KickStarter The Way of Wrath - early bronze age RPG with fort management and dynamic open world

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High atop the frozen mountain peaks Thein shamans build their sacred sites. Here they work their mystic powers, here they dream their colored dreams, here they sate the earth with the blood and the bones of the unwilling and pray to be spared the death’s grim harvest.

 

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“And then there was the dialogue window! And all the NPCs rejoiced. For they were cheeky bastards and loved to show it.” Our dialogue screen with live portraits is ready!

 

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Gameplay preview at last:

 

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Hey, this game looks better than I expected. The writing is actually kind of entertaining. Well done Hellwalker.

 

[Hellwalker]

Hey, this game looks better than I expected. The writing is actually kind of entertaining. Well done Hellwalker.

Thank you!

We now have more time to polish and show more of the gameplay. Until now we had to focus more on some technical housekeeping (Had to get it in order after years of development).
We’ll have fort & exploration gameplay videos soon, and the game/text/combat should be looking much better after we had a chance to get few more polishing passes over it.

 

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D1P

 

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We’ll be adding a lot of ways to customize your characters in The Way of Wrath
Here’s a short sneak peek into female character customizations!

 

[Abu Antar]

 

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Happy Holidays! Wish you all the best!
Thank you for all your support & feedback. It can get very stressful working on personal projects in isolation and your kind words helped us through busy dev year. See you in 2020 with game release! #TheWayofWrath team

 

[vazha]

This looks better and better Hellwalker

 

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Bunch of short videos of the fort being uploaded to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD8lvVwY70SKMkk2BGNAVtQ/videos

 

[Hellwalker]

Hey!
Here is a Devlog/Devdiary delving deeper into all that fort business :D
https://steamcommunity.com/games/969330/announcements/detail/1698353956278489632

 

[Infinitron]

Hey!
Here is a Devlog/Devdiary delving deeper into all that fort business :D
https://steamcommunity.com/games/969330/announcements/detail/1698353956278489632

Devlog #6 : The Game Features #1 - The Fort


You heaved a stone upon a stone to build your shelter and thus you’ve etched your mark on history.

The White Grave. Grim name for a grim place. A name given to the frozen valley and ruined fort nestled in its mountains. A land that spews hot fire from its depth, land of avalanches and landslides, land constantly reshaped. Land of deadly cold and blinding sun. Where nature's fury rages constant.

It’s said this place cannot be tamed, it shuns civilization, burying all signs of its existence. Only one structure stands in defiance to this claim.

Built from bones of the earth, the fort of the White Grave guards the only reliable passage through the, otherwise impenetrable, mountain range that split the Thein lands to the north from Empire of the south. It has been a sight of many battles and bears scars from them all. This will be a place where players make their last stand against the fury of their countless enemies.

Fort is the heart of the game. It’s a home base and shelter for the player and their allies. Area of the final battle and many important events of the game. Most of the efforts go towards securing and rebuilding this place. It was, and is, the most challenging area of the game for us to design and it is immensely important for us to get this right.

When we started thinking about the fort, the first thing that came to both of our minds was that we wanted for it to feel like home. We thought of our favorite exploration games and those towns, houses, or spots on the map we loved to return to, time and time again, after our long adventures. And this has been a constant guiding point in our efforts at building the fort, to capture the magic of that experience.

This is also a big reason we really want to launch The Way of Wrath as Early Access. We need your help and input in shaping this place to be the most memorable, engaging and personal experience it can be. We are putting all our efforts, experience and knowledge into getting this right. But, ultimate the game is to be experienced by you, the players, and with the genre as complex as a role-playing game it is almost always your input that turns the game into a great and engaging experience. We hope you’ll support and help us in this endeavor.

Spoiler

Visually we wanted the fort to be different and memorable so it could stand out, but also feel familiar and approachable. Fort architecture had to fit perfectly within the game world and harsh mountainous landscape it was built in. It proved quite a challenge, and we looked at many of the earth’s cultures for inspiration. In effort to understand how the lands have shaped the cultures of the people living on them and how the people would shape and transform the land.

For some elements we didn’t have to look far. Our home country Georgia is in the mountainous region of Caucasus, and there are several regions within the country like Tusheti and Svaneti where even today people live in a very harsh landscapes and natural conditions. Famous towers and rock structures created by their ancestors were a perfect base for sparking our architectural designs. For others we had to take long journeys through time and space, scouring the prehistoric world for its architectural legacies.

The story of The Way of Wrath is told through time. Days to be precise. Each new day in the game is a story turn that advances the state of the world and the Fort is one place where this advancement is most felt.

At first it is a ruined, ragged place and morale of your allies is at its lowest. There is no shelter, food or much of a hope of surviving what is to come. People huddle in nooks and crannies amidst collapsed towers and buildings, shunning company and dreaming of warmth while freezing to their deaths.

Through the player’s effort things can turn around. Resources can be mined to repair the fortifications and buildings. Clear rubble, fix the roofs, light the fires and create shelters. Food, alcohol, and warmth of fires can bring people together. Progress on the defenses and player’s acts of valor can inspire hope. (Or perhaps harsh disciple and tyrannical order will be what get’s the job done?)

Progress on the Fort and recruitment of new allies unlocks many activities, quest and experiences. From different crafting stations like a furnace, medicine mixing table, and shaman circle, open flame cooking or brewing stews in pots, to dueling ring and various minigames you can play with companions. Decorating your quarters with trophies, capturing animals for your farm pens. There are a lot of fun things to do.

Story is part of each activity in The Way of Wrath and all the characters have their agendas. Nothing is as simple as giving an order through the UI screen. Making sure allies follow through with instruction given to them will be a constant concern for the player. Simple jobs can turn into several day-long quests, and morale, discipline, personalities and competencies of the allies who are assigned tasks can have large consequences.

We will share more on this and many more details with the next Devlog entries in The Game Features series! We'll be sharing many of those in the next few weeks leading up to EA.

We want to thank again each of you for following and supporting us, and we hope to see you soon with EA and Full Game releases!

Cheers and we wish you happy 2020! - The Way of Wrath Team.

 

[fantadomat]

so that 2020 release is for early access or full release?

 

[Hellwalker]

so that 2020 release is for early access or full release?

Hopefully both, with late spring/summer full release but it depends on how EA goes. At most full release could be delayed I think is February 2021.
We will be adding new quests and area all throughout the EA. + There will be Battle Arena modes.

 

[Sarkile]

I saw this thread and went to toss the game into my wishlist. Turns out it was already in there.

 

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[Darth Canoli]

Hellwalker

Your character creation looks like shit, yeah, i can rotate the puppet all the way around and change his beardstyle!
Full 3D engine as well, overkill because not only it looks like shit but it's also probably too much resource hungry for its own good.

Meaning players able to run it smoothly (if any) will find it ugly anyway.

Aside from that, i hope everything else is good, just wished you went 2D or fake 3D without unnecessary full rotation.
As long as nothing hides the view, full rotation is useless.

Well, i guess it's too late for this but i don't feel very optimistic.

 

[Hellwalker]

Hellwalker

Your character creation looks like shit, yeah, i can rotate the puppet all the way around and change his beardstyle!
Full 3D engine as well, overkill because not only it looks like shit but it's also probably too much resource hungry for its own good.

Meaning players able to run it smoothly (if any) will find it ugly anyway.

Aside from that, i hope everything else is good, just wished you went 2D or fake 3D without unnecessary full rotation.
As long as nothing hides the view, full rotation is useless.

Well, i guess it's too late for this but i don't feel very optimistic.

Thank you for your feedback. I hope you'll like more polished art we'll have closer to releases (EA and Full). The videos we have released are still work in progress and they still suffer from some lighting/shader problems that will be polished.
I understand where you are coming from about 3D Camera, I have certainly been frustrated often by 3D cameras in Top-Down-ish games.
I'm hoping our level design focus on more complex environments than usually found in top-down/isometric games and custom camera treatment for areas will remove most of the frustrating elements and bring in its own depth for exploration.

Just curious, Have you played Divinity Original Sin 2 and did you enjoy 3D camera and exploration in there?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Just curious, Have you played Divinity Original Sin 2 and did you enjoy 3D camera and exploration in there?

I have and i did not, the exploration is alright but i think it's overkill as well.
And exploration works just as well in 2D.

By the way, isn't your battlescape a bit narrow ?

In general, 3D doesn't bring much to the table for cRPG, either you can build an optimized engine with a good (or serviceable/fast) combat system like Wizardry 8 and ToEE (or M&M 6-8 to some extend) or you can't and you're better off with a Battle Brothers 2D battlescape.

Or Urtuk, for that matter

 

[Hellwalker]

By the way, isn't your battlescape a bit narrow ?

There are smaller pitched battles and larger battles spread out over larger areas. It all depends on the context of who you are fighting and what area battles take place.
I'm trying to give each battle some unique twist in terms of the environment, enemy skill/equipment setup and enemy AI.
There also be pre-battle sabotage possibilities, so if the enemy is in the well-defended position where they have a height advantage and "killing field" choke points setup, you could find ways to even the odds. (Draw some of them out on a fake mission and kill them in advantageous terrain, arrange for them to capture batch of alcohol and attack them when they are drunk, play on their superstitions and lower morale)

 

[Hellwalker]

I've just put an option in to bully NPC into getting his own own crap, instead of tasking you to fetch it. :D
Felt like justice for all the errands, fetch quests and BS NPC's had me do over the years. :D

 

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Ever wondered how all the cool equipment & loot is made for video games? Take a sneak peek behind the scenes as our Art-Director Dato Kiknaveldze explains his Armor Design & Production process. Stay tuned for more behind the scenes video for The Way of Wrath RPG Development!
Wishlist on #Steam https://bit.ly/2KQk4Do
Join our #Discord https://discord.gg/qkWnUND

 

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Hey guys, here is a test video of the new Procedural Ice shader for our RPG game "The Way of Wrath", more WIP's are coming.