Heroes of Issachar cover
Heroes of Issachar screenshot
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Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Strategy, Adventure, Indie

Heroes of Issachar

Dev Update, September 9, 2017
Hey all, just letting you know I'm alive and back at it after evacuating for Hurricane Irma for 9 days. Latest update is that the Caravan style mission is almost complete - the wagons are moving nicely and look smooth. After seeing them in action, it made me consider adding some sort of vehicles, maybe for the bad guys, maybe for the player, maybe both. We'll see - that would be a down-the-road thing.

Dev Update; August 16, 2017


Checking in - I've been working on pumping out maps for the various mission types and so far it's going well, although a little slow. I've tried not to get bogged down with the minutiae of level design, but I still find myself going down rabbit holes like trying to get one particular rock perfectly placed...

To give an idea of the mission types, here are a few:

Invasion - Each province starts as Inaccessible, and requires some event (liberation of another province, quest) to make it accessible. All this means, however, is that the player can simply get to its border. In order to actually do anything in it (run missions, quests), she has to invade it through an Invasion mission. This mission is a bit like a run and gun FPS mission - no building or teleporting units - just you and your heroes (and their squads) wiping out the border forces of the bad guys. Once you've completed the invasion mission for a province, a whole bunch of other missions become available. Like:

Caravan - Transport a caravan of supplies from one location to another. I'm sure it will be uneventful...

Siege Weapon Escort - Protect a complement of siege weapons as they approach enemy walls/towers. Big booms to follow.

Prisoner Rescue - Intel reveals citizens/heroes being held by the bad guys. Go and rescue them.

Town Defense - A town within the province is about to be attacked; establish a defense in the town and hold out long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

These are just a few, I've got eight or nine total types I'm working on. Once I've got the first wave of them in place, I'll pop those in a new build and that will be the next major update I push.

Also, I created a Discord channel for anyone who wants to talk about the game. I try my best to keep everyone updated, but sometimes more time passes than I realize. That Discord channel will be a good place to ask questions or just chat about life. I'll pin it in the message boards, but here's the link:

https://discord.gg/WMgyC9a


Dev Update; July 13, 2017


Just a quick update to let everyone know I'm still alive and continuing to hammer away at the game. I've moved back into working on the kingdom management portion of the game, which is a big step. I'm reworking much of that UI to reflect some of the changes in the assault/action part that I made over the last few months. Once I can hook that into the action phase, I'll be very close to moving the Developer's Edition build over to the main branch. Once that's accomplished, I'll be able to focus on getting the city building set.

One other relatively big change I'll making is to the start of the game. What I intend to do is have a 3 or 4 level prologue to the game, which takes place from the moment the player exits the cave/portal right up to the point where the player liberates the town that will eventually be built up into a city. That prologue will be optional, so the player can jump straight to the "main" game if they want.

All right, back to the dungeon...

Dev Update; June 7, 2017 / Beta Access Code
I'm back at it after an amazing month in Barcelona. Even though I stayed mostly away from the comp, I did have time to sit with pen and paper and map out some technical aspects of the missions. I also had some fun getting deeper into the lore of the game. So I've got two notebooks full of HOI goodness to start implementing.

I've also tidied up the developer console I've been using to test the new mission and hero framework, and it is now ready for everyone with the Developer's Edition. In it, you can play with the 3 main hero classes (each with 3-4 skills), along with 3 basic units types.

If you're interested, the Beta Access Code is: devtestinghoi.

Please bear in mind, that build will only work if you have the Developer's Edition, even though anyone can opt in. I'd hate for you to waste the dl bandwith.

My push now is to get the missions linked together, with hero and unit XP, and other stats, carrying over between missions. Once that's set, I'll turn my sights back to the city building and its defense. My continued thanks for everyone's patience, encouragement and feedback!

Michael


Dev Update, May 2017
It’s been a long few months getting the main hero archetypes set, but they are finally about right. There’s still quite a bit of fine tuning and polish necessary on them, but functionally I’m happy with them. On top of this, the new squad feature is working great - there’s a handful of basic units that all move and attack with the hero they are assigned to - and enemies are working better than I expected they would at this point. So, with a nice stable of good and bad NPC’s, I’m finally ready to start putting together a series of maps in which to turn them loose.

But first, I’m taking a break until June. I need it to recharge the batteries, so I’m in Barcelona until next month. If anyone happens to be here, ping me and we’ll grab a cafe con leche. When I get back I’ll lay out the plan moving forward.

Dev Update; April 3, 2017
Massive progress since the last update - the three main hero archetypes are done along with a handful of their special abilities. Heroes also now have the ability to attach basic units to them to form squads. This means now the player can issue orders to heroes (rather than managing tons of units) and their squads will follow the hero and execute those orders.

I haven't pushed this to the main branch, but I do have a testing branch up. Once that's ready for public consumption I'll add the instructions for accessing that branch to the Developer's Edition main menu.

The basic roadmap from here is - create a more detailed level with multiple areas to attack and defend (the current testing level is linear and doesn't create much drama), add in some heavier enemies, add in some more of the 2nd and 3rd tier hero skills, and once that's all in place and relatively bug free, let that loose to everyone.

Michael

Dev Update: March 10, 2017
I just pushed a fix for Brimley (PC version), it should be good to go again. Mac update should be coming shortly.

Although I've been quiet on the boards, I've been hard at work on the design side of the game. The new assault style has yielded great feedback (many thanks to those of you who offered great ideas for moving forward). With the suggestions and my own revelations, the game is getting more and more solidified and streamlined in getting to the heart of the strategy and action. I am very excited about what the next major update will show; from the discussions I've had with the most vocal supporters of HOI, it will tick all of the boxes that you've all been looking for.

I'll probably post non-fix updates in large pieces, but I'll play it by ear and see what makes sense.

Michael

Dev Update; Jan 26., 2017

The Void Treader, Stalking a Minion (Discussed Below)


Things are progressing well - I just pushed an updated build for the Developer's Edition; all changes are in the New Assault menu item. Here's a recap of what's been added and included there:

Basic swordsmen and archers can be teleported in, and they gain levels (visualized by gold bars on their armor).

Merastalks, the ent-like healer unit is available, and it has a basic group heal ability (along with a big staff with which to whack bad guys).

On the bad guys' side, the wolves are still the staple of this level. Headshots are working.

Minions have been added as a bad guy unit. I'll be constructing variations off of this model, as it's pretty cool and the folks who made it did a fantastic job of making it modular and customizable. So, in essence, if human-ish is the race of the good guys, these minions are the race of the bad guys. This doesn't mean there won't be other types, but I'll be getting a bit more mileage out of the minions than other models.

The most exciting addition (for me, at least) is the Void Treader. This is a hero class that utilizes the power of the void that exists between the world of Issachar and our own. The base class is a bit rogue, a bit mage, and as the character levels up, you can choose how to specialize. The first ability is Void Strike, where the Void Treader teleports behind a bad guy and double shivs it, killing it instantly:
















So all of that's in the Dev Edition, New Assault menu option. I'm close to swinging that over to the base edition; I'll do that once I'm sure my AI doesn't have any major issues. For now, if you encounter game breakers, please let me know; animation issues are almost all known (like the eyes and mouth of some units), so assume I'm working on those.

Thank you for your continued support and patience! It's been a long haul so far, but it's taken the many revisions to get the game where it should be, in essence to "reveal itself." I couldn't have gotten to this point without all of your advice and criticism (all of it well taken), so, as always, thank you and keep it coming!

Michael





Dev Update, Jan. 18, 2017
A handful of updates and fixes over the last couple of weeks, I apologize for not posting every time I push one, but I'm adding content pretty quickly and it takes time to stop and write. The one-man show can get tough sometimes...

At any rate, if you've got the dev edition, check out the new assault mission - it is way more optimized, I added archers, swordsman level ups now give shiny gold tabs on their armor, and AI is improved so units spread out attacks (both friendly and enemy).

I made the splash video skippable (although it was loading the main menu in the background, so I'm not sure you'll move any faster), and added graphics options to the main menu. You can now adjust your settings with more specificity.

I've gone back and forth on what to do next but I'm on a roll getting the units added back after the last pivot, so I'm going to keep going with that.

Michael

Dev Update, Jan. 8, 2017
There's been a few updates pushed, and there will be more coming. They are all for the new Assault Mission format currently available in the Developer's Edition. Some of the downloads are higher clarity textures, particularly for some of the bad guys. Once the new assault mission is good to go, I'll tick up the version number and go from there.

A general roadmap is that I'm working to get this one assault mission working perfectly, then I'll switch back to city building mode and hook that back into the game loop. After that it's just a matter of linking the hero/party management/mini-quest phase, which is already part of the current game, and that will make up the game loop. It'll give a tight experience with more flavor per spoonful. I'm very excited about the direction and there's a finish line in sight. As always, many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to give feedback and encouragement, both publicly and privately.

Michael
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