Ruinarch has just launched!
Hello everyone! Today, Ruinarch will be available as an Early Access game in about an hour. Early Access can mean different things to different people so we want to be as transparent as possible to maintain trust with the players. For us, it's important that there is enough gameplay and content available so that it already has entertainment value worthy of your early support. Then you can set it aside if you want while we continue developing it to the fullest and come back to it months or even a year later and find even better value from your initial purchase.
So with that said, I would like to give a clearer overview of what's already available in the game so you can have a more informed decision whether it has enough value for you:
1. I think the most important thing I should stress is the game's core concept. While scenarios end with the player wiping out the Villagers, it is not about doing it in the fastest or easiest way possible. The game is about creativity and storytelling and our focus will always be on giving you tools to enact your evil masterplan. We will still do our best to reduce options or combinations that would make the invasion process trivial and also introduce Villager responses that would counteract them, but I hope players can also gain equal entertainment from prolonged games while watching the Villagers struggle and survive, and occasionally nudging the story forward using their powers.
2. There is a tutorial scenario that includes a combination of various abilities from the three player archetypes. This walks you over most of the game's major features. The tutorial scenario is replayable enough that when it was available as a demo, there were players that logged in over 20 hours of gameplay!
We strongly recommend going through the tutorial scenario before doing Oona.
3. There are five custom scenarios with various unique features and challenges. We tried to make these as different as possible, ranging from 1 region maps up to a 4 region map. From this point on, you can choose to play using one of the three available Archetypes - which determines the abilities that you will have available. Each scenario has some small secrets you may only uncover after multiple sessions and they should have some replay value as there will be some differences each playthrough.
4. There are around 26 spells, 16 afflictions, 7 demon types, 5 demonic structures and about a dozen miscellaneous abilities. There are also over 20 monsters and 8 artifacts. On the Villagers side, there are 2 races, 13 character classes and 2 special classes. There are over 30 Traits, over 50 Status Effects and over 70 Actions and Jobs.
5. There is a Custom random world generator which has a few options to customize the experience. You have the option to turn on No Threat mode for a more relaxing invasion. You can also turn on Omnipotent mode so you won't have to worry about limited abilities and mana. This feature is in its early days and may not be as fun or stable as we'd like until more content in the game is added.
6. Progress during a scenario playthrough cannot be saved yet but this will be the first thing we're adding next. For the current scenarios available, smaller ones can typically last between 30 mins to over an hour while bigger ones may extend up to two hours.
7. The Villager AI I would say is serviceable but still needs significant work to be able to generate more varied and interesting stories comparable to that of RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress. This is the aspect of the game that we intend to focus on more intensely over the coming months. Over the course of our Early Access, expect them to be able to react better to your actions, and also have more meaningful and long lasting interactions with each other.
There is already a Living Roadmap at the store page for our long term milestones. But before that, I'd also like to inform everyone about our plans for the immediate future - starting immediately after we launch up to September. Before jumping into whole new systems, we first want to make what's already there better and finish the features that were already planned but we just weren't able to include at launch.
[h2]Save System[/h2]
As mentioned on our previous announcement, our first priority is to have a Save System within playthroughs. This will be our main focus right after launch and will work on it alongside any major issues reported during the launch week.
[h2]Villager AI[/h2]
It's a huge undertaking to develop fully independent Villager AIs that can survive on their own against a powerful overlord player, and also have fully-realized lives with believable relationships and interactions. Please excuse us for our shortcomings but we're working very hard to keep on improving them over time.
It will take the entire Early Access phase to get it all right but we want to resolve as many of the smaller issues as soon as possible - including Pathfinding and Avoidance problems, Villager Party Coordination, Combat and Fleeing and missing reactions to events around them. Please help us by pointing out any that you may have noticed during your time with the game. We have a feedback form for this, which is accessible from the game so you can report concerns while playing.
[h2]Village Expansions[/h2]
Another priority is for Villagers to be able to repair completely destroyed structures and also expand further when certain criteria are met.
We also want to allow some Villagers to be able to start up a new Village. Ideally, we'd like to finish this alongside the Village Expansion feature but this will be lower priority compared to other features listed here.
[h2]What Happened?[/h2]
Sometimes, important events may occur away from player eyes and the only thing you'll discover is the aftermath. We're trying to figure out how to introduce some sort of "What Happened?" button to give you a summarized version of the chain of events that caused some major incidents (why was someone imprisoned? how did this villager die? why did they declare war? why did he attack?). Hopefully, this helps the players easily know more about what's going on in the scenario.
This feature is harder to implement than it might appear. We're not yet exactly sure how long it would take but it's something I will start digging into right after launch while the developers are working on the Save System.
[h2]Menu Rework[/h2]
Villagers list will be combined with Factions UI to organize and present them better. We'll also group up Demon and Monster lists together. We've already started work on the updated Log tab as part of our Menu Rework and improvements. You can see a screenshot of the draft on our previous post.
Another feature we want to add is some way for the player to bookmark particular Villagers. This way they can keep track of what's going on with favorite Villagers even when not directly looking at them.
[h2]Balance Tweaks and Bug Fixes[/h2]
As we've been with the game for a very long time, our concept of the game's balance may be skewed. That's why we'll listen closely to what players say regarding what's overpowered, or what's lacking in these Archetypes. We will address minor issues as we are able to, but there are also scheduled tasks over the coming months solely reserved for giving each Archetype some needed tweaks and additions.
At the same time, we also want to emphasize that this isn't top priority for us. The game is intended as a story generator, so moving forward, we really want to provide you with as many tools as possible to "create your story". Ideally, we should just leave it up to the player and their own creativity how they want their playthrough to progress - but we are also aware that there is a chunk of our players that need an appropriate amount of challenge to enjoy the game, so we now we should always allocate effort to address this.
Thank you for reading and we hope we can accomplish our goals quickly and make your early support worthwhile!
So with that said, I would like to give a clearer overview of what's already available in the game so you can have a more informed decision whether it has enough value for you:
1. I think the most important thing I should stress is the game's core concept. While scenarios end with the player wiping out the Villagers, it is not about doing it in the fastest or easiest way possible. The game is about creativity and storytelling and our focus will always be on giving you tools to enact your evil masterplan. We will still do our best to reduce options or combinations that would make the invasion process trivial and also introduce Villager responses that would counteract them, but I hope players can also gain equal entertainment from prolonged games while watching the Villagers struggle and survive, and occasionally nudging the story forward using their powers.
2. There is a tutorial scenario that includes a combination of various abilities from the three player archetypes. This walks you over most of the game's major features. The tutorial scenario is replayable enough that when it was available as a demo, there were players that logged in over 20 hours of gameplay!
We strongly recommend going through the tutorial scenario before doing Oona.
3. There are five custom scenarios with various unique features and challenges. We tried to make these as different as possible, ranging from 1 region maps up to a 4 region map. From this point on, you can choose to play using one of the three available Archetypes - which determines the abilities that you will have available. Each scenario has some small secrets you may only uncover after multiple sessions and they should have some replay value as there will be some differences each playthrough.
4. There are around 26 spells, 16 afflictions, 7 demon types, 5 demonic structures and about a dozen miscellaneous abilities. There are also over 20 monsters and 8 artifacts. On the Villagers side, there are 2 races, 13 character classes and 2 special classes. There are over 30 Traits, over 50 Status Effects and over 70 Actions and Jobs.
5. There is a Custom random world generator which has a few options to customize the experience. You have the option to turn on No Threat mode for a more relaxing invasion. You can also turn on Omnipotent mode so you won't have to worry about limited abilities and mana. This feature is in its early days and may not be as fun or stable as we'd like until more content in the game is added.
6. Progress during a scenario playthrough cannot be saved yet but this will be the first thing we're adding next. For the current scenarios available, smaller ones can typically last between 30 mins to over an hour while bigger ones may extend up to two hours.
7. The Villager AI I would say is serviceable but still needs significant work to be able to generate more varied and interesting stories comparable to that of RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress. This is the aspect of the game that we intend to focus on more intensely over the coming months. Over the course of our Early Access, expect them to be able to react better to your actions, and also have more meaningful and long lasting interactions with each other.
What's Next
There is already a Living Roadmap at the store page for our long term milestones. But before that, I'd also like to inform everyone about our plans for the immediate future - starting immediately after we launch up to September. Before jumping into whole new systems, we first want to make what's already there better and finish the features that were already planned but we just weren't able to include at launch.
[h2]Save System[/h2]
As mentioned on our previous announcement, our first priority is to have a Save System within playthroughs. This will be our main focus right after launch and will work on it alongside any major issues reported during the launch week.
[h2]Villager AI[/h2]
It's a huge undertaking to develop fully independent Villager AIs that can survive on their own against a powerful overlord player, and also have fully-realized lives with believable relationships and interactions. Please excuse us for our shortcomings but we're working very hard to keep on improving them over time.
It will take the entire Early Access phase to get it all right but we want to resolve as many of the smaller issues as soon as possible - including Pathfinding and Avoidance problems, Villager Party Coordination, Combat and Fleeing and missing reactions to events around them. Please help us by pointing out any that you may have noticed during your time with the game. We have a feedback form for this, which is accessible from the game so you can report concerns while playing.
[h2]Village Expansions[/h2]
Another priority is for Villagers to be able to repair completely destroyed structures and also expand further when certain criteria are met.
We also want to allow some Villagers to be able to start up a new Village. Ideally, we'd like to finish this alongside the Village Expansion feature but this will be lower priority compared to other features listed here.
[h2]What Happened?[/h2]
Sometimes, important events may occur away from player eyes and the only thing you'll discover is the aftermath. We're trying to figure out how to introduce some sort of "What Happened?" button to give you a summarized version of the chain of events that caused some major incidents (why was someone imprisoned? how did this villager die? why did they declare war? why did he attack?). Hopefully, this helps the players easily know more about what's going on in the scenario.
This feature is harder to implement than it might appear. We're not yet exactly sure how long it would take but it's something I will start digging into right after launch while the developers are working on the Save System.
[h2]Menu Rework[/h2]
Villagers list will be combined with Factions UI to organize and present them better. We'll also group up Demon and Monster lists together. We've already started work on the updated Log tab as part of our Menu Rework and improvements. You can see a screenshot of the draft on our previous post.
Another feature we want to add is some way for the player to bookmark particular Villagers. This way they can keep track of what's going on with favorite Villagers even when not directly looking at them.
[h2]Balance Tweaks and Bug Fixes[/h2]
As we've been with the game for a very long time, our concept of the game's balance may be skewed. That's why we'll listen closely to what players say regarding what's overpowered, or what's lacking in these Archetypes. We will address minor issues as we are able to, but there are also scheduled tasks over the coming months solely reserved for giving each Archetype some needed tweaks and additions.
At the same time, we also want to emphasize that this isn't top priority for us. The game is intended as a story generator, so moving forward, we really want to provide you with as many tools as possible to "create your story". Ideally, we should just leave it up to the player and their own creativity how they want their playthrough to progress - but we are also aware that there is a chunk of our players that need an appropriate amount of challenge to enjoy the game, so we now we should always allocate effort to address this.
Thank you for reading and we hope we can accomplish our goals quickly and make your early support worthwhile!