All Quiet in the Trenches - WW1 narrative squad management - now available on Early Access

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://totallynotaliens.com/aqitt

Spoiler

ABOUT THIS GAME​

1915, World War I, Western Front. As a German Unteroffizier, you are responsible for a group of soldiers. Whether they will survive the war is in your hands. Welcome to the trenches, Herr Unteroffizier!

The time in the camp is marked by heavy labor with an insecure supply situation. Is there enough time for the men to rest? Can they process the horrors they have experienced and mourn the fallen?

Your decisions between the needs of the soldiers and the demands of the superiors result in a unique story each time. But your choices don't change the war. They change the life of your soldiers.

The chaos of war threatens the physical and mental well-being of the soldiers. Again and again you have to make decisions in an attempt to face the fatal coincidences of the battlefield.

Devblog:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/3738608243796408084

Dev Diary #002
Our last few months have been all about our All Quiet in the Trenches demo for Steam Next Fest, which takes place next week from 9/10/2023 to 16/10/2023. Feel free to visit us here during this period and get the free demo.


July
In July, we completely revised the game's starting point. Instead of starting with a troop that has already been at war for some time, the game now starts in May 1915 with the arrival of your troop in the trenches. This game entry will also be the content of our demo.

August
August was mainly a time of fine-tuning for us, called polishing in game development. Outdated icons were revised, bugs were fixed, texts were adjusted, placeholder graphics were replaced and we checked everything again to see if anything was missing or outdated over the years of development and no longer fitted in with the rest of the game.

September
This polishing phase extended into September. In addition, we added a tutorial to the game in September and optimised the performance of the game in various places so that the demo hopefully runs smoothly on as many devices as possible. In the course of this, we also added graphics settings for older hardware.

We are very excited to see how you like the demo. This is the first time that we have a publicly available demo of the game. Please let us hear your feedback on what you liked, what you didn't like, where there were bugs and what you would like to see in Early Access. Send us your feedback preferably via Discord or the Steam forum . Have fun with the demo!

Demo gameplay:

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/863500/discussions/0/3877093932385343741/

I can really relate so I won't go into details. And yes, Early Access isn't for everyone. It's perfectly fine to wait for the final release. Our process in the Early Access will be to approach the in-game time in yearly increments: At the start of our Early Access phase you can play roughly the first year of the game, from spring 1915 to spring 1916. This version will then be expanded year by year over time to include the remaining years of the war until its end in November 1918.

autosave:
there won't be manually saving in the full release, but the autosave steps will become much shorter. It's plannend that there will a an autosave after each turn.

epiloques:
Yes, we're planning to have a summary for each of your soldiers at the end of the game and how their lives have gone since the war, which will be included in the final game. You're right, there are so many interesting stories to tell, and it also helps to understand the course of history.

hitch in the walk animation:
I'd love to see into this. Which walk animation do you mean exactly? There are 2 different ones in camp (a more chilled and a stiffer one), one with the weapon over the shoulder in trench and a walk and a run in battle that blend into each other

missions completion steps:
Yes, this should be addressed. Our game is also meant for players who are not that much into fighting and you aren't the first one who struggles with finding out what to do when the lieutenant tells you to cross the river. We'll look into this to make it more intuitive

thanks to all of you for your kind words

troop size: your troop size will stay 6 most of the time. Sometimes it can be less (at the beginning of the game and if someone dies or gets injured enough to be sent home and you haven't got a replacement yet). We might increase it to 7 or 8 late in the game, but we're not sure yet.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

This is actually pretty interesting tbh fam. Sort of a FOB/barracks/trench simulator with a lot of storyfaggotry/relationship management and a little bit of tactical combat. You manage a small squad of soldiers on the front line of WWI, but - as in reality - combat is a very small part of what you do. Most of the time you are tasked with various jobs in the camp (guard duty, shifting supplies etc) while trying to keep your commander from shitting on you and your men too much. There are quite a few characters that you need to maintain relations with, such as the nurse from the field hospital, the quortermaster, cook, local frenchie villigers etc, all of whom can offer you "subquests."

I will definitely keep an eye on this - there arent many things of this sort. I would compare this to A Legionary´s Life, though you manage a whole squad instead of a single character.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[BruceVC]

https://totallynotaliens.com/aqitt

ABOUT THIS GAME​

1915, World War I, Western Front. As a German Unteroffizier, you are responsible for a group of soldiers. Whether they will survive the war is in your hands. Welcome to the trenches, Herr Unteroffizier!

The time in the camp is marked by heavy labor with an insecure supply situation. Is there enough time for the men to rest? Can they process the horrors they have experienced and mourn the fallen?

Your decisions between the needs of the soldiers and the demands of the superiors result in a unique story each time. But your choices don't change the war. They change the life of your soldiers.

The chaos of war threatens the physical and mental well-being of the soldiers. Again and again you have to make decisions in an attempt to face the fatal coincidences of the battlefield.

Devblog:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/3738608243796408084

Dev Diary #002
Our last few months have been all about our All Quiet in the Trenches demo for Steam Next Fest, which takes place next week from 9/10/2023 to 16/10/2023. Feel free to visit us here during this period and get the free demo.


July
In July, we completely revised the game's starting point. Instead of starting with a troop that has already been at war for some time, the game now starts in May 1915 with the arrival of your troop in the trenches. This game entry will also be the content of our demo.

August
August was mainly a time of fine-tuning for us, called polishing in game development. Outdated icons were revised, bugs were fixed, texts were adjusted, placeholder graphics were replaced and we checked everything again to see if anything was missing or outdated over the years of development and no longer fitted in with the rest of the game.

September
This polishing phase extended into September. In addition, we added a tutorial to the game in September and optimised the performance of the game in various places so that the demo hopefully runs smoothly on as many devices as possible. In the course of this, we also added graphics settings for older hardware.

We are very excited to see how you like the demo. This is the first time that we have a publicly available demo of the game. Please let us hear your feedback on what you liked, what you didn't like, where there were bugs and what you would like to see in Early Access. Send us your feedback preferably via Discord or the Steam forum . Have fun with the demo!

Demo gameplay:

Thanks for sharing, I didnt know about this and I love the history of WW1....it was the most significant war of all time

Keep us updated about what its like when its released because Im very interested

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/3906374309666413132

Dev Diary #003
After the demo, we have spent the last few months focussing fully on the Early Access of our game All Quiet in the Trenches.


October
The Steam Next Fest took place at the beginning of October and it was a very exciting experience for us. Over 6000 people played our demo and we received a lot of good feedback and encouragement from you. A big thank you for that! Over the next few weeks, we fixed a few bugs based on all the feedback from the demo and have already been able to implement some of the feedback, like the most frequently mentioned too small settings menu or the option to change the cursor size so that our game can also be played comfortably on the Steam Deck.

November
Some missing features were added to the game in November, such as hand grenades and the surrender of soldiers. We also expanded the areas on our battlefield to ensure a larger playable map. We plan to further develop these during Early Access. We have also added more projects to the trench phase.

December
Based on the expanded battle areas, during December we implemented various scenarios that can occur randomly after the introductory battles. The missing season Winter has been added and the pool of possible soldiers has been expanded by two more: Linnecke and Mayel. In addition, an FAQ section has been added to the All Quiet in the Trenches homepage. Feel free to have a look!

We are very much looking forward to our Early Access release on 17 January 2024 and are eagerly awaiting your feedback. Early Access will cover the first year of the game - roughly from spring 1915 to spring 1916. In the course of further development, we plan to add the following years (until the end of the war in November 1918), minor adjustments and additional content to the game.

We have also made a new Early Access trailer. If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch it here:

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://totallynotaliens.com/aqitt#roadmap

ROADMAP​

• 0.5 Early Access Release​

  17 January 2024​

  This version covers the first year of the game, from Spring 1915 to Spring 1916, and focuses on the core content of the game. It contains all the different phases of the game (trench, battle and camp), a pool of 12 soldiers, around 70 projects, 80 different stories that can be triggered in the journal, a story-driven intro scenario, 15 randomly selected levels afterwards and a variety of dynamic events and dialogues that can occur throughout the game.

• 0.6 Battle Update​

  For this, we plan to add machine guns, enhance the battle map, include new offensive and defensive levels and polish the battle phase in general. Several extreme play styles are planned to be considered, such as very cautious or very aggressive, very soldier-friendly or very prestige-oriented.

• 0.7 Soldiers Update​

  We're planning to introduce a soldier skill system with new traits and unique skills that they can learn as they go through the war. We also plan to add more character attributes, two more soldiers and additional projects. Circumstances such as the death of soldiers will be dealt with in more detail.

• 0.8 Gas Update​

  In this update, we plan to extend the game to cover the period up to Spring 1917. Stories of historical events will be added, and the Gas War will be addressed and incorporated into the trench and battle phases.

• 0.9 Hospital Update​

  War-related illnesses, as well as injuries and mental suffering, are planned to be taken into account in this update.

• 0.10 French Update​

  This update will focus on the French soldiers and add more interactions with the French village.

• 1.0 End of War Update (Full Release)​

  For this update we plan to add the last phase of the war up to 11 November 1918. It's planned to feature a wide range of content in general, including historical stories from this period.

• Further Support & Bugfixing​

 

[luj1]

"narrative" buzzword = ez pass

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Will be getting this for sure, I like the concept and demo was p. solid tbh fam.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/3964924274911796582

Recap and outlook
It's now been a week since we released All Quiet in the Trenches in Early Access. We'd like to briefly look back at how things went for us and look ahead at what's to come.

In the last 7 days, almost 3500 people have bought the game and 90% of your ratings were positive. This is a great acchievement for us, especially since we are a very small indie studio - without a publisher and marketing budget. Thank you very much for your support and trust! It is not a given to buy a game in Early Access.

Your constructive feedback also helps us a lot. It allows us to identify what is already working well and what we can potentially improve.

We have created a roadmap in advance to help you assess what content we want to add to the game during Early Access: https://totallynotaliens.com/aqitt#roadmap

This roadmap has deliberately been kept short so that we can hopefully implement everything in it, regardless of the game's future success. Based on current developments, it looks like we will be able to add a few additional points to the roadmap. We are very happy about that. So be prepared that a section may be added to the roadmap every now and then and that the order of other sections may therefore change. This should never result in something being cancelled, but only happen if it means more content can be added to the game.

We are currently working on a small patch to version 0.5.5, after which we will focus on developing the first major update. This will take a few weeks. We will try to keep you regularly updated on our development. Until then, we hope you continue to have a good time with All Quiet in the Trenches and thank you for your support!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://tallyhocorner.com/2024/02/t...ts-on-early-access-all-quiet-in-the-trenches/

...
One of the reasons the 1929 novel referenced in the title of Totally Not Aliens’ debut was so distasteful to warmongers like Hitler, and still has the capacity to shock today, is that it pulls zero punches. All Quiet on the Western Front transports the reader into the man-made hell that was WWI trench warfare then forces them to gaze upon the myriad horrors found there.

“Anti-war”AQITT, in contrast, makes for the same destination only to pussyfoot and veil on arrival. Yes, the individually taskable men in your squad can ‘suffer’ and ‘die’ during the course of a typical 3-4 hour playthrough*, but almost always the graphics, writing, and gameplay unwittingly conspire to make the suffering and deaths as palatable as possible.

* Currently the campaign only runs for one year.

Playing this “narrative turn-based strategy RPG” don’t expect to encounter soldiers (all the following quotes are from AQOTWF) “without mouths, without jaws, without faces”… footless warriors staggering onwards on “splintered stumps”… people “living with their skulls blown open”. In AQITT no-one goes to a dressing station with hands clasped over bulging intestines, or holds “the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death”....

 

[Infinitron]

Hey, wait a minute! https://steamdb.info/app/863500/history/?changeid=U:43849692

Change U:43849692 2 months ago · 22 December 2023 – 17:00:30 UTC

• Changed Store Description – All Quiet in the Trenches is a narrative turn-based strategy gameRPG set in World War I. Get to know your soldiers, take care of their needs and lead them in battle, trying to strike a precarious balance between the ambitions of your superiors and the survival of your men.

Moving thread.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/6098509125451879521

Pre-announcement Major Update 0.6: Trench Update
Two months have passed since our early access release version 0.5. Today we are happy to announce the next major update: Version 0.6 will be the "Trench Update" and will focus on the Trench Phase.

Attentive observers will know that this update was not previously included in the roadmap on our homepage. As indicated in our last post, the positive response to the game allows us to add further updates in addition to those already announced. We are very happy about this. The Trench Update is one of them!

What will be included in the Trench Update?

• Building/repairing selected defences, barbed wire, ladders, bridges
• Longer Trench phases with new tasks, projects and additional features
• New trench areas and new defensive and offensive battles
• New stories inside and outside the Trench
• Expansion of the map
• General revision and improvement of existing content

What about the Battle Update?
The Battle Update is moving down one position and is currently planned as the next major update. You can see the adjusted order on our homepage:

https://totallynotaliens.com/aqitt#roadmap

For the following reasons, we thought it made more sense to start with the Trench update:

The Trench phase has received the least attention in our development so far. We have realised that there is still a lot of potential here.

With all the things we had originally planned for the Battle Update, the additional features we wanted to implement and the feedback we received, the Battle Update has also become very large. We didn't want to run the risk of needing half a year for the first update in the worst case, which is why it was logical for us to spread the update out.

A not insignificant part, especially in terms of map design, but also a few features, is therefore already included in the Trench update

What are we planning for further development?
We have also swapped the Gas Update with the Soldiers Update in our roadmap. On the one hand, because we want to ensure that the period up to 1917 is playable earlier. Secondly, we realised that it simply makes more sense: when soldiers acquire new characteristics and abilities during the course of the war, you also want to see their effects over a longer period of time.

We very much hope that these adjustments are in your interest and will enrich your gaming experience. In the future, the roadmap may continue to change depending on current circumstances or feedback, for example by adding new points, swapping updates or splitting them into several parts. As previously announced, this should never lead to something being cancelled, but only happen if it means more content can be added to the game.

We also estimated the development period in Early Access to be 1-2 years before release. Now that we are able to build additional content for the game, we are changing the time frame to ~2 years.

When will the Trench update be released?
We can't give a firm date yet, but we are planning for an early April release. Most of it is already implemented. We want to add a few more things and then take some time for bugfixing and polishing.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4141695629554720651

Dev Diary #004 - Constructions
In today's Dev Diary, we would like to take a closer look at the "Construction" feature that will be coming with Trench Update 0.6.

An important aspect that we would like to expand in the gameplay is the ability to complete optional tasks that not only have a direct impact, but also a potential long-term change. In our initial release version in the tutorial, there was already an option to rebuild a destroyed position. A feature that we did not take up again afterwards... Until now!

"Constructions" are individual areas in the trench, such as defences, barbed wire or ladders. During the trench phase, certain positions may be destroyed by artillery. This may mean that defensive positions in the battle can no longer be manned, that certain routes in the trench become impassable or that the enemy has an opening into the trenches. These areas can then be repaired by your troops.

In addition, some new, defined areas of the trench can be optionally extended. Ladders enable further retreat options, barbed wire directly in front of the trench prevents rapid infiltration. If sufficient capacity is available, new positions can even be built.

We have therefore decided to install new camera zones in the trench phase. This provides a better overview of the trench. The optional projects can be added from there in the left-hand bar.

We first want to see how this feature is received. With the release of 0.6 there will therefore be 35 "Constructions" for the time being.

We have also added 2 new trench levels. These are not only a visual component, but also have an influence on which "constructions" are possible. They also change the starting positions in the event of an enemy attack.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4204746659271487360

Dev Diary #005 - Improving the Trench Phase
Hello again,

in today's Dev Diary, we would like to take a closer look at the additional changes that will be coming with the next update.

Artillery fire
We thought about how we could make artillery fire in the trench phase more interesting. Until now, the probability of being injured during a bombardment was higher. We wanted to make it so that you have to carefully weigh up whether to fulfil a task or not. If we had simply made artillery fire even more dangerous, this would not have had the desired effect.

With the new update, all soldiers are now locked during heavy artillery fire in the "Hole up in the bunker" project. If a soldier has to fulfil a task because, for example, food or ammunition supplies are running low, you have to deal with him... and, if necessary, force him to leave the safety of the bunker. Of course, this has personal consequences...

Longer phases
With the additional content, we have decided to tweak the balancing a little and at the same time ensure a slightly longer game experience. On average, the troops will be sent to the trenches more often and a turn in the camp will now only last 10 days instead of the previous 12 days (which means there are more game turns overall). A battle will also last a little longer until one side is ordered to retreat. In addition, the phases in the trenches are slightly longer on average. Sometimes longer than expected...

Send to camp
Spending more time in the trenches? Have we then reduced the general exhaustion of the soldiers? No! On the contrary, new circumstances have been added that can put even more strain on the soldiers... In addition, it is now also possible for them to collapse from exhaustion during the trench phase.

However, it will be possible to send exhausted soldiers back to the camp. There they can recover a little and come back after a few days. In the meantime, they will not be able to perform any other tasks, and if the enemy launches an attack, they will of course not be available...

What more is there?
The old user interface for the reputation with superiors / mood of the soldiers was not understandable for some. We decided to make it a little simpler in order and emphasise the most important elements.

We have implemented an additional dialogue option if a character has several "!" at once. This makes it quicker to collect the countless orders when your trust in Lieutenant von Karrsbruck is on the line.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/6181831424328204545

Dev Diary #006 - Next Update
Hello everyone!

It's been a little over a month since the Trench Update and we can tell you that the next update will be for the Battle Phase! We have a lot of features and changes planned, which we will tell you about in the Dev Diaries in the near future.

But first something personal:

We are a small, familial dev team. Jenny and Carola are siblings, Alex is Jenny's partner and Julian is a good friend of ours. When tragic things happen, it affects us all in some way. Unfortunately, something like this happened a few weeks ago and someone very close to us passed away unexpectedly and far too young. This has hit us all hard and made it very difficult to work over the last few weeks. We all needed time to come to terms with it. And now that most of us are back to work, we realise how much pressure we are under to release a new update as soon as possible. As there was a lot of content planned for the Battle Update (more work than the Trench Update), we're going to split it into two parts to take some of the pressure off our shoulders.

We plan to split the update as follows:

0.7 Battle Update
The new battle update is planned to essentially include major changes to the game design of the battle phase, some new animations, adjustments to the NPC troop logic and more detailed tooltips. Many of the changes are based on your feedback and are intended to make the battle phase more comprehensible and direct.

0.8 Machine Gun Update
The outsourced part of the Battle Update is planned to be be moved to the Machine Gun Update. This is planned to add the machine gun, an expanded map, new levels, events and stories to the battle phase.

All other updates in the roadmap will then move up one step. We have also adjusted this in our roadmap.

To help us with the stories, Marie is also joining our team and will take over some of the writing from now on. She was previously on board for a short time as part of her studies and we are delighted to have her back.

We hope you can understand our decision and wish you many more interesting experiences with All Quiet in the Trenches.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4183362170397084962

Dev Diary #007 - Changes in the battle
Hello everyone!

Over the last few months, we have made a number of changes to the battle based on your feedback. Today, we would like to give you a few details about the upcoming changes that will be released with the 0.7 Battle Update.

All Quiet in the Trenches is a game that is somewhere between strategy, role-playing and simulation. We want to retain the simulative aspect, especially in the battle, because we believe that it is better suited to creating in-depth experiences. However, we also found that the previous approach was perhaps a little too simulative, lacking transparency and with too little opportunity for direct influence.

We have tried to restructure the battle phase so that the player has more influence on what happens, the effects are more direct, but we have still retained the previous feel and the simulation aspect.

Danger display
When selecting a troop action, we have revised the danger display. The danger caused by artillery, enemy hand grenades and possible close combat no longer plays a role in the displayed danger level. The danger level is now only calculated from the various "gunfire" commands.

In the previous version, we tried to somehow summarise the various dangers, which was quite complicated and obscure, as other factors also played a role in addition to the probability of an event, such as the number of soldiers potentially affected (moving with fewer soldiers was less dangerous), the intensity of the injury (artillery had a higher chance of causing serious injuries), etc.

In the future, the danger level will precisely reflect the probability of an injury, and the new system also gives us the opportunity to explain the individual hazards in more detail.

This movement action becomes dangerous because of four of the French troops. Troops III and IV contribute more to the danger. In addition, troop III suppresses our position.

Troop Actions
The troop actions
Rally
and
Suppress
have been removed. This means that there is now only one action per area. If the troop is to remain in the same position, there is now only
Hold
.

Command: Take Cover
The
Take Cover
command, which was previously only available via the
Gather
troop action, is now the default command for
Hold
. If a soldier remains in cover, the displayed danger from rifle fire is irrelevant to him.

Command: Fire on sight
The
Fire on Sight
command is carried out by two soldiers. It allows the entire battlefield to be monitored with minimal ammunition consumption. The command combines and replaces the previous
General Suppression
and
Monitor Routes
commands.

Command: Suppress
The new
Suppress
command can now be used to suppress any enemy unit.

The icons in the 3D interface were introduced in the last update for the constructions and now allow many different commands without cluttering up the display on the left side.

Suppression requires three soldiers and uses a lot of ammunition. In return, the target receives the
suppressed
attribute. If you are suppressed, you cannot give any fire orders. However, you can shoot back, which can be very dangerous. The team that wins the firefight is evaluated. The losing side is suppressed, while the other side receives the fire
superiority
attribute, which, among other bonuses, prevents further suppression for one round.

Command: Fire from the flank
This was already there, but we wanted to have a more comprehensible system here as well. The flanked troop receives the
Scattered
attribute and individual soldiers flee to nearby cover. In addition, this troop must retreat in the next round in order to slowly regroup its soldiers.

The troop was flanked in the last turn, which is why there are only a few options for retreating.

Command: Provide covering fire
Cover fire for allied troops will be removed. Since it is possible to suppress any troop, this would only conflict with this and make the suppression system less valuable. Instead, it will now be possible to provide cover fire when moving your own troops.

To do this, two soldiers are assigned to stay behind during the movement. They reduce the danger for all moving soldiers, but must return to their unit on their own in the next round. Cover fire for individual, separated soldiers will continue to exist!

Cover
The level of cover will play an even greater role. Good cover not only lowers the danger level, but also increases firepower. The level of cover plays an enormous role, especially in direct firefights (suppression).

Troop display
The troop displays have been revised. We have noticed that the large amount of information is given little to no attention. This is partly because it was not important enough in the past, as there were rarely direct interactions with the troops, but also because there was simply too much information at once.

With the next update, we will only display the most important attribute for each troop. Normally, this will be the level of cover. However, if a troop is suppressed or scattered, this will be displayed instead.

In addition, all important commands will be displayed instead of the last troop action. So if a troop has two of its soldiers in
Fire on Sight
and three soldiers in
Suppression
, these two commands will be displayed.

A much more compact overview: Troop IV is in a level 2 cover, suppressing an enemy troop from there and also assigning soldiers to monitor the entire area. Troop III is suppressed, which is why its level of cover currently plays a lesser role.

However, clicking on the flag button will still reveal all the information. Additional arrows indicate the positions affected by the respective command.

The arrows indicate that Troop VII is suppressing Troop V.

Conclusion
In our opinion, it is now much easier to make strategic decisions. The changes mentioned so far now also allow for new situations:

For example, if an allied troop is on the flank of an enemy, it is now possible to suppress the enemy troop directly, allowing the allied troop to change its cover.

The more precise breakdown of the dangers makes it easier to assess where the danger is coming from. For example, if a troop is responsible for the high danger, which would have to retreat soon anyway, it is easier to decide to hold out for another round in the cover before advancing.

The only danger at the moment is from Troop III. Since they are a little too far forward in the offensive, it is quite possible that they will retreat in the near future.

Since certain characteristics, such as
scattered
, force a troop to retreat, it is also easier to control the battle. Troops that remain in one position forever despite flanking are a thing of the past!

But that's not all: We are also planning changes to the melee system, hand grenades, troop behaviour and much more. More on that in one of the next dev diaries. We plan to release the battle update in July.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/7025135705477403187

Dev Diary #008 - Melee combat and grenade reworks
Hello everyone!

We are nearing the end of the development phase for the Battle Update. We're doing our best to release it by the end of this month. But before that, we'd like to introduce you to a few selected changes we've been working on over the last few weeks:

More buttons
Commands such as cut barbed wire, loot crates and a few more are now displayed in the 3D view. This not only helps to keep the bar on the left-hand side clearer, but above all allows us to improve the future map design:

For example, we always had to make sure that only one barbed wire was available to cut per area, otherwise it wasn't clear which barbed wire it was.

The areas where you can search for ammunition are now also highlighted with a button
.

Changes to melee combat
It was a bit complicated to find a suitable system that simulates close combat. We wanted to avoid situations in which enemy troops face each other in close proximity for several rounds. A direct attack should be possible by surprise. Nevertheless, we needed certain signs to indicate the dangers in advance. On the one hand, close combat should be as brutal and unpredictable as possible, but on the other hand the risks should remain manageable. If more than half of the troops lie injured on the ground after a single action, frustration is inevitable. We hope that we have struck the right balance with the current system!

As before, if you are within a certain range of an enemy troop, you will be shown that you are now in melee range. This means that melee combat can break out at any time. The big difference to before is that the range is now much greater (about the same as the range at which you could throw grenades before).

If a troop moves too close to an enemy troop, close combat is automatically triggered. The result is simulated, whereby the number of possible wounds is limited. However, the "loser" is forced to retreat, similar to the flanking we discussed in the last Dev Diary. This means that the lost position must be recaptured in the following rounds, in order to save the missing soldiers.

In the process, however, we have built in the fact that soldiers can now be wounded anywhere on the map and can therefore sometimes lie without cover in no man's land. Previously, a soldier could only be located in a specific area.

This move will automatically result in close combat
.

Bringing wounded soldiers into cover
In these situations, it is now possible to have wounded soldiers brought into your own cover on the open field. However, this can be quite dangerous, as the soldier can also be shot on the open field.

Pedersen was critically wounded in close combat and can now be taken into your own cover
.

Changes to the grenades
The grenades now have a slightly longer range. We have also revised the underlying system. Instead of more or less just simulating the number of wounded, a distinction is now made as to whether a grenade hits directly, explodes near the target or misses the target completely. You are now also informed about the outcome of a grenade throw.

"Don't worry, Mayel. It was only our last grenade..."

New game over options
As some of you may have noticed, there is currently a restriction: the last soldier in a squad is invulnerable. This will no longer be the case with the new update. However, this also means that a sudden game over can occur as soon as all soldiers in a squad are incapacitated. We have written two new stories for this purpose.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4339865428692705457

Dev Diary #009 - Visual improvements in battle
Hello everyone!

In today's Dev Diary we write about the visual features that shall come with version 0.7. We plan to release the 0.7 Battle Update on Wednesday, 31 July.

Information on attributes and values
We have slightly revised the display of projects. In future, a red arrow (for negative changes) or a green arrow (for positive changes) in different intensity levels will communicate the changes in the completion of a project. A die indicates that there is only a chance of an impact or that the intensity is variable.

In addition, the tooltips of the attributes show which other attributes or values are primarily affected.

Animations and other improvements
A few new animations have been added. We've also improved the movement of the soldiers in battle, so hopefully they'll get stuck less often.

Improvement of the cutscene camera
Last but not least, we have reworked the camera settings in battle so that they show a little more of the action. When certain actions take place in the immediate vicinity of the troops (initially only melee combat and grenades), the camera now also captures these.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4339866062665367420

Battle-Update 0.7 – now live!
We're happy to announce that our second major update is now available!

It focusses on the battle phase in the game and has the following core features:

• Overhaul of all battle systems: Gunfire, melee and grenade throwing
• Improvements to NPC troop behaviour logic
• Improved balancing in the battle phase
• Better display of certain effects and more detailed tooltips
• Some new animations and improved battle camera cutscenes

If you would like to find out more about the individual features, you can take a look at our Dev Diaries, which we published in advance:

Dev Diary - Changes in the battle
Dev Diary - Melee combat and grenade reworks
Dev Diary - Visual improvements in battle

And here is the list of the full patchnotes:

Features:

• Added new close combat system: Melee combat will automatically occur when troops move within a certain threshold of an enemy troop, defeated troops will have to move out of the 'close combat zone'
• Added new suppression system: It's possible to target a single enemy troop, suppressed troops cannot give fire orders or throw grenades
• Added new flanking system: Flanked troops are forced to reposition
• Added new cover fire system: It's now possible to cover your own troops when they move
• Added the possibility of soldiers getting wounded in the field and a project to bring wounded soldiers into your cover
• Added two new game-over options: Losing all your soldiers on the battlefield, or having only one soldier when surrounded by enemies
• Added animations for close combat, throwing grenades and being wounded
• Added highlighted scenes to the cutscene camera in battle: The camera will pan to melee combat or grenade scenes when they are near
• Added three new journal illustrations

Improvements / Adjustments:

• Reworked NPC troop behaviour to adapt the new changes
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to have an aggression multiplier: The more turns played in a battle, the more aggressive they will be
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to look for more ways into a target trench (and therefore move horizontally more often)
• Improved NPC troop behaviour to adjust their strategy more on behalf of other troops (e.g. if only a few troops are firing, they are more likely to do so)
• Changed being able to wound the last remaining soldier of a troop
• Reworked impact system: Multiple impacts from different sources are now possible
• Reworked troop actions: ‘Hold position’ now includes all other troop actions that are not movements
• Reworked overwatch: Project is limited to two soldiers with higher efficiency
• Reworked throwing grenades: A distinction is made if the grenade hits, partially misses or completely misses
• Added several projects in battles to be displayed in 3D space
• Changed displays in 3D space to be a bit smaller
• Changed effect displays for projects to be easier to understand
• Added new attribute tooltips: they now highlight the primary effects
• Reworked danger display: The danger from gunfire is now better displayed in the troop action info window, removed all other danger sources
• Reworked UI troop info displays: They only show the most important attribute, and now also show the current fire actions instead of the last troop action
• Changed UI troop info displays, so that they don't appear when the corresponding troop is out of sight
• Improved UI troop info displays, so they don't overlap anymore
• Adjusted some project and attribute icons
• Improved soldier movement slightly
• Improved cutscene camera in general
• Adjusted tutorial slightly to cover the new changes

Balancing:

• Rebalanced every battle level to adapt to the new changes
• Increased the number of turns it takes to decide whether a battle is lost or won
• Increased the playable distance in each level and the distance to get 'Outside the formation' or 'Too far forward'
• Increased movement distance slightly, but limited the distance being able to advance
• Increased cover impact on firepower
• Changed attribute 'Narrow cover' so that suppression is impossible from there
• Changed attribute 'Bushes' so there can be no suppression there.
• Rebalanced ammunition usage
• Rebalanced stress gain / reduction to be less dependent on danger and more on attributes
• Rebalanced the decisive soldier traits for specific projects in combat
• Rebalanced all chances of impact from danger sources
• Increased wound intensity for non-player soldiers: they will take slightly more serious wounds and bleed faster
• Increased morale penalty for running out of provisions

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a number of bugs and errors when reworking the Battle Phase, which may have resulted in other bugs and errors ...
• Fixed scattered soldiers sometimes moving in advance direction
• Fixed being able to move onto an area with a troop with zero active soldiers
• Changed troops without remaining active soldiers to be moved to retreat territory
• Fixed 'Bunker panic' story being able to trigger for every soldier
• Fixed 'Bad work' dialogue adding fear directly when choosing the topic
• Fixed typo in Camp_Cherries story (EN)

Please note that saves from the 0.6.X version will no longer work. However, we will continue to make version 0.6.2 available in the Steam Beta Branch for quite some time.

We wish you all a good time with the new update!
Your Totally Not Aliens Team

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4677641107706592479

Dev Diary #010 - Search and loot
Hello everyone!

Work on the Machine Gun update has been underway for a while now. Today we would like to introduce you to a feature that will be added with version 0.8: It will be possible to obtain equipment from dead, wounded or captured soldiers.

Search corpses

If you are in the same area as a fallen soldier, you can search their corpse for ammunition, bandages or grenades.

As part of this, we have made a small change to the relevant personalities. Previously, a ‘jaded’ soldier had a small bonus over a ‘compassionate’ soldier when searching corpses in terms of the amount of equipment obtained.

We changed that so instead there is now a chance that soldiers can fail a body search (a ‘very jaded’ soldier will always make it).

Search prisoners

It will be possible to search captured soldiers via a dialogue option. We have considered whether it should be possible to obtain ammunition from French soldiers, as it is probably not compatible with German rifles.

In this case, we opted for gameplay instead of realism. On the one hand, because we haven't made any distinction between ammunition boxes, rucksacks etc. in the enemy trenches so far, but also because of the possible tactical component of being able to take an enemy position when ammunition is scarce.

First aid for allies

We have also implemented the possibility that caring for wounded allied soldiers can lead to them leaving some of their remaining equipment with the troops.

 

[BruceVC]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4677641107706592479

Dev Diary #010 - Search and loot
Hello everyone!

Work on the Machine Gun update has been underway for a while now. Today we would like to introduce you to a feature that will be added with version 0.8: It will be possible to obtain equipment from dead, wounded or captured soldiers.

Search corpses

If you are in the same area as a fallen soldier, you can search their corpse for ammunition, bandages or grenades.

As part of this, we have made a small change to the relevant personalities. Previously, a ‘jaded’ soldier had a small bonus over a ‘compassionate’ soldier when searching corpses in terms of the amount of equipment obtained.

We changed that so instead there is now a chance that soldiers can fail a body search (a ‘very jaded’ soldier will always make it).

Search prisoners

It will be possible to search captured soldiers via a dialogue option. We have considered whether it should be possible to obtain ammunition from French soldiers, as it is probably not compatible with German rifles.

In this case, we opted for gameplay instead of realism. On the one hand, because we haven't made any distinction between ammunition boxes, rucksacks etc. in the enemy trenches so far, but also because of the possible tactical component of being able to take an enemy position when ammunition is scarce.

First aid for allies

We have also implemented the possibility that caring for wounded allied soldiers can lead to them leaving some of their remaining equipment with the troops.

I know this game is in early access but how completed is it?

Can you play it for 20-30 hours?

Im very excited about it but I dont want to play a game that has limited mechanics by design because its early access

Its getting very positive Steam early access reviews

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4550416955418345735

Dev Diary #011 - Faster Cutscenes

Hello everyone!

For version 0.8, we have made changes to the cutscenes in the battle. The new system offers us new possibilities for further features and for balancing the levels. The new cutscenes are generally completed faster and can also be skipped once the NPC troop calculation is complete.

What has been changed?

The situation is as follows: Troop I moves from A to B. Troop II then throws a hand grenade at the new position B, causing a soldier from Troop I to flee to position C. Troop III then moves to position C and captures this soldier. The calculations for the NPC troops are turn-based, so all this happens in a single cutscene.

Due to the way the individual events were linked, the NPC troops' calculations were previously paused in certain situations (e.g. when a hand grenade was thrown and a soldier's position changed) until the in-game display caught up. This was the easiest way for us to implement and didn't pose a problem prior to version 0.7, as such links occurred very rarely. However, with the introduction of melee combat and the revision of the grenade mechanic, the cutscenes sometimes became very long, which is why we decided to write a completely new system for them.

With the new system, the display is completely decoupled from the logic. Actions, movements, injuries and other value changes now take place in the background. All these things are then forwarded to a system that progressively processes the actions in the display.

This not only results in a better and clearer code structure, but also makes it possible to skip the cutscene once the calculations are complete. Furthermore, the cutscenes are also faster because events that occur independently of each other are played in parallel.

The gear symbol in the bottom right corner indicates that calculations are still being carried out. If it is no longer displayed, the cutscene can be skipped by pressing the ESC key.

The new system also offers us further possibilities:

Previously, if a soldier was wounded by a rifle shot, we had no ‘proper’ display for this in order to avoid further chaining and thus slowing down the time between rounds. So far, the soldier has walked to his target position and played his wounding animation there. We have found that this automatically led to the effectiveness of, for example, overwatch being rated as too low, because it was often not clear what exactly the consequences were. With the new system, we can now better depict such moments.

From version 0.8 onwards, rifle shots will be assigned directly to a specific soldier and displayed accordingly.

Furthermore, the new system now allows us to do a text-based simulation of a battle in the engine to better balance the individual levels. This involves replacing the player group with a NPC troop and running through a level multiple times at the push of a button. This allows us to see which levels have one-sided odds and adjust them again.

The rework of the cutscenes was not originally planned for 0.8, but arose from the frequently expressed feedback to be able to skip cutscenes. We are looking forward to your feedback on the new system!

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/863500/view/4445709535659688035

Dev Diary #012 - Machine Gun Visuals
Hello everyone!

Today we would like to show you the graphics, animations and particle effects of the machine gun that will come with the ‘Machine Gun’ Update 0.8 (planned for early December).

The machine gun is modelled after the heavy MG 08. For the gameplay in the early years of the war, we wanted a stationary machine gun, which most closely resembles the weaponry used by the Germans, since the light MG 08/15 was not distributed until 1917. A stationary machine gun also has the advantage of creating more points of interest in the gameplay. The MG 08, which weighed over 60 kg (133 lbs) with cooling water and mount and was therefore too heavy for its infantry to follow on foot, was well suited for these purposes.

We plan to tell you more about the gameplay in another Dev Diary. In this Dev Diary, we want to give you a brief impression and have therefore put together a video: