Together in Battle - the next strategy RPG from Telepath Tactics developer - now available on Early Access

[Craig Stern]

Damn, Minkov is such a professional. I raised the issue of his portraits not fully meshing with the backgrounds with him; he took the critique in stride, performed art tests, and got back to me with samples within a span of 12 hours! He's not just incredibly talented, he's someone I can see actually being a pleasure to work with--and when you're working on a project of this size and complexity, that counts for a hell of a lot.

I miiiiight need to run a mini-Kickstarter to make it work financially in the short term, but hopefully this will eventually pay off in better sales down the road.

 

[J1M]

I don't understand why you would find a character whose traits and preferences are randomly generated to be interesting.
...
Why telepaths instead of mages?

The random generation is only part of it; what makes it interesting is seeing these characters grow and change. If I've done my job right, you'll find the characters interesting because they walk a line where they manage to be both coherent and surprising. It's not easy, and I expect to tweak and improve it for some time to come.

As for why I first picked psychic powers over magic...honestly, it's been so long that I don't really remember! But it's proven fruitful for enabling narratives that examine the weaknesses of human thought, a subject I've always found fascinating--so I've stuck with it.

It seems like this new game relies heavily on randomization for its systems. Have the opinions against randomness you expressed on your blog changed?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Damn, Minkov is such a professional. I raised the issue of his portraits not fully meshing with the backgrounds with him; he took the critique in stride, performed art tests, and got back to me with samples within a span of 12 hours! He's not just incredibly talented, he's someone I can see actually being a pleasure to work with--and when you're working on a project of this size and complexity, that counts for a hell of a lot.

I miiiiight need to run a mini-Kickstarter to make it work financially in the short term, but hopefully this will eventually pay off in better sales down the road.

Man sounds like he's worth the money.

 

[Craig Stern]

It seems like this new game relies heavily on randomization for its systems. Have the opinions against randomness you expressed on your blog changed?

Nope! I'm still against overuse of randomized results. The new systems don't introduce randomized results, though: they introduce scenario randomness that the player is able (and expected) to adjust their play to. As I wrote:

Randomized results are not the only potential use of randomization in a game. Randomization can also be a valuable tool to build tension by creating unpredictable starting states for various scenarios. Card games provide a great example of this principle. Even if you know your opponent’s deck, you will never know what cards lie in his or her hand. The deck is shuffled: the hand is chosen at random. Consequently, the player faces some uncertainty about the options available to her opponent. This builds tension and makes a turn-based encounter more gripping.

In a spatial turn-based combat system, unpredictable enemy unit composition and positioning under a fog of war mimics much of the effect of a randomized hand of cards. The player must scout, or else take the risk inherent to issuing orders with incomplete information about what enemy characters the opponent has at its disposal. Other elements of the battlefield can be randomized as well: loot drops, spaces with healing or defense bonuses, and environmental hazards, to name a few.

Crucially, these each add unpredictability to the scenarios the player faces, and not to the results of individual player commands. The player is never compromised in his ability to control his characters; any random chance the player confronts in this way, the player has the opportunity to respond to and circumvent.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

All fine and dandy but if there's no player character that can join the combat it's all moot.

 

[Galdred]

I don't understand why you would find a character whose traits and preferences are randomly generated to be interesting.
...
Why telepaths instead of mages?

The random generation is only part of it; what makes it interesting is seeing these characters grow and change. If I've done my job right, you'll find the characters interesting because they walk a line where they manage to be both coherent and surprising. It's not easy, and I expect to tweak and improve it for some time to come.

As for why I first picked psychic powers over magic...honestly, it's been so long that I don't really remember! But it's proven fruitful for enabling narratives that examine the weaknesses of human thought, a subject I've always found fascinating--so I've stuck with it.

Out of curiosity, how many portraits do you plan to have?
Like MRY I would go with Minkov for a realistic style, or Zakaria for a more "stylized" one (that could mesh better with the sprites and the rest of the game). I have also found that a key quality for an artist is how willing he is to give feedback on things that are not in the contract (like:"this part of the UI is horrible, you should redesign it like that", and how good he is at following directions.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

how good he is at following directions

Mine always takes the left turn at Albuquerque.

 

[Craig Stern]

Out of curiosity, how many portraits do you plan to have?

• 46 generic unit portraits (for enemies and rando NPC allies in battle), not including 8 recolors for the alternate spriggat types.
• 23 unique character portraits (for named characters and cut scene NPCs, both of whom demand more comprehensive emotional range).
• Dozens and dozens of heads, eyes, noses, mouths, hair, horns, snouts, etc. spanning 6 species that can be mixed and matched to produce a nearly limitless array of unique composite portraits for proc gen characters.

That's just for TiB. For the Telepath Tactics remake, I'll need several dozen more unique character portraits as well.

 

[vazha]

Pichette likely too similar to the originals.

Heh! Pichette literally did do the originals; I just included him for comparison's sake. These folks are all bidding to do the job on an identical budget (except for Minkov, who demands extra for reasons that may be apparent).

Kill Pichette, harvest his organs, sell them and hire Minkov at whatever rate he might be changing. Seriously. Original art is literally eye-bleedingly awful.

 

[Feargus Jewhart]

The first sample I solicited was of the recruiter, a key character you'll be seeing regularly during the game. Here are the samples I received (with Matt Pichette's original portrait in the top-left for comparison):

Minkov is the only truly acceptable choice. Manalon as a close second.

Grundza needs to lay the burn tool off for one. Movilla and Zakaria need to stop taking art lessons from tumblr and twitter. Grinins anatomy is prosperous. Emily has zero consistency and the anatomy is terrible.

Sent from my Nokia 6210 using Tapatalk

 

[fantadomat]

Grinins anatomy is prosperous.

He is pretty good for drawing hentai. Should make a patreon and flood e-hentai with his art.

 

[vazha]

Craig Stern Can we entice you to hold a similar contest for the game's plot & writing?

 

[Tigranes]

Craig Stern Can we entice you to hold a similar contest for the game's plot & writing?

Can't wait to see vidya game writing from Codexers

 

[Feargus Jewhart]

Can't wait to see vidya game writing from Codexers

Everyone would be RED PILLED and BASED.


Sent from my Nokia 6210 using Tapatalk

 

[Tigranes]

So you're saying.... the writing would shove the writer's political views down the player's throat?

Heavens! Somebody here told me that's just the worst!

I hope you are enjoying your Nokia 6210, friend

 

[Darth Roxor]

Craig Stern Can we entice you to hold a similar contest for the game's plot & writing?

Can't wait to see vidya game writing from Codexers

like... MRY?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Craig Stern Can we entice you to hold a similar contest for the game's plot & writing?

Can't wait to see vidya game writing from Codexers

Last I checked, Age of Decadence's writing was well received.

 

[Ninjerk]

Craig Stern Can we entice you to hold a similar contest for the game's plot & writing?

Can't wait to see vidya game writing from Codexers

like... MRY?

A 2nd lease on life for sser and JarlFrank

 

[overtenemy]

What happened to sser?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What happened to sser?

sser died from rectal cancer

 

[Craig Stern]

The game comes with a full-fledged campaign creation suite; any and all codexers who want to write campaigns with their own plots and characters are welcome to have at it!

 

[fantadomat]

Can't wait to see vidya game writing from Codexers

Everyone would be RED PILLED and BASED.


Sent from my Nokia 6210 using Tapatalk

The important part is to be good. In this days you will be hard pressed to find a libtard that could write,let alone write good shit.

 

[vazha]

Craig Stern Can we entice you to hold a similar contest for the game's plot & writing?

Can't wait to see vidya game writing from Codexers

Don't know man, I for one would eagerly donate my hard-earned shekels if Grimwulf ever was to write for a game, any game at that. We've got some very talented folk around here you know.

 

[Craig Stern]

Contract: signed. Initial payment: sent. It's official--Minkov is handling the portrait art! :D

In other news, I continue to slave away on cool under-the-hood features. The latest: per-army AI profiles!

These are presets which weight certain AI considerations to produce different battlefield behaviors. As of now, AI profiles include:

• Balanced - Weighs opportunities for damage against defensive considerations.
• Aggressive - Prioritizes opportunities to deal damage over all other factors.
• Homicidal - Nothing matters but inflicting enemy casualties.
• Defensive - Prioritizes the survival of characters over all other factors.
• Greedy - Prioritizes the acquisition of items over all other factors.
• Unpredictable - Moves are chosen rather capriciously, making behavior difficult to predict.
• Stupid - Ignores most factors influencing a move; priorities might as well be random.

You can now create your own custom AI profiles in custom campaigns, and the game will load them.

-- the armies editor within the map editor now allows you to set AI profiles on a per-army basis.

 

[vazha]

Avellone as lead writer when? I dont think he'd charge significantly more than this Minkov person.