(Game) Turn-Based-Strategy

Alex_J

To Battle! Hell's Crusade

Available now on steam for pc

Old-school, turn-based, medieval monster murdering strategy.

I've done art, writing, voice acting, and level design. Been a ton of fun.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113300/To_Battle_Hells_Crusade/

NikhilR

Impressive work so far! 
I like the presentation, the UI seems very accessible, 
I wonder how it would be if the health bars only showed on the selected character in full color, but dimmer on the unselected characters.
While the characters do tend to blend into the background, I like the effect, its a sort of camouflage. 
For the selected character, you could highlight the tile they are on.
Would love to see a video of it in action!

Alex_J

Appreciate the feedback @NikhilR

I'll put up some gameplay vid's soon. Lost almost a full day to a bug hunt, gotta make up lost time.

UI is still WIP, but getting close to done. I'll pass on the message about health bars being too eye-catchy to my partner. UI is his side.

Alex_J

Couple promo images made from in game shots.

We've made our first build and are going through it fixing bugs and polishing things up. Play test build will be ready tomorrow. Anybody interested is still welcome to PM me for details.

We're getting some voice acting done, spending the rest of the week touching up minor things, and release is set for next Monday.

I could use some help with the promo images, if anybody has got some tip. I'm sure all of you artist can easily tell I've just slapped the oil pant filter on in photoshop. I don't know what else to do really. Maybe some gradient or vignette effect? I like to keep it taken from gameplay so it's clear that its a top-down strategy game.

Maybe that font is too serious, also. The game is actually very humorous, inspired by Monty Python and the Holy Grail. These images look pretty cool i think but may give the wrong impression.

Alex_J

Based on playtester feedback we've put a lot of effort into tightening up the GUI presentation. Overall a more accessible experience for new players so that they can focus on combat strategy and not on figuring out how the game works.

We've also turned the GUI healthbars into 3d meshes so they feel more at home in the world and not excessively eye-catching.

Most valuable thing was some of our playtesters were able to record video of themselves playing. That is soooo worth it if you can get that done. What people say can be highly subjective and prone to misinterpretation, but actually watching somebodies experience gives you immediate, actionable feedback you can make some major improvements from. It's also super encouraging to see a persons reaction to a special ambush you designed, or to hear them laugh at some humor you wrote. Really pumps you up.

We also added a press-to-highlight all troops function.  This way you can easily track your guys in low-light missions without killing the mood.

Overall feedback has been very useful and encouraging!

also had a little fun turning gameplay screens into promo images. Dunno if these will be worthy or going on steam page but it's always fun to dick around in photoshop.

special thanks to @nikhilR who provided some really useful feedback!

Taylor Brown

badass man!

Alex_J

Thanks @Taylor Brown

Final week!

Nick (the programmer) has done a lot of awesome work finalizing the UI, in addition to a lot bug squashing. We've also continued to take in playtester feedback. For the most part people are happy with the gameplay and narrative but need more direction with UI and explanation of game mechanics. Luckily, that's pretty easy to solve.

Most people were confused about the Scout and Yeoman, expecting them to have a ranged attack cause they had bows. So I took their bows away. No need for confusion. Just bad design on my part.

I've been recording so much dialogue my throat hurts. Also finalizing balance for the final level, in which you lure the Great Beast to the City of Debauchery for the final showdown.

....but before you can Redeem yourself in the City of Debauchery, you must prove your mettle in the Weald of Eternal Nightmare.

Alex_J

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev92PmYqjYA&feature=youtu.be

Alex_J

Small update:

Well, we finished the game, then made a steam account to sell it. Then we found out you gotta wait 30 days for your account to be verified. Lol. Well, live and learn. We crunched hard to meet our self-appointed deadline!

In the meantime, we are optimizing the game as much as possible. Trying to keep total tri's below 1 mil on max settings. No reason a game like this shouldn't run on almost any toaster. I also added a few more enviro goodies. Some farm stuff. Little piggies.

Characters are the main thing to optimize. Reducing most of them by 3/4. Just chopping out edge loops and rebaking. I made them way too dense to begin with, not realizing how little geo you really need for a game with this perspective. A few thousand tri's will do for when the camera is at min zoom. We really outta use LOD's cause at high zoom like this a few hundred tris will do, but even with extra time I don't think I'll be able to manage that. Got a lot more sound work and marketing to take care of.

Alex_J

Here's a tutorial made for playtesters, showing basic gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_AxFWpQk7Y&feature=youtu.be

Alex_J

Two weeks till publish. Working on our coming soon page. Already got a little traffic so me and programmer are dancing in the streets a bit already. Very exciting. Everybody should make their own game at least once. Just awesome experience.

As I been iterating on game balance, I'm doing a lot of tweaking to lighting, level layout, music triggers, etc. Overall coming together for a nice, thematic, cohesive presentation. Don't got everything we want but we've been able to get close with the little resources we have.

Alex_J

redacted

Alex_J

Doing a lot of work on our steam page. Been looking at what successful games are doing and following suit. If you got time, drop by the page and leave some feedback. We've gone a long ways from where we started and its like, 99.9% purely from outside feedback.

Alex_J

Available on steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113300/To_Battle_Hells_Crusade/?beta=1

NikhilR

Alex Javor said:

Available on steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1113300/To_Battle_Hells_Crusade/?beta=1

Congratulations!

Alex_J

thanks man. your early feedback really helped us shape up the UI and overall presentation soooo much.

Alex_J

Youtuber has made a nice Let's Play of the game.

https://youtu.be/LdkY9Ui8ZXk

In a  couple weeks I write up a post mortem about the art production. Shortly after we will be launching more content as a free update, a long with a sale. Any polycounters want a free key just send me pm.