Prometheus Wept News

Hi again-

I hope you're doing well! A new demo for Prometheus Wept has just gone live for the Steam Turn Based RPG Event, and as a stepping stone to Early Access, which will hopefully happen before year's end. If you get a chance to check it out, it would be great to hear your feedback, so I can tune the game in anticipation of the early access release.

[h3]Small Encounters & Scene Dressing[/h3]
To date, I've added around 6 small encounters to the game. These help to develop the characters and setting, and often contain skill checks, or offer rewards. May of these can be resolved on the spot, but others, such as fixing Sunny Pines water treatment plant will require interacting with different characters on different maps.



I've also spent time dressing up the various scenes, partly with animated characters, partly with decorations. This didn't take a huge amount of time, and it feels like it helped quite a lot to make the game world feel more alive. I'd anticipate spending more time on this, prior to release.





[h3]Equipment Slots & New Items[/h3]
Equipment slots have been restored in the new demo. The number of these passive bonus-providing items you can equip is determined by your tech stat, and many of these items can be crafted, or found, at different quality levels. At present, there's Lightweight Footwear (move ap), speed loader (free reload), EMT kit (healing bonus), lock picking kit, and a few others. More will be added as development progresses.



Around 20 new items have been added to the game, mainly in the categories of firearm, melee weapon, equipment and skill magazines.



[h3]Perks:[/h3]
Around 8 new perks have been added for the updated demo, for a total of ~20. I'll aim to get this to 30-40 for early access, and would expect the final game to have at least as many as Vigilantes (approx 80).

[h3]Balancing & User Experience:[/h3]
I've completed a balancing pass on the game, with a focus on the loot available in each area, and the difficulty (lock picking/bashing) of acquiring said loot. I've also made it less click/time intensive to pick up loot dropped by enemies, and will continue to improve user experience as development proceeds.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, please do leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

All the best,

Daithi

Hello, I hope you're doing well!

TLDR: The rebel finale is complete, and an early access release before the end of the year is likely, but not definite. If you'd like further details, check out the below video or text.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Rebel Finale Complete:[/h3]
I've just wrapped up the rebel finale. Your goal is to capture Sunny Pines, and the conflict plays out over up to 6 maps. If you're defeated while attacking any of the five districts of Sunny Pines, you'll have to defend the rebel base from a militia counter-attack. If you win, you can continue to fight, but if you lose, Sunny Pines retains its existing leadership and you proceed to act 2.

The rebels start out as the underdog. They are less numerous, less well equipped, and most have no combat experience. Your party size expands at this point, increased by a % of the rebels you've recruited, while the remaining rebels will replace losses, secure captured districts, and defend the rebel base.

You can capitalise on civic discontent to mobilise rioters against the militia

Capturing sectors often provide a benefit, like an increase to party size, or seized equipment. The current gameplay for act 1 ends after the final battle. I would've liked to add the epilogue, but doing so would greatly reduce the probability of a release this year.

[h3]Early Access Release Update:[/h3]
There's a fairly good chance of an early access release for Prometheus Wept this year. I've taken very few days off, to boost the chances of being ready in time.

Typically, it's a bad idea to release in the wake of a major Steam sale event, or too late in the year, as getting coverage will be more difficult. The coverage issue is likely less relevant, as Prometheus Wept isn't going to get a ton of coverage anyway. Also, if time is tight, I can buy a week or two by just releasing the windows version to start, and following up with the Mac and Linux versions shortly after release.

Yeah, you might want to move...

Moving on to what needs to be done. The good news is that every encounter in the game has been tested, so the majority of the testing work's complete. There are, of course, any number of areas which could be worked on, but I'm going to concentrate on two. The first is balancing, particularly the combat, economy and character leveling. The second is to add some smaller encounters to flesh out the setting and characters.

All the best,

Daithi

Hi there-

Daithi here. I hope you're doing well! I've just wrapped up the militia finale – that's all the encounters designed, written, implemented and debugged across the five maps the finale can play out over. While working on the finale, I added code to:

- Allow AI characters to target objects
- Allow AI characters to spend AP activating objects
- Improve trap mechanics
- Equip a faction's troops

Olga's artwork for con man and sociopath, Ferdia Beckett. (He's on your team!)

Debugging these additions ate a fair bit of time, so I'd expect the rebel finale will be quicker to complete. The focus for the next couple of months will be the rebel finale, along with making the maps more interesting with small encounters and loot. Then it'll finally be early access time.

You can find more a more detailed outline of recent developments in the below video, or continue reading for the short version.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Artwork:[/h3]
Olga has been working on illustrations for key characters and has completed the artwork for Markus Tiber, Sheriff of Sunny Pines, and sociopath/con man, Ferdia Beckett.


Olga's artwork for Markus Tiber, Sheriff of Sunny Pines. Depending on your choices Tiber can be a key ally, or an enemy.

[h3]Militia Finale:[/h3]
- The finale starts after completing recruitment, crafting and purchasing of equipment for the militia.
- Sunny Pines comes under attack by a substantial rebel force, which will attack different districts with different attacks, including a head on attack of the main gates, encouraging rioting, attacking infrastructure, and more.
- If you are defeated in any fight, you regroup with what remains of the leadership and militia for a last ditch defence. If you win this battle, you'll push back the rebels and will launch an attack on their HQ. If you lose the battle, Sunny Pines will fall under rebel control and you'll move on to act 2.

Almost there :) I'll check back in some time in June.

Until then, all the best, and if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please let me know!

Daithi

TLDR: The militia pre-finale is complete, and includes an optional combat mission which takes place on a new map.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hello, and welcome to the January dev log for Prometheus Wept. I've wrapped up the militia pre-finale, where you will prime Sunny Pine's militia for confrontation with the rebels. This includes improving the militia's equipment through trade and crafting, recruiting new members, improving morale.

In the militia pre-finale, you must decide how to best allocate your faction's cash and time.

You can also attempt to convince the mayor to print extra currency to be used in the war effort, or follow up on intel received about a rebels arms deal, in an optional combat-focused encounter. Doing so will briefly bring you in contact with one of the main factions of act 2. Each faction has preferences for the weapons they use, so there is an opportunity to get your hands on some new items here.

Attack, approach, sneak or observe. The choice is yours.

This encounter required a new map, which has been completed and is the final map for act 1. There are a number of options for handling the encounter, such as observing the group, approaching them, or attacking. If you approach them, you will discover that their goal is to deliver a crate of merchandise to you, which raises further questions on what exactly is going on.



[h3]Up Next: Militia Finale & Minor encounters[/h3]

Moving on to what's coming next. The focus for the next number of weeks will be two-fold. Firstly, I'll be working on the series of combat focused encounters which make up the militia finale. It's a fairly big piece of work, likely in the ballpark of 6 weeks. Second, I'm going to start addressing what I see as Prometheus Wept's biggest current weakness, namely, a lack of things to do outside the main questline. The goal here isn't to add large side-quests, but rather to focus on getting a decent number of smaller encounters, which breathes life into the world, and develops the characters.

That's it for now, thank you for watching. I'll check back in next month, and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear from you!

Hi again,

I hope you're doing well! I'm still working on the finale for act 1. A quick summary of some recent activities, and you can find more detail below:

- Completed the Homestead Heights map for Sunny Pines.
- Rebel pre-finale is virtually complete.
- Militia pre-finale will require less work, and will be started next.

[h3]Homestead Heights Map:[/h3]

I've added the last of the five districts of Sunny Pines, Homestead Heights. This is the seat of manufacturing in Sunny Pines. It houses most of the worker population and the Shaded Pine, the local pub. It's a little depopulated at the moment, but you can get the idea.


Much of Sunny Pines industry revolves around food and lumber.

[h3]Pre-finales & Finales:[/h3]

I've broken down the work on the act 1 finale into 4 parts. For each side, there's a pre-finale (recruitment, purchasing/crafting faction, sabotage) and a finale, where the fighting plays out.

I'm on the cusp of completing the rebel pre-finale. Just one act of sabotage is left to be scripted. The militia pre-finale will be quicker to complete as much of the code to interact with the faction (equipment, troops) is already in place.


Due to restrictions on weapons ownership in Sunny Pines, you must employ the services of an outside arms dealer to equip the rebels.

After that, work will begin on the finales, which will be 3-5 large scale battles for control of Sunny Pines.

[h3]Prometheus Wept Coverage:[/h3]

I missed the coverage of Prometheus Wept by let's players Wee Hours Games and Vlodril at the time, but have since caught up on it. If you like more chilled let's players, they're good ones to check out.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Developing Prometheus Wept the way I envisioned it has proved more difficult and time consuming than imagined, so thank you for all your patience and support. There are times in development when the hill feels more steep and the rock, heavier, but that's a passing thing. Thankfully, an early access release, which will be great for motivation, isn't too far away.

Development will slow down, but not stop over Christmas, and I'll check in again around the end of January. On that note, I'd like to wish you a nice time over the Christmas holiday :)

All the best,

Daithi