Hey everyone! We have some very exciting news for you all today!
Take your first step to destroy the Tyrant’s Undying army on August 8, 2022 as Tyrant’s Blessing will be launching on PC! 🥳
Thank you all for your support throughout development! We couldn’t have made it this far without you all. We can’t wait for you all to experience what we’ve worked on.
Along with our launch, we do want to let you all know that we are planning to have achievements! We’re working to use these to encourage different play styles—some heroes are good for aggressive strategies, while others might help you unlock more defense-oriented achievements.
While you wait for launch, feel free to join our community on Discord, or follow us on Twitter.
Steam Next Fest Demo!
Hey everyone! Surprise! Our demo for the Steam Next Fest is now live, and will be live through June 27th! We hope you're just as excited as we are to experience what we've been working on.
You can download the demo here on Steam and don't forget to join our Discord, follow us on Twitter. If you'd like to send us feedback, you can also go here to fill out our survey!
Next Fest Livestream!
Hello everyone!
We're excited to be participating in the Steam Next Fest! Catch our livestream on June 16th at 12pm, where we will be showing off some awesome gameplay.
This stream is pre-recorded and will be looped through the duration of Steam Next Fest.
May Update: Saving and Skills
Hello everyone! Welcome to the May development update for Tyrant’s Blessing!
Over the past month we’ve been focusing on improving and optimizing the user interface. After a few in-person playtesting sessions with some new players, we realized that even after playing through the tutorial, some folks are still confused about how the different skills work. To address this, we’ve decided to include a short video popup—inspired by Into the Breach—to demonstrate the skill in action when you hover over the icon.
Save Slots
Our old main menu required players to enter a profile name when starting a new game or creating a new game save. This is the classic format and would be familiar to most players, but it’s not very controller friendly, and it’s an extra step. In the latest version we provide 4 save slots. Simply select a slot and start playing, no profile name needed!
More new skills...
Kieran’s Ultimate is a simple but powerful support skill: she protects her ally by clearing the Shade.
Fireworks
One of Lynette the Demon’s favorite tricks—her limited usage Ultimate damages all enemies on the map.
Tornado
The Tornado pushes any units in a row.
Typhoon
The Typhoon damages the target in the center and pushes adjacent units clockwise.
Knockback
This powerful gunshot pushes both the target and Colt back. This is sometimes useful to escape the enemy’s attack zone. Be careful not to knock yourself into an obstacle!
Thank you all for your support throughout development! Please make sure to wishlist the game while you're here on the Steam page. If you want to join the community, feel free to join our Discord or follow us on Twitter.
March/April Update: Tutorials, Mini Bosses and Interactable Objects
Hello everyone! Welcome to the March/April development update for Tyrant’s Blessing!
Over the past month, we’ve been working on dedicated tutorial levels to help players understand the game’s mechanics. In the tutorial you’ll learn about core functionality such as the Shade and void energy, and we’ll explain the use of basic skills, and dashing to interrupt the enemy’s attack. And the tutorial reveals the backstory of Tyberia!
Void Energy Particles
During alpha playtesting, we noticed that some players were targeting the raven, hoping to stop enemies from resurrecting, and realizing that the raven is unkillable. In order to avoid the frustration of wasted action points, we replaced the raven with floating particles to represent void energy on the battlefield. Each resurrection consumes one unit of void energy.
Artwork improvement
We also decided our previous idle animations were too generic and started making improvements! Here are some new designs in keeping with each character’s backstory and skills.
UI Improvements
In Tyrant’s Blessing, each hero has a certain amount of AP/MP/DP at the beginning of their turn. Moving costs MP, using skills costs AP and dashing costs DP. Indicators on the character’s avatar now make these details much more accessible during combat.
Mini-Bosses
As you progress north to the Tyrant’s stronghold, depending on the path you’ve chosen, you may encounter 2 or 3 mini-bosses guarding the border of the Tyrant’s zone. Each mini-boss has their own skill for a new, unique challenge!
Playable/Interactable Objects
Tyberia’s desert zone used to host several military bases stocked with siege weaponry, but now these caches are abandoned. Utilizing heavy weapons will give you additional options for eliminating the enemy. However, one of your units must be positioned adjacent to the weapon to operate it. Multiple different weapons are available in Brooding Sands.
Thank you all for your support throughout development! Please make sure to wishlist the game while you're here on the Steam page. If you want to join the community, feel free to join our Discord or follow us on Twitter.
February Update Part 2: Dungeons
Hello everyone! In this update we’re going to introduce the new region we’ve been working on: Dungeons!
The idea behind the Dungeons tileset is for players to vanquish their enemies by interacting with the environment. By observing the traps and switches set into the floor, you can defeat the undead just using movement.
Spike Trap
The classic spike trap deals damage to any unit that stands on them. If an enemy is positioned on a trap tile, simply move one of your units to a switch and surprise them! But be sure none of your allies are positioned on a trap before you trigger it.
Dart Trap
Sometimes there are multiple switches of different colors. In the following example, the blue and red switches respectively trigger the blue and red dart traps on the walls.
Spring Trap
This trap doesn't deal damage, but can be utilized to shift an enemy’s position. Since it doesn’t deal damage, you can also safely change an ally's position without leaving the “Shade”. Be creative!
Pedestal Trap
Similar to the dart trap, this fiendish device fires projectiles from decorative stone pedestals.
Dragonfire Trap
This underground trap vomits fire, dealing Pyro damage to adjacent squares. Light ‘em up when you get the chance!
Action Flow
Typically, enemies will take action after the player has finished their turn, but on some levels certain events happen between the player’s and enemies’ turns. In response to a request by our alpha testers, we’ve added the action flow UI to better display what will happen after the player ends their turn. The tiles at the bottom of the screen indicate the turn order: Player, Environment and Enemy.
Release window update:
Finally, we’d like to announce that we’re moving our estimated release to Q3, late summer of this year. We don't have any exact dates just yet, but will make sure to update you all once we do. We’ve received lots of great suggestions and ideas from our community since our 2021 Kickstarter campaign, and we’ve added a lot of content that wasn’t part of the original design, so we need a bit more time to properly finish the game. We appreciate your support and patience!
Thank you all for your support throughout developement! Please make sure to wishlist the game while you're here on the Steam page. If you want to join the community, feel free to join our Discord or follow us on Twitter!
February Update Part 1: Hero Ultimates
Hello everyone, hope you all enjoyed a splendid festive season and Happy New Year!
For the last month, we’ve been focusing on adding unique skills for our characters and giving players more choices when tackling different situations. In this update, we’d like to introduce some of the new and interesting skills we’ve been working on.
Queen’s Order
Lyndal has been one of the most popular units in the alpha. She’s able to deal heavy Pyro damage with her dragon, but the fact she can’t manipulate enemy positions is a drawback in some situations. To address this issue and make her skills more interesting, we developed another skill: Queen’s Order commands an ally to act on behalf of her. With this skill, Lyndal gives up her current turn to replenish an ally’s action points and movement, so the ally can use their skills twice in that turn.
Assassination
As an assassin, Shadow loves to show up out of nowhere and surprise the enemy! Shadow’s Ultimate positions him behind the target enemy, where he stabs them in the back for high damage. The definition of “behind” depends on the enemy’s attack direction, indicated by the yellow arrow.
Ninja’s Escape
That’s what ninjas do, right—throw a smoke bomb and disappear when they need to escape. Allies can also use Slink’s skill to dodge an enemy attack in the smoke.
Cyro Rain
Aster the mage utilizes Cryo energy to deal magical damage and assist allies in battle. When her skill targets an enemy, she deals burst magical damage to the enemy, but if she targets an empty square, the Cryo energy will form an ice block. Similar to rocks and other small obstacles, allies can hop over the ice block to dodge enemy attacks, so this skill can serve as either an attack or support.
Alternatively, her Ultimate can deploy a Cryo-snowman, which will attract the enemy’s attention, and also has its own skill.
Power Up
While facing the undead army might make others nervous, Darius sees it as nothing but another boxing match! His basic attack is like a boxer’s Right Hook: punch and push the target to the left. We think it will be interesting to see how his Ultimate interacts with his basic skill.
When Darius is powered up, he pushes targets in adjacent squares and increases the damage of his next Right Hook!
Electro Hook
This skill is a revision of “Eagle's Talon.” When Sorine, our Electro mage, uses her Electro Hook on an enemy or ally, she pulls that target towards herself.
When she uses the hook on an immovable object, she’ll pull herself towards the object. Useful when you need to get out of trouble!
Flying Blade
Kalar is a mage who can manipulate objects in space. His favorite weapon is his sword, but his special skill puts a different spin on things—he launches the sword to stab a target in the distance. After the attack, the sword flies back to him and faces the target towards himself.
Take note that if you target a ranged class enemy with this skill, they will target Kalar in turn. It’s less risky to use this skill against a melee enemy, but when it’s necessary Kalar doesn’t mind taking damage for an ally!
As you may have noticed, some Ultimates are quite powerful—these skills will have a usage limit. Typically this is once per battle to start, but players can perform upgrades to increase the usage limit. Recommendation: don’t use your Ultimate unless you’re really in trouble!
Thank you all for your support throughout developement! Please make sure to wishlist the game while you're here on the Steam page. If you want to join the community, feel free to join our Discord or follow us on Twitter!
December Update: Hero Passives and New Features
Greetings everyone! We've been working hard since our last update in September. All that hard work is now ready to be shown off!
Level Layout Preview
One of the most frequent player requests is to show a preview of the level layout and objectives, so players can make better decisions regarding heroes, pets, and items.
Hero Passives
To add another layer of tactical depth, every unit—including pets—will have its own unique passive ability. We believe this will really make each character special, and players will enjoy an additional advantage if they’re played correctly.
As a ninja, Slink can pass through any obstacle on the map, including trees, rocks, enemies, and allies.
Allies can hop over Inka the panda to dodge enemy attacks, just as they can hop over stones and other low obstacles.
Rinn the monk is immune to collision damage.
Spark the husky is the only unit in the game who can use skills in water. What do you think we should call his passive, the Dog Paddle? Please share your thoughts in the comments section!
Details of more character passives will be available in a later update.
Trading
The trading feature was available in our previous alpha builds, but we hadn’t yet mentioned it in a Kickstarter update. The merchant will visit the Refuge from time to time, and offer different items for trading. Players will be able to spend gold and reputation points collected by defeating enemies and completing quests.
New Way To Recruit
Players will be able to recruit new units directly from the Party editor. At the moment, recruiting requirements are all similar but that will change over the course of development.
Fail Run
As a roguelike, it will be difficult for an inexperienced player to beat the game in their first run, and some players may find the learning curve steep. But as you play more and fail more, both your team and you as a player will grow stronger. Each time the Uprising is defeated, you’ll lose some resources and have to start again, but every new run will include all your previously recruited characters, so your next attempt will be more forgiving.
Thank you all for your support throughout developement! Please make sure to wishlist the game while you're here on the Steam page. If you want to join the community, feel free to join our Discord or follow us on Twitter!
Tyrant’s Blessing Publisher Announcement
Hi everyone! We have some exciting news to share! Tyrant’s Blessing is now being published by Freedom Games ( https://freedom.gg ). For those of you who may not know, a game publisher not only provides additional investment and funding for developing the game, but also takes care of a lot of the business and marketing side of releasing a game. That includes managing our store pages, marketing and advertising the game, helping showcase the game at both digital and live events, PR, and a lot more. Really it lets us totally focus on working to make the game the best it can be, and provides us with the resources to do so.
We were very careful when considering which publishers offer to accept, and selected Freedom because they are committed to our vision of the game, and only want to see it reach its full potential as we see it. We maintain complete creative and development freedom, and Freedom (heh) wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thank you again for all of the support you've given us since the beginning, it means the whole world to us. If you have any questions about the announcement, feel free to join our Discord and we’d love to hear from you! Also make sure to follow us on Twitter.
September Update: Blow ‘em to pieces!
Hi everyone. This month we’ve been focusing on adding more levels and more interesting events to the island of Tyberia. Previously, the only playable units were heroes and pets acquired during missions, but we recently decided to make certain NPCs with unique skills playable as well. So this month we’ve added a few of these new units on certain maps. But take good care of them! If they die during combat, they’ll rise as undead and turn against you.
Holding the Line
These Tyberian cannoneers are protecting their village with powerful artillery. The cannons are usable as long as they have an adjacent operator. Artillery units are immobile, and enemies will target them as well, so be sure to protect them.
Blow 'em Away!
In addition to the cannon, we also created a mortar unit. The mortar is more flexible, and can attack in any direction, very useful for pulling your units out of the fire.
Minefield
The undead army has planted landmines in this zone. Heroes entering these tiles will trigger an explosion, but pets are immune. Use this to your advantage and you might even blow up your enemies.
Unit deployment
During playtesting, we realized some tiles have an advantage over others. For example, you might always land adjacent to rocks and bushes. To add a little challenge, we manually configure the available deployment positions for each map.
Thank you all for your support throughout developement! Please make sure to wishlist the game while you're here on the Steam page. If you want to join the community, feel free to join our Discord or follow us on Twitter!
