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Griftlands - Klei's sci-fi deck-building roguelite

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Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
https://www.klei.com/games/griftlands




https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/griftlands/home



Accidentally revealed before PC Gaming Show:

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Griftlands is an RPG where everything is negotiable: money, loyalty—even morality. Choose your character and make your fortune.

Griftlands is the next game by Klei, and will be available Late 2017 / Early 2018.
 
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CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Looks cool, probably turn-based judging by the way characters are facing enemies. And it's Klei so it'll be good.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,509
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Definitely looks fun. While it doesn't seem to be the kind of RPG that the Codex might like (looks a bit JRPG inspired?) I love the setting.

I wish they showed a bit more of the combat though because that's arguably what you'll be doing most of the time?
 

Ruchy

Scholar
Joined
Jan 11, 2017
Messages
202
Location
Australia
I quite like the art direction, I do find it hard to get past JRPG combat though hoping it may not be just combat focused after the "everything is negotiable" statement.
 

hellbent

Augur
Joined
Aug 17, 2008
Messages
322
I really wished that they built a RPG over Invisible Inc gameplay.

Well, maybe someday.

We can only hope.

As for Klei's art style, I've always felt they should just break down and do a fucking Venture Bros RPG. Brock Samson and buckets of minion blood FTW.
 

skycycle

Educated
Joined
Jan 15, 2017
Messages
57
Location
Amsterdam, NL
Really liked the art style when I saw the trailer at E3, and knowing Klei I will at the very least give it a try.
 

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Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/10/12/griftlands-is-a-pirate-sandbox-says-klei/

Griftlands is a ‘pirate sandbox’, says Klei

We haven’t seen much of sci-fi RPG Griftlands [official site], apart from a short trailerfeaturing a drunk frog-man getting turned in by his space pal for a sweet bag o’ cash. But developers Klei have a good track record with their cartoony games. So I annoyed them with some questions and got a few more details. As expected, it’s a game of money-grubbing and turn-based battling, but it’s also a world where characters will hold grudges against you, say the creators.

Looking at the town-to-town traipsing and Cartoon Network-ish animation, you might be forgiven for thinking of viking RPG The Banner Saga. But it’s not as cemented in its storyline, says Klei.

“Griftlands is much less directed than Banner Saga,” says Kevin Forbes, designer on the game. “It’s more of a pirate/mercenary sandbox than a sequence of story battles. You are put into a simulated economy and set loose to make your fortune.”

“There is a small cast of written player-characters / companions who have their own questlines, but these take place in a dynamic world with procedurally generated NPCs. The land and the factions that inhabit it are fixed, but their state and the front-line NPCs that populate the world are systems-driven…”

griftlands-trailer-1-620x300.jpg


So it sounds like your own heroes will be set in stone, with the rest of the world reacting to your dastardly deeds or friendly feats. Meanwhile, battles themselves sound like a mix of traditional turn-based timing (there’s a “front row” and a “back row” of fighters) but with an emphasis on subduing your enemies, not murdering them.

“Individual fights are designed to be short and impactful,” says Forbes. “Morale and NPC personality effects factor in heavily – many fights are not to the death, but rather until one side surrenders. Killing people can lead to mechanical repercussions down the road, and NPCs remember what you did to them in the past.”

It’s still an unfinished piece of privateering, he points out. “We don’t want to build up expectations for work that is still very much in progress,” he says, adding that the game is, as ever, subject to twiddling and fiddling. But it sounds like a good direction for Klei. They’ve done spoopy survival game with Don’t Starve and madcap management sim with Oxygen Not Included, why not indulge in some sci-fi chicanery? It’s due out “some time in 2018”.
 

Jimmious

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 18, 2015
Messages
5,132
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Sounds interesting. Klei always has "innovative" ideas for games. It's definitely not going to be a Codex favorite what with JRPGy combat and procedural generation but I'm intrigued
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Klei will return in this year's E3 PC Gaming Show:

PC Gaming Show To Include Reveals By Gaming Industry Favorites

LOS ANGELES - May 29, 2018 - A host of exciting developers will be joining the PC Gaming Show lineup including Sega, Square Enix Ltd., Crytek, Double Fine, Hi-Rez Studios, SkyDance Media, Digital Extremes, Raw Fury, Klei, Modern Storyteller, tinyBuild, Cloud Imperium Games, Starbreeze, 505 Games, an untitled publisher, and more who will share enticing reveals with PC gaming fans on Monday, June 11 at 3PM PDT at The Wiltern theater in Los Angeles.

Previously announced sponsors and game companies include Oculus Rift, Stardock Entertainment, Tripwire Interactive, baked goods company Drake's Cakes, Coffee Stain Studios, Frontier, Team 17, and Chance Agency.

PC gamers will be able to attend in person or watch the show on twitch.tv/pcgamer. The show will also be hosted on the Twitch homepage as part of their official "E3 Day Zero" programming. In addition, the PC Gaming Show will also be broadcast on platforms including Facebook Live, YouTube Gaming, Steam’s front page, and more.

For more information and to register for press or content creator access, please visit: www.PCGamingShow.com and follow #pcgamingshow. For consumers interested in attending the show, please visit: www.PCGamingShow.com/tickets .
 
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
3,535
Two weeks ago:

Hey folks,

Apologies for the long time between updates! To make a long story short, we are still working on this game and it is not cancelled.

Whenever we make a game, we set out to create a new experience. That means that scheduling a new game is really, really hard for us, because we’re not sure when it’ll all work out. Sometimes it works out pretty quickly, other times, it takes a whole lot of back and forth and reworking. Invisible, Inc. comes to mind as an example; for the first couple years of development it went from a multiplayer mobile game, to a tactical combat game, finally converging to the stealth espionage that we shipped with.

This time, we jumped the gun on announcing it because we thought we were further along than we were. After testing it out in-house, though, we felt that the game just wasn’t delivering the experience we wanted, so we went back to work and have quietly been working on it since.

We didn’t want to give another date until we were confident, but I agree we should have kept people here more in the loop. Sorry about that!

The game is much further along now, but we’re still some ways from announcing a new date. Once we have more information, we’ll let everyone know.

Thanks for everyone’s patience!

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/97736-griftlands-update/
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,105
Yeah, there's been quite a few "deck building roguelikes" since this was announced. I kinda hoped it was more on the RPG side. Also, Epic store.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Alpha release on July 11st exclusively on Epic Store: https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/107394-griftlands-reboot-alpha-and-roadmap/

They're doing Infinitron suggestion: "In June of next year, we will be releasing Griftlands into Early Access on Steam. Anyone who purchased on Epic will get the game on Steam for free, and vice versa."

Also this is no longer an RPG, more like negotiation by deck building game looks like.

Griftlands Reboot, Alpha and Roadmap

Hello everyone!

As you may have seen at the PC Game Show, we are finally ready to talk about Griftlands. As always we try not to say too much until we’re reasonably sure we have solid information to give you, but we're feeling confident with the status of the game and want to fill you in.

We have a lot to discuss here: Alpha on the Epic Game Store, Early Access on Steam, and a big change in gameplay.

Griftlands, the RPG
Every time we make a game, we set out to make a new experience that’s never been made before. Over 4 years ago, we set out to make a new RPG, and the development of the game twisted and turned in many interesting ways.

After a couple years, we thought we were close, and announced the game. It turns out, we were premature in the announcement, and after another year of development, we realized that we were not delivering the experience we had set out to. Specifically, we wanted a world where you had the freedom to do what you wanted, and the world would respond systemically to it; where you could build relationships and the nuances of them would come back to haunt you. We wanted to let you wander a large expansive world, build out your party, and backstab your own party members when they least expected it.

We wanted the story to be systemic, but it felt either robotic or too linear. We built a full trading simulation, modeling supply and demand, we built a fully featured crafting system, and a dynamic faction simulator. Unfortunately, the whole was never better than the pieces; we found that each piece of the game felt disconnected with the rest, and that actions often felt inconsequential. We built large worlds that felt tedious to travel around, and as designers we knew the systems were not working to provide a holistic experience.

What we did see was the people loved the world, and loved the premise of negotiation and manipulation. In short, we focused our design, and over the last year, we’ve been working on something new in the same world.

The New Griftlands
Today, we’re announcing a reboot of Griftlands, a single-player deck building game where you negotiate, fight, steal or otherwise persuade others to get your way. We put aside the huge simulation and RPG elements and focused on negotiation, combat, and manipulation. You play the game as one of three characters, and each decision you make is important -- which jobs to take, which side to choose, and which cards to collect.



In Alpha, you play as Sal, a freelance adventurer out for profit and revenge, and you do the dirty work that other people won't. As you play, you build two separate decks: one for negotiation, and one for battle.

The world of Griftlands is harsh, and death can come quickly. Each time you play offers new jobs and situations to encounter, and a chance to rebuild your strategies. A successful run will require a sharp wit, a sharp blade, and enough cunning to know when to use each.

Alpha and the Epic Game Store
As with our previous games, we will be running an Alpha period in order to iron out the kinks. We have partnered with Epic to bring the Alpha of Griftlands to the Epic Game Store exclusively for one year, and will launch in Early Access on Steam next June.

Klei has a history of partnering with new distribution platforms when starting new projects, for example the Don’t Starve Alpha was only available on the Chrome Webstore, and the Invisible Inc. Alpha was only available through the Humble Widget as a direct download. After rebooting the game, Epic approached us as a partner and we felt that this fit well with our process of going from Alpha to garner feedback before putting it on all platforms.

On July 11, we are going to launch the Alpha version of Griftlands for $14.99.

Early Access on Steam and Early Roadmap
In June of next year, we will be releasing Griftlands into Early Access on Steam. Anyone who purchased on Epic will get the game on Steam for free, and vice versa.

Griftlands has taken a long time, and it’s gone through more twists and turns than any of our previously released projects. Making new experiences is never easy, and if nothing else it’s guaranteed to work out differently than we anticipated.

We have quite a bit of work ahead of us. Our expected timeline is:

  • Alpha: The Sal campaign (days 1 through 4) is released
  • Fall: Character 2 campaign (days 1 through ?) is released
  • Early Access: Character 3 campaign (days 1 through ?) is released
  • Launch: Full campaign for all characters released
We expect the full game to launch in the Fall of next year, and we’re looking forward to taking that journey with you, from Alpha to Early Access to launch.

Best,
Jamie.

F.A.Q.

What happened to Griftlands the RPG?
We set out to make a new kind of RPG, and while we think that game can exist, after several years of development we felt we couldn’t make it work yet. Perhaps we will try again one day, but in the meantime we decided to take the world of Griftlands in a different direction.

If I purchase the Alpha, will I get the full game at launch?
Yes. When you buy Griftlands during Alpha, you will have access to the game through Early-Access and you will get the full game at launch, on both Epic Game Store and Steam.

Is Griftlands a CCG?
No, Griftlands is a single-player rogue-like deck building game with an emergent narrative. You earn cards during play via the jobs you complete, and build out your negotiation and fighting skills. There are no microtransactions.

How will you be responding feedback for the Alpha?
We have built an in-game feedback system in the game. Simply press F8 at any time in the game and you can send us your feedback. Of course, there will likely be too much feedback for us to respond to individually.

We will be primarily garnering and responding to feedback on our forums, and will keep everyone up to date with the current status of the game both on the forums and inside the game.

What platforms will Griftlands be on?
We will be supporting PC during Alpha and Early Access. We will be adding OSX and Linux support in the future.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Thought process is as follows

Klei makes good games: :greatjob:

Cow likes card games a lot: :greatjob:

Epic exclusivity: :deadtroll:

Getting Steam keys for copies purchased on Epic is a nice enough move from Klei, particularly since Valve shits out keys on demand so Klei can do it for free (Other than setting up a webpage to handle it), but still sure as shit not enough to get me to buy it on Epic. Maybe it's a sign that Epic will be as long-lasting and successful as the Chrome Webstore and the Humble Widget, and Klei's actually trying to use their curse for good.
 

Cross

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
2,983
The original concept sounded more intriguing.

They've clearly been inspired by Slay the Spire, though I have my doubts the deck building in this will be as fun, since the game mechanics here seem to be closer to more conventional party-based RPG combat.
 

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