be gone vile sickness
(couple bugs fixed thanks to new analytics, maybe I can still prepare something nice for the holidays)
Winter Falling: Battle Tactics
back to life
(couple bugs fixed thanks to new analytics, maybe I can still prepare something nice for the holidays)
quick fixes
Weekly Update #4: Sickness
The update is delayed.
Can't think clearly and don't want to introduce new random bugs by accident.
Thanks for understanding,
Arek
hotfix nov29
(If you skipped unit tables on the Victory screen before all units were shown you got 0 experience. )
Impatience is a vice.
Weekly Update #3: Rotating Bugs
14 hours ago I sent a new build.
I panicked when I saw Splattercat's gameplay. His video means a surge of new players and they need a bug-less build as soon as possible. I'm happy to say the game is safe to play now, but if you played yesterday you might've encountered a divide-by-zero bug. Because I'm stupid.
0. STEAM AWARDS
If you like the game, please consider voting for it in the Steam Awards!
I think Innovative Gameplay is the best category for Winter Falling.
https://store.steampowered.com/steamawards/nominations?snr=1_5_9_
1. BUGS
Let me know if you find any bugs or suspicious behaviour!
This is a big and complex game and I'm here alone, I don't have a team of testers. I expect SOME bugs to slip through my tests, so if you can please report them!
2. CHANGES
- Rotate Formation when giving an Advance order.
- Your game is saved when you leave shop.
- You can CLEARLY see when the game is saved. I hope that helps. I hope it's not distracting. Maybe I'll remove it next week! Tell me how you feel about it!
- Missing Troops are now displayed in the Company window. Don't have to manually select each unit.
- Hopefully savegame bugs are fixed now. If you opened the game for the first time and Continue button was available - let me know!
3. WHAT'S COMING
- Free rotation when placing Fortifications,
Alright, that's all.
Thanks for sticking around,
Arek
Roadmap! What's coming?
Here's my attempt to visualize what's coming.
There are 3 stages.
At the moment I'm in the middle of stage 1. Adding quality-of-life functionality that you requested. Some fun little features are well.
The plan is have a feature-complete game in the next couple of months. Then just focus on adding content. When Winter Falling comes out of Early Access the price will increase.
1. IMPROVEMENTS
- - free rotation on fortification placement
- - group move in placement phase
- - points challenge mode
- - balance terrain/fortification effects
<*> - starting modifiers
<*> - zoom control
<*> - speed control
<*> - formation turning (coming on Saturday)
2. FEATURES
- - better UX in map editor (custom battles save/load to files.)
- - company upgrades
- - arcade mode
- - companies have their own effects on gameplay. Not just different stats.
- - improve shop for different outpost types
- - steam workshop modding implementation. Make a guide to modding.
3. CONTENT
- - steam cloud/achievements/cards
- - units
- - skills
- - companies
- - campaigns
- - optimize framerate
- - translate to Polish/German/Chinese
I hope this gives you an idea about what's coming!
Thanks,
Arek
Weekly Update #1
We're getting close to 1000 players! Unbelievable. I should be financially okay in the coming year. Glad I won't have to go back to freelance!
At this moment I've got $200 in my bank acount, hoping no accidents happen.
Extremely grateful for your support and good-will. I read all reviews and comments and they are really nice.
I'll show you the roadmap soon, the plan is already prepared. Many things are in the works. Excited for it all! However, this post isn't about the future, it's about the last week.
And it was all about bugs and UX.
CHANGES
- A LOT of bugfixes.
- Unit veterancy works now.
- Bigger text in event popups.
- Units don't fight before battles anymore. (this was a fun secret but annoying to people)
- Paused state continues if you use a bird and go back.
SUGGESTIONS
I'd love if you could tell me what you expect from the game.
I'm a single guy developing this monstrous systems-heavy game.
I don't know how you play and what features would be fun to add.
There are quite a few different playstyles that I've never considered.
Example - some people completely abandon 50% of their army during battle and then manage only a fraction of their army. That's a tighter tactical experience. You can easily image some other officer commanding the other 50%.
Interesting playstyle and that player probably has some ideas what would add fun to their game!
If you follow the community discord, you might realize that messenger birds were a completely different mechanic just 2 months before release. But players gave good suggestions and here we are!
80% of all suggestions are scrapped because of design limitations and my own crappy drawing skills, but the best ideas survive.
STORY PROBLEMS
Really happy some of you enjoy the story! Not the best out there, but I hope it's a nice cosy story.
Expected more reviews talking about cringe.
I'd love to capture the feeling of Willow and other 90s fantasy. You might've noticed the obvious influence of Douglas Adam and Terry Pratchet. This story was written while I was reading The Eyes of the Dragon. I actually wrote it in the last 48 hours before release, staying up until 5am, no editor to spot mistakes, which is why it's... the way it is. I'm glad you don't judge the game too harsh because of that.
There are people out there who don't want a story in this game. That's totally fine, I'm designing a purely roguelike/arcade mode. Systems only, no story. More similar to prototype 2 - Price of Life. Should provide more replayability.
Thank you for sticking around!
Arek
Hotfix 9Nov
* Fixed bug that allowed players to use placement bonus buttons ONCE even if they had no fresh frood.
Winter Falling: Battle Tactics is OUT!
42 months ago I had an idea to make a silly toy about Game of Thrones.
Development began exactly on May 8th 2019.
1st prototype in 2019. The most popular, defend the Winterfell.
2nd prototype in 2020.
Thank you for sticking with me on this journey!
From a simple Game of Thrones joke to a serious tactics game...
Now the final part of the journey begins. Creating content, balancing, polish and some new features that had to be cut.
What's ahead of us:
- more units
- more skills
- more campaigns
- steam workshop integration
- level editor improvements
I'd like to thank all the members of our discord server who helped with the game!
This game wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the community around it.
I hope you all enjoy the game!
Arek
What's Coming after SteamNext Festival?
This might be the first time you hear from the developer, so hi, I'm Arek, the guy behind this game.
I'm not really into public announcements or building hype, but I thought I should write something about the demo you probably played last week.
What's different in the upcoming Early Access on 8th November?
1.Demo was quite buggy.
Took me 1-2 weeks to get through all of the bugs you guys reported.
Collectively you put in more than a thousand hours of playtesting.
That would take me 3 months of work, so I'm really happy you found those bugs!
Just big shame it was in such a sad state.
2. Polish.
Rule of thumb - my games aren't very good, but they are very polished.
Demo had missing effects and some problems with unintuitive interface.
I hope these things are fixed now. There are some BIG changes!
I'll be working on polish as we go. Updates are already schedules for every week.
3. Campaign.
Winter Falling is an old-school campaign-based game.
Early Access at this moment has only 1 campaign. Takes 1h - 1.5h to beat.
It's not the campaign from the demo.
I'll be adding more campaigns as we go. My goal is about 5 campaigns.
They are quite easy to make. You can make them yourself!
There's a folder inside the game "StreamingAssets". There are no special modding tools.
The entire game was made with basic .png art and a spreadsheet.
I will create a guide how to do that properly.
4. Level Editor.
Some of you used the map editor!
I've made some improvements already. But it still needs a lot of work.
Obviously the game needs more content, I will be adding that as we go.
My goal is to make a map editor that makes nice maps and you can print them to play actual good wargames.
5.Gamedev Stats.
Here's some info for other developers.
SteamNext Festival gave Winter Falling unprecedented visibility.
It doubled the wishlists. Gave me players.
It's the best thing that happened to the game.
Interesting how many players player the First Prototype in 2019 and still remember the game, even though they never wishlisted it.
It's a shame games can only participate once. I wish I spent more time marketing the game, but I always felt the game wasn't ready yet. Suddenly it's ready and there's no time for marketing!
Considering we're at 5000 wishlists, the theory is 20% should buy first week. It should sell 3000 copies in the next 12 months. Every copy is $10. After taxes and Steam cut I should make $5 on every copy. That gives $15k for 12 months, which is quite okay in my poor region on the border with Ukraine. I'm sure I'll continue the development in 2023. Really happy I won't have to look for a new job. Fingers crossed, may the theory be correct!
Thank you for reading,
Arek