Lost Eidolons News

Greetings, tacticians!

The team at Ocean Drive Studio is very excited to share that Lost Eidolons will be available to try out for everyone during the Steam Next Fest demo event starting tomorrow, June 16th at 10:00 AM PST!

It will be available to play until the following week, June 22nd at 10:00 AM PST.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This demo is our first available playable one that our team worked hard to get prepared for this event. We wanted an opportunity for our community and backers to get their hands on the game so they could have an idea of what to expect in the future!

You'll jump right into the fray with Eden and his comrades on their campaign to overtake key enemy strongholds. The demo features the combat portions of episodes 7 and 8 along with the camp outgame section.

You'll also be able to see a few of the cutscenes fully animated, however, note that voice acting has not yet been implemented in this build and the graphical fidelity is also not final. Saving is not yet available so during the course of the demo, a temporary button has been provided that allows you to skip sections of the game. If for example, you want to skip directly to the combat portion of episode 8, you will be able to do that for this demo. Additionally, while additional language options may be available, some text strings are incomplete and may still be in English.

Overall, this is an early look at the game and is not representative of the final build later on!



Units will be provided to the player that the game team has thought would be appropriate for this stage of the game. At this time, only one standard difficulty is provided, which is the game's 'Challenging' difficulty.

Within the camp after each episode, you'll be able to complete a few small sidequests, check out a few shops, see the job advancement tree, train your units, and improve your relationship with a few of the camp's inhabitants. This is an early look at just some of the camp activities that can be done between each episodic battle.

We'll also be streaming on the first day on the Steam store page as well starting at 10:00 AM PST as opening up new sections in the community discussion boards for feedback and bug reports!

We hope to see you all try it out!

Greetings, tacticians.

This is a recap of the 4th edition of our Town Hall series, where we answer questions directly from members of our community! This is an officially curated series of questions answered by Ocean Drive Studio’s Creative Director for Lost Eidolons, Jin Sang! This town hall occurred last month as a celebration livestream at the end of the Lost Eidolons Kickstarter campaign. Check out this edition’s questions asked below.

—❈ Twitch | Dangercreed: “Do spells ramp up? Like fire to Elfire or mega fire type stuff?"

• CD Jin Sang: “You have a basic fire skill and then a stronger fire skill, and then the final fire spell in the branch wouldn't be as strong as the second one but rather cover an area.”

—❈ Twitch | StartgameSocial: “Can you customize stats on armor, as well? Such as upgrading stats or socketing?

• CD Jin Sang: “Stats on items won't be random; any specific item will always have a specific set of stats. For now, we aren't creating a jewel socketing system, but we have designs for a similar system perhaps for a future campaign or section of the game.”

—❈ Twitch | StartgameSocial: “Will there be certain troops counter others? Such as axe being more effective against spears, ect.?

• CD Jin Sang: “Not quite like Fire Emblem, which is mainly based on weapons, but there will be an advantage/disadvantage flow between types of weapons and armor. For example, an axe might be good against plate armor, or a sword against cloth.”

—❈ Twitch | thegreatskeletor: “What will you be able to equip? Like just a weapon and armor, or will we also be able to equip shields, accessories, etc.?”

• CM Pat: “There's weapon, there's sub-weapon, there's armor, there's accessory I believe... there's mount. Actually not sure if there's accessory, but there's consumable. I believe there's shield too right?”
• CD Jin Sang: “Yeah you can do one-hand and shield. And there'll be a class where you can wear two swords.”
• CM Pat: “What about two shields?”
• CD Jin Sang: “Uh, no.”
• CM Pat: “Got my hopes up, thought I could play it like a door man in Dark Souls.”

—❈ Twitch | Dangercreed: "how advanced is the AI? ie. AI focusing weaker units or more advantages fights maybe combo's just like the player?”

• CD Jin Sang: “The AI focuses on weaker units in which they can get more damage in.”
• CM Pat: “It seems like they focus on killing blows too. I lost a unit in my playthrough that I carelessly placed.”

—❈ Twitch | TobenRacicot: “I wanted to ask, are most map objectives to clear all enemy units or are there other win conditions beside rout?”

• CD Jin Sang: “There will be some escort mission, or missions that have a turn limit that require you to traverse to a specific part of the map within that limit. Or they will be a defending mission which requires you to survive to a certain number of turns.”

—❈ Twitch | Argonaut: “will there be green units like AI friendly”

• CD Jin Sang: “There will be some.”
• CM Pat: “In certain scenarios, huh.”

—❈ Twitch | thegreatskeletor: “will there be "hopeless missions" in which you're meant to lose? and if so can you actually win those battles?”

• CD Jin Sang: “I can't really say it's exactly the same but... there will be something like that. Yo-”
• CM Pat: “Without spoiling anything!”

❈ Twitch | thegreatskeletor: “what is your're favorite weapon types in a strategy game?”

• CM Pat: “I always like spears, but I always feel like people find them a little cheap since they often can attack from more than one tile away.”

—❈ Twitch | Dee: “will allies have bonds with other units? will these bonds have buffs?”

• CM Pat: “It's done in a specific way where the bond that you have is between Eden the protagonist and his fellow allies. The bond is not developed between the allies themselves.”

—❈ Twitch | icy_skizors: “Is there any planned ost tracks we will be able to listen to before the game releases?”

• CM Pat: “Yes there will be! Clark is working hard. The track you're hearing right now is a mock-up of one of the tracks. As we finish the tracks we'll share them with the community for feedback. The track you're hearing now is a mock of the camp music. ”

—❈ Twitch | Dangercreed: “can you upgrade weapons?”

• CM Pat: “So can you upgrade a weapon from wood to iron, or iron to steel, or +1 or +2?”
• CD Jin Sang: “Closest thing would be the gem socketing system we talked about previously.”

—Have a burning question that you definitely want answered at the next Town Hall? You can have your question featured at the next Town Hall by asking it in the #town_hall text channel on our Discord!

Greetings tacticians,

Our team's excited to announce that Lost Eidolons will be present at this year's GameSpot Play For All Showcase, a virtual event presenting new and exciting games! This showcase highlights new games that are charting the path for a brighter, more inclusive video game future. It will feature more than 20 games that have been hand-selected by GameSpot's curators, Lost Eidolons being among them.

Tune in to catch a brand new trailer for the game including footage of gameplay and developments that we haven't yet shared, as news on the upcoming early playable demo on Steam!The event will take place on Tuesday, June 15, at 3:35 PM PT / 6:35 PM ET (time subject to change).

• Keep up-to-date and wishlist Lost Eidolons on Steam.
• Let your friends know they can still pick up an early copy of Lost Eidolons with future beta access, or physical Collector's Edition set on BackerKit (ending June 22nd).

Greetings, tacticians.

This is a recap of the 3rd edition of our Town Hall series, where we answer questions directly from members of our community! This is an officially curated series of questions answered by Ocean Drive Studio's Creative Director for Lost Eidolons, Jin Sang! This town hall occurred last month as a celebration livestream at the end of the Lost Eidolons Kickstarter campaign. In addition to that we've added questions that were asked up until now in our Discord. Check out this edition's questions asked below.

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❈ Town Hall | yomalovah: "I had a general question based on an observation I have made over the years of gaming. A lot of Asian developed games have Greek terms in them. I heavily noticed this in FF games etc, and now I see that you have a Greek word on your title. Care to share if there is a reason behind this or what was the thought process behind choosing the name of the game?"

• CD Jin Sang: "I guess it's because most developers grew up playing Japanese games more than western games. I, myself, played lots of Japanese roleplaying games such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc. I don't think devs intend to use or prefer using the Greek terms over others, but perhaps it simply may just be what they are used to from their playing habits or memories."

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❈ Town Hall | Severance Bane: "Do you guys plan to add more depth than what we currently know about? For example, runes or weapon sharpening, etc."

• CD Jin Sang: "Currently, we do have some plans on adding more depth. Like you just mentioned, runes or weapon sharpening is already in the queue and I'd love to add those features, but I just can't really say when I will be able to add them if at all. Also, I've mentioned that I'd like to add more depth by adding online features, but this isn't planned for now, and we're solely focused on the single-player experience until it's perfect."

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❈ Town Hall | Remco: "By leveling up, units gain aptitude points in their different stats up to a max level of 50." How will it be decided which stats will increase with a level up? Is that based on growth rates á la Fire Emblem, or is there another system?"

• CD Jin Sang: "Simply put, it would be randomly distributed until each stats are maxed out at max level for that particular unit. If one is to gain up to 100 strength at max level, it would be randomly gained along the way until it reaches 100 (no matter what happens, this character would always reach 100 strength, but in one playthrough they might gain it a different rate than another)."

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❈ Town Hall | Alex14ac: "There's a lot of people who have asked about romancing options in Lost Eidolons since it was a really popular feature in Fire Emblem and there seems to be some form of affinity-building in Lost Eidolons. Would the development team consider this?"

• CD Jin Sang: "I really loved that feature in the Fire Emblem series as well. However, I found that it isn't as easy as I thought it would be. N to M relationship with all kind of dialogues is very complex and hard to come up with (respect to the FE team). So, what I've come up with is that we would come up with 1 to N, with N being really small. So Eden may have some relationship dialogues which will make his relationship deeper with some of the characters. It's kind of like a simplified version of affinity, maybe more similar to something like Mass Effect in respect to how the relations focus on the main character."

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❈ Town Hall | Taffy Cub: "Will there be flying units?"

• CD Jin Sang: "Nope."

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❈ Town Hall | Dee: "Noticed one thing when it comes to animations, that doesn't make much sense to me: archers pull their bow forward when releasing the string which would completely derail the arrow in real life. How realistic are you looking to be with animations in general? Or does the visual of the animation matter more than realism?"

• CD Jin Sang: "It's always hard to make things realistic when you are given limited resources. I had to make choices where it is hard to implement or it would take up too much resources to make things look more real. But, well, our goal is trying to make as much sense as possible. But I'd like to go back and check that arrow thing, and resolve it..."

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❈ Town Hall | Rob the Game Guy: "I noticed when the combat pans down to eye level during a critical hit for example that suddenly new combatants appear to be fighting all around, where there are far fewer combatants present in the top down view. This makes the zoomed in mode seem more thrilling but feels like it misconstrues the amount of fighting participants in the encounter. Have you heard this feedback before and what were your design considerations with implementing this feature?"

• CD Jin Sang: "This is the first time someone has commented on this feature. If you look at the combat map and individual units placed on it, you'll notice that the characters are huge compared to the houses and others objects in the background. What it means is that characters aren't the same size as the background. When the combat actually happens, it zooms in to show the actual size of the characters and soldiers who assumed to be following your characters. Design decisions were made so that we can show this isn't just hero vs. hero action but rather army vs. army. We had a lot of options to choose from such as huge characters with small (ant size) soldiers on characters' feet or total war like real army without any huge characters, etc, etc. I thought the way we implemented is one of the best way to show what we are trying to show."

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❈ Town Hall | Argonaut: "In the upcoming Demo will there be intermission / camp gameplay? I mean between the missions. And if yes what features?"

• CD Jin Sang: "In the upcoming demo will there outgame content between the episode 7 and 8 battles. We are trying to have some interactions with characters along with a few simple quests. There's also the training system mini-game that you can try out."

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❈ Town Hall | Argonis: "The game will voiced in English right? Will there be any big name recognizable voices?"

• CD Jin Sang: "Yes, the game will be partial-voiced in English (not every single dialogue will have voice acting). But I am not sure about the big name recognizable voices yet. The demo won't have voice acting in it yet."

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❈ Town Hall | Dee: "Do you plan on having special animations for critical hits? The shown gameplay so far only showed a bit of screen shake and the word "crit!" on the screen."

• CD Jin Sang: "Time slows down during the whole animations as well additional screen shake and critical! effect on the screen. As for the special animations, we aren't considering this since it would take too much assets. Instead, my original idea which hasn't been put in yet is to add some screen effects such as the camera lens being broken (glass shattering effect?) and/or blood being splattered on the screen. We could also try cut-in animations with characters screaming but I'd rather add this for skills!"

❈ Town Hall | Dee: "How much playtime are you guys aiming for for Lost Eidolons?"

• CD Jin Sang: "I am aiming for minimum of 30 minutes to a maximum of 1 hour for each episode in an average playthrough. We are going to have 27 episodes and that would be 13.5 hours minimum to 27 hours maximum just for the episode alone. There would also be be some extra battles for level grinding and sub-stories. With these in mind, I'm aiming for 30-40 hours on average of a full playthrough."

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❈ Twitch Chat | StartgameSocial: "With that said, about the investors- I have to ask. Since this is all extra income from KS, will the stretch goals still be implemented?"

• CM Pat: "In respect to the funding, Permadeath was succesfully funded, so we'll try to have that ready by Early Access. Hell Mode was also successfully funded, and we'll try to have that done by Full Launch, and not a post-update."

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❈ Twitch Chat | Dangercreed: "The game seems pretty done, what kinda stuff is even left to do?"

• CD Jin Sang: "The battle itself may look done, but a lot of polish is still needed. We're also working on cutscenes where all the stories are told, and that's already a lot of work."
• CM Pat: "There's definitely still a ton to do. Fonts, music, polishing, voice acting, all of the scenarios (you guys have only seen episode 7 and 8, and not even the outgame portion of it)."

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❈ Twitch Chat | midkemianavenger: "So progress towards the last listed stretch goal from it?"

• CD Jin Sang: "We're going to work on the Permadeath togglable option and Hell Mode (extra hard difficulty) on top of our existing priorities. Additional features beyond that may or may not be implemented depending on the situation, workload, and timeline."

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Have a burning question that you definitely want answered at the next Town Hall? You can have your question featured at the next Town Hall by asking it in the #town_hall text channel on our Discord!



Want to reserve a copy of Lost Eidolons in advance or pick up a physical Collector's Edition? You can do that on our BackerKit!

Greetings, backers and future tacticians!

Since we have successfully completed the Kickstarter campaign (again, thanks to all of you!), we would like to provide important game development updates as frequently as possible! Today, as the first "Status of Game Dev" we intend to share future plans up until the Early Access launch of the Lost Eidolons.

[h2]What we are currently working on:[/h2]



#1. Demo Build
As we're previously mentioned, the team is working hard to get a demo build for the community. The demo build will include the following contents:

• Episode 7 Combat
  
• Camp Actions (outgame) between Episodes 7 and 8
  
• Episode 8 Combat

We are trying to include most of the outgame features, but some of the features won't be complete for the demo build. We'll share more details about the demo build within a few weeks!



#2. Story Development
Currently, the writing team is finalizing the script for Episodes 9 and 10. Meanwhile, the localization team in the states have been busy building a Lost Eidolons Codex to provide highly detailed background stories of every character and house.
As you have read through our story features in the Kickstarter updates and the blog, we are putting a lot of effort into creating a proper world backdrop that Lost Eidolons takes place in, filled with many nuanced stories and details to help flesh out the setting. Story development will be ongoing non-stop until we have the complete game!

#3. Steam Integration
The team has been also putting in a lot of effort into implementing the Steam platform. The demo will be provided via Steam and we're nearly finished with Steam implementation.

#4. The Original Soundtrack & Sound Effects
Shared in Composer's Log #1, we mentioned how Clark has been working on the orchestrated soundtrack! Clark has already completed mock-ups for the camp and combat tracks, and we're discussing how we can leverage dynamic music cut-ins during the close-up actions.
Also, we've started to work on the sound effects. As we make progress with the soundtrack and sound effects, we'll share them with the community so that we can get your input on it!
For those who attended any of our recent livestreams, you might've heard a sneak peak of some of the mock-up tracks already!

#5. Feedback Process in Discussion
We're working internally to set up a process to efficiently keep track of all the feedback coming from various different community channels. As our goal is to work on the game with the community, and being transparent with our decision on the game, we will get this established soon so that we can keep organized and on top of everyone's comments!



#6. Core Content Development
We won't be sharing these in detail in this post, as we will have a "monthly dev update stream" to showcase them. Pretty much, you can expect that every month we'll have a specialized livestream (that will of course be archived and uploaded) to show the newest developments we've made in the game!

[h2]Future Abridged Roadmap:[/h2]

#1. Demo Coming Soon
Sometime in June, we will provide a demo build that will be available for everybody! Please stay tuned for more news.

#2. Closed Beta
In August, we're hoping to hold the first and the only beta we will be holding prior to Early Access. This will be a more feature-rich version of the demo. We still need to review the development progress to assess the timing, but the goal is to let the community try the game and provide us feedback for us to improve the build before Early Access! This build of the game is available to all Kickstarter backers who backed at $25 or higher. Those who didn't back will still be able to register to partake!

#3. Early Access
We are scheduling Early Access for October, but again this can be changed based on the development progress and the feedback from the closed beta phase!
We are pursuing the form of open development, and as such we hope to get a great deal of feedback from you - all of the backers - and other communities as well. Please join our Discord server to join the conversation!



And as a final note - please make sure to wishlist the game on Steam, and share news of it with any of your friends who loves similar types of turn-based RPGs! You can also subscribe to our YouTube, where we recently uploaded the one hour of gameplay commentary!