Hi everyone,
Terra Randoma is finally going into full release on May 23, 2024, after 3.5 years in Early Access.
It started as a hobby project back in 2011. The idea was to make a game where Daggerfall meets Sid Meier’s Pirates! meets wilderness hex crawling tabletop adventures of the 80s meets traditional roguelikes. The game would be as much procedural as possible. It should be more like simulation than a linear story telling game. Small stories should emerge as the game plays. At the time it didn’t seem so ambitious :) Nobody told us to start with a small project.
As passion projects go, it was attended on-and-off, sometimes with long intervals, until the end of 2018. Then Deniz K. decided to dedicate full time to it and since then has been partnered by his wife Oz on the communication side.
The game was released in Early Access in December 2020, which initiated a whole new level involving community feedback and input from our players! It wouldn’t be an overstatement if we said the game has since been iteratively developed. We introduced many features that we did not plan before, and we postponed some features that seemed of less priority. We continuously updated the game so we can share every inch of development with our community: 30 updates to this day, 9 of them being “major updates” that brought crucial features that today we cannot think of the game without!
We’d like to take this opportunity to round up what we have achieved during Early Access:
- One of the most important features has been the introduction of new map types and a new game mode. After this update back in March 2022, the players can choose between Wayfarer, Hero, and Ironman modes. Permadeath was already optional in Terra Randoma but we realized that the little tick button went unnoticed sometimes, so we worked on a brand new UI to show all the options the player can have at the start of a game. Map options on the other hand added greatly to the replayability aspect because planning your travel is an integral part of the game.
- We started with six character backgrounds and brought it up to 12. We have made several balance updates to make each character equally interesting.
- Terra Randoma has no class restriction to Skills and Talents. The players have complete freedom to develop the hero the way they choose. Adding unique and meaningful talent stones to the game has been an ongoing part of development. The Early Access version had 12 Talent Stones. Now, we have more than 50, including Push, Fire Breath and Thunder Kick. Also, with an update in 2023, Talent Stones became upgradable, further increasing their power.
- We already had a high variety of enemies on release but kept adding which summed up to more than 40 unique enemy types, majority of them with 3-4 Tiers. We also introduced enemy traits and abilities which made all tiers within an enemy type also different from each other, like Rage, which gives extra damage when the enemy’s health is low, or Vermin that means the enemy can steal your food. We also designed new enemy cards to be able to cite all the traits and abilities so the players can make well-informed decisions.
- Since Terra Randoma is not just a dungeon-crawler, but also a wilderness-crawler, what happens “on the road” is very important in terms of gameplay experience. We added many Overworld Incidents, including Giant Collapsed Golem, Thug Leader’s Hidden Stash, and a Cave Entrance with Ancient Symbols.
- Several dungeons were added as we introduced new quest lines to the factions. Also many new battle maps were added, including Town Square, Beach with a Ship Wreck and an Ancient Battlefield. Dungeons and battle maps have been continuously updated introducing new terrain types, traps, explosive barrels, enemy spawning nests.
- We added two new settlements: Artisan’s Keep and Ancient Library. We also added quests for these and the Adventurer’s Guild. Completing these quests give access to each settlement’s treasure vault with unique treasures, potions and talent stones.
- We added new NPCs at Towns you can interact with, including an Elder Scholar who grants you logical thinking, an Oracle who tells you procedural prophecies and increases your luck and a Historian who inspires you with his two-sentence epic tales.
- We added new Town Events and Crisis including Vermin Infestation, Royal Marriage and Haunting. Towns' prosperity levels now affect the facility levels and availability of items and services.
- We introduced Major Effects that last for several days, including positive effects like “Blessed”, “Well-rested” or negative effects like “Delusional”, “Wanderer’s Flu”. And later on, we added Curses that won’t go away unless the hero cures it.
- We introduced somewhat game changing mechanics that are fun to play with and bring many interesting choices, all praised by the players: Alchemy, Cooking and Fishing. The players can now cook their own potions, and cook meals that are not just nutritious (and assumably delicious) but also granting major effects like mental clarity or euphoria that will boost them in combat or skill checks. They can fish several marine animals and every once in a while a unique ring that has been laying at the bottom of the sea, waiting to be retrieved.
- Speaking of unique rings, we need to mention that 80 unique items were added to the game. As our players know, there is an item generation system in Terra Randoma with suffixes and prefixes that generate hundreds of thousands of items, but unique items have special abilities and higher bonuses, and are good fun to collect! Most of these can be found as a reward for quests, or in sarcophagi the hero can find in some overworld incidents. Some of them even have world altering abilities like Rainbringer Ring which starts rain to enhance the lightning spells.
- We introduced Lore as a resource. There were books in Terra Randoma with procedurally generated (sometime very funny) titles. But the only way to interact with them was to sell them. This changed early 2024, the hero can now read the books and gain lore points which open up a whole new quest line! The idea is, by gaining lore, the hero figures out the whereabouts of ancient treasures and “buys” treasure maps of hidden locations by spending those lore points.
- The latest version introduced equipment durability and upgrades. Now weapons and armors wear off. But the players can fight entropy! There are now blacksmiths in more prosperous towns and Arms Mastery skill enables the hero to do that on his own! The weapons and armors can also now be upgraded, which means that precious unique Warhammer won’t feel unworthy anymore, as you level up.
These are just the main features. Many little things were added here and there. Many balance updates based on community feedback. But we finally call it “Yes, we are ready for full release” with a full heart.
But it’s not the end of the line here. We are planning more features after 1.0 release that will further enhance gameplay.
We’d like to thank everyone who has beta-tested, shared thoughts on the Steam forums, shared screenshots, wrote reviews, told their friends about Terra Randoma, broadcasted or streamed on their channels, followed us on Steam and Twitter, joined our Discord, or merely played the game. Your support means the world to us!
May the tides bring you triumph!