue to the End Game System, and introducing players to the state of the world. You’ll learn about the Ilcyon, the tribes, and the history of the land known as Ashmyr.
Battle Broods (Pets)
This is another lighter element to BBB, and will most likely be placed as a stretch goal on KS to ensure development is solid and polished for release of the other core features first.
Battle broods are pets you can feed your extra boss materials to, raising them into 1 of 3 forms, each with their own little animations, a simple attack and ability to help support you in battle. Feeding them more materials will increase their levels and stats for extra support.
In Battle they’ll follow along with you similar to how Phantasy Star Online mags work, but also adding in an attack and support ability for a direct bonus as well.
Demo and Community Challenges!
If you’re interested in checking out the demo make sure to join our Discord to sign up at http://discord.gg/boundbyblades
And you can compete in our latest Community Challenge to get in as well! Community Challenge Post
Lamgi animated in town and dreamland, they run, prance and jump
Finny now animated in town (Eldros coming soon!)
Wisps moving around on the edges of the battlefield
Particle effects for Teo added in Battle for dash, dodge and charge attacks
New Epic Music for Battles past the training phase
New Loading screen
New Transitions, now instant (with Teo running across) for all areas other than into battle where loading takes effect for each boss
Mittux VFX added in
Mittux mini optimized to avoid lag spikes caused when new ones are spawned
Polish and adjustments for player feedback from DreamHack
Teo’s charge attack now always resets if mid combo, this allows a consistent dash across the screen every time you do 3 charge attacks in a row
Movement in Town/Dreamland made a bit easier to avoid overrunning your goal too quickly
Our Goals Now
Our launch date for Kickstarter is aimed around September, so our focus now is on that.
We’ve just started preparing our Kickstarter page and will work on it up through our launch. We’re looking into finding a trailer creator that can make us something awesome to show what BBB is capable of.
Our work on the demo slows down a bit more as we progress as it’s in a solid state so we’re focusing on polish for it now.
Sign Up for the Demo
The demo is already being shared to some through our Discord where you can sign up for an early look before it opens up to everyone on Kickstarter.
The demo is in the polish and bug fixing phase now, so we’re able to fix up bugs and add some small polish as people run through it and give feedback to improve the game!
Announcing Early Demo Sign Ups through our Discord!
Want to be one of the first to try out the game and give feedback? Join our discord!
We'll be adding players to our early play test group through Discord with each new build leading up to our Kickstarter launch around September. We're primarily looking for feedback to help improve Bound By Blades and ensure a smooth experience for everyone to play!
We do ask for any and all players who get to try it to withhold from making videos or streaming, as we'll want you to show off the final demo concurrently with our Kickstarter for the biggest launch we can get!
Return from DreamHack, Updates, and Dev Update Video 15
Since DreamHack was our focus before, we haven’t made a dev update in quite awhile, so we’re combining that into this update as well.
Our main additions include the new Title Screen, new Music throughout, Mittux animations, Teo VFX animations, and combining the potions into the player healthbar UI.
Our animator Aden has finished all the boss VFX, and I’d love to add those in for this next update, so expect the next video in the next few weeks!
DreamHack, news for mac support and our upcoming Kickstarter date!
Convention Update
With our booth at DreamHack, we received some great reception on Bound By Blades, along with awesome feedback for us to improve the game as well!
Meeting new players and watching them have fun playing was amazing, but we also got to meet a lot of other indie devs, and I must say the entire community for indie games is absolutely awesome!
Kickstarter Plan
We wanted to give an update for when to expect our Kickstarter as we’ve been pretty vague so far. We’ll be aiming around this September to launch, so keep an eye out for us and our updates on it!
Discord
We’re working now to build up our Discord, we’ve got some exciting news we’ll announce later this month, so make sure to join!
I also want to mention we will stop supporting Mac as a platform. Through our playtests, we haven’t had anyone request for a Mac build, and thinking of the upcoming features – specifically multiplayer, I want to hold off on promising Mac in case there are extra issues that can take time from development on BBB as a whole.
While saying this, if you own a Mac and want support – email me at zeth@boundbyblades.com, if we get enough people who are interested – I will look into supporting it after releasing for the other platforms.
Press
We also got an awesome press write up listing us as one of the most exciting RPGs at DreamHack. Check out the site here!
https://pondspress.wordpress.com/2019/06/05/dreamhack-dallas-2019-games-evaluation-role-playing-games/
Title Screen
And our progress with animations on the title screen can be seen on Twitter
