Salvete amici mei,

The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. I’ve never been on a rollercoaster. I don’t need that kind of thrill in my free time—I already get plenty of it at work.

Last month was supposed to be a triumphant event. I had already written about it in a previous blog. We met with the sport fencers of the Gladiatores Berolinenses in the halls of the S4G School for Games to record their authentic movements for Lost Legions. My expectations were very high. I knew that with the Rokoko Smart Suit we had good technology and that the pipeline to process and bring the recordings into the game was working. The dress rehearsal went excellently, which in theatre is considered a bad omen. The gladiators came in a group of four with great enthusiasm and loads of equipment. I was sure this would be a grand slam.

Then everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The WiFi connection broke down. The Rokoko Studio software had trouble recognizing the suit and its components. The sensors acted up, and eventually we had a total failure because the right hand was permanently stuck in the same direction and one finger wouldn’t stop twitching. The three of us on the team tried everything to debug the problems, but time kept passing and we eventually had to abort. A big thank-you here to the team and especially the gladiators, who endured the situation with angelic patience.

What went wrong? The WiFi failed because someone on the team unknowingly swapped the router’s power socket with a fan. It took a while to figure that out, but that was the least of our problems.

The connection problems with the suit were certainly a consequence of the WiFi issue. I knew the sensors in the suit were sensitive to electromagnetic fields. But it didn’t occur to me that holding a real sword or shield—because of their metallic composition—would also cause significant interference.

When we changed performers, the most serious error must have occurred: the sensor in the right hand was damaged and, despite all efforts at restoration, only delivered incorrect data.

Time to call it off. It was terribly frustrating for everyone involved—but most of all for me. These events, by the way, happened on Friday, June 13. (No joke)

So far in the development and production of Lost Legions, I think we’ve done more things right than wrong. Not everything we plan works out, and when we get unlucky, it’s important to learn from it and do better next time.

The outcome of that day wasn’t great, but we did gain a few insights. My understanding of the Rokoko Smart Suit certainly improved. Thanks to Rokoko support, the problem with the hand sensor was solved quite easily a few days later: a plug had come loose. I had to open the little box on the back of the hand and reconnect the cable. (I try not to think too much about how the day could have been saved by using rubber weapons and plugging in a cable…)

What stuck with us most were the conversations with the gladiators. This club, led by their lanista Daniel, loves and lives their extraordinary sport. With great understanding of our goals and deep theoretical and practical knowledge, they had in-depth discussions with the team about martial arts and ancient Rome.

Since then, the suit has been in use with us almost daily. The recordings are the best and cleanest I’ve ever gotten. During performance, we remind each other every time of the gladiators’ tips and rules to get the best possible results.

After this detailed experience report, here are a few quick updates on development:

Unreal Engine 5.6:

Felix has done it again. Immediately after the weekend upgrade from 5.3 to 5.5—which brought us motion matching and Meta Humans in the engine—5.6 went from beta to release. Since we noticed significant FPS drops and 5.6 promised many optimizations, we decided to upgrade the engine a second time within three weeks.

Cleaning and optimizing:

These upgrades, along with the ever-present memory waste and instability, led us to invest two weeks to bring the project back into shape. It wasn’t a lot of fun, but the results speak for themselves. We’re quite happy.

New playable demo:

Our plan was to share a big new demo with our Discord community at the end of July. Due to recent events, we’ve pushed that target back by a few weeks. A specific announcement will follow from Bat El.

Smooth Moves:

Motion Matching is awesome. The new system that blends animations with stances/poses has taken my animation work to a new level. For the first time, with Felix’s technical support in the animation blueprint, I managed to depict the typical Roman combat stance with a large scutum shield in our game. The game now recognizes states like “in combat,” “carrying shield,” “in cover,” and adjusts the player character’s posture accordingly. This results in convincing dynamics and a true legionnaire feeling.

https://youtu.be/_PSnZ3gaNo8

Furor Teutonicus:

A major new addition to the game is the changed game opening. We’ll throw you straight into the action and let you experience the end of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. You start in a makeshift marching camp that can no longer withstand the assault. A desperate fight for survival in the burning forest begins.

This is a relatively linear set-piece that gives you a taste of some content that will later have to be painstakingly earned in the open world.

In my next life, I’ll learn to be brief. Until then, have fun reading and thank you for your support!

Jens

• Fixed game crashing when buying perk in SHOP TAB without slider

• Bug fixes
  
• ???

Add

1. One-click upgrade for all drinks

Optimization

1. Increase the amount of money trees in each map

2. Significantly increase the amount of gold coins in treasure chests

3. Reduce the power consumption of drone upgrades

4. Optimize the amount of fertilizer used

• Online Matchmaking
  Duel other players from across the realm in real-time battles!
  
  
• Custom Deckbuilder
  Craft your legend! Build wild decks and experiment with broken combos (yes, we encourage you to break things).
  
  
• Live Leaderboard
  Climb the ranks and secure glory by earning the most wins. Rankings will freeze at the end of the playtest!

• Private Matches with Steam Friends
  Want to duel your inner circle? It’s in the works! This feature is currently under development, and we aim to roll it out during the playtest.

Today is a big day for the OPG CW project as it leaves Early Access and I want to share some important news with you all! Unfortunately, the game hasn't gained much popularity on Steam, leading our team to reduce its size significantly. As a result, I'm now the only one left working on this project because we can't afford to pay programmers or other staff members anymore. From here on out, I'll be developing and updating the game by myself, but it's going to be challenging and updates won't come as frequently due to the sheer amount of work involved.

I understand that there are several weak points in the current state of the project. Mechanics often feel unfinished and take too long to improve, workflows can be chaotic at times, and planning sometimes feels more like an adventure than a structured process. However, these challenges have become part of what makes OPG Clan Wars unique. The game has evolved through countless failures and experiments rather than adhering strictly to industry standards. It may not always look polished or balanced, but there's something raw and genuine about it that's hard to replicate elsewhere.

Only I can decide when to close down the project, and right now, my plan is to keep pushing forward no matter how tough things get. Thank you so much to everyone who supports me along the way—your encouragement means everything and helps fuel my efforts towards making OPG Clan Wars even better!

It's definitely not easy maintaining and improving a game while also handling everything else solo. Updates will naturally slow down since they depend entirely on my personal contributions now. But despite these difficulties, I'm committed to continuing development and providing new content for both myself and fans alike.

Hugs to everyone reading this message! And if anyone wants to join us online during launch week, please do drop by—we'll try to stay active together! I've fixed various bugs, optimized maps, and addressed many issues within the game itself already.

P.S.: These next few days might see increased activity from players thanks to Steam's promotion efforts. If you're interested in playing against live opponents or just hanging out, invite your buddies over and let's enjoy ourselves!

When we started designing our class system, we asked ourselves a simple question:
What if each class could evolve and change over time?

That’s how our branching class paths were born.

For example, here’s the progression path for a Warrior archetype:

• Knight (Might) → evolves into → Paladin (Might & Magic) or Duelist (Might & Might)

• Paladin can become → Inquisitor (Might & Magic & Magic)

• Duelist can become → Warlord (Might & Might & Might)

So a single warrior archetype in a given faction has 5 stages of progression.
Add the Mage archetype to that, and you end up with 10 unique class paths per faction.

At any stage, you can lock in your current class – preserving your chosen specialization and its unique stat growth, skill trees, and talent distribution.

It might seem like a small detail – but when you multiply 2 archetypes per faction × 4 factions, you end up with 40 distinct hero classes.
Each of them comes with:

• unique active and passive talents

• different ways of rolling for key skills

• separate stat growth curves

• and a ton of micro differences that make each class feel distinct.

Each level-up doesn’t just raise stats, it unlocks new class paths and options that are exclusive to your chosen combination.

But don’t worry – if you prefer a straightforward experience, you can mostly ignore this complexity.
Yes, it does have an impact – and yes, min-maxers will have a field day with their spreadsheets.
But if you just want to play and level up your hero, you’ll still feel stronger and more capable, without needing to dive into all the systems.

Power players will find deep optimization.
Everyone else? A hero who just gets better with time.

Classes are just the beginning. The real fun in hero development comes from talents.
And we won’t pretend we invented something new here. There are dozens of talent models out there, but the one that truly stuck with us was from Heroes of Might and Magic V.

Yes, we’re talking about a Mastery Talent System, where every main skill unlocks secondary perks, and it’s up to the player to decide how to build the perfect setup.

Each hero in Stormbinders grows using three interconnected types of talents:

• Faction Talents – shared by all heroes from the same faction, supporting their unique philosophy (e.g. better necromancy for Immortus, stronger storm manipulation for Astrion)

• Class Talents – core talents based on the hero’s role (mage, warrior, leader), which define their main combat approach

• Hero Talents – unique to the individual hero; these often break the rules and open powerful combos
  (think: teleport for 0 mana, fire spells boosted during storms, or free summoning perks)

Thanks to this structure, we ended up with hundreds of possible builds.

This means:

• One warrior from Immortus can play completely differently than a warrior from Empyrium

• One mage from Helion might focus on summoning demons, while another goes full fire explosion spam

• And the mix of faction + class + unique hero talents creates dozens of playstyles and synergies

Talents are fun, but what do they actually do?

For some players, they’re just numbers, but for us they’re pure gameplay.

Each class in Stormbinders grows differently. Every time they level up, they gain unique attribute points:

• Mages gain more spell power and faster mana regeneration

• Warriors get better leadership, durability, and initiative

• Hybrids unlock special combinations and talents that mix both styles

Sounds nerdy? Good.
Stormbinders is a game built to be mastered, for those who want to dig deep into stats and theorycrafting. But don’t worry, it’s completely optional.

You can also play on instinct and still have a great time.
The numbers are there when you want them, but they never get in your way.

While developing Stormbinders, we asked ourselves:
How should we approach the design of heroes?

Should we create a small number of super-polished characters, with high production values and unique visuals like the biggest AAA studios do? 

Or should we follow the spirit of classic games, where there are many heroes, maybe not all visually unique, but differentiated by starting talents and class archetypes?

We chose the second path and we believe it fits Stormbinders best.

By focusing on quantity and variety, we can easily add new heroes in future updates, each with new combinations of talents, classes, and specializations. This gives us more flexibility and replayability.

So yes, some heroes share their visuals.
But what really matters is how they play.

Every hero has:

• Their own set of talent options

• Their own growth path

• Their own unique combination of faction and class powers

And if we ever want to add 10, 20, or even 50 more heroes, we can.

At this point, we hope you’re starting to see what this game is all about.

We want to bring back that magical feeling we had growing up – and take it even further. With systems you’ve never seen before. With dynamic weather, RPG-like hero growth, and deep tactical options.

Stormbinders is our love letter to the past, and a bold step into something new.

We hope you’ll enjoy discovering it as much as we’re enjoying creating it.

WISHLIST NOW
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2134720/Stormbinders/

• Added: New challenge "Green Power". Be a Goblin, fight the Elves and the Undead! It's a "hard" challenge. I've completed it in 80 turns, try to do better!

• Added: The Challenge Editor is now more visible, with a new button in the New Challenge menu. The editor itself is in "beta", as it's not super end-user friendly, but if you want to craft your own little scenarios, it's all there.

• Added: Groundwork for a future patch: implementation of "extraordinary units", which are units with one of the following traits: \[Beast], \[Construct], \[Demon], \[Magic] or \[Undead]. Those units cannot work, preach, investigate and meditate, and they cannot use consumables during combat. They also have different immunities.

• Added: Two new buttons to set combat line for all units at once. "All front" and "All rear".

• Changed: The Exploration menu now directly leads to the "map" instead of showing an intermediary screen. You can hover over the different tabs to see information that was previously only accessible in this intermediary screen.

• Changed: Land type is no longer written in the name of the land (only landmark is, when there's one). The "map" is therefore a lot cleaner and easier to use.

• Changed: Invasion warnings are now only sent when the invasion force has been spawned. In previous versions, you were warned one turn before, but some conditions could change during the in-between turn, making the invasion impossible.

• Changed: Many little UI improvements, mostly for concision.

• Changed: \[Warlock] has now a chance to inflict \[Possessed] at each turn instead of only from passive turns.

• Changed: Crippling now reduces dodge by 4 instead of 2.

• Changed: Maximum trait limit removed.

• Changed: ASCII picture for the Bandage inventory item has been updated (it was still representing a Balm).

• Changed: Jewel is now named Gem.

• Fixed: Invasions could start from Outposts.

• Fixed: Invasions were not properly unregistered in New Game+. Also fixed rare invasion scenarios.

• Fixed: Some UI bugs here and there.

• Fixed: Censorship would also reduce Communication by 2 instead of just applying a permanent modifier of -1.

• Fixed: It was possible to set a resolution lower than 1440*900, which is the minimum resolution the engine can handle.

• Fixed: Resource variation could show a double minus character.

The altar is cold. The offering was refused.

They demanded a soul to quiet the encroaching Void. A simple sacrifice to preserve a dying world. You were given one choice, and you chose defiance.

The ritual is broken. The pact is shattered. And the price for your love is the world's damnation.

Today, the consequences of that choice are unleashed. Forbidden Offering is OUT NOW on Steam.

This is not a story of a dark bargain, but of the terrifying cost of breaking one. The slaughter you will unleash is not for power, but for survival. The endless hordes are not a trial; they are the wrath of a cosmos you have spurned.

To all of you who have followed our whispers and held your breath in anticipation—we thank you. The vigil is over. The true fight begins now.

Step into the chaos you have wrought.

You chose one life over all others. Now you must fight to prove it was worth it.

— Binah Games.