The months are flying by as we get closer to launch (no, no release date to be announced yet, but it is coming soon™) and the team wrap up the final bits and pieces, level/environment polish, new character textures, updates to the UI, and work on controller support (we’re going to have Xbox controller and Steamdeck support from the get-go).
The Broken Roads demo is still live on Steam and we’re still receiving a lot of valuable feedback via the webform or through the feedback/bug reporting channels on our official Discord server - if you’ve not visited yet, please come and say g’day!
ANOTHER VID FROM THE BROKEN ROADS SOUNDTRACK IS LIVE
We added “Caravan” from the Broken Roads OST to YouTube, and it’s already become the most viewed music track from the game after only 24 hours. This is more great work from our Composer & Audio Lead Tim Sunderland, and the track was also featured on Meena Shamaly’s ABC Classic radio show. You can listen to that episode here, or enjoy “Caravan” in the vid below:
BROKEN ROADS ON THE COVER OF PC GAMER US
Last month we were on the cover of PC Gamer in the UK, and last week the US edition dropped, again with Broken Roads as the cover feature. We’re so proud of this moment because, hey, cover of PC Gamer magazine (!), and that’s such an achievement for a small Australian indie working on our debut title.
Thanks to everyone who has supported us along the way and for all the congratulations and well-wishes for the demo and for landing this cover.
If you’ve not been able to find the mag on the shelves, or if you’re interested in getting a digital copy, you can get it online here.
UPDATED LEVEL UP UI
Our team have also been working on getting the level up screen to match the new character creation screen. What you may not know is we did a complete UI overhaul over the last 9 months or so and are putting the finishing touches on and then adding in controller support for all of these screens, which can be a lot bigger task than it sounds.
Not committing to exactly when, but as soon as the controllers are working throughout the game, we’re keen to get the demo updated for this as well.
BROKEN ROADS DEMO INTRO VIDEO
We’ve also posted the intro video from our playable demo on YouTube (it is still available to download on Steam). Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples should be aware that this video and game may contain the names and voices of people who have passed away.
Thanks for reading, and we will have more to show next month. We’re prepping some intros to our team members, a blog about the Moral Compass/moral quadrants, and a look at some of the game features once the technical and UI work is out the way.
We hope the beginning of summer has been off to a great start for you all!
Our annual Steam Summer Sale is going on right now where you can get up to 90% off, but we also want to mention Steam Next Fest where we debuted demos for several of our upcoming titles!
We had not one, not 2, not even 3, but 4 demos to show off, and we thank each and every one of you who played them and spread the word.
For those unaware, here's a short summary of what each title is about:
Tamarak Trail is a deck-building roguelike where you'll use a customizable dice set as you battle through randomly generated trails full of loot, mysteries, and danger to protect inhabitants from the evil that has corrupted the trail.
In Lil' Guardsman, imagine you're a 12-year-old, suddenly in charge of the guard shed at the castle gate, where you decide if elves, goblins and 100+ other characters should be admitted. It's a wonderful combination of deduction, narrative and puzzle games.
Broken Roads is a narrative-driven RPG that brings exploration, strategic turn-based combat and meaningful philosophical choices to an all-new Australian post-apocalyptic setting.
Finally, in Stray Souls, enter a world of nightmares in this third person, action-horror, inspired by the classics of the genre. Fight terrifying creatures, solve mind-bending puzzles, and unravel a horrid family secret to expose the chilling truth behind your existence.
If any or all of them pique your interest, add them to your wishlist now! And don't forget to check out our catalog of existing titles for those glorious Summer Sale discounts!
Hello everyone - what a month June has been for Broken Roads! The demo is live, we had some incredible YouTube coverage, the demo received many patches and improvements, and of course… We got the cover of PC Gamer!
This is such an honour and the team are of course so proud of this achievement, and we’re sending a huge thanks to everyone at Versus Evil, Plan of Attack and PC Gamer that helped bring this together. You can read more about the print issue on the PC Gamer website, as well as another piece - also written by Jody Macgregor, who did the magazine article - about the playable demo.
STEAM NEXT FEST DEMO UPDATE
The Broken Roads demo on Steam has been so well-received and we appreciate all the kind words, encouragement and constructive feedback we’ve heard from the players. There are some lively discussions happening on our official Discord, there was a great r/Perth thread on Reddit, and of course the many Twitch streamers and YouTubers playing the game and sharing their videos - thank you all! We absolutely love seeing the game enjoyed by you and your communities.
Here’s our official Steam Next Fest demo trailer:
The team have worked really hard to patch the demo since it went live, including the likes of:
Hold [Tab] to highlight interactables and display NPC names
Added subtitles to the opening video
Right click to use healing items in inventory outside of combat
Support for 16:9, 16:10 and 21:9 aspect ratios
Added tutorial pop-ups
In the dialogue window, descriptions are grey and dialogue is now displayed in white
Many animation, VFX and SFX improvements and additions
Added in localisation for our launch languages (this is ongoing and we are patching in more translations as they arrive!)
Fixed a bug that prevented audio level settings from persisting once you changed scenes
Added in the option to display/hide moral choices to the settings menu
Fixed many bugs along the way!
If you’ve not yet given it a try, you can download the demo from the Broken Roads Steam page.
CHARACTER PROFILE: DEAD RINGER
Dead Ringer is the worst compulsive liar you’ll ever meet, but in amongst his strains of madness and impropriety rest stubborn grains of truth. A consummate Machiavellian, he’s willing to bind himself to anyone who understands the true nature of freedom, as he defines it.
If you recognise him, you’re mistaken. He’s just got one of those faces, hence the nickname. He swears it’s also why he gets locked up so often, because he’s being punished for other people’s actions, but omits the many, many crimes he himself has actually committed. People are so quick to judge, these days.
“Our painterly style and gestural brush strokes is always a lot of fun to use when expressing dirt and tattered clothing,” says Sara Laubscher, Lead Environment Artist. “Dead Ringer is certainly a character where we could really push that aspect of our visual language”. You can meet Dead Ringer in the demo once you reach Brookton, and how you deal with him - or not - is up to you.
COMPANION REACTIVITY
One of the things we’ve put a lot of effort into is having realistic reactions from your companions and other significant NPCs, based on their own morality and personality traits. Here’s a snippet from articy:draft of what this can look like, intentionally kept spoiler-free:
Sometimes only a couple of companions need to respond to an event. Sometimes all of them do. Regardless, they'll always remember...
BROKEN ROADS OST - 'IT'S AN EXISTENCE'
"It's An Existence" is part of the Broken Roads soundtrack, written, recorded and produced by Drop Bear Bytes' Audio Lead and Composer, Tim Sunderland.
“I thought about the people of Brookton in-game,” says Tim, “and how they live a life of neither luxury nor ruin but the average person would just shrug their shoulders as if to say "It's an existence", content but with an underlying melancholy and so that's what I tried to convey with the music. This was one of the earlier written pieces that really helped define the overall sound and feel of Broken Roads.”
And that’s it for now - thanks for reading! We’ve still got the demo live on Steam and deciding if or when we’ll take it down. The team are already back to being focused on working on the full game - The Drop Bear Bytes team
We’re excited to announce that Broken Roads is participating in Steam Next Fest this year, and our demo is available now for you to download June 19 – 26th
We’ll also be re-broadcasting a special playthrough of the demo on Tuesday, June 20 at 11am PT / 2pm ET to show you the ropes. There will be some light spoilers, so be warned.
And while you’re here, be sure to wishlist the game!
We’re excited to announce that Broken Roads is participating in Steam Next Fest this year, and our demo is available now for you to download June 19 – 26th
We’ll also be broadcasting a special playthrough of the demo on Monday, June 19 at 3pm PT / 6pm ET to show you the ropes. There will be some light spoilers, so be warned.
And while you’re here, be sure to wishlist the game!
Howdy everyone! VS Trippi here. With the demo upon us, let’s make sure you’re fully prepped & ready to take on a post-apocalyptic Australia. There are some key things you need to be familiar with: The Moral Compass, The important tabs, and just some general tips on the demo.
NOTICE: Before you hop into the demo, a quick note about localization. Although the full version of the game will support multiple languages at launch, this demo is available in English only for now. We hope to have a localized version available soon! Please note that once the localized versions are available - they are not fully QA localized. You may encounter some bugs/issues regarding localization that should be fixed pre-launch.
The Moral compass:
The Moral Compass shows a 360-degree view of possible dialogue options, attitudes you can hold, and decisions that you can make throughout your journey.
It is divided into four parts (Utilitarian, Nihilist, Machiavellian, and Humanist), with the golden arc representing your World View often overlapping different quadrants.
The golden arc in the center represents your world view. Each decision you make can affect your position on the compass, rotating the world view slightly towards the decision you have made.
At the center of the Compass are the brightly illuminated areas of Moral Tendencies, which allow your character to make ‘lower level’ moral decisions or expressions of ideas that would otherwise fall outside of their world view.
Important Tabs:
On the bottom left of your screen are five icons. From left to right they are:
Party Management: Gives you detailed information on your character and party members’ skills and attributes, current experience level, equipped items, and the party inventory.
Moral Compass: Keeps track of your current World View, active Moral Traits, and Philosophical Leaning.
Journal: Records any currently active Main Quests and Side Quests, updates objectives, and keeps track of completed quests along your journey.
Map: Shows an elevated view of your current location, with unexplored areas hidden beneath fog of
Menu: Here’s where your options for gameplay, video, audio, & control settings live. Please note that some options are unavailable in the demo currently.
General tips:
Pressing Space Bar will center your camera on your character. Holding down the Space Bar will keep it fixed on them
Your party inventory acts as a shared stash, but is not accessible within combat, so be sure to equip your characters with weapons and utility items before battle.
If you wish to split a stack of an item, right-click and drag to move only one item of that type.
Combat tips:
Different weapons are more effective depending on the distance from the target. Pistols and shotguns work well up close, rifles from a medium distance, and sniper rifles better from far away.
Your Shooting mastery and Deadeye skills will affect damage and accuracy as you improve them.
There is a turn order bar at the top middle of the screen during combat; This shows you the current order of turns broken down into rounds (Round 1, 2, 3 etc). Use this to plan accordingly, you don’t want to get caught out in the open when multiple enemies have you in their sights!
We hope you are excited for Broken Road's full release later this year. In the meantime, don't forget to wishlist us on Steam:
Howdy everyone, here's the latest rounds of updates!
Updated origin descriptions for Hired Gun, Surveyor, Barter Crew, and Jackaroo (to match Articy versions)
Cosmetic audio changes across multiple scenes
Added the stop previous music event to main menu
Adjusted some FMOD levels
Adjustments to various dialogue option orderings to standardize where quest, trade and other options will appear
Added navmesh to Bob's in Brookton.
Volume levels for different audio channels now globally applied.
Panned camera to Dead Ringer when he is being shot by Mick.
Panned camera to player when interacting with deflated football in Brookton.
Various animations for deflated football interaction in Brookton are in progress
Fixed missing gunshot sounds in Ki Road encounter
Added reworked Brookton buildings and rebaked navmesh
New props and slight polish in Kokeby
PLEASE NOTE: There's an issue in the new patch where some users may experience a crash during combat when using a grenade after loading an old save. You can delete old save games from the Save Game or Load Game screens by clicking the icon circled above in this image.
Thank you for all the feedback & bug reports, its been a major help while we polish things up!
Demo update #2 is officially live!
Howdy everyone! VS Trippi here with the latest update from the Drop Bear Bytes team.
Here's the patch notes for this update:
Item description fixes - the description text in barter/looting would sometimes display in the left window when mousing over, after the item was moved to the user's inventory Item description fixes - when default equipment was removed, mousing over would not show any description text.
Item description fixes - minor edits to some weapons' descriptions to be clearer about their AP use
Item stack fix - some items, such as the solar panels, could not be split into stacks when right-clicked and dragged (the stack of 5 would persist as 5 instead of only one being dragged)
Item icon fix - the rope icon used to extend over the text, so it has been adjusted to solve this
VO fix - the voice over when interacting with the scrub was missing due to a small articy change, so we added that back in
Rotation fix - if the player interacted with the scrub from the top right, they would be facing away from it during the interaction. This has now been solved.
Companion effectiveness in combat - Mishti and Ella's skill points were not properly applied, leading to them having lower accuracy than intended. This has now been solved.
Animation fixes - A number of the interactions with Dead Ringer had incorrect or broken animations. These have been (mostly) fixed today.
Thank you all for the incredible feedback, we're working on implementing bug fixes and QoL changes and every bit of feedback helps.
If you are still having issues with the demo or have suggestions on improvements you'd like to see, feel free to hop in the Demo feedback & Bug reports thread on the Steam forums, or join our official Discord and hop in either the Demo Feedback or Bug reports channels there!
We will continue to update and polish the game and adjust things as needed. In the meantime, stay tuned to Steam (and our Announcements channel in Discord) for the latest updates!
