Indie Dead Monarchy: Open-World | Turn-Based | Mercenary Management | RPG - Fully Released May 19th 2023

[Mustawd]

Replayed it again. Man I suck at this game lol.

1. Getting weird image stretching on this game over screen. I'm playing in windowed mode.

Spoiler

2. It'd help if NPC you can interact with get highlighted when you mouse over them. Right now you can click on them and it works fine, but the game gives you no indication you can interact with them.

 

[Bantichai]

Replayed it again. Man I suck at this game lol.

1. Getting weird image stretching on this game over screen. I'm playing in windowed mode.

Spoiler

2. It'd help if NPC you can interact with get highlighted when you mouse over them. Right now you can click on them and it works fine, but the game gives you no indication you can interact with them.

1. Image stretching? I'll have to do redo the image scaling, but those images are placeholder.

2. Yep, I will get around to that

It might just be my current combat guides that need more work, do tell me what your thoughts on combat are

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Would your demo work on a 32 bit toaster?

 

[Mustawd]

Thanks for the feedback mustawd. nitpick all you want, as I do it with my own game

1. Bit confused though, was it the AI that couldn't do anything, or was it one of your units that couldn't do anything?

It was like it was my turn, but I couldn't do anything. Just stood there. Then at some point randomly the enemies starched attacking me and combat resumed normally. Almost as if game was waiting for my guy to not be stunned anymore? I dunno. I'll try to recreate it if I can.

5. 3 Questions here:

- Could I get your PC specs?

Lol. Don't laff.

Windows 10, Intel i5 3.2 Ghz, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GT 1030

- Also at what points did it drop to 28, was it during the equipment menu and attack animations?

Just at the very beginning. So I don't think it's an issue. See screen below. You can see the minimum is 30, but it's quite literally at very beginning.

Spoiler

- What would you rate performance, obviously there is more to optimise, but was the playable enough in this current state?

It worked fine. No issues for me.

7. Also, could I get your opinion on combat? I will get around to do better guides for it, but what do you think about it in its current state. Is it too convoluted, hard to grasp, fun/challenging, easy but has depth?

Well seeing that there's no documentation, I just went in blind and fucked around. I'd prefer a tutorial in the full game to explain \combat and stats, etc. I will say some specificity in terms of animation for different types of attacks would be nice. Unless i missed something, all attack whether going for the head, body, helmet, armor, etc look the same. But that's ideally. It's not a game breaker for me.


So a bit more feedback on the UI. See image below

Spoiler

A few things.

A. There are two panels (top and bottom) with fighters. Which one is the one with fighter sin reserve and which one is the one where fighters are entered into combat? I have no idea. And I accidentally went into combat with one dude in this fight lol.

I think there's two solutions to this:

1. Label the panels
2. When you go to combat there can be a message that shows the fighters going into combat and giving you an option to accept or to go back to the screen and repick your party.



B. Speaking of going into combat, the only way to get off this screen is hitting the x button, as far as I know. What if I changed my mind and don't want to go into combat? There should be a "enter combat" and a "cancel" button or something to that effect. Also, Xing out of the window should also be Cancel if you're gonna have the X there. Because i'm used to thinking that means the window is gonna be closed (thanks microsoft).

C. When you mouse over the stats it brings up a description. Which is good. However, it only comes up when you mouse over the bars, and not the icons. I'd extend it to make sure when you mouse over the icons the description also pops up.

D. WOuld be nice to have similar descriptions pop up over nthe wepaons. Doesn't need to be verbose, but just basic weapon info would be nice. Es[ecially if I need to choose between fighters, knowing what they're carrying at a glance is helpful.

E. Dragging the portraits to the bottom or top panels IMO isn't intuitive enough. Either find a way to indicate better that's what we should be doing, or just simply have a system where you can click on a portrait and click on an arrow to move the party members back and forth.

F: What's that blank panel in between weapons and stats? Is it going to be used for something else? Not a big deal, just looks random.

 

[Bantichai]

Would your demo work on a 32 bit toaster?

Requires 64 bit processor unfortunately, time to upgrade or try your luck with "qemu". The demo ran decently on SmartCheetah 5-6 year old rig though

 

[Mustawd]

B. Speaking of going into combat, the only way to get off this screen is hitting the x button, as far as I know. What if I changed my mind and don't want to go into combat? There should be a "enter combat" and a "cancel" button or something to that effect. Also, Xing out of the window should also be Cancel if you're gonna have the X there. Because i'm used to thinking that means the window is gonna be closed (thanks microsoft).

Oops I was wrong about that. Ignore.

EDIT: Also, an undo button would be nice since all actions are picked first before they actually happen.

EDIT2: Holy shit that decapitation animation!! Wow, was not expecting that , lol. NIce.

 

[Bantichai]

Thanks for the feedback mustawd. nitpick all you want, as I do it with my own game

1. Bit confused though, was it the AI that couldn't do anything, or was it one of your units that couldn't do anything?

It was like it was my turn, but I couldn't do anything. Just stood there. Then at some point randomly the enemies starched attacking me and combat resumed normally. Almost as if game was waiting for my guy to not be stunned anymore? I dunno. I'll try to recreate it if I can.

5. 3 Questions here:

- Could I get your PC specs?

Lol. Don't laff.

Windows 10, Intel i5 3.2 Ghz, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GT 1030

- Also at what points did it drop to 28, was it during the equipment menu and attack animations?

Just at the very beginning. So I don't think it's an issue. See screen below. You can see the minimum is 30, but it's quite literally at very beginning.

Spoiler

- What would you rate performance, obviously there is more to optimise, but was the playable enough in this current state?

It worked fine. No issues for me.

7. Also, could I get your opinion on combat? I will get around to do better guides for it, but what do you think about it in its current state. Is it too convoluted, hard to grasp, fun/challenging, easy but has depth?

Well seeing that there's no documentation, I just went in blind and fucked around. I'd prefer a tutorial in the full game to explain \combat and stats, etc. I will say some specificity in terms of animation for different types of attacks would be nice. Unless i missed something, all attack whether going for the head, body, helmet, armor, etc look the same. But that's ideally. It's not a game breaker for me.


So a bit more feedback on the UI. See image below

Spoiler

A few things.

A. There are two panels (top and bottom) with fighters. Which one is the one with fighter sin reserve and which one is the one where fighters are entered into combat? I have no idea. And I accidentally went into combat with one dude in this fight lol.

I think there's two solutions to this:

1. Label the panels
2. When you go to combat there can be a message that shows the fighters going into combat and giving you an option to accept or to go back to the screen and repick your party.



B. Speaking of going into combat, the only way to get off this screen is hitting the x button, as far as I know. What if I changed my mind and don't want to go into combat? There should be a "enter combat" and a "cancel" button or something to that effect. Also, Xing out of the window should also be Cancel if you're gonna have the X there. Because i'm used to thinking that means the window is gonna be closed (thanks microsoft).

C. When you mouse over the stats it brings up a description. Which is good. However, it only comes up when you mouse over the bars, and not the icons. I'd extend it to make sure when you mouse over the icons the description also pops up.

D. WOuld be nice to have similar descriptions pop up over nthe wepaons. Doesn't need to be verbose, but just basic weapon info would be nice. Es[ecially if I need to choose between fighters, knowing what they're carrying at a glance is helpful.

E. Dragging the portraits to the bottom or top panels IMO isn't intuitive enough. Either find a way to indicate better that's what we should be doing, or just simply have a system where you can click on a portrait and click on an arrow to move the party members back and forth.

F: What's that blank panel in between weapons and stats? Is it going to be used for something else? Not a big deal, just looks random.

This is awesome feedback, thanks a lot mustawd. the UI will definiately be getting a lot of love, so it helps to know what I need to continue to work on. It'll be going through several iterations, so the more feedback the better.

- Change group, definitely a lot more work needs to be done, there was actually some issues with this UI programming wise, so I decided to push out the demo first and then continue working. Thanks for the feedback here.

- There are still some quirks with the UI, IE not being able to close the equipment with "I", these will get solved in time.

- Will do for the stat tooltips, just a small oversight on that, but good find!

- Great idea for the weapon tooltips, combatant tooltips will be added in the future.

- The blank panel is actually for active abilities, I just haven't gotten around to adding it in yet

Now onto combat related things:

- There are two guides you can access in game, these will go through several revisions, but at least there is something there for now. Press "G" for overworld guide, press "H" for combat guide. They are a bit of a read.

- All base attacks (default) do have different animations for head/body. IE there is an animation for attacking the head/reduce helmet rating and then another animation for attacking body/reducing armor rating. They aren't unique yet across all weapon types, but there are different animations for attacking the head and body. There are a lot of animations that still need tweaking so I haven't added them in yet, this applies for ability animations too.

- The only bug I had with combat freezing is during an attack of opportunity but I thought I had fixed that, this will be something I need to address. If you could recreate it that would be great, check the morale of the enemy unit if you get around to it, also I saw you had two maces - did you double stun it, IE apply concussion twice?

- Glad you like the decapitation animation, they actually still need to be tweaked, IE the head/neck is see through, meshes needs to be edited more and enclosed. There is also a head crush for blunt weapons. I'm also adding blood pools but they are a bit trickier, half way done though. These small things, as well as a skinned UI help me on a personal level as it helps me frame the game a bit easier since it is just me

Thanks again for taking the time to provide feedback, it truly helps!

 

[SmartCheetah]

I was wondering, because it wasn't really viable tactics in Battle Brothers. What about light armored(or no armor at all) combatants? Do you plan to allow some kind of "duelist" builds where person will focus on finesse attacks, going for critical hits/ignoring armor/bleeds and dodge? That would definitely add more depth to encounters and add more variety.
Also - concerning AI tactics. One thing I didn't liked about Battle Brothers was how predictable enemy groups were when you fought them already. Always the same tactics, zero possibilities to somehow trick you. I'd love to see some kind of randomization factor with enemy groups. Lets say that you program few different approaches (CHARGE, few kinds of formations, half charge-half formation, something totally random etc.) and every group you'd have to oppose will randomly select from the pool making every fight a way different experience. You know, just another group of bandits that could possibly surprise you with their formation, or bunch of hedge knights who simply charge you blindly or focus on killing one of your lads. That would be awesome.

 

[Mustawd]

- The only bug I had with combat freezing is during an attack of opportunity but I thought I had fixed that, this will be something I need to address. If you could recreate it that would be great, check the morale of the enemy unit if you get around to it, also I saw you had two maces - did you double stun it, IE apply concussion twice?

So I think I know what the problem with this is. And it's not necessarily a bug. The issue is if I have one unit left, and he gets stunned or whatever and can't move, there's nothing for the player to do. Without understanding that you can skip a turn, I think I just sat there long enough for the turn timer (which I assume is the timer a the top?) ran out. In effect ending the turn. I noticed it because when I played again, one of my units got concussed and couldnt move. Ofc this wasnt a problem since i had other units to choose and move. However, the problem is still there cuz once you finish all the other units moves, you still have this one unit concussed. And you're all wtf do I do? I remembered in your last post that i could end the turn by hitting spacebar or whatever, so I did and problem solved.

I'd think about automatically skipping a unit's turn if he becomes concussed. Unless there's some kind of action he can perform, I think a lot of new players will just be all WTF or worse they will think they need to wait for the timer to run out, which ofc is no bueno. I hope this makes sense.

 

[Bantichai]

I was wondering, because it wasn't really viable tactics in Battle Brothers. What about light armored(or no armor at all) combatants? Do you plan to allow some kind of "duelist" builds where person will focus on finesse attacks, going for critical hits/ignoring armor/bleeds and dodge? That would definitely add more depth to encounters and add more variety.
Also - concerning AI tactics. One thing I didn't liked about Battle Brothers was how predictable enemy groups were when you fought them already. Always the same tactics, zero possibilities to somehow trick you. I'd love to see some kind of randomization factor with enemy groups. Lets say that you program few different approaches (CHARGE, few kinds of formations, half charge-half formation, something totally random etc.) and every group you'd have to oppose will randomly select from the pool making every fight a way different experience. You know, just another group of bandits that could possibly surprise you with their formation, or bunch of hedge knights who simply charge you blindly or focus on killing one of your lads. That would be awesome.

Definitely, while stacking armor is the "safest" and more conventional path to go there are always exceptions such as the Rapiers/scimitars, although they currently are a bit under-powered due to the lack of abilities available in the demo. For example, the rapier has an ability that doesn't use the standard damage formula of Strength - Helmet/Armor, rather it uses the user's stamina minus the targets. Since heavier armor reduces speed, wearing lighter armor and using a rapier will allow you to benefit more from using an ability like that. Absolutely they wouldn't be frontline troops, but they can be useful against an enemy that stacks all armored combatants. Whilst not historically accurate in the slightest, for the sake of variety lightly armored troops can be effective. There will also be an ability where you can consume X stamina in order to gain a free 100% dodge which results in a counter attack and as you know, counter attacks reduce Strength directly. More ideas to come as well, but the more feedback I get from players the better.

This week I'm actually focusing on my formation AI and hopefully put out a video sometime this week showing off the first build with formation AI, (hopefully). I won't go into much detail now as I'm still working on it and seeing what is possible so no promises now, but once again great feedback.

The one thing I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on is the combat itself and that would related to your question about enemy variety. I tried to make each weapon unique in some way and be more/less effective against other weapon types, so that you'd have to consider what your party composition would be like. Hammer and maces are defensive weapons that are designed to hold off attackers, axes destroy guard and crit more, longswords/rapiers clean up the mess good for fast kills on the flanks etc. Whilst it is hard to really get a complete feel without more abilities, how do you feel about it in its current state?

 

[Bantichai]

- The only bug I had with combat freezing is during an attack of opportunity but I thought I had fixed that, this will be something I need to address. If you could recreate it that would be great, check the morale of the enemy unit if you get around to it, also I saw you had two maces - did you double stun it, IE apply concussion twice?

So I think I know what the problem with this is. And it's not necessarily a bug. The issue is if I have one unit left, and he gets stunned or whatever and can't move, there's nothing for the player to do. Without understanding that you can skip a turn, I think I just sat there long enough for the turn timer (which I assume is the timer a the top?) ran out. In effect ending the turn. I noticed it because when I played again, one of my units got concussed and couldnt move. Ofc this wasnt a problem since i had other units to choose and move. However, the problem is still there cuz once you finish all the other units moves, you still have this one unit concussed. And you're all wtf do I do? I remembered in your last post that i could end the turn by hitting spacebar or whatever, so I did and problem solved.

I'd think about automatically skipping a unit's turn if he becomes concussed. Unless there's some kind of action he can perform, I think a lot of new players will just be all WTF or worse they will think they need to wait for the timer to run out, which ofc is no bueno. I hope this makes sense.

Ya I had a feeling about that, it should be a lot clearer when I get around to adding a stun animation so you'll know right off the "bat" what happened. Skipping a turn did actually pop into my mind then somehow slipped out as I focused on other things, but I've added it back to list, thank you for picking this up! Feedback like this really helps

Also how do you feel about the combat, did you get around to reading the (first revision) of the combat guide? You can bring it up in game with "H". In particular, how long did it take you to grasp the base combat mechanics and how do you feel about the "variety" of combat, IE facing against other weapon types, did it feel somewhat unique in the current state?

 

[Mustawd]

Ya I had a feeling about that, it should be a lot clearer when I get around to adding a stun animation so you'll know right off the "bat" what happened. Skipping a turn did actually pop into my mind then somehow slipped out as I focused on other things, but I've added it back to list, thank you for picking this up! Feedback like this really helps

Yah I think it's less about the animation and more about the player understanding he can skip the turn. BUt again, if he's stunned, I don't really see much of a point in not just skipping the unit's turn automatically.


Also, I haven't read the documentation cuz I'm lazy

Combat felt ok even if I went in blind. Just through trial and error, I'm learning some basic strategies (like remove helmet/decapitate). I'll play it a bit more this weekend, and I'll let you know my thoughts.

 

[Bantichai]

Ya I had a feeling about that, it should be a lot clearer when I get around to adding a stun animation so you'll know right off the "bat" what happened. Skipping a turn did actually pop into my mind then somehow slipped out as I focused on other things, but I've added it back to list, thank you for picking this up! Feedback like this really helps

Yah I think it's less about the animation and more about the player understanding he can skip the turn. BUt again, if he's stunned, I don't really see much of a point in not just skipping the unit's turn automatically.


Also, I haven't read the documentation cuz I'm lazy

Combat felt ok even if I went in blind. Just through trial and error, I'm learning some basic strategies (like remove helmet/decapitate). I'll play it a bit more this weekend, and I'll let you know my thoughts.

That is something else I was considering too, I knew ahead of time that there was a lot to read regarding combat, best way is probably to do a complete video series which I will when I get the time. However, I am really interested in the fact that you went in blind, because that will be a good judge of how easy/hard the combat is to pick up. I'm hoping the learning process is logical and not too convoluted, but with enough depth that it can't be covered in one sitting, IE easy to learn, hard to master. IE after decapitation/head smash, the morale of the same side reduces by -10 so sometimes you can intentionally go in hard and fast stack heavy weapons to shred helmet and decapitate heads to more or less rout the enemy, all units will rout when morale is 0.

That said all units have an ability called "Muster Will" that restores +25 morale, but it has a 10 turn cooldown, it is also the first thing any unit player or AI will do once the unit's morale breaks and all units including player units will revert to this AI. If you already used muster will, than the amount of turns that unit would spend routing (running around) is the remaining turns Muster Will has until it is off cooldown. So if you keep decapitating heads and force the AI to use "muster will" the second time, if you manage to do it relatively soon while Muster Will is on cooldown you can start to control the fight by manipulating their morale.

However, there are cases where you might actually want to use Muster Will instead of just saving it in case that unit breaks. For example, if you were using a unit that naturally had high morale IE axes with +75, you'd want to keep it topped up to increase critical hits.

Looking forward to more feedback from you!

 

[Bantichai]

Sometimes..less really is more. No flaming shoulder pads, or fancy wings that look like they've been plucked off a bird and painted silver. Armor sets in Dead Monarchy will stay grounded in reality. In between working on formation AI and keeping my face from looking like the picture below, I often change gears and work on armor for a hour or two :D

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Sometimes..less really is more.

Bikini armour confirmed.

 

[Bantichai]

Sometimes..less really is more.

Bikini armour confirmed.

Oh god, I take it back.

 

[Bantichai]

Hey guys, first written devblog is up on Indie DB, it talks about armor progression and armor design direction. It also has some pictures of the updated Gambeson armor set.

http://www.indiedb.com/games/dead-monarchy/news/devblog-1-armor-progression-design-direction

 

[Bantichai]

The second devblog will be dropping soon, I'll be detailing a very early (WIP) progress report on formations with video footage and also showing a few more armor sets, this time geared towards mercenaries. SmartCheetah you gave some feedback regarding armor progression and you mentioned rusty armor. So here is one rusty armor set for you, there are a few more in the pipeline. In a funny twist, I decided to make Gothic-esque armor an earlier tier and saved Italian plated armor for one of the noble houses.

 

[SmartCheetah]

That looks absolutely cool. One thing I absolutely missed in battle brothers? Late medieval sets of armor, weapons like estocs etc.

Also, I'm curious - do you plan adding mounts/horses eventually, or not really? Might be a little bit tricky to implement with turn based combat.

 

[Bantichai]

That looks absolutely cool. One thing I absolutely missed in battle brothers? Late medieval sets of armor, weapons like estocs etc.

Also, I'm curious - do you plan adding mounts/horses eventually, or not really? Might be a little bit tricky to implement with turn based combat.

I'm more or less covering all styles of armor ranging from the "dark ages" and stopping just before the renaissance period. Estocs will be in, they fall under the "rapier" category although the name for that category may change to cover something broader. More or less any dueling weapon. However I'm not stopping at European armor, I'm covering other cultural armor, like Japanese, Chinese, Ottomans. The challenge will be crafting a world to fit all these different cultures in a meaningful way, more or less meaning a world map and separating each distinct culture with a lot of space. It then makes exploration much more exciting when you come into contact with different cultures that also have different weapon types.

Regarding mounts, it isn't hard to implement them technically at a high level anyway, but whether or not it is meaningful is another thing. Mounts translated pretty well in BB, IE the goblin mounts but some visual anomalies will arise when transitioning to 3D space. I started to really notice that with formation AI. If I do mounted combat, then most likely the mount and the combatant would have separated health pools but occupy the same cell and how the base combat mechanics governing health damage (helmet, armor rating) may need to change. It is an interesting idea, I won't rule it out completely all I can say is, if I do decide to do mounted combat it would be much later on when DM is somewhat established

I know Harebrained Schemes had issues translating the battlemech movement into turn based combat as they felt the mechs always need some form of movement and it felt strange abruptly stopping, the same would probably apply to mounts in 3D space. We'll see in the future how it goes. It is definitely something I'd have to set aside a couple months for, thanks for the input though I'll add it to my list.

I've added a picture of a samurai-esque set, it was the older one shown in one of my trailers but hasn't gotten the screenshot treatment yet. I'll note that all the armors shown in these screenshots are in-editor and high poly that said after I simplify the meshes there isn't much visual downgrade. The mesh quality of the armor shown in the demo is more or less what you should be expecting.

Also I'm still using the base model, I haven't gotten around to adding the Asian base model, or hair for the matter. Everyone still bald :D

 

[Bantichai]

Hey guys, devblog 2 is up on Indie DB. As mentioned, I talk about the initial progress I've done on formation AI and I have some video footage on it too. I've also got a couple more sets of armor, this time centered around mercenary themed armor.

http://www.indiedb.com/games/dead-monarchy/news/devblog-2-formation-ai-mercenary-armor

 

[SmartCheetah]

What sort of 3d software you're using for creating armor meshes?

 

[Bantichai]

What sort of 3d software you're using for creating armor meshes?

Autodesk's Mudbox, there is a free trial if you were interested

 

[Bantichai]

So I took a small break this week, it was initially going to be 3 days but turned into 5 days. Never really rested over the Christmas holidays as I was working on the demo. Since I had to wait for a few 3rd party tools to update, I decided to reconnect with my roots and play some BB. Will be back with an update soon and I'll be showing some more work I've done on formation AI

 

[Bantichai]

Just a small update and letting everyone know I'm still alive:

1. Elevation - I've been working away on implementing elevation. Elevation in the sense of representing it visually but also the AI side of things. It was a pretty big challenge considering DM is fully 3D and primarily orientated around melee combat even though there will be ranged combat. The animations need to align to some degree when attacking on higher elevation and using something like inverse kinematics to produce some semi procedural animations is something I wanted to avoid (IE slashing downwards from a base animation that slashes horizontally). Representing the elevations themselves was a pretty big challenge as well, the easier route was to just go for something like a table top and have clearly marked elevation tiles but then that created disparity between the town environments and combat environments. IE in combat environments elevations were clearly a separate tile and representing elevation when it came to town environments had to be done in a more "natural" way, IE the slopes of the elevation had to be less rigid. So I settled for something in between. Elevation is in and there are different levels of elevation but the height difference isn't too big meaning melee combat doesn't look too awkward when attacking on a higher elevation. Elevation is still clearly shown and is a "defined tile" but it is sculpted into the terrain itself so the environments look somewhat more natural as opposed to being a separate tile object. When designing the town environments, I can also represent elevation in the same way.

2. Formations - So both the player and AI can utilize formations and when a formation is completed it grants bonus effects. In order to gain the effect, the entire formation must be filled and all units in that formation must be accounted for. IE a basic formation like a 3x2 or 2 lines of 3 units may grant a bonus stamina recovery every turn or bonus morale. The downside to using formations is you might not always have the space for it. Abilities like swapping with the enemy unit or pulling the enemy unit towards you can break the formation. You may encounter factions that prefer open plain combat and utilize formations and other factions that prefer guerrilla styled warfare that takes places in say a forest environment with plenty of elevation and narrow quarters.

More work still needs to be done, but I've reached some milestones this month that I've pretty happy about. Hoping to be able to show off some video footage that showcases both elevation and formations in the near future