Untamed Tactics
Demo Patch 1
The demo just released (or well, secretly soft-launched at DreamHack Beyond) and based on initial feedback we fixed a recurring hard crash and done a bunch of QoL (quality of life) features.
We've reworked the targeting system, fixed numerous visual bugs in combat, repaired several disfunctional abilities, the fixed several animation issues, empowered the poor villagers, added visual indicators for Power and Movement, etc.
The list is quite long, but it should really increase the fun factor :).
Next time a more extensive list of patchnotes, but we're dropping this ASAP so you can continue playing through the demo :D The reception so far has been great, thanks everyone for the continued feedback <3
- Milan
Dev Diary #9 - Making It Work
Dev Diary #9 - Making It Work
Intro
Hey everyone!
It’s been a while since the last dev diary (yeah, I know you’ve heard that before), and we’re still alive somehow. It’s been a rough and interesting few months, and Untamed Tactics has been slowly progressing in the background. Actually, we’ve been picking up Steam in the last 2 weeks, as many big systems that were being overhauled or were put on hold got finished, leading to us FINALLY implementing a bunch of ACTUAL CONTENT :o.
While that might not sound like much, we’ve been revamping and restructuring and rebuilding so much over the last period that I feared we’d never get to implementing the ‘real’ game, but it seems we’re finally there! We’re planning on finishing the first ‘round’ of content in the next few weeks, and would LOVE to have a demo version ready in the next months to share with everyone (or well, at least with you). Now without further ado, the newest changes!
Campaign
The big goal for this period was and is to start implementing the actual story beats and utilizing all the systems for this we’ve been working on for a long time.
Firstly, the Campaign quests now appear automatically when you start a run and have any remaining Campaign left to do. This automatic integration makes sure players first complete the Campaign and then move on to the more free-form, procedural ‘endgame’. The Campaign structure allows for custom world map paths, integrated cinematics and unique story encounters that players will only experience during the special Campaign. Moreover, the Campaign eases players into the game by steadily introducing new systems and concepts, ramping up the width of options available to players (e.g. adding complexity) rapidly.
The Campaign uses the revamped narration system, with Greycoat commenting on most in-game activities and encounters. We also introduce a second voice actor who plays the role of Marcy, Greycoat’s grandchild.
Most importantly, the Campaign showcases the first Chapter of the story we’ve been meaning to tell with Untamed Tactics. We slowly introduce the major characters, finally being able to showcase their personalities, quirks, trials and friendships. The first Chapter tells the story of how Greycoat and his companions shipwreck on the coast of Stranglevine Ridge, and their journey through the jungle to their future home. We’re VERY excited to introduce these fun characters and their adventures to you in these bite-sized chunks (Chapters). Each functions as a self-contained story, while still tying into a larger adventure. Each Campaign also has a BUNCH of unique assets, rewards and characters to spice things up even more.
Weapons + Hero Kits = Weapon Classes
For a while now, we’ve been struggling to find a way to incorporate classes into the game in a meaningful way. We’ve looked at everything from FFXIII to Final Fantasy Tactic’s job system, however most don’t fit Untamed’s short play sessions. We’ve landed on a simpler system that changes the start of runs, and the small visuals during the run: Weapon Classes. During your run, you can unlock special Weapon Classes for characters. Each Weapon unlocks a new starting kit for a hero, which can be selected at the start of the run and determines starting Abilities, Reaction and Runes. Moreover, the Weapon Class (obviously) changes the weapon that hero is carrying. This gives a visual difference, as well as makes subsequent runs more mechanically interesting, and allows further experimentation in party composition!
AI and pathing
Miltos has been working on the artificial intelligence, or well, switching from artificially stupid to actually somewhat intelligent! Enemies and friendly NPCs now avoid negative tile effects and prefer positive tile effects, as well as have more complex calculations based on their general behaviour, positioning and the abilities that they have available. No more ranged characters rushing into melee, or enemies running head-first into their own spike traps!
Upcoming
We’re trying to step up our social media game, because the game is finally becoming what we want it to be, and we’ve realized that releasing actually doesn’t matter IF NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT THE GAME. Most studios probably realize this earlier, but well.. What can you do? What WE can do, is be more vocal, share more images and videos and gifs, and hopefully get a bunch of people to play the upcoming demo and give feedback on that. We’re REALLY looking forward to sharing more with you, so stick with us for a while and you can finally jump into Untamed Tactics!
Milan
P. S. Subscribe here to directly receive more dev and art insights and to be notified about all things Untamed! and you can always join our Discord here :D
Dev Diary #8 - The Path Forward
Dev Diary #8 - The Path Forward
Hello there interwebs! It’s been a long time since the previous developer updated, however the silence has not meant we’ve been sitting still.
We’ve faced some hard times the last few months, with other necessary projects and responsibilities distracting us from our own major projects (Untamed Tactics and the card game Untamed Feral Factions) in order to keep food on the table. In the meantime, a little Grumpy Owl baby has joined us on this plane of existence (congratulations Joe!), we’ve closed our office in the Netherlands and have gone fully remote, plus I’ve moved to a different country!
Although we still haven't found the full funding we’ve been looking for to make Untamed Tactics into the experience we would like to provide, there are some opportunities for funding as well as possible collaboration in the near future that are super exciting. We’ll share more about these potentially amazing developments when we have ACTUAL contracts signed!
The monumental task that is making a game sometimes can be a bit demoralizing and daunting, however after a little dip in creativity and productivity around New Years, we’re back in full force and looking back now, by the Spirit Gods, what progress we’ve made in the last months!
The changes are too numerous to outline here (we’ve got about 20 pages of changes and fixes from the last few months alone), I’ll outline the major features and changes below.
Most importantly, Untamed Tactics is steadily growing into a VERY entertaining experience that is fluid, fun and tactical. I’m really proud of the work our team has been putting in. There are still a HUGE amount of things to do, change and improve, but I’m glad to report we’re on the right track to making something special :D.
World Map overhaul
The biggest change relates to how players experience and move through the World Map. Whereas we first had encounters seemingly spread across the static map at random, the new system allows players to move along a path and make meaningful choices regarding how they explore each Region.
A path structure is generated for each Region with several different encounters on it. Moreover, each of these encounters now awards a specific reward that can range from regular loot to Echoes (meta-progression currency, more on this later), allowing players to make their choices not only based on the type of encounters they wish to play, but also the rewards they want to gain.
A new encounter type can now also be found, Travellers, which allows players to meet a wide range of NPCs that offer special services such as purchasing rare items or choosing between meaningful upgrades. Travellers always offer something positive, and serve as a welcome respite from the potential dangers of Battles and Events.
Meta-Progression
During and at the end of the run, players can now earn Echoes. Echoes are earned by completing encounters on the World Map, as well as often awarded at the end of the runs. This persistent meta-currency allows players to purchase a range of permanent upgrades for their run. This could be gaining additional Gold when you visit the Camp, or allowing players to find Rare or Epic Gems during their runs.
After ending your run (by quitting, being defeated too often or finishing 3 Regions and the boss) based on your progress you will receive a certain score. Based on this score, you unlock up to 4 Gifts, which either contains Echoes or permanent unlocks for your future runs. Gifts mostly unlock new Scrolls, Gems and Runes to be found in your run, but can also unlock new Events, Travellers and Battle Maps!
Battle visual revamp
The battlefield itself has received pretty significant changes mainly from a readability perspective. While the game always looked pretty, it was also cluttered and hard to read. We’ve increased the size of tiles relative to the characters, as well as zoomed out the camera and moved some UI elements around to make things MUCH easier to read. Mainly, this makes grouped up characters much easier to distinguish and the obstacles of maps better discernable from the other elements.
Camera controls have been simplified to 3 zoom levels, and much smoother camera movement and clearer turn orders make it a lot easier to parse what is happening when more complex interactions (such as pushing and pulling) occur.
Enemies and allies
Joe has been hard at work making a BUNCH of new enemy types and NPCs. The Shattered Coast has a wide array of new enemies. The other Regions are slowly getting more and varied enemies in both their visual design and combat abilities/playstyles.
Enemies can also use a rest sometimes, and when far from the player characters (PCs) they now Sleep, waiting for the PCs to approach before they engage in combat. This way, in larger maps enemies no longer all engage, dragging the duration of the enemy turns on and on.
Moreover, the Camp has seen two new vendors enter the Camp: Merchant Dorian and Runesmith Lorraine!
Narrator system overhaul
On the audio side of things, we’ve revamped the system for when our narrator (Greycoat) speaks. He can (and will!) now comment on most activities, ranging from selecting a Battle on the World Map to performing a Critical Hit in battle. To allow for this, we’ve recorded over a hundred new voice lines! As new regions are unlocked
Currently working on
We’re in the middle of a big overhaul of the game’s core structure, since we finally found a good way to combine narrative and procedural generation in ways that make sense. Players will first play through a campaign that is integrated within the procedural runs. More content, Regions and characters are unlocked as players progress through the linear campaign. Once all Campaign Quests are completed, the world opens up and allows players to freely select from all Regions during and from all characters before each run!
Moreover we’re working on a new Class system that will allow characters to change classes during each run, upgrading their characters into more specialized playstyles..
I always end with something along the lines of “next time we’ll post an update sooner”, but I guess this time I’ll just not promise that xD. In any case the progress is solid and we’re VERY excited about what is to come for Untamed Tactics!
Subscribe here to directly receive more dev and art insights and to be notified about all things Untamed!
~ Milan
Dev Diary #7 - The Great System Overhaul™
Dev Diary #7 - The Great System Overhaul™
With the many things that have happened to and with Untamed Tactics, the last few months I’ve sadly not spent enough time writing these little updates.. But we’re back! This time, we’ll discuss some of the many HUGE changes to the game’s systems, as well as upcoming improvements.
Turn Order change
By far one of the most impactful changes we’ve made is changing the turn order from the free-form ‘player unit turn > enemy unit turn’ to a traditional character Speed-based turn order. We lose the feeling of destroying a single enemy in one turn (and your characters being similarly destroyed in a single turn), as well as the feeling of total control in your turns. This was proven to be very hard to design around, especially since our game has grown more complex with its systems. Before, players often had the feeling they were just choosing an ability for the sake of it, always going for high damage and surrounding opponents. Now ganging up is much harder and often undesirable. Having a clear turn order forces players to be far more careful with their movements, ability choices and power expenditure. Moreover, the game has become far easier to parse, with enemy turns being shorter and it being much clearer who is acting when. The turn order can also be manipulated in various ways, allowing a whole new level of tactical play and abilities that opens a lot of design space for cool effects and abilities.
Weakness, Resistance and Attributes
The previous damage type system was too complicated to understand at a glance, which has Attack and Defense values for all three damage types (Physical, Magical, Mental). We’ve simplified this, while at the same time bringing the various damage types more to the forefront. There are now only single Attack and Defense attributes, however each enemy type can now have a Weakness and a Resistance to specific damage types. These Weaknesses and Resistances are clearly indicated in the battle scene. Dealing damage versus enemy with a Weakness or Resistance deals 50% (half) or 200% (double) damage respectively to that enemy. This way, enemies have more unique ways to be played against without overwhelming the player with unnecessary math whenever seeking to choose an enemy to attack.
Camp visual update
The Camp has received a huge facelift and looks MUCH better. Gone are the placeholder assets and the (yes this is true) screenshot of a group of tiles serving as the background. Finally our heroes have a proper place to rest from their battles!
Rune system overhaul
The Rune system has been completely revamped, and merged together with Passives. Runes can now have far ranging effects that impact your playstyle and build more strongly, such as “60% chance your first Ability this turn is a guaranteed Critical Hit” or “Whenever you walk on Water tiles, gain a stacking Attack buff”.
Passives weren’t on the forefront enough, and the old Runes (e.g. boring stat increases) weren’t interesting or impactful to get. By combining the systems, and slightly modelling their effects after the Relic drops from Slay the Spire, a more dynamic and impactful system emerged where your Rune choices actually matter.
Runes can still be found at vendors, looted and rewarded by events, however now also are gained through leveling up. All characters now start with a single Class Rune.
Enemies can now also have Runes, which allows them to have more special effects and differentiates them further.
Shattered Coast
The environmental assets for the Shattered Coast are finally complete and implemented! A hauntingly beautiful region awaits the players, filled with the ruins of an ancient civilization. Now to get some enemies in there..
Difficulty increase
The difficulty of the game has been severely increased. Enemy health is much higher, as well as their damage. Moreover, enemies now have specific playstyle counters based off of their Runes and Reactions. Enemy scaling has also been improved in a first attempt to not have enemies scale bizarrely much while still slowly ramping up the challenge.
The game was far too easy to overcome for various reasons, most of which have been addressed in the last few updates. The low difficulty prevented players from ever NEEDING to make tactical choices, since most choices were low impact. Each choice is now much more meaningful, as the consequences are much higher, which leads to a far better gameplay experience.
Simplifying the run structure
We’ve simplified the previously mentioned day/night cycle. Giving players the feeling that there are two totally different games/situations to play makes our lives that much harder since having ONE mode stand out is already a complex thing. Now, Greycoat’s Room is still the hub of your runs. Talking to him allows players to start a run, whereas checking the new Trophy Case allows you to (re)play Memories, the special story missions now unlocked by exploring the World Map.
New challengers appear!
Murkfall now has the Darkfeather Magus and Malevolent Butcher as new enemy types.
The Darkfeather Magus deals high damage and increases its own Attack whenever it deals damage. Moreover, getting hit increases its Speed; defeat these threats as fast as possible!
Malevolent Butchers are very hard to take down, and inflict huge chunks of damage that often causes Bleeding. Their slow Move and Speed can be used to your advantage to keep them at bay. Dealing damage to them also decreases their Defense, meaning consecutive attacks can quickly take care of them.
Stranglevine Ridge now has the Toad Dartblower enemy type, a poisonous enemy that emits poison around it at the end of its turn.
Moreover, our art team (hi Joe) has finished several more enemies to finish off these regions in style, however I’ve been too lazy (read: busy) to animate them all. More to come soon!
All characters have been resized to better fit their appropriate size as well as making them more easily recognizable.
Next time
Currently we’re focusing on a big polish and balancing patch, with many aspects of the game being left slightly unbalanced after so many huge changes. Moreover, in preparation of several large additional systems and revamps, such as the new Companion System and the rework of the World Map, we want to clear out as many bugs as we can and polish the new systems first.
I’ll try to not wait as long with publishing a new developer update!
Subscribe here to directly receive more dev and art insights and to be notified about all things Untamed!
~ Milan
Developer Diary #6
Dev Diary #6 - A difference of day and night
After a very well deserved (and received) two week holiday, the team is back in full swing on Untamed Tactics!
Streamlining
We've added some small new features that improve the playability and readability of the game. A new character info panel summarizes all the important information you need in battle with the press of a button, doing away with the overly complex status effect menu.
Character 6 main attack/defense attributes' names have been simplified, for instance changing Developer Diary #5'Willpower' and 'Spirit' to Mental Defense (Mntl Def) and Mental Attack (Mntl Atk) respectively. This will allow players to much more easily connect damage types with attributes!
Greycoat leads the way
We're also focusing more on the integration of systems and narrative. Gone is the boring 'start run' menu. Instead, players now return to Old Greycoat's room for a new Story (run) or to play through Memories (linear adventures), and interact directly with Greycoat, his room and his eager audience, hungry for tales of adventure.
Day and Night
We've also introduced a day/night cycle. After each run, players return to find Old Greycoat sleeping. Day turns to night, the children leave and every few nights Greycoat dreams of his past, allowing players to experience his story by playing through short, non-procedural adventures.
These Memories can be replayed through their associated Memento, accessible in the trophy case.
Passives and Status Effects
On the gameplay side of things, we've taken a long hard look at both Passives and Status Effects.
Passives were a bit too weak and not clearly communicated to players, so we've capped the number of Passives at three, increased their power significantly and are working on improving their visibility to players. Enemies can now also have Passives.
Status Effects were too broad, too varied and hard to identify. We're addressing this by making a list of standardized status effects, as well as the way these effects stack and behave. Moreover, each of these effects will get its own icon in the future to communicate its effects better. For example, instead of having various Damage over Time (DoT) effects with varying strengths and durations, there are now 3 DoTs (one for each damage type), all DoTs last for 3 turns and deal standardized damage per stack applied. New applications refresh the duration.
Next time
After much system and (re)design work the last few weeks, we'll be starting to add additional content to the game in Patch 4. This will (finally) include new enemies, battle maps, events, and loot. The goal of Patch 4 is to have players experience a full run 2-3 hour run content-wise, with some variation across multiple playthroughs.
Our art department will be focusing on fleshing out the 3rd Region of the game: the Shattered Coast!
Thanks for reading, have a great week (or weekend, depending on when this goes live).
Subscribe here to directly receive more dev and art insights and to be notified about all things Untamed!
~ Milan