Flamberge
Demo Update
Tell your friends (or not) - but yes, we are finally rid of that old old old (ancient) piece of software I called the demo. People still liked that thing! It had no tutorial...
-msb @hydezeke
Flamberge Update - January 2017
We are thrilled to announce that we’ve just pushed out a huge new update to our Early Access users, with an estimated 3 hours of playable content leading up to our second boss battle! Included in this update is our brand new party management system, as well as reworked back-end RPG statistics, items (both consumable and equipable), shops, optional cutscenes, and optional recruitable characters.
We appreciate and understand the concerns you have voiced about our transparency and involvement within the Steam community, and will be using this update to refresh our online presence with you all.
Moving forward, I will be personally managing our Steam community, logging reported bugs, and answering any burning questions you may have for Michael and I.
As always, we cannot thank you enough for your continued support. We realize that this past year has been sparse in updates due to our complete overhaul of Flamberge’s back-end systems, but we firmly believe that this has been time well spent, and hope that these improvements will lead to a much more polished and satisfying experience.
All the best,
-Ben
P.S. We love emails; please send us your thoughts at contact@hydezeke.com!
State of Flamberge + New Update
Quick note right off the bat: as you all know, I am super, super bad at replying to Steam discussions. This is because I am one person, and a full-time student at that, haha. Please email me (contact@hydezeke.com) or contact me on Twitter ( http://www.twitter.com/hydezeke ) if you want a response! Feel free to leave feedback on here for other Steam users, but also please come talk to me on a personal level! Please email me especially if Flamberge is freezing or doing something incredibly game-breaking, so that I can see the issue as soon as possible.
I apologize for the lack of content for the past semester. Flamberge has been going through a systematic overhaul, and it has been a nightmare balancing act for me between school and this game. Just remember, Flamberge is my passion project, and I will finish it even if it kills me in the process. It just might take a very long time to finally finish it, haha.
For this new build, I have put Flamberge through a major overhaul in terms of programming and also game design. Here are the 2 drawbacks:
- I have pulled the plains levels temporarily. They simply were not where they should have been gameplay-wise. I hope to be spending a fair amount of time creating a second chapter that feels much more fulfilling gameplay-wise.
- Multiplayer is disabled (very temporarily). The new systems broke it, but I'll be looking into fixing it asap.
If you own the game, and want a DRM-free copy of the previous version (because you miss the plains levels, or want to play multiplayer, feel free to actually email me for a copy. I'd be happy to send you a link. (again, my email is contact@hydezeke.com)
Anyway- on to the fun stuff in this new build.
- Flamberge has a completely new damage system! All numbers have been simplified, so that in-game math has become very easy.
- There's a new, polished UI!
- A new, polished tutorial! Mission 1 is now a tutorial, and the feedback we've received suggests that it explains the game well.
- The forest chapter has been redesigned and revised. We've taken out a couple levels and added 3 new ones.
- Bugfixes are everywhere.
- Enemy AI has been rewritten, and hovering/clicking on enemies should feel way more informative.
- More music available on the title screen! The title track is still in development, so I've put the music player on autoplay on the main screen. Feel free to give a listen to over 30 songs from the soundtrack.
I hope you can all enjoy/accept the new update. After debuting this build at MAGFest, I felt like I couldn't keep the old unpolished Steam version any longer. I feel like the game is finally in a place where it is naturally fun, and I don't have to go back and tweak things anymore.
If you have any questions or comments you want a direct response to, please let me know via email (contact@hydezeke.com) or Twitter ( http://www.twitter.com/hydezeke )
Thanks much!
-hydezeke
(the two of us from a great MAGFest showcase!)
Status Update 9/17/2015
I apologize for the lack of updates through the summer. I went to LA to help with Girls Make Games, a camp to teach girls basic game development skills.
After that, I've moved and gone back to uni, so I've been really busy.
I'm 3 weeks in to the semester, now, so I've gotten into the groove of things.
Flamberge is still in development in case you're worried! I've jumped the fence back into coding, and I've been doing some work on the party system.
The other day, I worked on a pre-battle draft system that will be useful when your party becomes larger than the battle can support.
"So, when can I expect another content update?"
I'm gonna paste basically what I told KS -
I have a big to-do list of items currently.
Unfortunately, the party system is my big focus right now, and while I'm screwing around with that, my version of the build is very unplayable. I'll have a better idea of when I can put out a content update in a couple weeks.
Email me if you have any questions! msb@hydezeke.com is the best way to reach me (things miss me all the time on KS/Twitter/Steam - sometimes I look back at one of my pages and am horrified at all the stuff I missed).
❤ -msb
State of the Early Access
Release Date
On the store page it says April 21, but this will be pushed back until the game is 100% finished. I'm horrible at time estimates, so sorry if I can't be more specific.
Multiplayer, Bugs
The game is relatively buggy, and the multiplayer seems to be only working for a select few. There's a dedicated post about it here.
Content
Right now, the game features 4 missions, and 4 small encounters. The finished game is planned to feature 20 missions, with more small encounters in-between. Right now, 4 more missions are in the works, and they will be added when they're done.
Story
Almost all dialogues in the early-access are placeholder dialogues, and major plot points are being omitted until the final update. We have a major story written, and I feel like it would be wrong to procedurally spoil it over the course of the alpha.
Pricing
I apologize to everyone who paid $10 for alphas during the Kickstarter. The day-one sale on Steam was actually a mistake on my part (I assumed that the sale would be applied when the game left early access). Here are some of our future plans:
-The game will become available to all Humble/KS preorders the week of April 21.
-The game will drop in price to $7 USD when it is released out of early access (unknown date).
Thanks everyone! Let me know if you have any questions. I'll probably be slow today, but I'll edit the post with any necessary info that comes up.
-MSB