Those Who Rule News

Hey everyone!

Second hotfix is now live, and this one is focusing on smoothing out the experience for anyone affected by "losing control" after a mid chapter event triggers (reinforcements, talk events, etc). If you've ever gotten into the state where you could move the camera around, but couldn't click on any units after a mid chapter event, this is the patch for you!

Basically what was happening is during certain events, sometimes I'm assuming a certain character would be on the map. During mid-chapter events, player in put is disabled, and if an exception gets thrown for any reason, the code to return control to the player is not executed. Illyana in chapter 2 for example when the reinforcements come will have the camera pan to her, but if she's dead, that code will throw an error, and player input is not re-enabled!

This has now been fixed for every event in the game. I've wrapped every single event in a try/catch block, and on catching any errors, the event will simply end, and I will re-enable player input. The underlying exception will still be there, so I will continue looking into those, but at the minimum you should be able to continue playing through the chapter.

My main priorities right now are:
1. Making saves sacred. Right now there is one main issue that is causing ripple effects throughout the game, and that is the lack of proper resets on the cached version of a save. In simple terms, when you hit the "Main Menu" button in battle, or get the game over screen, and restart the battle from the main menu, some parameters aren't reset correctly, causing things like keeping your rewards from any chests you opened, doubling items, keeping exp gain, etc. I believe this is also the cause of some other things such as. I've been able to reproduce this somewhat consistently, and I'm hoping to get a fix for it out ASAP. I'm going to spend all of today solely on this issue because I think it'll fix a lot of strange behavior people are seeing. IN THE MEANTIME: I would recommend if you're going to restart a chapter, completely close the game and re-open and then restart to ensure the cached save is properly deleted. You shouldn't have to do this, but it's the best way to avoid this bug until I fix it.
2. Making sure you do not lose progress while you're playing a chapter due to a bug/game freezing. Still have a couple of these to iron out (like poison killing an enemy with a droppable item).

Thank you all for your extreme levels of patience. My goal is to get all of these ironed out by the weekend when most people will have the time to be opening up the game. If you experience a loss of any items/characters and would like me to look at the save, please grab the save file, the player.log, and the player-prev log and send them to me at [email protected] and I can try to manually edit to fix any issues you have!

Local save location: C:\Users\{your_username}\AppData\LocalLow\eBrothers LLC\Those Who Rule\thoseWhoRuleSaveFinalV1_{X}.es3 (Where 'X' is the save slot, 0 if it's a mid-battle "continue save").
Local Player.log and Player-prev.log location: C:\Users\{your_username}\AppData\LocalLow\eBrothers LLC\Those Who Rule\Player.log AND Player-prev.log

• Fix: Full pass on all reinforcement events, and any other mid-chapter events to add safety net for exceptions that could disallow player input. On any issues, the game will fallback to code that returns control to the player. This should fix the issue of people still being able to move the camera, but no other input being allowed, essentially freezing the game. It should also fix when conversations come up mid battle, and you lose input controls. Please report if you still experience any of these issues after the update.
  
• Fix: Game no longer freezing in chapter 2 on reinforcements if Illyana is dead.
  
• Fix: Dialogue panel fix in a particlar chapter 13 base conversation.
  
• Fix: Incorrect labelling of certain chapter 13 base conversations as side quests.
  
• Fix: Fixed text in Fencer's lunge ability.
  
• QoL: Default difficulty that shows up at the start of a new game changed from "Veteran" to "Normal".
  
• QoL: Small tweaks to Indomnitable and Drakkar's Idol ability text to better reflect their reliance on combat.
  
• Balance: Chapter 7, while meant to be a difficulty spike, is proving a little more challenging than I planned. Reduced the average level of enemies by 1. Replaced the Steel Bows of Longbowman with Iron Bows. Also slight manual nerfs to particular enemies in difficulties other than veteran. Hope this makes the level feel a bit more fair. It's tough to straddle the line of challenging, but fun. I hope this change gets it a little closer to the middle. Please let me know what you think after trying out the changes! You will have to hit "Restart Chapter" to get the new changes.
  

Again, thank you all so much for your patience if you've experienced these. I will continue to work to get them ironed out ASAP.

Best,
Eldin T.

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.