Brutal Orchestra is 2 years old! + Vinyl Announcement and Goodies
ːNowakːBrutal Orchestra is officially 2 years old!ːBoschː
It was a quieter year for Brutal Orchestra, but we've been hard at work!
We released two Major Updates for Brutal Orchestra in 2023, "Loud and Clear!" and "Bienvenidos al Infierno" adding some long requested balance changes and translating Brutal Orchestra to Spanish!
We are very interested in translating Brutal Orchestra to other languages too so if you'd like to help out in translating Brutal Orchestra to your native tongue please drop by our Translation Discord Server!
https://discord.gg/M74cCTjgPN
ːNowakːDon't Miss Out Sale!ːBoschː
Brutal Orchestra is 50% off from Dec 17-Dec 19 (only 2 days!) to celebrate its second anniversary. This is the steepest discount we've ever done and we won't be making a habit of it, so if you or a friend hasn't picked up the game this is your best chance for a long time.
(Sale begins 10:00 am PST Dec 17 and ends 10:00 am PST Dec 19)
Once this sale has concluded we will be only discounting Brutal Orchestra by 20% during 2024! There has never been a better time to die! ːDemonCoreː
This has been in the oven for quite some time (and isn't done just yet), but we are very excited to announce that in Q3 2024 we will be launching a Kickstarter for a 2 Vinyl Pressing of Brutal Orchestra's Soundtrack. We are so excited to be partnering with Stumpy Frog Records to bring such an amazing collection into the world!
Including:
2 double-sided fully-mastered vinyls!
1 previously unheard Brutal Orchestra song titled "Van Aken Sleeps"!
An extended version of "Zanguango"!
Gorgeous art by the talented GloomyDude (with previously unseen lore implications)!
A super cuddly plushie (who could it be? ːGospelːːMungːːLovableLungːːFlarbːːHornyJesusː)!
Badass stretch goals tailored to your love!
Stretch Goals Including:
In-game content update for everyone!
A community vote to add one fan-made party member to Brutal Orchestra!
A new canon Brutal Orchestra short story titled "Perfect Circles"!
Talia has been very busy this year working on her new game Clown Meat which is releasing in 2024!
Clown Meat is a Precision Platformer with an emphasis on speedrunning and replayability. Tumble through a butchered world where humanity is barely a memory on your naïve journey to cheer up the monolithic clown that came from the Depths of Jupiter.
In fact, Clown Meat features Nowak (and Bosch) as playable characters!
Talia also released a super small and horrible gamejam titled Eros Wept which I advise against playing.
What has Nico been up to?ːMobyDongː
Nico's focus this year has been primarily taking care of his family's health and spending time with his loved ones.
Despite that, Nico has created a real-time game mode for Brutal Orchestra. It's fully playable but a pretty dramatic departure from the gameplay you expect from Brutal Orchestra!!
This new game mode is actually an homage to a much earlier iteration of Brutal Orchestra where the game was tentatively called "Ball Wizards" and was intended to be fully real-time.
Here is a screenshot from a prehistoric iteration of Brutal Orchestra.
In fact, you can play this version of Brutal Orchestra right now by opting into the beta branch with the password "ballwizardslives". This is a highly experimental build (that was made in a week) so expect some bugs and general weirdness. This build also uses a new save file so you will have to start from scratch!
Will this Realtime mode ever come out in an official capacity? Maybe, we really don't know yet. TheFutureisWild and anything could happen.
ːNowakːA Huge Thank You to Everyone who has taken the dive into Purgatory Above and Below!ːBoschː
A Double Huge Thank You to Everyone has left Brutal Orchestra a Review <3
Clown Meat, Talia's next game is still pretty deep in the oven but Brutal Orchestra hasn't been left in the dust! We've been hard at work on localizing Brutal Orchestra to Spanish (with other languages on the way).
There have been some difficulties with translating to Non-English/Spanish languages so we want the help of YOU! If you are a native speaker of French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Japanese or Turkish and have an in-depth knowledge of Brutal Orchestra we want to talk with you to make sure that our translations are up to snuff before we release them to the world! Come to Brutal Orchestra's Discord and let's get discussing!
Also if you have an existing fan-translation for a language we didn't mention above that you would want made official, get in touch with us on Discord!
The Mother's Visage ability "Dependancy" now inflicts 3 Frail. (Orig: 2, Erroneously: 1)
Heaven will no longer use the ability "Come Home" on the first turn.
Items that prevent wrong pigment now work in the fight with Bronzo.
Spitfire Spoggle's are now considered to be fish. (Massive gameplay ramifications.)
Character Balance:
Reworked Burnout's ability "Decimation".
Arnold's Passive Panic attack is no longer prevented by "Infernal Eye".
Item Balance:
Bloating Coffers now shows current coins in combat.
Added Wallop and Premature Excretion to the item ability "Alchemical Abomination".
You can now remove items by dropping it on the character that has it.
Status and Passive Balance:
The status effect "Scars" trigger on the status effect "Linked" again.
The passive effect "Construct" is limited to 5 now.
Misc Changes
Brutal Orchestra saves more frequently.
Custom characters can now have up to 6 abilities render normally.
Improved cinematic text positioning to support future localization.
Increased the size of various UI elements to support other fonts.
Extended "Sword" (Brutal Orchestra's font) to include special characters.
Improved mass swapping to swap at least 1 enemy at all times.
Right clicking pigment now more easily adds them into the ability cost.
Item's and Passives show their icon on activation now.
Updated credits.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed Music Man transformation + Confusion + Conductor double transformation combo bug.
The Passive Effect "Two-Faced" no longer triggers on death.
The Skinning Homunculus' ability "Inhuman Roar" now properly inflicts "Frail" to self.
Changed "El Dorado" icon to the correct icon.
Fixed a bug with the audio when skipping a cinematic too fast.
Fixed "Clive's" pressure point pigment cost being aesthetically the wrong way around.
Fixed "Overexert" unintended interaction with damage on combat start.
Fixed "Someone Else's Face" improperly interacting with "Divine Protection".
Fixed a bug where items destroyed on death didn't properly update the UI.
Fixed a typo in the tutorial for the field effect "Shield".
Fixed a typo in the Dollmaster's Dialogue.
Fixed a typo on the "Overflow" Keyword in the Glossary.
Fixed a typo on the item "Opulent Egg's" description.
Oh hey, you're still here. Ah well I'll give you a little teaser of a non-videogame Brutal Orchestra project that is on the way as a treat.
What could it be? ːFlarbː
Minor fixes
Balance
Mother's Visage's Dependancy goes back to inflict 1 Frail again.
Scattering Homunculus' Sonic Suffering effect now Slightly heal all units with red health.
Scattering Homunculus now has Skittish 3.
Fixes
Fixed intents on the Skinning Homunculus attacks to showcase the Scattering Homunculus spawn.
Griffin's Wacky Wallop cost changed to Red and Yellow instead of just Red.
Fixed issue with the hurt animation of the Scattering Homunculus.
Mods
Fixed some internal code so Modded Fools work again.
Brutal Orchestra 1.3.3 "Loud and Clear!"
We live! This year is a quieter one for Brutal Orchestra as Nico and Talia have been primarily working on their respective upcoming games (Clown Meat by Talia) (Munch by Nico).
That being said, the "Loud and Clear" patch is here adding a new type of Homunculus in the Garden, lots of new enemy encounters with existing enemies, and lots of character balance tweaks + new little surprises!
After this patch, our next goal is to release Brutal Orchestra in French, Italian, German, and Spanish (and potentially more languages in the future). Once that is complete our focus will shift to Steam Workshop support for Brutal Orchestra's outstanding modding community.
Agon's Ability "Scream" now deals 3/5/6/7 indirect damage at each respective level. (Orig: 1/3/4/5)
LongLiver (and GallGagger)'s "Mutualism" Passive no longer drains health from the host.
LongLiver (And GallGagger) will refresh their ability and movement when exiting a host.
Party members hosting LongLiver (or GallGagger) can now perform the ability "Premature Excretion" to force LongLiver (or GallGagger) to exit immediately.
The Doll's "Construct" passive will no longer trigger if the party member already has an extra ability.
When selecting Mung from the main menu the player is now assigned a random second party member. (Previously the Mung was considered an offensive party member.)
Enemy and Boss Balance:
Updated Scrungie spawnables pool to contain Scattering Homunculus.
Updated Sepulchre spawnables pool to contain Scattering Homunculus.
Updated Bronzo the Bronzo the Bronzo the... spawnables pool to contain Scatter Homunculus.
The Skinning Homunculus abilities "Flay the Skin", "Flay the Flesh" and "Domination" now spawn a Scattering Homunculus if they do not hit a party member.
The Mother's Visage ability "Dependancy" now inflicts 2 Scars and no longer inflicts Frail.
SmoothSkin's Health is now 90. (Orig: 80)
The Revola ability "Vertigo" is now significantly more rare.
The Revola ability "Falling Skies" now deals 6 damage. (Orig: 2)
Bronzo re-applies Bronzo's Blessing to all party members at the beginning of each phase.
Bronzo the Bronzo the Bronzo the... ability "Unity" now reapplies Bronzo's Blessing to all party members.
Added new very rare Giggling Minister ability "Trauma Bond".
Item Balance:
Sulfa Powder now applies 1-12 Shield per turn. (Orig: 1-4 Shield)
Pep Powder now applies 7 Shield upon receiving any kind of damage. (Orig: 4)
Gamblers' Right hand has had its outcomes reworked to favour the player more strongly. 60% chance no damage, 30% normal damage, 10% double damage. (Orig: 40% no damage, 40% normal damage, 20% double damage)
Sacrificial Saint now has a 50% chance to Spawn an Ungod on combat start.
Homeless Hotline now triggers on turn start to prevent several issues.
Crooked Dagger now heals 40% of health on kill. (Orig: 10%)
Caretaker's Cudgel now deals 5 damage. (Orig: 4)
Violated Pact is now locked behind the achievement "The Ungod's Demand".
Serpent's Head is now locked behind the achievement "Garden of Earthly Delights".
Lil Homunculus is now unlocked by default.
The Brand is now considered a knife.
Esoteric Artifact now costs 4 instead of 8.
Sulfa Powder now costs 5 instead of 8.
Plaster Cast now costs 2 instead of 4.
Pep Powder now costs 4 instead of 5.
War Bonds now costs 0 instead of 10.
Dum Dum now costs 5 instead of 2.
Vowbreaker now costs 2 instead of 0. (This was the intended price, this item being free was a mistake.)
Stillborn Egg can now spawn Mung, Doll and GallGagger.
Mod Support:
Improved Fool Board price calculation so modders can create zones with more leveled up Fools Boards.
Improved Rank Up price calculation improved so modders can create characters with more levels than the default 4.
Enemy materials are now automatically set so custom enemies have proper outlines.
Misc Changes:
Added more bodies to Agon's initial encounter. (This is for future lore reasons.)
The Garden now spawns 2 NPC events. (Prev: 1)
Increased scroll speed on too many items/party members menus.
Removed several rare/unique passives from the glossary.
Locked party members you have spoken to are highlighted differently on the main menu.
The game now more thoroughly tries to update your achievements on launch.
Scars no longer increase incoming damage from Divine Protection and Linked.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a bug that prevented Burnout from using "Exit" if he already had "Fleeting".
Fixed bug where when LongLiver or GallGagger used "Parasitism" or "Mutualism" and at the same time trigger/break their item, the item would not show up.
Fixed a graphical issue with the Item "Human Soul"'s sprite.
Fixed a graphical issue with the ability "Connection"'s icon.
Fixed a graphical issue with the Item "Gamified Cephalopod"'s sprite.
Reformated Ouroboro's Corpse sprite to prevent shader-related issues.
Minor fixes to Bosch's dialogue sprites.
Fixed some Far Shore Flavor NPCs being the wrong size when appearing in portals.
Fixed numerous items to properly display "the" during their unlock message and vice versa.
Fixed a typo with the achievement "The End?".
Fixed a typo with the achievement "Worthy Successor".
Fixed a typo with the ability "Mutilate".
Fixed a typo on the item "Immolated Fairy".
Fixed a typo with the ability "Connection".
Fixed a typo with the ability "Whole Again".
Fixed the passive Withering's description to be consistent in-game and in the glossary.
Fixed an issue where the ability "Foul Fluids" didn't specify that damage was indirect.
Fixed a typo with the item "Stigmata".
Fixed a typo involving the keyphrase "Copy" in the glossary.
Fixed a typo involving the keyphrase "Clone" in the glossary.
Fixed a typo involving the item "Cremation".
Fixed a typo involving the item "Strange Fruit".
Fixed a typo involving the item "Blackened Toad".
Fixed a typo involving the item "Ideal Form of Trash".
Fixed a typo involving the item "Gilded Mirror".
Fixed a typo involving the item "Cursed Sword".
Fixed a typo involving the item "Caretakers Cudgel".
Fixed a typo involving the item "A Gift?".
Fixed a typo involving the ability "Absolve".
Fixed a typo with Thype unlock condition on the Main Menu.
Fixed a typo involving the item "Man Made Ovum".
Fixed a typo involving the item "Sculptors Tools".
Fixed a typo involving the ability "Riches from Beyond".
Fixed a typo involving the keyword "Indirect".
Fixed a typo involving the keyword "Direct".
Fixed a typo involving the ability "Persistence of Time".
Fixed a typo involving how achievements are displayed.
Fixed an issue with the text colour during Leviat's unlock.
Fixed a typo involving the item "Gamified Cephalopod".
Fixed a bug where Sacrificial Saint would not trigger on Nowak's death.
Fixed a bug involving the ability "Discipline"'s intents.
Fixed a bug involving the ability "Takedown"'s intents.
Fixed a bug that caused Overexert 10 to actually trigger on 7 damage.
Fixed a bug that prevented the Fla Ming Goa from being considered a fish-type enemy.
Fixed an issue preventing Revola from using their Hardmode encounters.
Fixed a bug involving the intents of the ability "Bend the Knee".
Fixed a typo where the status effect "Linked" did not specify that it decreased over time.
Fixed a bug that caused the passive Untethered Essence to not reset the lucky pigment to blue.
Fixed a typo with Bone Spurs not specifying that it inflicts indirect damage.
Happy Pride Month!
Brutal Orchestra is 1 year old! + Goodies
Brutal Orchestra is officially 1 year old!
Its been a crazy year and we are incredibly thankful for everyone who has taken the time to try out our dumb lil game!
To celebrate we added two new items, The Egg of Incubus and The Exquisite Corpse for those crazy people who have 100%-ed the game. (More in-depth patch notes soonish.)
Both these items are themed after Brutal Orchestra's two major content updates we released in 2022.
We have lots of exciting plans for Brutal Orchestra in the new year so stay tuned!
-Nico / Talia
Brutal Orchestra 1.3.1 Minor Fixes
SPOILERS AHEAD
Items
Fixed a couple of items that were not showcasing their unlock condition properly.
Someone Else's Face now costs 6 coins.
Tape Worm Pills will now behave and work as intended.
Characters
Increased Gall Gagger's health to 15.
Fixed missing ability on Gall Gagger.
Passives
Mutualism, instead of damaging the party member, now it will heal them.
Achievements
Fixed bug on the unlock condition of "Swallowed by the Sea".
Made "War Criminal" conditions easier to meet.
Misc
Fixed bug where after ranking up a character abilities were not updating their descriptions.
Fixed bug were the first ending was not displaying party members properly.
Added Glossary on the Main Menu
Added 1280 x 800 to resolution options. (should look better on Steam Deck)
Brutal Orchestra Exquisite Corpse
And now the changelog (Spoilers).
Art by the incredibly talented Gloomy Dude: @ElmanoloC
It's time to put your money where your mouth is and pay Bronzo another visit.
Are you a fan of fish? Well get ready to help yourself to more Mung than you know what to do with.
A Master of Dolls from another world materializes in the Orpheum, waiting for you.
Items, riches, and treasures galore have been scattered through the world waiting to be discovered. Familiar friends and foes have been reworked, breathing new life into old bones. There has never been a better time to die.
A complete rework of LongLiver enabling him to parasitically invade the bodies of enemies to inflict massive damage and symbiotically protect party members from the inside.
4+ Other major party member buffs.
10 gorgeous pieces of boss splash art to really make it clear when you have stepped into the ring.
10 unique earth shattering boss roars to sell the terror of fighting these foes.
Steam trading cards, backgrounds, badges and more!
An overhauled party member unlock tracker to make it clearer what you have to do to unlock each.
Some super spooky ( and possibly scary) secrets.
And tons of reworks and rebalances!
Foreign hands reach for the canvas... An Exquisite Corpse takes form.
Updates to Brutal Orchestra's Pricing:
Hello!
This section will be considerably less formal/ominous as I want to be very transparent around why we are increasing Brutal Orchestra's price to 19.99 USD (prices will be adjusted to an equivalent in all other territories). This price change will not effect players who have already purchased Brutal Orchestra.
Brutal Orchestra is the largest project Nico and I have ever worked on and we honestly couldn't be more proud of it. The sheer amount of learning and improvement we went through while developing it cannot be put into words, it's truly a project that transformed us as people. However being new developers who had never charged for our work before we severely undervalued our work/time. When it came time to price Brutal Orchestra, we were terrified. We were absolutely frozen solid by the fear of being accused of being greedy, not caring about players or being full of ourselves. When Hellbent Games, our publisher suggested that we price the game at 19.99 USD we (extremely naively) argued that the game should instead be priced at 9.99 USD. This lead to us compromising to a price of 14.99 USD, which honestly was still too low.
Brutal Orchestra is a project Nico and I love working on and we still have so much more we want to add but a price point of 14.99 has proven to be too low, both in how much it brings in the door and how much it limits the price range of the potential DLC we have been slowly cooking in the background.
After seeing people fall in love with Brutal Orchestra and adding numerous small and large content updates, expanding the game beyond what we originally envisioned, we have finally built up the confidence to charge what Brutal Orchestra has honestly deserved since the beginning.
This change will not be immediate as pricing changes take time to be processed by Steam, so you may still have a few days to grab the game before its price update if you really want to squeak in at the 14.99 USD price.
We are extremely excited for what the future of Brutal Orchestra holds.
-Maceo + Nico
Brutal Orchestra Item Design Contest and Update Teaser!
Do you hear that? Somewhere not so far away old forgotten dolls are gently rotting and worm-like beings are shifting with new found vitality.
Soon something new is coming to Brutal Orchestra, and we want you to be a part of it.
We are hosting an item design competition for Brutal Orchestra where the 3 best submitted item concepts will be implemented for all Brutal Orchestra users to enjoy as part of our upcoming content update! You can submit as many ideas as you like but in the end only 3 will be chosen.
The contest submission is open until Sept 9th 1pm PST.
The link to submit to the competition can be found in our official Discord server which can be accessed from Brutal Orchestra's main menu or through the link below.
https://discord.gg/TFv8Ypcre6
Brutal Orchestra 1.2.1 "Poached Eggs"
Alright, I am currently very ill so this update will be a little brief.
We were absolutely blown away by the reception of Brutal Orchestra's Egg of Incubus update, thank you so much to everyone who came back to check it out or has just recently picked up the game!
In other news Brutal Orchestra's OST is now on Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/artist/3dwljvvk1tH7EdPZTNLY7g?si=LCDIuPiDQLqW5I_RUdz3Kw&nd=1
And now, the changelog:
Features
Added a "Backup Save" to prevent the save file from being corrupted when the game gets suddenly closed. (Such as a power outage)
The in-game timer now pauses while the game is paused.
Added Resolution options to the settings menu on the main menu.
Party Member Balance
Kleiver's "Silence" ability now inflicts 1 Scar to the enemy at all levels.
Kleiver's "Cacophony" ability now no longer deals self damage if the attack does not hit an enemy.
Kleiver's "Cacophony" ability now deals 3 indirect self damage instead of 4.
Thype's "Stitches" ability now ignores party member's that cannot be healed.
Enemy Balance
The Conductor ability "Crescendo" now inflicts 1 Scar to the Conductor.
The One Man Band ability "Fine Tuning" now adds 1 Scar to the One Man Band.
The Choir Boy ability "Struggle" has been replaced by "Blissful Agony".
The Choir boy ability "Ring a Bell" is now rarer.
Increased the treasure dropped by the Ungod to 2. (This was originally 1)
Increased the treasure dropped by the Xiphactinus and Gillicus to 2. (This was originally 1)
Rebalanced the Conductor enemy pools. (The double Conductor encounters have less enemies accompanying them)
Removed the double Kekastle encounter from the Far Shore. (Sorry about that one.)
Item Balance
Reworked treasure item "Tondal's Vision"'s associated ability "Abject Rejection" to now deal direct damage.
Reworked shop item "Can O' Worms" to break on first damage instead of being % based.
Reworked treasure item "Gamified Cephalopod" to no longer inflict oil to party members.
Achievement Balance
"The Second Coming" tragedy achievement no longer requires the party member to die to Heaven's ability "Come Home" and instead requires them to die from damage directly dealt by heaven twice during the encounter.
Bugfixes
Fixed an issue with the Charcarrion's ability "Marrow Lust" accidentally inflicting Scars to the party.
The status effect "Divine Protection" will not longer redirect damage to party members with 0 health.
Fixed a visual bug that made it appear the player was not gaining currency at the end of combat if the player also gained an item at the end of combat.
Fixed a bug that caused the slap replacement ability "Abject Rejection" to deal 1 damage.
Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented Burnout's exit ability from setting all enemy positions on fire.
Fixed an issue where restarting the tutorial could softlock the game.
Fixed an issue with copied party members killing the wrong party member on death.
Typo
Fixed a typo in the ability "Gunk".
Fixed a typo in the item "Can o' Worms".
Fixed a typo in the item "Howling Log".
Fixed a typo in the item "Fist Full of Ash".
Fixed a typo in the description of the Status Effect "Scars".
Fixed a typo in Burnout's ability "Body Buster".
Fixed numerous typos with the item "Meatre Worm".
Fixed a typo with the passive effect "Bone Spurs".
Fixed a typo with Fennec's "Impenetrable" abilities.
Fixed a typo with the passive effect "Abomination".
Fixed a typo in the enemy "Mother's Visage"'s name.
