Work on Fort Triumph continues, and we wanted to update you on how things were going. Throughout our journey, we did our best to keep you in mind and listen to every piece of feedback with an open mind.

After a fruitful thread in our communities, we decided to focus a bit harder on the strategic layer until both us and you guys are happier with it. We hope to have some news for you on this front soon.

We'd also like to meet you in more ways, and communicate more openly as well as provide a resting spot for weary adventurers between quests. Towards that end, we'd like to invite you to join our Discord server, we're still learning the ropes but you can already share your thoughts and feedback, or catch members of the team online for a chat.



While the larger update for the strategic layer is in the works, we have one for you tackling some issues that you made us aware of as well as some changes waiting in our pipeline patiently for a while.

• Units will now face the currently selected unit for clarity.
  
• Fire effects performance improved, especially in scenes with multiple burning objects.
  
• Blink and Swap no longer act as default actions and require activation.
  
• Status effects gained on the world map will no longer appear in combat over the heads of your units, only in their full unit cards.
  
• Status effects gained on the world map will no longer have a 10 turn duration limit.
  
• Fixed a physics bug causing units to sometime get stuck in place in invalid positions after killing an enemy.
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes a unit could not cast any abilities immediately after leveling up during a mission.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the second swing of a duel-wielding skeleton registering with a delay.
  
• Fixed an edge case which caused attack of opportunity to not trigger when a lifted unit was too high up in the air.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing experience gain when killing enemies using exploding barrels or fire urns.
  
• Fixed charge animation and changed its behavior to not target static objects.
  
• Fixed a physics issue with spiders caused by their low height.
  
• Fixed bad position and scaling of some portraits, especially mercenary units.
  
• Fixed invalid positions of some columns in the fight against Claude which caused physics collision issues before.
  
• Fixed pit behavior which sometimes caused units to be able to walk across even after the bars are removed.
  
• Fixed a lighting bug affecting mage apprentices.
  
• Fixed position of the Fire Blast effect.
  
• Fixed a performance issue causing frame rates to drop when an object is destroyed, especially on Very High or higher settings.
  
• Fixed Cage sound effect sync.
  
• Fixed the shadows of trees affected by Toxic Spit.
  
• Fixed a bug with Rally causing issues with selection outlines.

Thank you for playing our game and sharing your feedback. Looking forward to meeting you over at our Discord server!

(If you want to copy the link out manually, https://discord.gg/Exmx565 )

We have a minor update focused on expanding on the last major patch - implementing the second set of achievements planned, more tweaks to lighting and see-through effects and a few fixes for issues reported by you in the last week or so.

Keep the reports coming!

• Implemented the second batch of Steam Achievements. You are welcome to suggest more in our forums.
  
• Added a domino effect for toppling objects (Trees and columns for example) so they can now topple each other in a chain.

• Improved the new lighting system, removed some weird behaviors and improved performance.
  
• Slightly optimized loading times.
  
• More improvement to fire performance and effects.
  
• Fixed object outlines, so that they will not show through other objects.

• Fixed a bug where the ranger permanently has and provides full cover in future missions when ending a mission as a tree.
  
• Fixed troll movement speed to match its animation.
  
• Fixed a bug in Mac where sometimes outlines painted the screen pink.

Thank you for your support, and we'll be keeping a close eye on your feedback in our communities - keep it coming!

Onwards!

Our journey continues, and the last month of development was focused on some major changes that we wanted to get to for a long time. From overhauling the lighting we use in the game, started implementing achievements and a few other performance-focused changes both immediately helpful and setting the foundation for more optimization planned for down the road.

• Complete overhaul of all lighting in the game. We wanted to make the game better looking on lower-end machines and better performing on higher-end machines, and this change is a big first step in that direction.

• Major improvement to fire effects performance which was burning up system resources, there's still work to be done but it's much better than it was.
  
• The first round of Steam Achievements has been introduced, we have plenty more coming, this first batch is focused on physics and general basic achievements. Suggest more ideas in our forums!

• Hero visual customization is now available in-mission so you can make your units stand out, or roleplay a sudden change of fashion sense. Changes will affect both the model and hero portraits.

• New portraits for the Paladin and the Goblin Shaman unit.
  
• Updated party information visuals in the world map.
  
• Minor improvements to cinematic camera behavior.
  
• Eggs in spider cave levels will now break upon a physics collision regardless of HP remaining.
  
• Minor improvements to AI turn speed, still a ways to go.
  
• Added new setting enabling locking the mouse cursor to the game window following feedback from multi-screen users.
  
• Added new setting - enemy movement speed control, so you can speed up enemy movements and actions.
  
• Fixed a bug hanging the game during the walls mission in the battle for Fort Triumph.
  
• Fixed a bug where using the mouse to close the party window while editing a hero's name would cause input to disable.
  
• Fixed a bug with stacking bleeding debuffs.
  
• Fixed a bug where Claude remained in the level after the first dialogue if it is skipped.
  
• Fixed the range of Blink of Frighten which behaved differently in some levels.
  
• Fixed a bug causing units to glide over pits instead of falling into them when pushed.
  
• Fixed health bars showing incorrect information during an action.
  
• Fixed the behavior of Nasty Kick and Amateur Charge to not cause damage to objects, and only apply damage after the push so that units will still collide with whatever is in their path before dying, if it kills them.

Thank you, as ever, for staying active and submitting reports and suggestions - and those of you who haven't are welcome to join in. Voice your opinions and thoughts on our forums or in a review, it's important for us to hear feedback of all sorts.

Fight on, adventurers!

As promised in the last major update, we have a big one for you - an update completing the first part of Fort Triumph's story, including the battle for Fort Triumph itself, as well as new skill trees and multiple changes.

Let's dig right in!

• Completed the first chapter of our main campaign, you may now reach and access several new missions including the battle for Fort Triumph. As always - this is the first iteration and we intend to polish it greatly in the coming weeks.
  
• Implemented new Skill Trees - with multiple new abilities and ability upgrades, new buffs and debuffs and more. Currently, you unlock ability slots as you level up your party, and can select which abilities and upgrades each hero will have.

• While abilities take up ability slots based on their level which means you cannot take all of them, ability upgrades do not require slots and add into existing ability choices.
  
• Tweaked levelling and stat scaling, reduced Health, damage and speed gains per level for heroes.
  
• New Environment - Castle Walls, fighting across the walls of Fort Triumph itself.
  
• Environment Variation added - bridge battles will now be fought in actual bridge levels.
  
• Added the ability to change unit color scheme as part of unit customization.

• Electrocute - cause a unit to take damage whenever it moves.
  
• Empower - Increases the damage caused by a friendly unit by 50%.
  
• Acute Hearing - The Ranger can now sense enemies in range even if she has no direct line of sight.
  
• Bleeding - unit loses health each turn.
  
• Marked - Attacks against a marked unit have a bonus chance to hit.
  
• Upgrade example for Frighten - Blinding Fear, also blinds enemies affected.
  
• Upgrade example for a normal bow attack - Causes bleeding.
  
• Upgrade example for a Lift ability - Increase range of lifts by 1
  
• Naturally there are many more and we will keep polishing and adding more of them

• Fixed Taunt and Become a Tree which did not work properly in 0.8.0.1.
  
• Physics actions behave better, especially when it comes to 2nd impact or ricocheting enemies or objects off a wall.
  
• Units no longer warp through Crypt walls.
  
• Fixed a Vortex bug pushing objects in the wrong direction.
  
• Fixed bridge fights which sometimes granted Auto-wins when started.
  
• Fixed a bug causing urns to instantly explode in the Magical Glyph room in the prologue.
  
• Fixed a bug causing a skeleton guard to not spawn properly in the Spider's Lair.
  
• Fixed a bug enabling units to stand inside cave walls becoming unreachable.
  
• Fixed a bug causing objects kicked at the Support Beams in The Philosopher Troll mission clipped through them.
  
• Fixed artifacts and tile highlighting issues.
  
• Fixed a bug sometimes causing all enemies to gain free actions after players break a spider's egg.
  
• Fixed a bug causing enemy units to sometimes not perform an action during their turn.
  
• Fixed a bug messing up tree collision when being kicked.

We've made some changes to AI turn length, so far optimized by around 10% but we're very much aware they still need to get much shorter. Working on it!

Existing save files are still supported in build 0.9.0. Your heroes will be reset to level 1 but maintain their XP so you can quickly level them up into the new Skill Tree from scratch.

Onwards, warriors, to take that fort!

Thank you for the outstanding reporting these last couple of weeks - we've gotten tons of valuable help in spotting and fixing many bugs related to the new systems introduced in 0.8.0.


This minor patch is the result of your pitching in with multiple bug reports:

• Fixed bugs sometimes causing the player to start a mission with only a single unit, despite more being selected to participate in the battle.
  
• Fixed a bug where the units selected for a mission fail to spawn or die if the player doesn't restart the mission.
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes mercenaries such as Small Spiders, Skeleton Weaklings, House Spiders, Skeleton Knights and Skeleton Sharpshooters were not properly spawned for players in missions (and were lost as a result).
  
• Fixed some badly configured areas in world map that resulted in fights being auto-won with no battle.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented adding a 4th human unit to the party if a mercenary was already in it.
  
• Fixed bug where when taking over a faction hub already in the process of recruiting a new party, an enemy party was still spawned on the next turn.
  
• Fixed bug of Gharbarak name not showing properly in a dialogue
  
• Fixed some bad colliders (mostly chests near village fences).
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed lifting a unit into water (without killing the unit).
  
• Small visual updates to party screen.
  
• Small improvement to memory allocation to reduce spikes.

We have also taken the time to bump the public demo up to 0.8.0.1 standard, including inventory and party management, so that those trying out the game can get a better impression of the current stage of the game.

Thank you for supporting Fort Triumph, and keep up the solid feedback flow.

Onwards!

Development continues at a good pace, and we've reached a major milestone we've been striving for. While our original plans had us focused on content creation, your requests and feedback have once again changed our priorities and we switched the order of development for June and July.

What this means is you are getting the major features you need right now with an Inventory, initial artifacts and party management interfaces. The major content update will be coming in a few weeks (end of July) rather than the other way around.

Patch 0.8.0 is all about you and your preferences, and includes some of the most requested features since Early Access began. Please keep sharing your thoughts with us over at the forums or privately - we do our best to follow every discussion and take your requests into consideration.

While we generally try to avoid Save Breaking as much as possible, build 0.8.0 does not support previous saves and runs will be reset. We do what we can to keep these few and far apart, and ask for your patience - development progress sometimes require it.



Renaming heroes and choosing the active party now possible

• Party Management / Roster - there is no longer a limit to the number of units that belong to your party. Instead, you can choose which units are active and participate in a given mission - up to four heroes and one mercenary as before. Note that during tactical missions this interface will not be active seeing as you cannot switch units during combat.
  
• Inventory - the first iteration grants each unit two equipment slots which can fit tactical usable items (IE potions) or unique artifacts from the party's shared stash.
  
• Once completing a mission, any potions remaining in the level will be moved to the party's shared stash.
  
• Hero Customization - You can now rename your units. We have also implemented some color variations to differentiate similar units - currently random but we're working on an interface to allow you to control it and other customization options down the road.
  
• Added initial Artifacts, unique items changing mechanics in interesting ways. We have a long list coming and you are welcome to suggest more ideas at the forums.

While the major content patch focused on completing the first campaign is a few weeks away, we have done some work on earlier missions and content that's been worked on previously:

• Mission 4 (Mages and the Breach) has been rewritten and now has two fully operational routes you can choose from depending on which faction you want to support.
  
• Added a new scripted mission (Goblin Hunt) which is played in a new environment variation - a goblin camp. Goblin camp is currently unavailable for random encounters and we'll be testing it with this mission.
  
• Added a new scripted side mission - The Wishing Well. Look for it in world map wells!

• Fixed snowy environment friction and objects will now get pushed farther appropriately.
  
• Controller mapping redone for clarity - end turn will now be on select/back/view rather than B/circle like before.
  
• Hit chance will now always display when an attack is performed.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused faction hubs to not refresh their recruits.
  
• Changed weight of some objects for more consistent physics behavior.
  
• AI improvements, especially to allied AI.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused a Leap movement to not trigger Overwatch as intended.
  
• Fixed a bug with lift causing it to cost 1AP even if lifting an object on the spot without moving it.
  
• Added card images for multiple foes, and new portraits for Gharbarak and Scavenger.
  
• Camera no longer moves during dialogues where all units are on screen and close to each other.

Exciting times! We cannot wait to hear your thoughts and get some feedback for both new features and existing ones. Hop onto the forums or send an email if you prefer to discuss your feedback in person( Shay@Forttriumph.com ).

Our journey continues, and another minor patch is live!
This one has another round of feedback implementation and bug fixing, as well as a couple of visual features.


We've been receiving many requests from wishlisters and visitors to update our demo, which was based on the 0.7.4.5 build and contained a single mission. We are releasing a new public demo on par with current versions in terms of gameplay and containing the Prologue in full.

If you have friends who were interested - please let them know they can try Fort Triumph right away for free, and help us spread the good word.

• Following your feedback, changed enemy 1AP movement range outline to Cyan to make it more easily distinguishable when planning your action.

• Fixed an issue preventing AoE aiming indicator from displaying properly in some cases.
  
• Fixed a bug which sometimes resurrected units when ending turn or bracing/overwatching all.
  
• Fixed Permadeath not functioning even when selected as on.
  
• Fixed a bug hanging the game in Prologue's crypt world map.
  
• Fixed an attack of opportunity bug not triggering diagonally on pushed enemies.
  
• Fixed the mage's Swap ability bug which triggered enemy Overwatch when it shouldn't.

Thank you for your continued feedback and support, and we will keep implementing it as effectively as we can - keep it coming :)

Onwards!

A new minor patch is live! It is mostly focused on bug fixes and preparation for the next major upgrades to our game.

However following player feedback we've temporarily disabled Permadeath in the prologue - one can still select and enable it when starting a new run, but new players will have their heroes revive between missions to keep progress going.

• Urns in crypt now have type indication and clearer markings for their effects. We will be adding tooltips soon.
  
• Fixed a bug in Harold's mission causing the game to hang during end screen.
  
• Fixed world map pathing issue causing some enemies to get stuck on bridges.
  
• Fixed enemy indication for active/inactive.
  
• Fixed the FireBoulder bug, where a fireball was cast, effects were shown but a boulder was summoned instead of the fireball object itself.

Keep that great feedback coming, and we will keep improving Fort Triumph based on your preferences.

This week's minor patch is about early game tweaks and QoL fixes based on community feedback. We've also been hard at work on the next major patch, but more on that coming later.

• Added a map to the prologue to hint at the main campaign earlier.
  
• Split last prologue mission to make the final encounter separate and restartable on its own.
  
• Changed tutorial and added explanations for Zone of Control and Attack of Opportunity.
  
• Added doors to the Arachnax encounter to prevent accidental pulling from the previous room.

• Added 'Brace/Overwatch all' button over the previous end turn button. Backspace is now mapped to brace/overwatch all instead of a regular end turn.
  
• Iterated autosave behaviour, there is now a single stable autosave slot.
  
• Added basic save game information (Date on world map, mission name in tactical missions).
  
• Added hit chance indication on enemy ranged attacks and overwatch.

• Fixed more Attack of Opportunity trigger bugs.
  
• Fixed a kick bug causing units to to 'get out of cover' before kicking, causing it to go in the wrong direction.
  
• Fixed another round of LoS issues and animation interactions, still some known issues to work on there.
  
• Fixed camera not moving to double clicked selected heroes.
  
• Improved some tooltips and ability descriptions.
  
• Fixed AI bug which caused some APs to remain unspent.
  
• Fixed continue button bug after finishing the campaign.
  
• Fixed shader issues and improved unit visuals.
  
• AI will now prefer using units not in melee control zones first.
  
• Fixed a bug which made chests disappear on the world map if selecting 'no, thanks'.

Thank you for keeping us in the know as to what you want to see in the game, and can't wait to show you more.

Onwards!

Minor patch 0.7.6 is live with a slew of fixes and adjustments based on your feedback. These minor patches will release often and focus on immediate fixes and solutions, while major patches will introduce new content and major feature changes.

• Based on your feedback, we implemented an initial indicator showing the direction an object will be pushed or toppled towards while planning an action. This is merely a first step and a more comprehensive UI solution is in the works.

• Iterated the overwatch trigger indicator to make it more easily noticable.
  
• While hovering over enemy cards, units will be highlighted following community feedback.
  
• When selecting a ranged enemy, his range will be displayed in UI. We plan to replace this with a solution showing both movement and firing range down the road.

• Once revealed, enemies will remain visible even while out of sight. This is a measure to prevent enemies activating and immediately going off the grid to surprise players in later turns.
  
• The tops of walls in crypt levels will now be blocked for movement.
  
• Removed the survival objective from prologue mission 1 following feedback and as part of the overall effort to improve prologue experience.
  
• Support Beam HP in prologue cave mission has been reduced.
  
• Increased Mage base HP by 1.
  
• Increased Ranger base speed by 1.
  
• Reduced Paladin base speed by 1.

• Fixed some enemies shooting through walls, fences and houses when they should have no Line of Sight. However it's not over, and there is still a known issue with LoS in some cases that is being worked on.
  
• Fixed a bug hanging the game when dialogue plays while in cinematic camera (most often spotted in prologue cave mission).
  
• Fixed the Telekinesis of Opportunity bug which allowed ranged AoO by melee heroes.
  
• Fixed a bug which removed buffs gained on the world map too quickly.
  
• Blinding Light (Paladin ability) will not require direct line of sight as intended.
  
• Fixed an overwatch indicator bug which didn't display it in some edge cases, especially when overwatch triggered immediately on the first tile of movement.
  
• Fixed a broken tile in the final room of the prologue which enabled the boss to move through the platform.

We are thankful for the great support and constant feedback you have been giving us.

Onwards!