Of Blades & Tails News

Hey everyone!

I'm very excited to finally (and officially) announce that Of Blades & Tails will launch into Steam Early Access on October 19, 2022.

If you followed the last dev logs you know that there's a huge amount of new content coming along with it. The world map of the EA release version will be 2.5x the size of the demo. But of course size alone doesn't matter: There are new quests, new talents, new enemies, a new biome, secret locations, a few mysteries to solve and definitely a bunch of fresh legendary items to loot!

To celebrate, we've put together a new trailer that gives you a glimpse of what to expect ;)

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I hope you like this little insight and that you will join us at the start of Early Access!

In fact, you can still play the demo now if you haven't yet and then take over your progress into the main game. (You will have to redistribute attributes and abilities, though).

Expect more information about Early Access within the next weeks!

Until then, you're very welcome to join our growing (> 120!) Discord community and discuss tactics or share one or the other treasure location...



Stay tuned!

Felix

Hey everyone!

This month's dev log didn't quite make it in August, so here we are with a few days delay! :)

First of all I'm very happy to announce that I've teamed up with Pineapple Works as a publishing partner and together we'll be releasing Of Blades & Tails on Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles in 2023!
They will also support me in marketing, QA, localization and more!

But our next major milestone remains the EA launch some time in October!

Speaking of which, I've been working on new content and mechanics over the past weeks and want to share some of them with you now. Let's take a look!

[h3]New Talents: Arcane Magic & Dirty Tricks[/h3]



In one of the last dev logs I showed you the Elemental Magic talent line, which focuses on delayed elemental damage and damage over time. In addition to that comes Arcane Magic which contains burst damage and a few utility spells, including a mana shield!
Minor perks in this talent will increase your max. mana.



Dirty Tricks also found their way into the game, which (for now) includes 3 abilities that require expertise to unlock them. They can be used with all weapon types and are designed to be a supportive complement to other talents. The minor perks will increase your critical damage.



Oh, before I forget: There's gonna be a new perk in the Athletics talent that allows you to switch weapon sets without losing a turn ;)

[h3]New Quests, Secrets and Legendary Rewards![/h3]

I spend a lot of time creating new content, like quests, secrets/puzzles, new locations and enemies... Primarily in the swamp region and around Immerfurt.

The image below shows a treant ritual site.



[h3]Upgrade your Items[/h3]

A new mechanic to upgrade your beloved items will also be introduced with the EA version.
To make this work, you'll need an Orb of Magnificence and use them at the new Shrine of Magnificence. Upgrading an item will boost all its stats by 50%, including the level requirement. The first upgrade costs 1 Orb and the second costs 2 Orbs, and so on...



The amount of Orbs in the game will be limited, so you should think carefully about which items you want to upgrade. (Yes, you can and probably want to upgrade your legendary items! :) )

[h3]More Destructibles and Gatherable Items[/h3]

New kinds of herbs and shrooms have been added as well. Most notable is the Recovery Herb, which lasts 200 turns and will automatically recover your health up to 65% when you're not in combat.
Manashrooms can be gathered now and are used to restore your mana.



You can also find new destructible containers around the overworld which have a chance to drop all sorts of gatherable items and other nice things...

[h3]More Help Topics[/h3]

Last but not least, all important game mechanics are now covered in the help section that can be accessed through the game menu (and various tutorial popups).





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And that's it for the moment!
But I'll most likely be back in two weeks with an Early Access release date and maybe also a new trailer!

If you want to support the development with your feedback and get access to an EA preview build, you can join our growing Discord community and give me a hint.



Until then, take care everyone!

Felix

Hey everyone!

Another month of development ends and I want to give you an update about the things I've been working on.

Before we get to the actual new game content featuring the titular rats and ferrets, let's take a look at some new and updated systems.

[h3]Game Modes[/h3]

As mentioned last month I spent some thoughts on how to implement difficulty levels. I'm happy that I already managed to implement a first version of this feature upon starting a new game.



As you can see there will be 3 game modes in total: Relaxed, Adventure and Challenge.

Relaxed: You start with more health, deal more damage, and receive significantly more experience points.

Adventure: This is basically the original experience without modifiers.

Challenge: Wont be available any time soon, but I'm open for ideas here! Maybe this introduces some kind of death penalty as well.

[h3]Multiple Save Slots[/h3]



While working on the new game modes I figured it would be also a good time to finally implement support of multiple save slots. So now when you select "New Game" from the main menu it will automatically create a new savegame and you can then select the slot when you "Continue".

[h3]Improved Introduction & Help Menu[/h3]

Another important feature on my feedback list was the overhaul of the in-game introduction.
I wanted to add something that is as unobtrusive as possible but also gives players with not much experience in this genre a good foundation to learn the various mechanics.



So I added a small tutorial window at the side of the screen that asks if you want to learn more about a specific topic. Those tutorials pop up upon specific events in the game. I think it's about 3-4 times, so not too much, but enough that every player should be able to see there's an in-game help menu with various topics that they can look into if they have questions about how the game works.



Of course there's much room for more help content in the future, but as it stands now I think it's a good starting point.

I'm very confident that the new help menu along with the Relaxed game mode ensures that more players will have a great experience no matter where they are coming from.

[h3]Immerfurt - Of Rats & Ferrets[/h3]

Now for some of the new content I'm still working on, but I want to show you what I've come up with so far.

Immerfurt is the next big settlement in the southern part of the map. Rats and ferrets both try to make it a place of prosperity, trade and crafts.
However, both tribes are not always completely united in their worldview, which increasingly leads to conflicts between the business-minded rats and the craft-skilled ferrets.







Immerfurt is also the home of two guilds that the player can join:
The Adventurer's Guild and the Mages' Guild.

Both offer a questline with some unique rewards, but this will be further developed during the Early Access phase and I'll share more info once the time is right :)

[h3]Player Stash Container[/h3]

Last but not least, I also added a special, persisted chest for you, where all "too good to be sold" items can go in!



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That's all for this busy month! I hope you like the new additions!

If you want to learn more about upcoming features, you're very welcome to join our growing Discord server. I'm posting there frequently about development or discuss new ideas. I'd love to see you around :)




Until next time, take care!

Felix

A small update that adds numpad support and fixes some minor issues:

• Added support for diagonal movement via numpad.
  
• Fixed an issue with range calculation on bow weapon attacks.
  
• Fixed some issues with camera scrolling and its responsiveness.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where stamina could drop below 0 and you couldn't use weapon attacks anymore.
  
• Fixed character walking animation on very high framerates (>60).
  

Hey everyone!

Time for another devlog to get you all updated on the work that is going on behind the scenes.

But before we're getting to all the exciting upcoming features I want to thank everyone who participated in the Steam Next Fest for wishlisting and giving feedback on the Demo version.
I received hundreds(!) of mails with a lot of great suggestions and constructive criticism. I really appreciate all the input and it already helps me a lot to shape the game to an even better experience once we start into Early Access later this year.

Now let's get to the stuff that I've been working on over the last weeks!

[h3]New Swamp Biome[/h3]

I added a new swamp environment that contains a lot of small lakes and all new assets for vegetation and rockwork among other suprises ;) Here is an early preview:



[h3]Expanded World Map[/h3]

The swamps will then be the next larger region in the expanded world map:



[h3]Fast Travel[/h3]

And with an expanded world map comes the ability to fast travel quickly between discovered locations!



[h3]Visible Armor Styles[/h3]

You will be able to change the appearaece of Reik by wearing different armor sets.
There will be light/medium/heavy armor classes and each piece will give you different advantages or disadvantages.



Light armor comes with the least phyical resistance per item level but gives +5% mana.
Whereas heavy armor grants the best resistance and +5% health but also comes with the cost of -10% stamina.

Please know that this is just the first iteration and stats or numbers may change in the future!

[h3]New Enemies and Experimental Gadgets[/h3]





[h3]Magic and Expertise[/h3]

Elemental magic will be the first available talent for all you wizards and sorcerers out there!



Expertise is another addition for more advanced talents like arcane magic, dirty tricks, (probably stealth?), and so on... Some abilities in those talents will require expertise to unlock them. You can gain expertise points through books or scientific papers that you can find throughout the world.

This should give you yet another incentive to explore the world in order to optimize your preferred talent build.
Rumor has it that some NPC guilds encountered later in the game also offer expertise to those willing to join their ranks...

[h3]Enemy Details View[/h3]

Still pretty much WIP but you will be able to review more information about an enemy and especially the status effects and their duration that are active on the target.



It's a start and there's of course room for more information in the future.

[h3]Tutorial and Difficulty[/h3]

These topics are hot! :D
Mainly because I just got as many mails in which people thanked for the easy to understand mechanics and the challenging but fair difficulty level, as from those who missed a better tutorial and found the game very difficult to unfair!

I haven't done any work on those issues yet but I have ideas for a better introduction and also consider adding difficulty levels that you can select upon the start of a new game.

I personally want the difficulty to be challenging but I also want enable most people to enjoy the game even without experience in the tactical turn-based genre. After all it can and should be a relaxing experience if you want to. So for the time being, rest assured that I will try to make those ideas possible in the future.

[h3]Last but not least ...[/h3]

Some honorable mentions because quite a few of you asked for it! :)

- Improved camera panning by holding down RMB or MMB
- Numpad support for diagonal movement

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That's it for now! I hope you like all these new featues and changes and you are as excited as I am for Of Blades & Tails' next step in development!