Of Blades & Tails News

Hey everyone!

I'm happy to announce that the Demo version just got another big update in order to celebrate the upcoming Steam Next Festival!

[h3]Some highlights[/h3]

• New room-based dungeon type, filled with new dangers and rewards
  
• Traps, along with detection and refusing mechanic
  
• Overview mode, so you don't get lost in levels anymore
  
• New NPC and quest
  
• Water tiles for rivers and small lakes
  
• Optional retro CRT shader effect in the options menu
  
• Camera scrolling when moving mouse on edge of the screen
  

[h3]Savegame compatibility[/h3]

This update resets your ability points so you have to redistribute them at a bonfire.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

Including v0.5.0 - 0.5.2

- Added a new room-based dungeon type, filled with dangers and rewards.
(The new dungeon can be accessed from the Tower Ruins.)
- Added traps to the game, along with detection (based on PER) and refusing.
- Added an overview mode that zooms out the camera far enough so you don't get lost in levels anymore (default key: TAB).
- Added a rat NPC: Narn the Traveling Merchant, and his bodyguard Darl.
(You can find Narn at map coordinate 4, 1. The ? marks the spot.)
- Added a new quest that is given by Narn.
- Added water tiles (rivers and small lakes) to the game.
- Added a new skill 'High Awareness' to the survival talent.
- Zoom in camera during dialogs and interactions.
- Enabled scrolling the camera by moving the mouse on the edge of the screen.
(This replaces the previous camera 'look ahead' feature)
- Added an optional retro CRT shader effect, that can be toggled in the options menu.
- Added new types of enemies.
- Show an indicator (light beam) when high quality loot or a quest item gets dropped on ground.
- Added a new skill to the bandit rogue.
- Fixed an issue with slow moving projectiles that also stun the player.
- Added a bandit ambush event to the overworld.
- Added another unique item.
- Changed default damage / hit sound effect.
- Animate appearance of spawned objects and sprite effects.
- Added a signpost to the fox village: Never gonna miss your local herbalist anymore!
- Fixed an issue with skill selection and execution phase.
- Fixed issues with persistence of some game objects.
- Made various small balance and gameplay adjustments.
- Many more fixes!

Hey everyone!

I don't have much to share this month so I thought I just give you a quick update of what happened in the last weeks rather than skipping the dev log completely :)

So first of all everything is going as planned! Even though I spend a bit more time with the dungeon generation than I thought I would, I'm still on track in terms of the roadmap that I showed you early this year.

Here's an updated version:

(Right-click and show image in new tab if it's too small)

Most of the points are done or in a very good condition, with a foundation I can work with.

I also found time to add a solution for a very popular feature request: a level overview/zoom/minimap (that doesn't break with my vision for the game).

Spoiler: I don't like classic minimaps!

In OB&T you basically can press a key to zoom out the camera, get an overview of the current level, move the camera around, and click anywhere to set your next walking path. Then the camera zooms back in. So no actual gameplay in the overview mode, but you can always use it to view all parts of the level that you discovered and don't get lost anymore (hopefully :D).

Here's a preview (with a smaller angle than in the actual game):



I will spend the next weeks to refactor some older parts of the game code, adding some improvements to make my dev life easier and playtest all the latest additions (and there are quite a few!).

If everything works out I will publish the next demo update in May with a new dungeon, new enemies, new unique items, new NPCs and a new quest...

And then finally focus on expanding the game world for an Early Access release in the second half of this year. At least that's the plan right now! :)

Thank you all for your interest in Of Blades & Tails!

Until next time, take care!

Felix

A small update with bug fixes and a visual improvement:

• Fixed a bug that prevented bug meat from being applied again after its effect ran out.
  
• Fixed a bug where player could switch weapons while moving (without using up 1 turn).
  
• Fixed a potential game freeze due to explosive chain reactions.
  
• Smoothly fade out finished sprite animations.
  

Hey everyone!

Time for a new devlog! Since the last update I'm pretty much focusing on more overworld and dungeon variety.

[h2]Overworld[/h2]

In terms of the overworld this means (for now) adding rivers and lakes!
And where there are rivers, there need to be bridges :)
So that's what I already added in a first iteration.



There's also shallow water which is walkable and has no negative effect.
It may be used later for other types of biomes.



My primary goal with rivers was to have more natural barriers to shape the game world in general.
But I soon realized that it would add a lot to the strategic gameplay to utilize water in combat as well. So I allowed pushing enemies into it.



While in (deep) water enemies receive elemental damage every turn.

Oh, and the player makes no exception here.
I imagine settling a bunch of Ram Bugs near larger lakes will be a lot of fun..? :D

[h2]New Dungeons[/h2]

Another part of the game that still requires a lot of love are the dungeons.
Of course there are already cave-like dungeons, which work good enough in terms of the procedural generation algorithm (they just need more POIs). But what I yet have to tackle are actual room-based dungeons with corridors, traps, doors, hidden areas, and all that kind of interesting stuff.

What I have so far is an algorithm that generates rooms and corridors. I can define branches and secret areas in a basic way and for now this is a good foundation to progress a bit further with the actual mechanics I want to add.

Like doors (sprites are WIP):



... and switches/levers for doors and secret walls:



Like I said traps (and pressure plates?) will be added as well and with that the ability to detect and refuse or avoid them.

So there's still a lot to do in order to make dungeon crawling more exciting and meaningful.
I want this to be a thrilling and rewarding part of the game so if you don't hear anything from me for a while I'm probably still "down there" and setting things up for your underground adventure! :)


If you want to see much more of those in-dev snippets you're very welcome to join our growing Discord server.


Thank you all so much for your feedback and enthusiasm for Of Blades & Tails!
I will do my best to make it an amazing game!

Until next time, take care!

Felix