Those Who Rule News

Hey everyone!

Thank you all for the tremendous amount of support yesterday. We hit new and trending amongst some heavy hitters, and the day surpassed any expectations I had going into it. A special thank you to everyone who left your feedback in the form of reviews, bug reports, and in the forums/Discord/social media!

This first hotfix is going to be a little sparse as I was focused a lot on responding to comments and generally handling the release yesterday. I plan on doing a hotfix every day so keep sending in anything you find!

• Fix: Hitting "main menu" in chapter one glitches the game.
  
• Fix: Traversable tiles hidden behind house in chapter 3 now made untraversable (so you don't get surprise flanked).
  
• Fix: Leaping Strike and Raiding Strike will now move the defending unit even on miss so you don't share the same tile.
  
• Typo: Small typo in Thrillbeat.
  
• Typo: Updated Exploitive Strike to be clear it's the battling enemy.
  
• Typo: END tooltip in promotion UI.
  
• Typo: Minor typos in some dialogues.
  

If one of your fixes didn't make it into the list, don't worry I'll still be heads down grinding today to get as many fixes in as I can tomorrow. I think it not being the release day will give me more time to focus on squashing any bugs. I'll be prioritizing any game breaking bugs you find (like the leaping strike change above) that don't have an easy work around.

I also hear all the great feedback on QoL changes such as save states mid battle, main menu navigation in base menus, and the scaling issues on ultra-wide monitors. In some cases I don't have the hardware to properly test everything, but I'll be leaning on the community to help me in cases where I come up short. I'm keeping tabs of everything you all report on a Trello board and am steadily working through each one. Ton of stuff to work on, so I appreciate your patience! I'll be getting to as many as quickly as I can.

You've all been absolutely phenomenal, and your support means the world to me.

Thank you all.
Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone,

Surreal feeling, but Those Who Rule is officially available for purchase on Steam! I want to give a huge shoutout to all of you who wishlisted and followed the development of the game. It's been a passion project of mine for the last four years, and your feedback has been invaluable in shaping the game.

I hope you enjoy your time with it, and I'd love to continue hearing your feedback as I continue to push out updates to the game!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

• A 20-30 hour single player campaign that spans 21 chapters and can be played on 3 difficulties.
  
• Over 30 classes to choose from, with 2 tiers of 3 choice upgrades for each character.
  
• Over 100 different abilities from personal/weapon/item/class/refinements.
  
• Over 50 character and world building base conversations.
  

• Player requested QoL/features, and bug fixes.
  
• Controller support and Steam Deck verification.
  
• A Brutal difficulty mode where the first person recording themselves beating it will get to design a custom in game playable character.
  
• Mod support.
  

Though it's the launch, it's also just the start! Please continue to help me make Those Who Rule the best game it can be. I'll be eagerly watching the forums for feature requests and bug reports to fix ASAP. Again, I can't say it enough but I appreciate each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you!
Eldin Turulja

Hey everyone!

Getting a little emotional, last one of these updates I'm going to do before the game releases. The first update I did was on February 12, 2022, almost 3 years ago, and here we are now, announcing the release date of January 27, 2025. It's a surreal feeling, and I want to thank each and every one of you who have followed the development of this game.

I've been heads down on the remaining chapters, and I can finally say that we have finished the entire game, with 21 chapters in total (Prologue up to chapter 20). I don't want to spoil all the levels, but I'll show a sneak peak into a later chapter:



I had some extra time to get in the most popular requests, like fixed growths option, a non-permadeath option, difficulty options (planning a "brutal" difficulty after release), persistent blood effects (can be seen in the gif above), etc.



I've also added in the remaining weapons, items, and refinements into the game, bringing the total amount of abilities you have to customize your units with to well over 100.

These final 2 weeks will be spent play-testing, and adding in the final story scenes/supports, but trying to make minimal code changes to have the game be as stable as possible for release.

• All chapter battles complete.
  
• ~20 new refinements added into the game.
  
• ~30 new items added.
  
• ~20 new weapons added.
  
• 6 voice-acted world map scenes completed.
  
• Fixed growths mode.
  
• Non-permadeath mode.
  
• Difficulty settings.
  
• Persistent blood option in settings.
  
• Final game build approved by Valve!
  

• Put in the remaining story scenes and support conversations.
  
• Finalize map music.
  
• Start working on controller support (Won't make it to release unfortunately), and getting Steam Deck certified.
  
• Work on a "Brutal" difficulty, and potentially having an in-game reward (custom character? custom ability? let me know what you'd want to see!) to the first person who can record themselves defeating it.
  
• Fixes/iterate on any player feedback once you all have the full game in your hands!
  

I'm thinking of doing a dev stream the day of release where I play through the game, and maybe even do live fixes to the most requested features. I've never streamed before, so let me know if that is something that sounds interesting to you and I might try to get a proper camera set up!

Again, thank you all so much for the support you've shown the game through the years. Your feedback through the demo feedback forms has been immensely helpful and encouraging. I couldn't be more excited to get the full game into your hands!

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

What a month. I'm finishing up the last quarter of chapters. Setting up December to be complete with all the content, and leave a month for play-testing/polish. Here's a quick little flip through of some of the new chapters:



All tier 2 classes are now complete, adding a huge amount of new abilities into the game. My favorite was the Berzerker. They gain STR the more vitality they're missing, making them a high risk/reward class. To allow more playing on the edge, once per chapter you get to trigger "Indomitable", which will heal you to half and fortify the Berzerker's defense on their first death each chapter. This allows you to play to the Berzerker's strengths when it's up, and know when to hold off on more aggressive strategies. But be careful as enemy Berzerkers have the same ability!



You all provided amazing feedback during Next Fest that has already helped the game grow into something better. Things like making the base menu's more convenient (you can now scroll through units with mouse/key), animation variety, 4k support, player/enemy phase indicators, showing objectives on chapter start, the list goes on!

Can't thank you all enough for taking the time to try it, and leave feedback in the forums, Discord, or the feedback form.

• Chapters complete up to 15.
  
• Every single tier 2 (exalted) class completed, adding 26 new abilities into the game.
  
• 8 new characters with unique passives.
  
• Ton of unique items scattered throughout the chapters. My favorite being a dagger with the "Hidden Blade" ability. It's low damage, but refreshes your turn on the first enemy kill of that turn.
  
• Fixes for 4k monitors. No, the backgrounds shouldn't be shrunk during dialogue!
  
• Unity default logo swapped out for desktop icons.
  
• [QoL] Tab to focus on next available unit.
  
• [QoL] Player and Enemy phase indicators.
  
• [QoL] WASD and scrolling now moves you through base unit management UIs.
  
• [QoL] The correct naming of spears. One handed "Lances" are now "Spears". Two handed "Spears" are now "Polearms". We had a great debate in the Discord that led to this.
  
• [Fix] Infinite shield duplication.
  
• [Fix] Item disappearing on restarting chapter.
  

• All chapters complete.
  
• More support conversations.
  
• More items.
  
• More side objectives.
  
• Fixed growths mode.
  
• Perma-death option on game start.
  
• Difficulty settings.
  
• Key re-mapping.
  

Still plenty of work to be done, but the finish line is in sight! Thank you all for your support, feedback, and encouragement. I couldn't be more excited to get this game into your hands.

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the late update, but I've narrowed down the release month to January 2025!!

I've been nose to the grindstone on polishing up the demo for the Steam Next Fest that we'll be participating in starting TOMORROW! Really excited to see how it goes, as it's usually a major source of visibility for indies. This one has over 3,000 games participating though so we'll have to wait and see.

We also have a shiny new trailer to announce the new launch month.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Between all the demo updates and trailer creation, I also had time for finishing up chapter 8, focusing on a more tight experience. I have a new process for designing maps that I think is going to be super engaging:


The new demo is also released now, still up to chapter 3, but I've gotten a ton of feedback that I've already incorporated into the game.

• Chapter 8 complete.
  
• UI Revamp complete.
  
• NEW demo build pushed with all the changes.
  
• New trailer.
  
• New final logo for the game.
  
• Updated the Steam page with new trailer, screenshots, gifs, and descriptions.
  
• Updated all weapon icons.
  
• QoL: Turn indicators for player/enemy/ally phase.
  
• QoL: Hitting tab to focus on the next playable character.
  
• QoL: Button delay when popping up dialogue options.
  
• QoL: Objective UI shows at start of the chapter.
  
• Fixes to better support 4k.
  
• Windowed mode.
  
• Fix: Player input not being re-allowed sometimes after objective UI.
  
• Various other small fixes/QoL requested by people in the demo survey. I hit a good chunk of them, but if there's still something you really want to see let me know!
  

For future changes, this next week I'll likely be focusing on doing the best i can in Steam Next Fest. During and after that it's pure chapter creation! At 12 hour days, chapter 8 took me ~4 days (map, new items, characters, events). I'm pulling 6-7 days a week right now so the goal is to have the chapters done by end of November. Leaving December/January for polish/playtesting.

• Chapter, chapters, and more chapters.
  
• Finish up remaining elite classes.
  
• Implement interesting items/weapons to enhance gameplay. (I'd love to hear your ability ideas to potentially put in the game!)
  

Thank you everyone for the continued support. It feels surreal approaching the finish line, but there's still much work to be done, and I'll make sure to keep you all in the loop every step of the way.

Cheers,
Eldin T.