- Added an extra skill slot and made some minor adjustments to the player bar layout.
- Remember item type in quick slots, so they auto-refill even if your stack ran out.
- Automatically assign the first picked up consumable to a quick slot during the introduction level.
- Limited the spitting plant reproduction to 2, but also decrease their reproduction cooldown from 6 to 5. So they spawn new plants a bit faster but won't spawn anymore than 2 offsprings.
- Adjusted position of Hunter's Trap sprite on ground.
- Fixed a crash when picking up an item during level transition.
- Fixed a potential issue with mages guild entrance quest when game gets auto-saved after completion.
- Fixed a typo in Mana Shield description.
Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, IndieOf Blades & Tails
Patch 0.10.2
Patch 0.10.1
I'm still digging through hundreds of emails from the in-game feedback form, so bear with me :) I read it all, (almost) everywhere, but it takes some time...
- Resource values (HP/SP/MP) are now shown on the player bar if their value drops below 80%.
- Fog of war exploration (black areas in overview mode) are now persisted during the game session or until defeat.
- Reik is now displayed barefoot if not wearing any shoes/boots.
- Renamed talent Staves -> Polearms, and staff weapons -> Quarterstaff
- Toolkits have now a description for their purpose.
- The Shredding Cleaver also has a better description now.
- Added a kind hint to the feedback form :)
- Fixed some translations.
A gentle reminder: If you want to support the game, please consider writing a short review here on Steam. It helps a lot to increase the game's visibility! Thank you!
Early Access Launch - Changelog & Roadmap
The Early Access version is just around the corner and I'm beyond excitement to read what you all think of it. But first of all, I hope you enjoy your adventure as much as I enjoy developing it!
Below you can find a list of all the (important) changes and improvements compared to the Demo version. (Please note: The Demo will be disabled once the game goes live.)
I've also prepared a roadmap with my plans for future updates! Of course it's only complete if your feedback is incorporated, so please let me know what you want for the future Of Blades & Tails. Either in the Steam discussions or preferably on our Discord Server.
One request in advance: If you enjoy the game, please consider writing a review. This will increase its reach on Steam and allow more players to learn about Of Blades & Tails. Thank you! <3
Changelog v0.10.0
General
- A new Game Mode has been added: Relaxed (easy difficulty)
- Multiple Save Slots have been enabled.
(You can now safely start a 'New Game' and then later select the slot upon 'Continue'.) - Fixed issues with localization.
- Fixed countless minor bugs.
Game World
- The game world has been expanded.
(It's roughly 2.5x the size of the previous demo.) - A new biome has been added: The Swamp.
- New quests and unique locations have been added.
- Fast travel has been enabled.
- Added a new major settlement: Immerfurt, the home of rats and ferrets.
- The Mages Guild has been added.
- 10 new enemy types have been added.
- More destructible containers have been added.
- New types of vegetation have been added.
- New music tracks have been added.
Items & Equipment
- Armor parts are now visible on the player character.
- Armor classes have been added: Light, Medium, Heavy
- You can now upgrade your equipment at the new Shrine of Magnificence.
- 5 legendary items have been added, each with a unique ability.
- Added a Player Stash Container in every major settlement to store your too-good-to-be-sold items.
- New consumable items have been added.
- Items can now grant an experience bonus.
- Item icons have been reworked.
- Every weapon base attack now has a unique set of effects or damage type.
Talents & Abilities
- New talent line: Elemental Magic
- New talent line: Arcane Magic
- New talent line: Dirty Tricks
- Some abilities now require Expertise to unlock them.
(You'll be able to gain expertise through loot/rewards.) - New Perk in Athletics allows to switch between weapon sets instantly.
- Shield talent line and Block skill has been adjusted.
UI, Controls & Accessibility
- Reworked in-game help with various topics.
- Better introduction to game mechanics from the start.
- It's now possible to view details of an enemy, such as behavior and active effects.
- You can now move the camera by holding RMB or MMB.
(Scrolling on screen edges has been removed.) - Indicating non-verbal actions in dialog texts has been changed.
(*Emotes* have been removed.) - Added an UI animation to better indicate journal updates.
- You can now change the game language in the options menu.
- You can now decide to decline a side quest.
- Improved line of sight feedback for range attacks.
- Numpad support for diagonal movement has been added.
Balancing
- A weak form of enemy level scaling has been added.
(You can still out-level enemies and become the strongest fox in town.) - Enemies with a much lower level than the player now have a reduced aggro range.
- Giant Spiders got nerfed.
- Rebalanced enemy stats on higher levels.
Savegame Compatibility
Savegames from Demo version 0.5.x should remain largely* compatible.
However, it's recommended to start a new game in order to give proper feedback.
*Known issues:
- You will have to redistribute your attribute and ability points.
- You will only see visible armor parts on your character sprite with newly gathered items, not with your current equipment from old saves.
- Enemies at previously cleared bonfire locations (like bandit camps) might have respawned. If your last place of retreat is at such a location, then you will have a hard time, since you cannot redistribute your abilitiy points with enemies nearby. You can either try to run away or fight without abilities. Check the items in your inventory. Especially Spider Secretion Bags might save your day!
Roadmap
I will get into some of the ideas in an upcoming post. Also depending on player feedback the priorities might change :)
Thank you!
To everyone who stayed with me on the game over the last months (or even years): Thank you so much for your support and your feedback. I really hope you see in the changelog that it was not only appreciated but also found its way into the game, making it a better experience for everyone now.
Let's keep it coming and together let's make Of Blades & Tails an even better turn-based Action-RPG during Early Access! :)
Cheers
Felix
Early Access starts October!
I'm very excited to finally (and officially) announce that Of Blades & Tails will launch into Steam Early Access on October 19, 2022.
If you followed the last dev logs you know that there's a huge amount of new content coming along with it. The world map of the EA release version will be 2.5x the size of the demo. But of course size alone doesn't matter: There are new quests, new talents, new enemies, a new biome, secret locations, a few mysteries to solve and definitely a bunch of fresh legendary items to loot!
To celebrate, we've put together a new trailer that gives you a glimpse of what to expect ;)
I hope you like this little insight and that you will join us at the start of Early Access!
In fact, you can still play the demo now if you haven't yet and then take over your progress into the main game. (You will have to redistribute attributes and abilities, though).
Expect more information about Early Access within the next weeks!
Until then, you're very welcome to join our growing (> 120!) Discord community and discuss tactics or share one or the other treasure location...
Stay tuned!
Felix
DevLog: Late August Edition
This month's dev log didn't quite make it in August, so here we are with a few days delay! :)
First of all I'm very happy to announce that I've teamed up with Pineapple Works as a publishing partner and together we'll be releasing Of Blades & Tails on Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles in 2023!
They will also support me in marketing, QA, localization and more!
But our next major milestone remains the EA launch some time in October!
Speaking of which, I've been working on new content and mechanics over the past weeks and want to share some of them with you now. Let's take a look!
New Talents: Arcane Magic & Dirty Tricks
In one of the last dev logs I showed you the Elemental Magic talent line, which focuses on delayed elemental damage and damage over time. In addition to that comes Arcane Magic which contains burst damage and a few utility spells, including a mana shield!
Minor perks in this talent will increase your max. mana.
Dirty Tricks also found their way into the game, which (for now) includes 3 abilities that require expertise to unlock them. They can be used with all weapon types and are designed to be a supportive complement to other talents. The minor perks will increase your critical damage.
Oh, before I forget: There's gonna be a new perk in the Athletics talent that allows you to switch weapon sets without losing a turn ;)
New Quests, Secrets and Legendary Rewards!
I spend a lot of time creating new content, like quests, secrets/puzzles, new locations and enemies... Primarily in the swamp region and around Immerfurt.
The image below shows a treant ritual site.
Upgrade your Items
A new mechanic to upgrade your beloved items will also be introduced with the EA version.
To make this work, you'll need an Orb of Magnificence and use them at the new Shrine of Magnificence. Upgrading an item will boost all its stats by 50%, including the level requirement. The first upgrade costs 1 Orb and the second costs 2 Orbs, and so on...
The amount of Orbs in the game will be limited, so you should think carefully about which items you want to upgrade. (Yes, you can and probably want to upgrade your legendary items! :) )
More Destructibles and Gatherable Items
New kinds of herbs and shrooms have been added as well. Most notable is the Recovery Herb, which lasts 200 turns and will automatically recover your health up to 65% when you're not in combat.
Manashrooms can be gathered now and are used to restore your mana.
You can also find new destructible containers around the overworld which have a chance to drop all sorts of gatherable items and other nice things...
More Help Topics
Last but not least, all important game mechanics are now covered in the help section that can be accessed through the game menu (and various tutorial popups).
And that's it for the moment!
But I'll most likely be back in two weeks with an Early Access release date and maybe also a new trailer!
If you want to support the development with your feedback and get access to an EA preview build, you can join our growing Discord community and give me a hint.
Until then, take care everyone!
Felix
DevLog: Of Rats & Ferrets
Another month of development ends and I want to give you an update about the things I've been working on.
Before we get to the actual new game content featuring the titular rats and ferrets, let's take a look at some new and updated systems.
Game Modes
As mentioned last month I spent some thoughts on how to implement difficulty levels. I'm happy that I already managed to implement a first version of this feature upon starting a new game.
As you can see there will be 3 game modes in total: Relaxed, Adventure and Challenge.
Relaxed: You start with more health, deal more damage, and receive significantly more experience points.
Adventure: This is basically the original experience without modifiers.
Challenge: Wont be available any time soon, but I'm open for ideas here! Maybe this introduces some kind of death penalty as well.
Multiple Save Slots
While working on the new game modes I figured it would be also a good time to finally implement support of multiple save slots. So now when you select "New Game" from the main menu it will automatically create a new savegame and you can then select the slot when you "Continue".
Improved Introduction & Help Menu
Another important feature on my feedback list was the overhaul of the in-game introduction.
I wanted to add something that is as unobtrusive as possible but also gives players with not much experience in this genre a good foundation to learn the various mechanics.
So I added a small tutorial window at the side of the screen that asks if you want to learn more about a specific topic. Those tutorials pop up upon specific events in the game. I think it's about 3-4 times, so not too much, but enough that every player should be able to see there's an in-game help menu with various topics that they can look into if they have questions about how the game works.
Of course there's much room for more help content in the future, but as it stands now I think it's a good starting point.
I'm very confident that the new help menu along with the Relaxed game mode ensures that more players will have a great experience no matter where they are coming from.
Immerfurt - Of Rats & Ferrets
Now for some of the new content I'm still working on, but I want to show you what I've come up with so far.
Immerfurt is the next big settlement in the southern part of the map. Rats and ferrets both try to make it a place of prosperity, trade and crafts.
However, both tribes are not always completely united in their worldview, which increasingly leads to conflicts between the business-minded rats and the craft-skilled ferrets.
Immerfurt is also the home of two guilds that the player can join:
The Adventurer's Guild and the Mages' Guild.
Both offer a questline with some unique rewards, but this will be further developed during the Early Access phase and I'll share more info once the time is right :)
Player Stash Container
Last but not least, I also added a special, persisted chest for you, where all "too good to be sold" items can go in!
That's all for this busy month! I hope you like the new additions!
If you want to learn more about upcoming features, you're very welcome to join our growing Discord server. I'm posting there frequently about development or discuss new ideas. I'd love to see you around :)
Until next time, take care!
Felix
Demo Update 0.5.3
- Added support for diagonal movement via numpad.
- Fixed an issue with range calculation on bow weapon attacks.
- Fixed some issues with camera scrolling and its responsiveness.
- Fixed a rare bug where stamina could drop below 0 and you couldn't use weapon attacks anymore.
- Fixed character walking animation on very high framerates (>60).
DevLog: The Road to Early Access
Time for another devlog to get you all updated on the work that is going on behind the scenes.
But before we're getting to all the exciting upcoming features I want to thank everyone who participated in the Steam Next Fest for wishlisting and giving feedback on the Demo version.
I received hundreds(!) of mails with a lot of great suggestions and constructive criticism. I really appreciate all the input and it already helps me a lot to shape the game to an even better experience once we start into Early Access later this year.
Now let's get to the stuff that I've been working on over the last weeks!
New Swamp Biome
I added a new swamp environment that contains a lot of small lakes and all new assets for vegetation and rockwork among other suprises ;) Here is an early preview:
Expanded World Map
The swamps will then be the next larger region in the expanded world map:
Fast Travel
And with an expanded world map comes the ability to fast travel quickly between discovered locations!
Visible Armor Styles
You will be able to change the appearaece of Reik by wearing different armor sets.
There will be light/medium/heavy armor classes and each piece will give you different advantages or disadvantages.
Light armor comes with the least phyical resistance per item level but gives +5% mana.
Whereas heavy armor grants the best resistance and +5% health but also comes with the cost of -10% stamina.
Please know that this is just the first iteration and stats or numbers may change in the future!
New Enemies and Experimental Gadgets
Magic and Expertise
Elemental magic will be the first available talent for all you wizards and sorcerers out there!
Expertise is another addition for more advanced talents like arcane magic, dirty tricks, (probably stealth?), and so on... Some abilities in those talents will require expertise to unlock them. You can gain expertise points through books or scientific papers that you can find throughout the world.
This should give you yet another incentive to explore the world in order to optimize your preferred talent build.
Rumor has it that some NPC guilds encountered later in the game also offer expertise to those willing to join their ranks...
Enemy Details View
Still pretty much WIP but you will be able to review more information about an enemy and especially the status effects and their duration that are active on the target.
It's a start and there's of course room for more information in the future.
Tutorial and Difficulty
These topics are hot! :D
Mainly because I just got as many mails in which people thanked for the easy to understand mechanics and the challenging but fair difficulty level, as from those who missed a better tutorial and found the game very difficult to unfair!
I haven't done any work on those issues yet but I have ideas for a better introduction and also consider adding difficulty levels that you can select upon the start of a new game.
I personally want the difficulty to be challenging but I also want enable most people to enjoy the game even without experience in the tactical turn-based genre. After all it can and should be a relaxing experience if you want to. So for the time being, rest assured that I will try to make those ideas possible in the future.
Last but not least ...
Some honorable mentions because quite a few of you asked for it! :)
- Improved camera panning by holding down RMB or MMB
- Numpad support for diagonal movement
That's it for now! I hope you like all these new featues and changes and you are as excited as I am for Of Blades & Tails' next step in development!
Next Fest Demo Update
I'm happy to announce that the Demo version just got another big update in order to celebrate the upcoming Steam Next Festival!
Some highlights
- New room-based dungeon type, filled with new dangers and rewards
- Traps, along with detection and refusing mechanic
- Overview mode, so you don't get lost in levels anymore
- New NPC and quest
- Water tiles for rivers and small lakes
- Optional retro CRT shader effect in the options menu
- Camera scrolling when moving mouse on edge of the screen
Savegame compatibility
This update resets your ability points so you have to redistribute them at a bonfire.
Full Changelog
Including v0.5.0 - 0.5.2
- Added a new room-based dungeon type, filled with dangers and rewards.
(The new dungeon can be accessed from the Tower Ruins.)
- Added traps to the game, along with detection (based on PER) and refusing.
- Added an overview mode that zooms out the camera far enough so you don't get lost in levels anymore (default key: TAB).
- Added a rat NPC: Narn the Traveling Merchant, and his bodyguard Darl.
(You can find Narn at map coordinate 4, 1. The ? marks the spot.)
- Added a new quest that is given by Narn.
- Added water tiles (rivers and small lakes) to the game.
- Added a new skill 'High Awareness' to the survival talent.
- Zoom in camera during dialogs and interactions.
- Enabled scrolling the camera by moving the mouse on the edge of the screen.
(This replaces the previous camera 'look ahead' feature)
- Added an optional retro CRT shader effect, that can be toggled in the options menu.
- Added new types of enemies.
- Show an indicator (light beam) when high quality loot or a quest item gets dropped on ground.
- Added a new skill to the bandit rogue.
- Fixed an issue with slow moving projectiles that also stun the player.
- Added a bandit ambush event to the overworld.
- Added another unique item.
- Changed default damage / hit sound effect.
- Animate appearance of spawned objects and sprite effects.
- Added a signpost to the fox village: Never gonna miss your local herbalist anymore!
- Fixed an issue with skill selection and execution phase.
- Fixed issues with persistence of some game objects.
- Made various small balance and gameplay adjustments.
- Many more fixes!
DevLog: April Status Update
I don't have much to share this month so I thought I just give you a quick update of what happened in the last weeks rather than skipping the dev log completely :)
So first of all everything is going as planned! Even though I spend a bit more time with the dungeon generation than I thought I would, I'm still on track in terms of the roadmap that I showed you early this year.
Here's an updated version:
(Right-click and show image in new tab if it's too small)
Most of the points are done or in a very good condition, with a foundation I can work with.
I also found time to add a solution for a very popular feature request: a level overview/zoom/minimap (that doesn't break with my vision for the game).
Spoiler: I don't like classic minimaps!
In OB&T you basically can press a key to zoom out the camera, get an overview of the current level, move the camera around, and click anywhere to set your next walking path. Then the camera zooms back in. So no actual gameplay in the overview mode, but you can always use it to view all parts of the level that you discovered and don't get lost anymore (hopefully :D).
Here's a preview (with a smaller angle than in the actual game):
I will spend the next weeks to refactor some older parts of the game code, adding some improvements to make my dev life easier and playtest all the latest additions (and there are quite a few!).
If everything works out I will publish the next demo update in May with a new dungeon, new enemies, new unique items, new NPCs and a new quest...
And then finally focus on expanding the game world for an Early Access release in the second half of this year. At least that's the plan right now! :)
Thank you all for your interest in Of Blades & Tails!
Until next time, take care!
Felix