Incline MENACE - sci-fi turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers devs

[PanteraNera]

There is a exclusive interview, but it is in german and behind a paywall.
https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/menace-jagged-alliance-im-weltraum,3399512.html
The headline states: "Menace sounds like Jagged Allliance in Space, but has a different example"

 

[PanteraNera]

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 12:01 PM​

The game will be a bit less RNG heavy and less "frustrating" than BB

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 12:03 PM​

As there are squads firing with multiple weapons and each weapon often fires more than 1 shot the whole attack is a lot less random than a single attack in BB that is just 0/1 - hit or miss

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 12:04 PM​

The scope is indeed similar but menace will have more units, especially heavy ones, a lot more different units, customizeable equipment, huge perk trees, procedural missions and battle fields... and so on

From their discord

 

[PanteraNera]

Also from a Email with Jan, the movie "Virus" and also "The Thing" are sources of insperation for the titular menace.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 12:01 PM​

The game will be a bit less RNG heavy and less "frustrating" than BB

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 12:03 PM​

As there are squads firing with multiple weapons and each weapon often fires more than 1 shot the whole attack is a lot less random than a single attack in BB that is just 0/1 - hit or miss

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 12:04 PM​

The scope is indeed similar but menace will have more units, especially heavy ones, a lot more different units, customizeable equipment, huge perk trees, procedural missions and battle fields... and so on

From their discord

That shooting bit on middle reminds me bit like how Steel Panthers handless things.

 

[std::namespace]

It looks like throwaway soulless trash full of generic scifi space marines shooting generic alien robots. It literally couldnt have been looking worse, wtf.
I dont even know how one dares to post this as promo shots. Speechless.

 

[Sarissofoi]

It looks more like 'Colonial marines tabletop edition' than X-Com. It have even similar aesthetics and motifs(dropship, focus on gun going out of ammo), troop armor design is quite generic but we will see if we could paint/customize them.
Infantry squads looks like having models like in Master of Magic. TBH it looks fairly well, I don't have much worries about combat being bad - shoudl be at last at good level - what worry me is global map as BB wasn't good in this regard.

 

[Turn_BASED]

It looks like throwaway soulless trash full of generic scifi space marines shooting generic alien robots. It literally couldnt have been looking worse, wtf.
I dont even know how one dares to post this as promo shots. Speechless.

SOVL

 

[Harthwain]

what worry me is global map as BB wasn't good in this regard.

There is hope they can improve the idea. And I still appreciate the fact that it does give you an option to roam the map freely, even though it is not ideal.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

edit.
Game reminds me of Spellcross.
This is good.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Nice video and pretty solid analysis of what we know(in short not much). The so called 'exclusive gameplay footage' is just tech demo of units shooting at each other so don't get your hopes high.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Tiberian Sun is my all time favourite game and I just love the design of some of the GDI units in it. From a quick glance on Menace I can spot some nice blinks to Tiberian Sun even though the originals are better:

Mechs

GDI Titan Tiberian Sun

Mech in Menace

Light Infantry

GDI Light infantry Tiberian Sun

Infantry Menace

 

[Sarissofoi]

So lets me get this straight - we play as Kane on space ship leading colonial marines and fighting aliens and stuff?
Cool.

 

[agris]

These overhyped chucklefucks better not pull a Phoenix Point on us.

I’m a bit concerned it’s going to be all fake nations and fake organization names, which was an early sign PP was more a toy than anything else

 

[PanteraNera]

I’m a bit concerned it’s going to be all fake nations and fake organization names, which was an early sign PP was more a toy than anything else

While I am not able to look into the future, I can say one thing: they have a vision and they go for what they believe in.

With PP the problem was that Julian wasn't the sole leader of the project and his business partner (David Kaye) seemed to be mostly interested in what brings in the most money. Also Gollop seemed to have cared almost only for the game mechanics and not for the setting nor the strong shift from body-horror to generic sci fi.

 

[PanteraNera]

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 9:58 AM​

We will definitely do dev blogs but they will only start once we know a bit better when to release the game into EA. This will still take quite a while.
Also our BB page is extremely old and wordpress is just a pain, however when moving the site we have to conserve all the blog posts somehow. We will see how to do that best...

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 2:12 PM
Yeah, we already worked on MENACE years ago, given the total production time it is not that early. Also, putting out the news puts some more pressure on us to hurry up which helps with the motivation ; )

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 2:13 PM​

Yes (to female soldiers), like in Aliens or Starship Troopers or Xcom. We feel this fits the setting very well and makes for interesting characters

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 3:15 PM​

The Thing and Virus were definitely big inspirations for us, we love that 80s dark body horror vibe
And the practical effects with the animatronics just look amazing

Overhype_Jaysen — Today at 3:19 PM​

Thanks! There will be some more outrageous creatures revelead in a while ; )

Overhype_Casey — Today at 3:35 PM​

I think a lot of it was templated out in older (board) wargames , then they just scaled it up -- the manuals themselves go into details of how it's all calculated, heavy usage of modifiers and I wanna say some rng but it's been awhile; if you go from games like ASL -> Talonsoft -> Fields of Glory etc. you start to see a lot of similarities in how they simulate things

Overhype_Casey — Today at 3:49 PM​

some of those games get very big, too and almost impossible to manage; I mostly stuck to the scenarios (and also ogling the model tanks as well heh)
teh only wargame I ever took on in full were the Civil War Generals games because I knew enough about the setting that I could handle the scope

 

[Alienman]

Female soldiers. Oh boy. I don't mind the occasional one, but I hope they don't go 50/50 like in Xenonauts 2.

 

[Tyranicon]

Female soldiers. Oh boy. I don't mind the occasional one, but I hope they don't go 50/50 like in Xenonauts 2.

I don't know why devs don't go for reasonable ratios.

There are barely any women on the frontlines in modern armies, and especially not as ground-pounders. They are mostly in combat support roles.

Scifi dudes: in 30 years infantry will be 50/50.

....

 

[Zombra]

I also hope they get the ratio of hair color right. Ruins my immersion to see more than 2-6% of white people with red hair.

 

[Tyranicon]

I also hope they get the ratio of hair color right. Ruins my immersion to see more than 2-6% of white people with red hair.

There could be a good compromise here. How about 100% of women being redheads?

 

[PanteraNera]

I don't know why devs don't go for reasonable ratios.

Spoiler

 

[Sarissofoi]

In future every soldier will be have his own personal Spear Handmaiden - a maiden that handle his spear(and sometimes even his rifle and power armor).

Spoiler

Jokes aside if I was dictator in a SF future some of my units would be consisting of some 100% female shaped bots in maid clothes.

- to clean enemy planets form hostile filth.

 

[Kalarion]

Overhype_Casey — Today at 3:49 PM​

sser confirmed writing for this one?!

 

[ArchAngel]

Female soldiers. Oh boy. I don't mind the occasional one, but I hope they don't go 50/50 like in Xenonauts 2.

I don't know why devs don't go for reasonable ratios.

There are barely any women on the frontlines in modern armies, and especially not as ground-pounders. They are mostly in combat support roles.

Scifi dudes: in 30 years infantry will be 50/50.

....

In 30 years all women are transgender men

 

[Alienman]

I don't know why devs don't go for reasonable ratios.

Spoiler

Just imagine how stressful that kind of combat would be, beyond the usual combat stress. Pretty women that you shower with, now maimed and screaming for dear life on the battlefield.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://videogames.si.com/features/menace-first-look