Genre: Fighting, Real Time Strategy (RTS), Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Tactical, Indie
City of the Shroud
Chapter 1's Influence Period Wraps Up On September 10!
Greetings, Fellow Citizens of Iskendrun,
This is a quick announcement to let you know that the influence period for Chapter 1 will be wrapping up in just under two weeks, on September 10.
That gives you two more weekends to complete Chapter 1 in order to make your mark on Iskendrun’s Balance of Power and the city’s leaders!
Once the Chapter 1 influence period ends on September 10, the Balance of Power and other under-the-hood influences will be locked in and will no longer change (you can still play the game as much as you want!). This will let us begin parsing your decisions and writing Chapter 2!
As a reminder, this is how the system works:
A chapter is released, with a several-week period where player decisions influence the state of the game world via the Balance of Power and other under-the-hood methods
After the influence period is up, we lock in the Balance of Power and other decision vectors as they stand
We then use this information to write the next chapter
You can play up to the most recently released chapter after the influence period is over, including alternate branches of the story; it just won’t affect the next chapter’s story
We release the new chapter, and the cycle repeats!
If you have any questions, please let us know in the forums (this announcement is cross-posted)! Now get out there and make your presence felt!
State of Iskendrun, Vol. 1
Greetings, Fellow Citizens of Iskendrun,
It has been a little over a week since City of the Shroud launched on Steam, and players are already having a dramatic impact on the state of the game world. As we work our way through each chapter, we will be posting semi-regular updates on developments within the game world to keep you up to date. Welcome to the State of Iskendrun: Volume 1!
A brief explanation for those who are new to the workings of the city: as players work their way through the branching story of Chapter 1, every decision they make impacts the the Balance of Power between the five factions vying for control. This Balance of Power is shared by everyone - every player’s every decision permanently alters the future course of the story as written by us, the developers.
On top of this, you as players will make decisions at critical junctures in the story that impact how the faction leaders view and relate to each other. At the start of the tale, each leader has two allies and two enemies, but based on your choices, allegiances are already beginning to shift...
As of the morning of August 20 when I took this screenshot, the current Balance of Power is:
The Merchant Queen, Azura nin Fateh, is the current leader of the pack, followed by the Syndicate Leader, Zem. Trailing them are the Rebel Commander, Omar; the Head Priest, Navid; and Sohrab, Captain of the City Guard. But their lead isn't set in stone yet - since the end of last week, Navid & Sohrab have risen from only 2% to 12% -- at the expense of Zem and Omar.
What will Azura's allies and enemies think of her jump to prominence, if indeed it remains by the close of this chapter?
The faction leader's alliances will be playing a major role in how the story unfolds in future chapters, so your choices will have massive repercussions for the city of Iskendrun and its citizens - and the choices you’re making are very, very exciting. We can't say more or we'll leak spoilers, but we're excited to see where you're taking the city!
This is one of the most fun aspects about working on a game like this - it’s thrilling to see how you all are impacting the world and the decisions you make take form. It’s truly inspiring, and we can’t wait to see where this all leads.
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P.S.: In general, we intend to provide details on future updates to the game, patch notes, and other information in separate posts. For now, the State of Iskendrun will focus keeping players up-to-date on developments within the game world. Suggestions are still welcome, of course!
City of the Shroud is Out Now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPZ23AcAI5E
We've launched the first chapter of our real-time tactical RPG with a player-driven narrative today on PC and Mac via Steam! Chapter two will release later this year, followed by later chapters every few months. We’ll also be releasing a definitive edition containing all four chapters for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2019 (and as an update on Steam).
Joining chapter one prior to the development of chapter two will let you make decisions that impact who lives, who dies and who rises to power in a truly player-driven narrative, and the collective in-game actions of every player will be the key driver for future episodes written by us, the developers. While you will be able to revisit the first chapter and all story branches at any point, only choices from the first playthrough of a chapter will have permanent consequences on subsequent episodes - choose wisely!
As you start your journey, you take on the role of an unremarkable commoner thrust into the position of a hero after a chance visit to the city of Iskendrun. You, as a peasant-turned-savior, must fight a losing battle on multiple fronts. The city is facing collapse as the nobility neglects the impoverished citizens in favor of war. Matters are complicated by five faction leaders vying for power and an unknown evil plaguing the city through wicked and powerful sorcery.
The gameplay is tactical RPG meets classic fighting game inputs in a fast-paced, real-time combat system (with optional pause!). Master think-on-your-feet strategy by chaining together devastating combos using down, left, up, and right through the game’s Combo Wheel.
We hope you enjoy it!
City of the Shroud Comes to Steam August 9!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS6pFzP_7qg
We’re launching the game on August 9!
Chapter One will be available for Windows and Mac for you to experience, and influence, the story of Iskendrun and its inhabitants.
Chapter One is big! It’s got five narrative branches, multiple boss fights, tons of quests, rebindable controls (you can play with one hand on a controller!), multiple difficulties, adjustable game speed, adjustable text speed, our Balance of Power story-influencing system - and that’s not even everything. There’s a lot going on!
We’ve been working extra hard to get the game to this point, and there’s still plenty of bug fixing and polish to do between now and release, but we’re really happy with how the game has come together.
In fact, last month we added a frequently requested feature we call “Wait Mode.”
What is Wait Mode?
When we took the game to shows, we’d often get asked if there was a way to pause the game so that it’d be possible to survey what was going on or to issue commands (it's essentially "real-time with pause"). After a lot of hard work and planning, we found a way!
You can now press the (rebindable!) Wait Mode button and the action will freeze - except you can still navigate the map and issue commands to your characters.
That means it’s possible to pull off simultaneous combos across characters, like this:
Staggering Shot + Combobreaker!
Now, if you want the game to play slower and give you unlimited time to deliberate your next move, the option is there!
Want the game to be faster but to let you pause to issue commands? Done!
Or, you can disable Wait Mode altogether and play the game in its “classic” setup. The choice is yours!
Visible Status Effects
We also made another quality-of-life improvement: the status effects on a given character are now visible in the UI, along with how much time is left on them and how many stacks there are.
Say one of your Brutes is Corrupted - you’ll see a Corruption icon next to their entry in the side UI along with how many stacks (if applicable!) of that status effect they have. The grey countdown circle shows you how much time is left on the effect, too!
That’s a lot of Corruption all at once!
We're super excited to get City of the Shroud into players hands and start the player-driven story. It's been a long road of nights and weekends for our team of six (with plenty of help along the way), and we're nearly ready to get the story underway!
City of the Shroud's Live Campaign Kicks Off This Summer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp95C4IqAiE
It’s happening! We’re getting ready to launch City of the Shroud this summer!
We’ve been working super hard to get the game ready for launch, and we’re almost there. It’s been a long road, but we’re nearly at the end of it - or the beginning, rather!
We are so excited to get the story underway and see what you all do with it. We have tons of ideas about where the story could go and how it could develop, but ultimately it will be up to you and everyone else who plays to determine how the story plays out.
We’re also really happy with how the gameplay has come together - several members of the team have spent thousands of hours playing the game, and we still have a blast. Hopefully you will too!
The footage in the trailer above is all up-to-date, though YouTube compressed it quite a bit. The game looks great at any setting level, but it looks particularly glorious in 4k. We've updated the game's Steam page with a ton of new screenshots, if you're interested:
We also wanted to take a moment to cover some questions that might come up:
Now that the game is getting ready to launch, we’re going to be kicking our announcements and promotional efforts into high gear. We’ve got some really exciting news coming in the very near future!
We can’t wait to get started!
Building and Lighting the Battlefields
Happy Halloween! We may not be a spooky game, but I wanted to pass out some treats regardless!
First, now that asset building is complete (yay!), we’re currently building out and polishing all of the levels for Chapter 1, then putting together their lighting and post-processing effects - all the nice bloom lighting and fancy camera features that make a game “pop.” This means laying out the tiles, then filling the maps with the buildings and props that’ve been building over the last year or so based on the setting for the battle that takes place there. Once that’s finished, we go in with lights and effects to make everything look especially nice.
You may recall that we upgraded to Unity 5.5 a while back, giving us access to some nice effects as well as 4k resolution support, which the game takes to very well. To get a sense of how much things have changed, check out the evolution of one of our Docks maps (Azura’s turf) from when we did the Rezzed build compared to now:
Then:
Now (Click the images for the 4k version):
The UI is turned off so you can see more of the surroundings.
Bit of a difference, right?
Of course, if we’re going to talk about Azura the Merchant Queen’s area, a dinky wooden pier with a fishing boat won’t suffice. The docks where the merchants operate need to be something a little more serious:
We also have areas that are set to different times of day, including the late afternoon, where twilight creates a soft glow as the lights begin to switch on across the city.
Additionally, we’re wrapping up our sound effect creation, so everything in the game is popping, smacking, and exploding in a big, satisfying way. It’s hard to show how much of a difference it makes, so I hope you’ll give it a try once we’re able to get a new version of the game into your hands. We still have a few bugs to iron out, but the next update will sound more alive than ever!
We have more we could show in terms of levels, artwork, etc., but at this point, I’m hoping to hold back so that there’s plenty to surprise you when the game releases. It’s a difficult balance, but since we’re an RPG, I’d like to err on the side of not revealing too much! That said, there is something major that we’ve wanted to get out to you for quite some time, but that will have to wait for an upcoming update… muahaha...
Finalizing Our Team Menu UI
We’ve been hard at work getting City of the Shroud’s UI hooked up and looking good. There is still some polishing to be done, but we’re really proud of the results!
First, here is our new team menu UI in action:
I’ll go into more detail below, but before that, I’d like to show you our new-and-improved City Map:
What’s new here? First, the structure of the map means that it is far more screen ratio independent than it was before, so those of you with 16:10 screens (i.e., Mac laptops) will see improvements on that front.
The more obvious difference is that big old chart on the right: the Balance of Power. As you play through each chapter of CotS, the balance of power between factions will change, and that chart will show you the state of affairs at any given moment.
You’ll be able to see who you’re allied with as well as how powerful each faction is relative to the others for the current chapter (I put the Hat Merchant in the affiliated leader slot because I think he’s hilarious - not an option in the final game!).
As people play through the live chapter, those bars will fluctuate based on players’ choices until we lock the chapter’s balance of power in order to start writing the next one. Once the balance of power for a chapter is locked, the bars will show the final balance of power for that chapter until the next chapter is released. Once you start the next chapter, they’ll be moving again until we lock that one to write the next one, and so on. If you get your influence in early, who knows - your impact may end up influencing other players :)
We’ve also streamlined the experience by stripping out what we had originally called the “Main Menu” because we decided that the City Map could act as your hub - it’s how you interface with Iskendrun in the campaign, and by moving some functionality around, you can now go from the “Start” menu straight to the campaign screen with no features or accessibility lost.
The other UI element we’ve been working on is the team management menu - the screen where you’ll set up your party, equip your Link Gems, configure your stats, and even equip different skins/mod items.
You saw it in GIF form above, so let’s break it down here, screen-by-screen:
The Overview panel shows your current team setup - the class, visual appearance, equipped Link Gems, name, and movement and attack ranges of each of your units.
Clicking on a character takes you to their Moves panel:
Here, you can review and equip the Link Gems you’ve acquired, read their descriptions, and try out how the Link Gems you’ve chosen string together using the Try! Button. There are shortcuts for the other panels, as well as the option to switch the currently selected character (and even their class) too.
Next up is the Stats screen:
On this screen, you can see your full Stat Gem inventory, as well as the grid where you equip those gems for the selected unit’s current class. Descriptions of each stat are found below the grid, and the box in between the two explains either the selected gem or stat, depending on which you have highlighted.
Stat Gems that are granting your unit a Perfect Fit Bonus glow with a thin, blue line around the edges - notice that the yellow Square is not glowing, as it’s sitting on a non-square-shaped slot (also, the thick, white glow shows which gem you have selected).
If you put a Stat Gem into a slot it isn’t meant for, you gain the ordinary bonus but not the Perfect Fit Bonus. So if you want just have to have an extra HP bonus in exchange for losing a Perfect Fit Bonus, you can make it happen! Customize your unit to fit your playstyle - want a high-HP Mage that can take a few smacks from a Brute? The choice is yours!
Finally, we have the Appearance menu:
This menu lets you equip any skins or mods you’ve acquired. Simply cycle through, and you can view all the available options for a given slot. If you like what you see, you’re done! Just leave the settings as-is and you’re all set. The next time you use that unit in battle, they’ll appear just as they do here.
It’s a pretty big upgrade from the old menus, so let us know what you think!
So what’s next? We’ve got a bit more polishing to do on the menus before they’re totally final, but now that we’ve got this major UI update in, we’re turning our attention to the next big event: implementing Chapter 1.
The main content for Chapter 1 is written, all the environment assets are complete, and all of the components necessary to bring it to life are more or less ready and hooked up. So what goes into implementation? Mainly, that means getting the game text into our quest database and connecting them all together (clear Quest X >> unlock Quest Y). We’ll be putting together our battle maps for Chapter 1 as we go along too.
Stay tuned!
Introducing the Defender, EGX Rezzed 2017, and Updated UI
First, we're excited to announce that we're going to Rezzed 2017 at the Tobacco Docks in London from March 30 - April 1! Chris and I will be showing the latest demo of CotS (with some help from our friends), so be sure to swing by, say hello, and check it out!
The demo will have a bunch of updates:
New playable class - the Defender!
A preview of a boss battle (in a new environment!) from the main campaign!
Updated visual and sound effects!
Enhanced visuals and an updated UI!
Of course, if you’re not able to go to Rezzed, never fear - we’ll be sending the Rezzed demo out to backers and folks who have pre-ordered through BackerKit via Steam so that you can check it out first!
So, what does all this look like? Well, allow me to explain:
Introducing the Defender
This is from one of the new environments in the game. Can you guess the setting?
The Defender is big, intimidating, and tough. Wielding her twin shields, she fights up-close and in the thick of it using a combination of physical power and magic. She can heal her allies (yes, we added healing mechanics!), set up barriers to keep enemies away from her allies, and deal punishing damage with the help of a little Corruption. She is a formidable opponent, and a valuable component for any team!
Here are a couple of her moves (and see some of the visual effects we’re working on):
Wave of Corruption
Input: Up > Left > Down > Left
The Defender sends out a wave of magic 3 tiles wide that travels to the edge of the map, dealing low damage and adding 3 stacks of corruption to any character it touches (look out for allies!).
Purify
Input: Down > Left
Consumes all Corruption stacks on every character within 1 space of the Defender (including the Defender and her allies) to heal the lowest health ally within 3 spaces. The amount of health restored goes up with each Corruption stack the Defender consumes.
Shield Bash
Input: Right > Down
The Defender smashes the target in the face, dealing damage and stunning them. The ability deals bonus damage and stuns the target for each Block, Dodge, and Disrupt effect they have active.
The Defender has plenty more tricks up her sleeve, but hopefully this gives you a taste of how to utilize her talents in combat.
Updated UI
We’ve also updated the combat UI to its final iteration - we’re really happy with how it’s come together. Check it out:
I hope you’re excited to test out the Defender and all the other enhancements we’ve made to the game! Once we roll out the demo, we’d love to get your feedback.
And if you’re coming to Rezzed, be sure to come by our booth and say hi!
Moving the Release, Progress Update, and Sneak-Peak at New Classes
We’ve got a bunch of ground to cover, so I’m going to go ahead and dive right in.
First, after a lot of deliberation, we’ve decided to move the release date of the game to the summer. City of the Shroud is on track to be basically finished by February/March, but there are some potential challenges for the team if we push to release by that date. We want to make sure to deliver a rock solid game, so we’ve decided to play it safe and put it out a little later.
There are a few reasons, but the biggest issue is that my S.O. and I will have to move internationally sometime between February and April - I had hoped to be able to avoid this timing, but we were not so lucky! With the destination and timing likely to remain a mystery until February at the earliest, it’s best for City of the Shroud if we are stably set up and I can focus everything on the game and its living story - moving the release is the best way to ensure that.
Production is on track (for game development, at least!), but pushing for February or March would leave us with less time to polish and fix bugs than we’re comfortable with. Polishing the game is a major goal for us, and it’s key to back that up with enough time to follow through. It will also give the art team a bit more breathing room to perfect their work!
We cherish the autonomy and flexibility that comes with self-publishing, but that means the difficult decisions are ours to make. We hope you you understand why we’ve decided to move the launch back and support us in doing so.
We love hearing from you, so please let us know if you have any questions!
All that said, we are really excited about the new things we’re getting into the game! Here’s are some of what we’ve got in the works right now:
Every character class is implemented: All 6 classes in the game are fully playable with all of their abilities. The next step is creating their visual and sound effects, and once those are finished (they’re being worked on right now), we’ll be rolling them out to our Noble and higher backers.
New environments: We’ve completed the assets for a new section of the city, and are nearly finished with the assets for the next. Here’s a sneak-peak at one of them:
Major graphical and performance improvements: We’ve upgraded our shaders to show more detail and in higher quality. Seeing the old and new next to each other is really something. We’re also updating the version of Unity we’re working in, which has given us a nice bump in performance. The game already ran at ~35 fps on a several-year old MacBook Pro, so we’re hoping this upgrade ensures the game runs well for everyone.
Character asset mod support: We’ve set up Steam Workshop functionality and are testing the ability to upload and download modified character model files. All signs are pointing to this feature being online very soon!
Finally, I want to share a couple of screenshots with you - one of each of the new classes. I’ll leave their fighting style and tactics to your imagination, but I hope they get you excited to check them out in-game!
Thank you for following our game, and we can’t wait to get it into your hands!
Introducing The Duelist, City of the Shroud's Latest Class
We are finally ready to unveil something we’ve been dying to get into your hands for months: the newest addition to CotS’ class roster, the Duelist!
The Duelist is a martial-arts cowboy… assassin… Basically, she’s awesome:
“The Duelist is a hybrid strength/dexterity class, and also a hybrid melee/ranged class. Armed with pistols and martial arts, she has abilities to dash in and out of melee, as well as abilities that function differently if your target is in melee or at range. This makes the Duelist a very flexible class, capable of setting the terms of the fight. However, as the name suggests, the Duelist does best when fighting a single target, so you can defeat enemy Duelists by sticking together and ganging up on them.
When you manage to isolate your target, the Duelist is without question the deadliest class in the game. The core philosophy of the Duelist is that the best defense is a good offense, and if you can get an enemy in a one on one situation you will be able to use your mobility and disruptive offense to make short work of them.
When building a Duelist, you will have to choose between mobility, disruption, or pure offensive power. Whether you want to focus on staying safe and faking out your opponent while you whittle them down or simply diving in and going for the throat, the Duelist is going to be adept at picking off fragile enemies.”
Here are some of the moves you’ll unlock for her in the game:
Dash: From range, move to the closest available space adjacent to the target. In melee, move to the opposite side of the target. In either case, deal damage to all enemies in your path (if the enemies are lined up, you can use this ability to dash through the entire line, dealing damage to all of them). (Cost: 2)
Flashbang: Toss a grenade at the target which explodes after 3 seconds, damagingall characters within 1 tile of the blast and reducing their damage by 50%. (Cost: 3)
Quick Shot: Deal bonus damage if you have moved within the past 5 seconds. (Cost: 1)
Roundhouse: Damage and knock back all adjacent characters. (Cost: 4)
Here’s an example of how those tie together:
Dash (Move in on target, dealing damage while you do) >
Quick Shot (you just moved, let’s use the opportunity!) >
Roundhouse (Damage the opponent and get knock them out of range if they’re melee) >
Flashbang (Deal damage and reduce their damage - let’s see them try to counterattack!)
All together, this advanced combo only costs 5 AP, and you’ve just closed the distance, hit them 4 times, knocked them out of melee range, and reduced their damage by 50%. The Duelist is fast and dangerous (and is my personal favorite of all the classes)! But don’t worry - the other classes have just as much up their sleeves.
We’ll be rolling out the Duelist to Noble backers and higher for initial playtesting soon. I’ll be setting up a Beta channel on Steam where players can access a build with the Duelist and our updated UI. Once the Duelist has been thoroughly tested, we will roll her out for everyone to enjoy.
In the meantime, if you'd like to get a small taste of how she plays, you can check out the demo we took to EGX at itch.io!
