Terra Randoma News

Hi everyone,
Another month passed with Beta testing and development, and we’d like to share with you what has been going on.

We changed the algorithm of dungeon generation. So now some dungeons are composed only with large halls. There are no corridors or tight spaces inside them. This gives advantages to range attacks, both yours and those of the enemies. This development increases variety of dungeons and adds character to each.

We changed the text design of the enemy rollovers. They are more informative and readable now.



We added some new enemies:

• Giant Bees: You may bump into them on the overworld. They do not come up when it rains. They have poison and bleed attacks. They can fly over water tiles and drop precious loot like “Nectar”. There is a new chest-like associated to this new enemy, too: Beehive.
  
  
  
  
• Scorpions: They lurk at the mountains and inside the Minotaur/Stone Golem Dungeon. They may have poison or fire attacks.
  
• Sharkmen: You may fight with them during sea travelling. They also come out of pools. They can travel both on land and sea tiles. They are very strong and have bleed attack.
  

In addition to new enemies, we have a new dungeon type, full of Sharkmen and Aquathrians. They protect the precious Ancient Tablet Fragment. You need to have 100 reputation at a town to take this quest. With this update, our hero can complete all the quests for a town lord and find the fragments to piece together the whereabouts of the Final Boss.



DannyDSC wrote a great review on www.ilvideogioco.com (in Italian)

Also, there is a new video from Mr Delightful where he continues his adventure as the Mighty Highlander on hard mode.

Hi everyone,
We released a major patch for our Beta testers last week, let us put here in detail what has been updated.

We put a short introduction at the start of the game that tells a bit of lore.

On the gameplay side, the players will now have two Talent Stones at the beginning of the game. We had appointed a Talent Stone for each character background but realized it takes time for the players to reach to a second one. Combination of two stones makes early game a lot more interesting. In order to boost this change, we introduced new Talent Stones:

• Fire Arrow
  
• Warcry
  
• Crippling Shot
  
• Bleeding Strike
  
• Stunning Strike
  

We will add more and be working on balancing them in the coming days.



On the overworld, we reduced number of towns so completing all quests from all Lords becomes a more achievable target. However, we added a new specialized building: The Old Lighthouse. The Hero can rest and eat at the lighthouse. It has a shop which sells cheap seafood. We added new seafood to make this market all the more colorful. At the docks, there may be an NPC giving you package delivery or escort missions.

We added a new incident on the overworld where you meet a traveler who needs to go to a town and asks for your help.

Also, if you have taken on an escort quest, there is a chance that bandits or cultists will ambush you and want your passenger. You can surrender the passenger and abandon mission or fight. This also applies to item or atrifact retrieve missions. After you finished the dungeon and took the artifact, there is a chance that bandits or cultists will come after you and demand what you carry.



Here is a super fun video from Mr. Delightful showing some of the latest changes:

Mr. Delightful - New Talents, New Quests, News Lands!

For those interested, he made other videos of Terra Randoma too. In one of his earlier videos, he took an escort quest from a town, then as soon as he left, an Epidemic broke and he wondered if this is why the NPC wanted to leave the town. He then suspected whether the NPC was infected and this would affect him, or the town he is taking the NPC to. This is exactly what we hoped for: all the incidents and random events coming together to ignite imagination of a player and a story emerging from gameplay.

Hi everyone,

Terra Randoma Beta testing continues and we are adding new content based on comments from testers, writers, content creators and fellow indie developers.

Most importantly, we decided to add more quests to towns and more incidents to the overworld, to make new player experience more interesting. We aim to increase variety and replayability on the one hand, and imply existence of a main quest on the other.

Adding Aquathrians was the first step to this and now we have new enemies:

• Cultists: Seeking to awaken the Ancient Evil that lies beneath the island, these enemies kidnap people, search for artifacts and use violent means to raise funds for their mission. Like other human characters in the game, they may equip both melee and ranged weapons and they are not shy of using poison or other tricks.
  
• Coral Spiders: Allies to both Cultists and Aquathrians, these amphibious creatures move slow but have high defense. Their blade-sharp claws enable bleed attacks.
  

We added variations to the townsfolk quests as well. They used to ask you to retrieve a stolen object or release a kidnapped relative from enemies. Now they can also ask you to take revenge from a villain or find an artifact. We also extended escort mission so now if bandits ambush you while you are escorting someone, they will ask you to surrender the NPC to them, and you may decide that he is not worth the fight.

We also added a brand new quest type: Infested (or Haunted) house. Townsfolk now may require you to clean a summer house or cabin in the woods from certain invaders.



We are adding more variety on other fronts too. One of the chest-likes that you meet is a Dead Adventurer. If you search him, you can find all sorts of items. With new additions, you can now meet other unlucky NPCs on the overworld and inside dungeons with more specific loot, like a dead Alchemist with more possibility to find potions.

Speaking of content creators, here is a few more preview gameplay videos you can watch:

Blind Ryan The Gamers Hotspot Jeux1d100 (in French)

We also want to refer to this great first impression article by hardcase on turnbasedlovers where he concluded as follows: “What I really appreciated above anything else is the fact that Terra Randoma tries to represent a ‘new kind’ of roguelike: very accessible for novices but also very enjoyable for hardcore fans of the genre.”

Hi everyone,

We finally started our Beta test process. We are most excited by the wonderful support we are getting from our community. We thank them for helping the game reach its best.

We decided to delay the EA release for a few more weeks to tune everything up nicely. But rest assured, it is coming. If you want to see first preview gameplay videos, check these Youtube channels:

• Turn Based Lovers
  
• Bristly Stranger
  

We are right now working on balancing issues based on the Beta testers’ and fellow game developers’ feedback. They also guided us towards some quality of life improvements including the following:

• Changed Options and Game Menu entirely for a more efficient UI.
  
• Hero’s equipment slots light up when you hold an item you can wear on a respective slot. Also Character button lights up if you have an unused attribute or skill point.
  
• Key binding enabled for Map, Inventory, etc.
  
• “Loot All” button added to all chests and chest-likes.
  

We introduced a new enemy: the Aquathrian faction. They are basically sea monsters with tentacles. They come up on the sea tiles or anywhere else on overworld if it is raining.

We also added a new travelling merchant: The Hunter. He sells meat and arrows, to meet the Hunger and arrow consumption needs of the adventurer. He can be pick-pocketed and haggled like other travelling merchants.

We added more two-handed weapons to the game and will be working on adding more daggers and knives.



Another development was getting a new Title Screen art done. We were lucky to find the amazingly talented artist Joey Pool who managed to fully reflect what our game is about!

Hi everyone,

You know how everyone says last stretch of game development takes a LOT of time. Well, that’s very true. But we are making it count! Here is what we have been up to lately.

Most importantly, we made some improvements to the Save system so the game became more accessible for a more varied audience. This was a crucial matter, because Terra Randoma is not only a classical roguelike game, but also has strategy game elements. The overworld is not simply a place you travel from dungeon to dungeon but it is a dynamic place where cities prosper or decline and your actions have weight on their destiny. So allowing only a Permadeath Save wouldn’t work.

Our save system allows you to save anywhere you like, on the overworld or at the dungeon. At the beginning of the game you choose one of the three options:

Way of the Iron Man: This is permadeath mode where you get the classical roguelike experience. When you die, your save is deleted and you lose everything.

Way of the Adventurer: If you die, you wake up at the overworld but you lose coins, reputation and maybe some random item.

Way of the Explorer: This is more like classical RPGs. If you die, you can start from your last Save without any expense.



Another important development was the introduction of Rain. It’s all nice and green on Terra Randoma, and there had to be a reason for all that green, right? Rain comes with some mechanisms attached to it. It slows down travel speed on the overworld, and makes recovery at camps less effective due to lack of campfire. It also reduces effectiveness of the ranged weapons and disables any fire effects your weapons or talent stones have.

Speaking of talent stones, we added Invisibility Talent Stone which we decided the Thief may need. It is great fun to come out of nowhere and take the enemy for a surprise hit.



We added a short introduction at the beginning of the game with a few quick tips. Also placed indicators at the entrance of battlefields or dungeons that show difficulty level, to give players a clearer picture. We will now add a short introduction at the entrance of each dungeon about what to expect when you get in.

The quest log now updates when you finish a dungeon and reminds you to go back to the original town to collect your rewards.



We introduced a Map Key to explain all the icons that you may see when you travel on the overworld or look at the map. These include the icons of the Events and Crisis that happen in or to towns. You may read our earlier dev-blog on Settlements for more details on this.

With these last checks and a further week of in-house testing, we should be ready for our first closed Beta soon. (hopefully)