Sep 17, 2021

5.0.6 - Gauntlet Replaces the Pit, Battlefront Updates

Cross of Auria - Hardytier

The first floor of the Gauntlet is ready to go! Rather than talk about it, I'll just let you go in and see for yourself. The Gauntlet is in the same building where the Pit used to be in the Ruins of Agartha.

Defeating the boss at the end of the first floor will yield a special prize. Choose wisely!

Battlefront development is also ongoing.

5.0.6 [Build #102, Release Date: September 17, 2021]
Bugs to look for: Report them as a comment to the most recent patch notes or post them directly on the CoA channels using the invite link above!
- Ruby should change costume upon entering or exiting the Battlefront area.
- Gauntlet battles should return to level 1 after failing or manually exiting and returning to the area unless the boss has been defeated.

New:
- A new event has taken the place of the Pit in the Hall of Challengers! Currently, the Gauntlet goes up to level 10. As more enemy troops are added to the world, more levels of the Gauntlet will become available.
-- Once the boss has been defeated, the floor can not be repeated.
-- It is not possible to Game Over within the Gauntlet event.
-- Menu access is restricted once the event begins.
-- The Record Book now tracks consecutive wins of the Gauntlet instead of the defunct Pit. This will become more of an achievement later as the number of battles to clear each tier increase.
-- In addition to falling in combat and escaping from battle, simply talking to the event host will allow Ruby to exit the Gauntlet. Once exited, the current floor is reset and the Record Book tally is stopped. Re-entering the Gauntlet starts the consecutive counter back to 0.
-- The entire Hall of Challengers is Save Restricted pending further construction.
-- Pit Coins begin to drop starting after the third tier. Additional coin drops are added on the sixth and again on the ninth tier.
-- Enemy clouds roll for which Troop to battle from a group of up to 3 potential options. Enemy clouds do not share exact data with one another regarding these options. These Troops are pulled directly from other zones in the world in accordance with the tier level (example: tier 7 will have primarily level 7 enemies).

Battlefront:
- Warrior Ruby may no longer enter the Battlefront. Instead, when Ruby goes through the building, she becomes Expedition Leader Ruby.
-- Expedition Leader Ruby starts at level 1 and has access via level up to some of Warrior Ruby's usual skills.
-- Skills learned exclusively by Expedition Leader Ruby inside Battlefront zones are not shared with her Warrior class. Conversely, skills learned exclusively by Warrior Ruby outside the Battlefront are not shared with the Expedition Leader class.
-- Items which allow for skills to be learned may be used by any party member at any time, even outside the Battlefront areas.
- It is now possible to game over within the Battlefront zones.
- Battlefront zones now have a set of random encounters in addition to the visible field enemies.
- It is not possible to escape from battles with the on-the-map enemies. However, random encounters can be escaped.
- KO'd characters will only escape at the end of turn in battle or when Ruby returns to the exit. They will not escape if the battle is won before the end of the turn in which they were KO'd.
- Battlefront chests have some chance to be empty when looted. However, as randomized chests, they will continue to re-roll every time Ruby leaves the area and comes back for another chance to be looted.
- Blk. Mage, Rogue, & Barbarian skill trees updated.
- First Wht. Mage is now available in the 4th zone.

Changes:
- Changed tooltip for Swift Kick, Avoidance, Backstab, Charge, and Sharpen.
- Swift Kick now adds 10 to attack speed, up from 5.
Notes:
- Battlefront classes will only move to the updated skill tree after being intialized (KO'd and then re-purchased).

Sep 17, 2021

Franz Lohner’s Chronicle – The Pale Queen

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - [Fatshark] Trelly

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.

Franz Lohner’s Chronicle – The Pale Queen

It’s fair to say that Kerillian hasn’t been that chatty of late, even by her low standards, so it was something of a surprise when she stole into the main hall last night and made a play of warming herself by the fire. A clear invitation for a bit of a natter, if ever there was one.

I’m not saying she opened up all at once. No. Like always, she had an array of back-handed compliments and not-quite-threats ready and levelled, but you don’t last long in a life like mine without nurturing a thick skin, oh no. And humanitarian that I am (Olesya calls it ‘prying’, but she’s one to talk) I wasn’t about to leave Kerillian to whatever was eating her up. Last time I did that…? Well, let’s just say Saltzpyre nearly lost his eye the next day, following his own attempt at enquiry. He’s half-blind in more ways than one, which ain’t handy when it comes to reading the signs. Not sure who landed the first blow, but Sienna and Kruber had to separate them sharpish.

Anyway, after a while, Kerillian stopped her ‘leave me to be morose in peace’ act, and started talking.

Seems one of the goddesses she upped and dedicated herself to in the summer was one Ereth Khial. The Pale Queen, she’s called, and with good reason, what with her taking up residence in a black pit full of stolen elf-souls. Stolen by her, in fact, which ain’t exactly putting rosy complexion on this particular goddess’ character. Seems the elves think so too, because only the mad or desperate even consider acknowledging the Pale Queen, much less offer her worship. That Kerillian’s done what she has makes her mad, desperate, or both.

The way Kerillian tells it, she could live with that. Her fear comes from the possibility she might well have damned herself into the bargain. You see, Ereth Khial doesn’t intend to keep lurking in the darkness forever. She had herself a bit of a lover’s tiff with Asuryan - the elven creator god - back beyond the dawn of time. Well, I say ‘tiff’. Sounds much more like a determined refusal to heed the word ‘no’ on her part, but the end result’s much the same.

Whoever’s at fault, the Pale Queen’s nurturing something of a grudge, and means to drown the world in death - assuming the Chaos Gods don’t get there first. As for Kerillian? She’s been dreaming of herself at the head of a dark host, bat-winged spirits rushing around her like the wind. Seems firelight’s the only thing that keeps those dreams at bay, which makes me wonder if they’re not so much prophecy, as a message from the Pale Queen, warning of a debt coming due.

I left Kerillian to it after that. She’d clammed up, and me? Well… I slept with a lantern burning in the corner of the room last night and started awake at every rattle of the window.

Think I’ll make sure we’ve got plenty of firewood in the stores.

Sep 17, 2021

Chenso Club Devlog #8 - A message from the bug crusher boiz

Chenso Club - Elin

Heya! Bug crusher boiz here 😎⚔️🐛

We decided last week to keep going at it with squashing bugs in Chenso Club. That’s what we’ve been up to. We’re not going to bore you with the details of all those bugs, and we cannot show content from coming announcements. Buuut, there’s some stuff for ya!

This is one of the Seer Sisters. There are three of them, and this one in particular puts the world in darkness if you agree to her challenge. You’ll later meet the NPC again and the world will be lit and you’ll be rewarded with powerups!

We added an outline shader to the game to guide the player’s eyes to things. Like hard-to-see NPCs and other things we want you to look at in any given room

There have been smaller changes done too, that still makes a big difference. For example, when you meet the nemesis at the Castle stage, you now fight it on the top of the Castle rather than inside it. We believe this makes it feel more epic.

Oh and.. hold on to your hats because soon we’ll be doing a larger announcement. Maybe a certain holiday has something to do with it?

This week:

A lot of bug fixing and balancing
Stage 4 boss final art
Stage 4 enemy designs
Mr Time quest in progress
Cutscenes fully implemented
Outline shader for NPCs

If you want to check out more Chenso Club goodies here's a list.

🎉Join the Discord and become an official member of the baddest alien smashing club

🎸 Listen to the kickass Chenso Club theme here

✨Head over to the official Chenso Club website, if your pupils can handle it!

📰If you want to look at our press release you can find it on a few gaming publications like PC Gamer.

Sep 17, 2021

Dev Diary #6 - Actors 🤴

Espiocracy - Rafal Grochala

What's happening / TLDR: Developer diaries introduce details of Espiocracy - Cold War strategy game in which you play as an intelligence agency. You can catch up with the most important dev diary (The Vision) and find out more on Steam page.

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Welcome back,

Captivating games, movies, books have one trait in common - they tell fascinating stories. After all, storytelling is what we've been doing for thousands of years, gathered around the fire, learning how to hunt, inventing creation myths, and we continue to do so in the era of a global village.

Strategy games - despite their chess-spreadsheet-like nature - also tell stories, although usually implicitly, through unexpected outcomes or conflicts between players. Direct character-based stories were traditionally reserved for RPGs and adjacent genres, until titles such as Crusader Kings and Rimworld - both important inspirations for me - showed how a strategy game can feature rich storytelling based on characters. Espiocracy will push this side of the genre a little bit further.

What if we tie everything to characters? What if the world and countries represent groups of characters rather than bags of stats? What if characters include also organizations and sectors? There is better word for this kind of entity, coming straight out of the espionage lingo: actors, from the ability to act.

Transcript: Actors are tied to type-specific actions, managing relations, following agendas, developing capabilities, interacting with the player, and most importantly - building stories.

Actors will keep the world alive, create narratives from many points of view, represent plots running autonomously in the complex world. It should also not escape your attention that this system is designed precisely for a true espionage-based strategy game. Support a leader hostile to the enemy? Check. Break into Boeing design bureau? Check. Recruit Marilyn Monroe? Check. Use Yuri Gagarin in propaganda campaign? Check. Fund George Orwell? Check. Kidnap Gerard Depardieu? Wait a moment!

Actor Types

Transcript: Table follows pattern of type (example subtypes) - example actors. Leader (president, military) - Stalin, MacArthur. Author (writer, director) - Orwell, Tarkovsky. Inventor (scientist, engineer) - Crick, von Braun. Pioneer (astronaut) - Gagarin. Celebrity (model) - Monroe. Political party (mass, cadre) - CPSU, Democratic. Social movement (pro-view, anti-view) - separatist, Ban the Bomb. Influential company (industry) - Volkswagen. Top research institution (nuclear) - Kurchatov Institute. Influential media (newspaper, TV channel) - Pravda, CBS. Large mob (Italian, Japanese) - Cosa Nostra, Yakuza. Trade union (miner) - NUM. Terrorist (local) - Red Army Faction. Guerilla (exiles) - 26th of July Movement. Religious (Orthodox) - Moscow Patriarchate. Sector (media, industry) - French media, US industry.

Actors are both historical and generated. The latter option is much more involved than a simple procedural generation: population serves as the source (to the point where, for instance, a leader can hold views that were popular when they were growing up), actors create other actors, void after loss of an actor is filled by another contender. Proper balance between historical and generated actors can be a personal thing for the player, therefore it will be highly configurable and moddable.

Activity

Main actions are intuitive and correspond to the actor (sub)type. Examples include:

Transcript: Leader (president) can, for instance, declare a war or sign a treaty. Author (writer) can write a book or give an interview. Political party can promote a candidate or support a movement. Social movement can protest or influence politicians.

There are also three universal groups of actions:

Interacting with other actors (to the point of friends and enemies)
Balancing internal growth and external actions (spending limited resources)
Moving between countries (rare but sometimes significant, for instance former leader fleeing country after an invasion to establish government-in-exile)

Activity shapes not only the history, but also the fate of the actor. Some actions are more optimal in specific contexts, but actors - like in the real life - are not always rational. Instead, their actions are guided by competence, traits, and goals. It adds an interesting layer of complexity especially at the level of leaders, as you can probably imagine consequences of electing an incompetent leader...

Influence

All actors represented in the game are actually influential actors - important or at least potentially important for the fate of the whole country.

Actor's influence is quantified to a single parameter, defined by:

Recent actions and their results
Current role in the legal system
Size (in the case of organizations)
Relations
History

As with many other features of the game, influence is two-way street. On the one hand, it is meticulously acquired by actors over years. On the other hand, it unlocks actions, defines their reach, and is subject to dramatic changes. For example: a writer with low influence suddenly succeeds with a bestseller and hugely increases own influence, because now the country (or even the whole world) listens to the interviews and waits for the next book. And the player can interact with the author to push them into ridiculing Western or Eastern systems... (Yes, Orwell-Huxley vibes!)

Influence system neatly clarifies some complex mechanisms. Some leaders have no legal power (not enough influence) to declare war on their own, authors writing in lingua franca English have wider global reach (higher influence) than other authors, cartel parties can naturally emerge by accumulating influence and gatekeeping it from new parties, and so on.

Great Man Theory

Let's address an elephant in the room. Is it "Great Man Theory The Game"?

The answer is straightforward: no.

Classic (Napoleonic) great man theory is out of the question, since there are incompetent leaders and those who are competent, can posses ill-fated views and negative traits.

Modern great man theory deserves more detailed rebuttal. Folks in discussions adjacent to Paradox games often equal the theory with apples and oranges. First approach, probably closer to the historical discourse, assumes that high-ranking individuals were largely products of their environments. I think this is a fair approach to history and I reflect that in the design: individual persons come from and are rooted in the population, population itself creates actors and is represented by actors such as social movements. In addition, fate of many actors lies in the hands of the common folk (by changing influence, reacting to actions, voting in elections, and so on) - which is also tied directly to views held by the population.

Now on to the oranges: sometimes discussion around great man theory quickly evolves into discussion about historical determinism. It's not hard to find voices equaling the theory with a view that Stalin, in the case of earlier death, would be replaced by an approximate copy of Stalin, because high-ranking individuals are deterministic slaves of history (shout-out to Tolstoy!). This approach is strongly rejected by the game on very simple grounds - deterministic history would be boring.

Final Remarks

The next dev diary will explore the first method of interaction with actors - Contacts and Targets - on October 1st.

If you're not already wishlisting Espiocracy, consider doing it:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670650/Espiocracy/

There is also a small community around Espiocracy:

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"Chess is not a game. Chess is well-defined form computation. Real games, real life consists of bluffing, of little tactics and deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do" - John Von Neumann