Brigador
Brigador has left Early Access!
We'd like to thank those of you who voted for us on Greenlight and all of our testers from before and during Early Access for your feedback and support. And all of our contractors and middleware providers for their hardwork. And our families and friends for their help and encouragement through the years.
We hope you enjoy the game, and let us know if you have any issues. If you enjoy the music, be sure to check out the OST by Makeup and Vanity Set.
-- WELCOME BRIGADOR --
Brigador ship date & announcement of OST, Vinyl, Audiobook!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRYc0HLWePo
Hey everyone!
We're excited to finally announce that the Brigador v1.0 will be launching June 2nd, just 3 weeks away! Much of the new content is in now in place, we're just waiting on a few more changes before posting our final Early Access update prior to launch.
In addition to the game launching, we've also got the soundtrack and audiobook coming as DLC-- you can access it now via the main page or directly HERE, though you won't be able to purchase until the June 2nd launch. Vinyl editions of the soundtrack will also become available for purchase on June 2nd as well for $15; we'll post the links when available.
We're really proud of the work our collaborators have produced, 2 hours of original music and a 5+ hour audiobook chronicling a Loyalist platoon's journey through Solo Nobre when the city starts to burn. I'll be streaming parts of the book a few times between now and release via Twitch for anyone who would like a preview.
PC Gamer was courteous enough to run a full page on all this new content, if you'd like to read more you can find it here: http://www.pcgamer.com/brigador-is-releasing-in-june-with-an-unusual-extra/
April Progress Update
As well as PAX East in Boston I'll be flying to San Francisco next week as part of a little press tour for showing Brigador. The build we lock in for that will also go live for you guys as well, so finally a proper update. The biggest change is that weapons visuals have gotten a complete overhaul, and I've locked in the full roster of 40 playable weapons. I anticipate launching the new build this coming Sunday or Monday, which will add all 40 weapons as playable and some new vehicles that utilize both heavy and small mounts.
The other big thing is that the unlock system is finally going in place. I don't think I'll have time to get in a rudimentary balance pass on money so all the unlockables will just cost $0 for now, and will only include pilots and vehicles. Oh yeah, and pilots are going in too. From a gameplay standpoint the pilots function as mutators for the game; for now pilots determine the starting strength level of enemy units as well as the speed with which enemy strength escalates on subsequent levels. That's currently in the game, and we're hoping to add some other cheeky options there as well.
As a final note, the Brigador soundtrack is nearly complete, and we're really excited to announce that a 2-disc vinyl edition is in the works, the 1st of which will be going up for preorder in the near future. Soon as it's up we'll post an announcement here. In the mean time, get hyped, and thanks for sticking with us-- we're in the home stretch now!
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One more thing-- MAVS just popped a new single that you should all listen to, catch it here.
Streaming Demo with Volition
Want to ask the team questions about the development of Brigador live? Come check out their stream with Volition:
https://www.twitch.tv/dsvolition
Streaming Demo with Volition
Want to ask the team questions about the development of Brigador live? Come check out their stream with Volition:
https://www.twitch.tv/dsvolition
March Progress Update
Anyway, to business! Something we've been working on over the last few weeks is a way to better visualize pathable area. Given the fully destructible nature of the game, it's possible for the player to create corridors through the environment. Up to now however, it hasn't always been clear what areas are walkable or not, or in the case of anti-gravs what areas can be flown over. The varying heights of rubble exacerbates this problem.
Our solution to this problem will look something like this:
Like the directional indicator and most other visualizers will be toggle-able of course. It's not a perfect solution but I'm not sure there is one for this kind of problem which is inherent to isometric games. As we get closer to the end of development there's a lot of these little quality of life things that we're working to address in order to make gameplay as smooth as possible.
Another small but significant change in the pipe is a revision to how smoke and EMP work against enemy units. Currently there's a known tactic (*cough* you know who you are -___-) to deploy smoke and simply stand within it while engaging enemy targets. Since the original implementation of smoke blocks line of site entirely this functionally made the player invisible. Our solution to this problem boils down to allowing the AI to approximate the player's location when they are receiving fire from or can hear the player. So far this seems to work well enough, though we'll continue to tweak it once we start getting player feedback.
On the EMP side it's a small but simple change: boss/captain units will be affected for a shorter duration than other units, possibly as low as 1/2 the duration. Those numbers will be tuned over time.
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Probably the most important part of this post is that we're putting updates on hold until the end of March. The main reason being there's a lot of different logs in the fire right now, and it's much easier for us to temporarily halt the update rotation in order to focus solely on finishing new features. If all goes well, by the time the end of March update rolls around we'll have all 3 factions available to fight, several more playable vehicles and weapons, a first draft on the new soundscape, some new missions, and possibly even a first pass on the unlocks system if we're lucky. In the mean time we'll of course still be active on the threads if you have any questions. Thanks for bearing with us, and we hope you're as excited for what's ahead as we are.
Cheers!
2 / 18 / 2016 Build is live!
In the future, the plan is to have either dedicated runs with this speed of difficulty escalation or use the pilots as mutators for things like run difficulty. The latter is the ideal scenario though it's also the one that takes more work, we'll see. Either way though we definitely want to make it so that if you just want to jump in at really high difficulty, even for the beginning of a full Solo Nobre run, you'll be able to.
I'm going to power through revising the Loyalists and getting the Spacers in as well, at which point you guys will finally have all 3 factions to play with. Once those are all in, I'll go back through the player weapons and recalibrate them based on the variance between factions. My hope is to have all 3 factions in by the beginning of March, and by the beginning of April to have all playable vehicles, weapons, and abilities in. Buckle your pants, because new content is going to come streaming in from now on, and I'm going to need all the feedback I can get.
Cheers.
- DEVELOPMENT LOG - (check steam page for full log)
*Please bear in mind Brigador is a work in progress.*
2 / 18 / 2016 - Current Update:
- Added Corvid enemy faction to Free Mode, removed Loyalist enemy faction.
*note* for testing purposes this is a heavily compressed spawn progression, increasing up to max difficulty at 4th stage. Any levels beyond that will repeat that difficulty.
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2 / 4 / 2016 - Previous Update:
- Added substations and panic walls
- Added 4 new maps & run
February Progress Update
Another month, another set of updates. Tonight's one includes another 4 new maps, bringing that total up to 21 playable. Our goal was to hit 20 so we're in good shape there. About half of them still need some minor reworking, and a few are short on set dressing but they're all playable and in pretty good shape. If there's time we'd like to squeeze in another couple of maps but for now we're switching to full production on the campaign missions.
You'll notice that there's some new structures on the maps, and a nasty surprise on some when the alarm is sounded. We finally have the new 'panic walls' in engine and partially implemented on the maps. These retractable walls are passable by enemy units but remain closed for the player, so it's possible to put yourself in a real deathtrap, especially if you're not specced to deal environment damage. The only way to drop them back down is by destroying all power substations on a map. Most times they'll be clustered together but not always... Additionally, destroying all radio stations will dramatically increase the time required for enemy units to spot the player and sound the alarm (currently we don't have any indicators for either of these on the HUD but we'll get those in soon). We're hoping these new elements will help make the decision-making during missions more interesting, and to provide the player with more challenging but entertaining situations when things inevitably go wrong.
(a radio substation surrounded by panic walls)
I've removed the "Tears of the Ancestors" mission for now, partly because we learned what we needed from it and partly because my current overhaul of the Corvids means that the balance on that mission was completely out of wack. My hope is to have a playable draft of *all* Corvid vehicles by next wednesday, at which point we'll swap them out for the Loyalists as the enemy faction in 'Free Mode'. While I'm overhauling the Loyalist units we'll start building Corvid based missions, and once I've finished the Loyalist refit we'll bring them back into the 'Free Mode' rotation and start building the Loyalist missions as well. Ditto for the Spacers after the Loyalists.
New sound is still a ways out-- there's a lot of ground work that has to be laid and things are made more difficult for the audio guys because of how much we're still changing elements in the game. All the puzzle pieces are fast coming together though so you should see an explosion of new content starting soon.
However, that major optimization I mentioned before is now in, and should noticeably improve performance, particularly on older machines. We're hoping to still do some more optimizations down the road but for now this is a big step.
The plan going forward is to finalize combat elements and get the skeleton of the campaign in place. Personally I'm shooting to have a playable draft of all enemy units and weapons completed by the end of this month, and we also hope to have a skeleton of the campaign in place by then as well. From there it's getting money / unlocks / metagame sorted out, and fleshing out more of the fun parts like pilots and playable vehicles.
We're getting closer and closer to the end, and we really appreciate you all sticking with us. As always, let us know what you think about new changes in the forums, and please tell your friends about Brigador if you like it!
Thanks!
January Progress Update
We've got a fresh new update for you, which includes 4 new maps and a new defensive ability. We've also got a major optimization in the pipe that should noticeably improve performance on older machines-- expect that within the next couple of days.
The last few weeks have been pretty crazy, between planning out the final months of development setting the groundwork for these final features to get implemented. The two biggest features incoming are defensive weapon emplacements and gates that can raise and lower under various conditions. The former are much hardier than standard units and serve an area denial role / help make fortresses and the like seem more properly guarded, while the latter will be a nice surprise for when alarms get triggered and will also help make securitized areas actually be, well, securitized. It always bugged me that these big imposing battlements would have just wide open entryways like they do. Well not anymore! Or at least, coming soon!
Next few weeks will be focused around getting in another story mission or two, and fleshing out more units for the player to fight. My hope is to, by mid February, have an entire second faction in rotation in the 'Free Play' mode so that suddenly you're dealing with a whole lot more variety during those runs. Those new units will also lay the groundwork for building out more story missions.
Alright, that's it! Let us know what you think about new changes in the forums, and please tell your friends about Brigador if you like it!
Thanks!
Progress Update for the New Year
The last month was spent getting a lot of infrastructure and behind the scenes sort of things established. For example, we now have the ability to spawn any unit at any point on a map and to then refresh that map in the game while maintaining player location. This is a godsend for iterating both new maps and new units/weapons. We'll soon also be able to switch out the player vehicle and weapons in a level, which is similarly useful for iterating player elements.
We've hired two contractors to work with sfx and as we speak they're hard at work getting new sounds ready to go and plugged in-- if all goes well you'll see the first fruits of their labors by the end of the month.
The other major change is that we've split the game into two different modes: Free Mode (what's currently playable in the game) and Contracts, which is a linear set of missions that will be much more story heavy and will have pre-selected player loadouts. The idea with the latter is to give something that's a more gradual introduction to the core game concepts, and well as to provide a more structured play experience for players who might be less interested in the current form of the game.
We're going to still shoot for updates every week, but with how hard we're pushing on development now we're not going to have it be an explicitly scheduled thing anymore. Once we've got something new worth playing, we'll post the build and let you guys know. If development stabilizes over the next two months we might get back to a regular build schedule, we'll see.
Thanks again for sticking with us, we're in the final push now. Wish us luck.