Today we are announcing Galactic Super Station. It’s a Space Station Colony Sim and City Builder game based in a futuristic anarcho-capitalist setting. The gameplay is heavily inspired by classics in the genre like Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress and Space Haven, while the visuals are inspired by retro anime and cartoons.
It’s coming up to a year since we launched Crimson Tactics: The Rise of The White Banner and we would like to take a moment to retrospect the development of our first title. We are also eternally grateful to all the players that tried our game despite its many glaring faults.
We would like to give a brief overview of what really happened. This is the story from our perspective.
Development
Crimson Tactics was our studios’ first title. We are based in India, a country where you can count the number of shipped PC/Console Games on both hands (as of writing this). Needless to say, pretty much everyone on the team was new to developing these kinds of games. To say that we did not know what we were doing would be an understatement. We were pretty much figuring stuff out as we go in regards to both development and production. This led to a massive over-scoping of this project and our inexperience led us to underestimate the time required to ship all the features.
We want to stress that we are not some high profile developer with years of experience under our belt. Pretty much everyone on our team was new to this.
This resulted in us taking too long to launch the game into Early Access. We had to delay the game thrice because it was not ready. Moreover, the systems in the game were developed in a very amateurish and inefficient manner which led to a huge problem that comes into context a bit later.
What Happened at EA Launch
On the launch day of Early Access (25th July, 2023), we were actually getting positive reviews for the game but the sales were extremely weak. We had also exhausted most of our funds trying to push the game into Early Access as we had to delay the game thrice to get it to a polished state. The poor sales and low remaining funds put us in a pretty bad spot after the launch.
Over the month of July, we waited to see if sales would improve but to no vail and after evaluating the situation in August, we realized that we had the funds to run the studio at its current state for just 1 more month.
Early Access Content
Early Access was essentially Feature Complete. What that means is that all the features we hoped to have in the final game were already complete. What remained was adding additional Story and Gameplay Content.
This snapshot was taken on 20th July, 2023, 5 days before our Early Access Release and has the most up to date information up to that point in time.
In our messaging, we stress that we have planned the things and we hope to develop these things.
Internally, these were just rough plans that we hoped to realize during Early Access. Nothing more than Early Access content was even conceptualized up until then.
We were naïve and inexperienced. In our understanding, plans are not hard promises and hoping to develop something is not a hardened promise of delivery.
We never thought that these plans and hopes would be interpreted as hard bound promises that we absolutely must deliver on. This led to a lot of misinformation and baseless accusations being spread on the Steam Forums. We will be much more careful moving forward on how we communicate our plans and promises.
Post Early Access
After Early Access Launch, the game was actually getting positive reviews but the sales were extremely poor. And as mentioned before, we had about 1 month of runway left for the team.
Instead of abandoning the game at Early Access and letting it stay in Early Access forever, we decided to get as much work done as possible and push for a Full Release.
Since Early Access was already Feature Complete, we decided that the best we could do was:
We worked hard to get this done and released the Full Release on 5th September, 2023. We did the best we could with the resources we had left.
Communication Woes
Behind the scenes, things were hectic as we worked hard to get the things done for Full Release. We got accused of lying and communicating our new plans just 1 day before release.
Heck, even we were not sure what we could get done in that short period of time for Full Release. We had already failed on delivering our plans once.
And yes, we handled communications for this title in a very amateurish manner which could have been handled much better. We apologize for this and we will strive to do better next time.
Post Full Release
Needless to say, people were not satisfied with our Full Release as the reviews turned from Mostly Positive to Mixed and justifiably so.
Revenue from the game did not improve and there was no way to keep the same team and we had to disband.
We got in touch with all our industry contacts to see if anyone was hiring and fortunately, a lot of studios were. Thankfully, we managed to get most developers a new job at other studios.
State of Crimson Tactics
The game is complete from our end. We have implemented what we could for this game and have pushed out a Full Release.
We understand that it’s not perfect and the story ends very very abruptly but we are also getting feedback that the game is fun though mounts are useless.
We actually agree with most of the recent feedback we are getting on the game.
A lot of users are asking why can’t we just develop this game further and make this game better?
The reason is quite simple. Due to our inexperience, the game was developed in an extremely inefficient manner. This was highlighted earlier. Making just one change to a system can cause multiple other systems to come toppling down. Our Technical Debt is really high. This funny comic elucidates this further:
Moreover, pretty much all the original developers of Crimson Tactics have left Black March Studios to work elsewhere and it’s pretty much impossible for a new developer to comprehend the mess that is Crimson Tactics’ codebase.
What’s Next?
If you are a customer of Crimson Tactics and feel hoodwinked by our first title where we faltered heavily, we understand and apologize profusely.
If this experience makes you never want to try any of our future games, we completely understand and again apologize profusely for making you experience this.
That said, we plan to keep making more games. Now we know what to do and what not to do. We refuse to let one setback disrupt our dreams and ambitions.
As for the future of Crimson Tactics, we are not quite sure. Given sufficient interest, we might consider making a sequel. We still want to make more tactics games in general even if they are not related to Crimson Tactics.
Thanks again, Black March Studio
Mercenary Battle Company: The Reapers - Our Next Game
Our next game's steam store page is LIVE and the DEMO is available Now. Please Wishlist the game and PLAY the Demo now!!!
- Disabled Camera Panning using Mouse when in Gamepad Mode. - Added action panel navigation from top to bottom and bottom to top using D-pad up and down respectively. - Tiles affected by Vanguard's March will revert to original state if the unit with the passive gets incapacitated.
General Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where Player was able to recruit story units. - Fixed an issue where the game was getting stuck when returning to Bloombear woods after completing Necromancy Arc. - Fixed an issue where class icon for Swordmaster was incorrect in Battle Rewards panel. - Fixed an issue where the game was getting stuck in some cases while recruiting units during battle. - Fixed an issue where Player was not able to progress after Gilfrey Caves cutscene. - Fixed an issue where throw rock was not showing for guest ninja unit after unequipping throw shuriken. - Fixed an issue where throw rock did not update on equipping throw shuriken for generic unit.
Full Release Announcement
Crimson Tactics: The Rise of The White Banner is out now on Full Release. Please check out the launch trailer:
Full Release Content
Over the Early Access Period, the game went through major revisions and polishes, and the story was expanded and made complete. We are launching the full game with the following content:
40 Hour+ Story Campaign.
15+ Playable Classes.
3+ Playable Mounts.
50+ Playable Levels.
Early Access Feedback and Changes
Early Access was essentially released as Feature Complete. That said, it was instrumental in polishing and tweaking the game. The following things were changed and tweaked based on Early Access Feedback:
RNG was severely tweaked and fixed.
Game Speed was significantly increased. The current 3x speed is as fast as the backend system will allow the game to go.
Prologue was made skippable.
Classes were balanced and tweaked.
A lot of small UI fixes.
Controller and Steam Deck support was introduced.
Tweaks to the various AI profiles.
Rogue AI was reworked to Pilfer more stuff.
Ability to name generic units was introduced.
Autosave before battle puts you back on the world map.
Re-balanced and Tweaked the Crafting System.
Experience and SP Systems were re-balanced and tweaked for both units and mounts.
Automatic Difficulty System was balanced and smoothened.
Weather and Lightning Systems were tweaked.
Moreover, we fixed each and every single bug that was reported by the Early Access players both in the Steam Forums and in our Discord Server.
Post Release Support and QoL Polish
With the Full Release, we are marking the game as both Feature and Content Complete. The game is essentially done. That said, if any new bugs are discovered after Full Release, we will fix them ASAP and push out a patch.
Moreover, we will continue to polish the game with small QoL changes and features based on further feedback. While we don't plan to introduce any big features, these will be small things that will make the game's experience a little bit more pleasant.
Crimson Tactics: The Rise of The White Banner Full Release Developer Livestream
Join Crimson Tactics: The Rise of the White Banner Developers as we play though the game for our full release. Viewers are encouraged to ask as many questions as they want during the event.
Join us today (5th September, 2023) at 10:00 am PST Live!
Looking forward to seeing you all there!
Crimson Tactics Devlog #093
Swordmaster specializes in close-quarters combat. They are typically characterized by their high attack power, speed, and pinpoint high accuracy.
Sword Dances
Swordmasters can deal a significant amount of damage to the enemies along with applying a number of debuffs with their Sword Dances, making them a very demanding class.
Serpent Dance
The unit performs a Sword Dance, stunning the target and preventing them from moving. This can be used to trap targets in one place.
Demon Dance
The unit's deadly Sword Dance that can leave its target bleeding out, slowly but surely draining their health.
Frost Dance
The unit's Sword Dance ability freezes the target, preventing them from taking any actions for a few turns.
Crimson Tactics: The Rise of The White Banner Developer Livestream + Sneak Peak
Join Crimson Tactics: The Rise of the White Banner Developers as we play though upcoming content for the game. We will provide an exclusive Sneak Peak into the next story arc of the game.
Viewers are encouraged to ask as many questions as they want during the event.
Join us today (August 28, 2023) at 10:00 am PST Live!
Looking forward to seeing you all there!
Patch Notes v0.7.12b
Game Version: v0.7.12b
General Updates
- Added Controller support. - Polished controller input layouts for various game play aspects.
Controller Support Announcement
Crimson Tactics now has full controller support. Here's the layout for the controller:
We will still continue to polish Controller Gameplay even further but for now the game completely playable using a controller.
Steam Deck Support
While the game works with a Steam Deck, we will be submitting the game for Steam Verification shortly for official support.
