KickStarter Telepath Tactics Liberated - deterministic tactical RPG inspired by Fire Emblem

[Ninjerk]

Has there ever been a game that became popular as a result of piracy rather than its piracy being a consequence of its popularity?

 

[roshan]

Has there ever been a game that became popular as a result of piracy rather than its piracy being a consequence of its popularity?

I really don't know of any examples. I personally don't buy anything without trying a pirated copy first though, as I am very risk averse and don't like to take my chances. Otherwise I would end up squandering money on awful games like Pillars of Eternity. Learnt my lesson after shelling out hard cash on another Obsidian piece of shit, NWN2, bought the CE at UK release price, never repeating the same mistake ever again.

 

[Elthosian]

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You should seriously consider avoiding "get char x to y" objectives in maps where you can't get out of water after falling into it, was about to clear the first Ebon encounter and thenl I got Emma Kinetic gusted into the water, no fun :/

 

[Luka-boy]

Has there ever been a game that became popular as a result of piracy rather than its piracy being a consequence of its popularity?

Game Dev Tycoon.

 

[Zetor]

Yeah, I'm with Zombra. I think my codex review shows that I liked the game quite a bit, but I still didn't straight-up say OMG BUY IT NOW it at the end -- mostly because the bugs / technical issues with the game along with the lack of an in-battle save were just too much. Nowadays I'd be much more likely to recommend it, as the biggest problems were fixed (that freakin' slowdown... it still slows down a bit in huge fights, but it's nowhere near as bad), and most of the really annoying ones have either been fixed or are easier to avoid (mostly the inventory-related stuff... I still managed to dupe items and lose my grapple chain when I started replaying the game for a Let's Play two weeks ago). Mid-battle save functionality is the other big missing thing -- I personally don't mind it not being there (ironman mode makes things a lot more tense/interesting), but it's a feature that can make or break a game for many people; see also checkpoint-only saves being the most complained-about feature of Shadowrun Returns and how the overall attitude for the game shifted for the better after they added 'save-anywhere' functionality.

A note about the graphics: I think I saw comments like "the game looks great close-in, but looks very samey and RPGMaker-ish when zoomed out" in quite a few places... I'll check the autozoom when I'm at my computer again, that should help. Weirdly, my biggest graphics-related gripe was actually related to perspective (aka. 2.5D maps on a flat grid-based engine w/ birds-eye view), but I learned to live with it and it doesn't come into play THAT often. Oh yeah, and the title screen is... not sure how to put this... just not pretty.

As for piracy being a good thing for TT: that's just silly. The game has a demo, people can try that and see if it works for them. If someone wants to check out stuff that's not in the demo (writing/plot, character abilities at endgame, larger-scale battlemaps after Coria, etc), there are multiple video LPs and at least one text-based LP (by yours truly!) floating around the intarwebs.

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You should seriously consider avoiding "get char x to y" objectives in maps where you can't get out of water after falling into it, was about to clear the first Ebon encounter and thenl I got Emma Kinetic gusted into the water, no fun :/

Does Louise have Levitate yet? I think it works even if the target is in water (and allows you to fly to safety). Otherwise if I encountered something like that, I just treated it as a fail state and restarted.

 

[Elthosian]

'

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You should seriously consider avoiding "get char x to y" objectives in maps where you can't get out of water after falling into it, was about to clear the first Ebon encounter and thenl I got Emma Kinetic gusted into the water, no fun :/

Does Louise have Levitate yet? I think it works even if the target is in water (and allows you to fly to safety). Otherwise if I encountered something like that, I just treated it as a fail state and restarted.

If you mean the one she gets around level 12-15 then yes, but as far as I could see she only got the option to use it on herself. Also gave Emma the flying steammachine thingie but no luck, guess it makes sense being swimming and all but it did leave me really frustrated.

In contrast, getting Mega Stabbed by a thief during the next chapter was much more of a fair Game Over situation, should have guessed that thing could do massive damage even with the 50% sidestab bonus.

 

[Mustawd]

Mid-battle save functionality is the other big missing thing -- I personally don't mind it not being there (ironman mode makes things a lot more tense/interesting), but it's a feature that can make or break a game for many people; see also checkpoint-only saves being the most complained-about feature of Shadowrun Returns and how the overall attitude for the game shifted for the better after they added 'save-anywhere' functionality.

Yup, this was the main reason for me putting this game on the shelf for a bit.

A note about the graphics: I think I saw comments like "the game looks great close-in, but looks very samey and RPGMaker-ish when zoomed out" in quite a few places... I'll check the autozoom when I'm at my computer again, that should help. Weirdly, my biggest graphics-related gripe was actually related to perspective (aka. 2.5D maps on a flat grid-based engine w/ birds-eye view), but I learned to live with it and it doesn't come into play THAT often.

I just don't get the hate for the art. I mean it's clearly inspired from the FE games not RPG maker. Personally, I think it looks lovely.

Oh yeah, and the title screen is... not sure how to put this... just not pretty.

Oh yeah...that IS pretty bad.

 

[Ninjerk]

It's probably worth noting that when prospective buyers are using text reviews they will be seeing stills of the game, and the quality of the animation will be completely lost on them.

Luka-boy
Troll devs :D http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013...lator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

When we released our very first game, Game Dev Tycoon (for Mac, Windows and Linux) yesterday, we did something unusual and as far as I know unique. We released a cracked version of the game ourselves, minutes after opening our Store.

...

The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail… Initially we thought about telling them their copy is an illegal copy, but instead we didn’t want to pass up the unique opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers. So, as players spend a few hours playing and growing their own game dev company, they will start to see the following message, styled like any other in-game message:

"Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally.
If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt."

Craig Stern When someone suggested distributing your own game through pirate websites, this wasn't exactly what I was thinking of.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

I'm itching to write something about negative reviews on Steam.

A random Telepath Tactics review:

"Not being able to recommend this game is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Full disclosure - I bought into the closed beta, I love games like Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Disgaea, and so on. And don't get me wrong. The gameplay itself is phenominal. I honestly don't think I've found a game that I've played that has a combat system I've enjoyed more. This game scratches an itch that fans of the genre don't really get much of nowadays. Combat is complex and offers much more tactical depth than most other games I've played, and it was built from the ground up to support custom content. The soundtrack is pretty good, and while the graphics aren't, I'm more than willing to look past that for gameplay of such high caliber. But there is one thing that, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get past.

This is a 2D, turn-based game. Please explain to me why it runs so poorly on my computer? ..."

So you have a game with phenomenal gameplay, complex tactical combat with more tactical depth than all your favorite games combined, but it runs slowly, so it gets a negative review. I'm fine with people disliking games for any reason but when they praise a game to high heaven and then downvote it, it's like, what the fuck?

Steam reviews are the equivalent of youtube comments, except they can be the life or death of a small game on the platform. From a non-developer and developer point of view, that's just chaos, I don't know how anyone benefits from it. Our negative reviews are either well-earned from early bugs when launched, to being the same comments we get from refunds, which is always confusing (neglecting a demo, reading a manual, and a refund just to get a negative review in?). The upshot of no one knowing about the game is since the folks that do are usually already invested enough to want to play it, we haven't had to deal with Steam much either way.

I just read this though, kind of fun, it reads like something written on an insane-asylum wall:

"This game is brutal, unforgiving, you play as a FIXED SET IN STONE male moon god. However for some reason you can make your avatar any thing you like. Oh, and I, a old school veteran, got pwned by foxes so many times I gave up even trying to figure it out."

Craig Stern your second post on this left us bummed — that's wonderful you're continuing though, we're excited to hear about your next project and what you're doing with that, I can only imagine more great things coming. Hopefully it bring the success you've earned and deserved. It's a sad state of the industry that a game as well thought out as telepath tactics can't make bank.

 

[mindx2]

I'm itching to write something about negative reviews on Steam.

A random Telepath Tactics review:

"Not being able to recommend this game is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Full disclosure - I bought into the closed beta, I love games like Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Disgaea, and so on. And don't get me wrong. The gameplay itself is phenominal. I honestly don't think I've found a game that I've played that has a combat system I've enjoyed more. This game scratches an itch that fans of the genre don't really get much of nowadays. Combat is complex and offers much more tactical depth than most other games I've played, and it was built from the ground up to support custom content. The soundtrack is pretty good, and while the graphics aren't, I'm more than willing to look past that for gameplay of such high caliber. But there is one thing that, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get past.

This is a 2D, turn-based game. Please explain to me why it runs so poorly on my computer? ..."

So you have a game with phenomenal gameplay, complex tactical combat with more tactical depth than all your favorite games combined, but it runs slowly, so it gets a negative review. I'm fine with people disliking games for any reason but when they praise a game to high heaven and then downvote it, it's like, what the fuck?

Steam reviews are the equivalent of youtube comments, except they can be the life or death of a small game on the platform. From a non-developer and developer point of view, that's just chaos, I don't know how anyone benefits from it. Our negative reviews are either well-earned from early bugs when launched, to being the same comments we get from refunds, which is always confusing (neglecting a demo, reading a manual, and a refund just to get a negative review in?). The upshot of no one knowing about the game is since the folks that do are usually already invested enough to want to play it, we haven't had to deal with Steam much either way.

I just read this though, kind of fun, it reads like something written on an insane-asylum wall:

"This game is brutal, unforgiving, you play as a FIXED SET IN STONE male moon god. However for some reason you can make your avatar any thing you like. Oh, and I, a old school veteran, got pwned by foxes so many times I gave up even trying to figure it out."

Craig Stern your second post on this left us bummed — that's wonderful you're continuing though, we're excited to hear about your next project and what you're doing with that, I can only imagine more great things coming. Hopefully it bring the success you've earned and deserved. It's a sad state of the industry that a game as well thought out as telepath tactics can't make bank.

Care to share how you guys are doing...? Be curious to see how both games have managed post-release and both teams have been very open, vocal and receptive to scrutiny & criticism. Also, Whalenought_Joe any chance you have that box layout and CD case artwork lying around? I'd love to get one made to put my awesome handmade-by-the-developers journal into...

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Yes! So sorry we forgot to do that, we had an art folder put together for you with some stuff you may be able to use for it, I'll grab your email from Kickstarter and send that your way. They are the images we had coupled with the artbook folder, but I now figure you'd probably want specific sizes, I'll get those details first. The fancy manual is also downloadable from the site if you wanted that.

We're doing alright post release, as good as we could have expected from the type of game it is and amount of news that covered it. The Steam Sale didn't help too much on our end either, but the post-launch trickle since it increased a bit consistently which has been great. We are tentatively happy with the success that word of mouth seems to be helping with — we're thinking of doing another Kickstarter to supplement the next game, but we'll still be in business either way for the foreseeable future. I suppose we have the benefit of not having to pay anyone for any long-term work, just our music and voice actor who are both very fairly priced, which drops upkeep costs to nothing but living expenses in a cheap 1-bedroom, the remains of a micro-loan we took out, and any new software needed (until one of our computers breaks). We're finishing R&D for the next project soon, the design doc has a first draft and the tech demo is coming together, so we'll scrounge by to work on that and the expansion for SitS down the road.

 

[Abu Antar]

Yes! So sorry we forgot to do that, we had an art folder put together for you with some stuff you may be able to use for it, I'll grab your email from Kickstarter and send that your way. They are the images we had coupled with the artbook folder, but I now figure you'd probably want specific sizes, I'll get those details first. The fancy manual is also downloadable from the site if you wanted that.

We're doing alright post release, as good as we could have expected from the type of game it is and amount of news that covered it. The Steam Sale didn't help too much on our end either, but the post-launch trickle since it increased a bit consistently which has been great. We are tentatively happy with the success that word of mouth seems to be helping with — we're thinking of doing another Kickstarter to supplement the next game, but we'll still be in business either way for the foreseeable future. I suppose we have the benefit of not having to pay anyone for any long-term work, just our music and voice actor who are both very fairly priced, which drops upkeep costs to nothing but living expenses in a cheap 1-bedroom, the remains of a micro-loan we took out, and any new software needed (until one of our computers breaks). We're finishing R&D for the next project soon, the design doc has a first draft and the tech demo is coming together, so we'll scrounge by to work on that and the expansion for SitS down the road.

A hint on what your next game might be if it isn't a SitS sequel?

 

[Ellef]

I hope that's an actual micro-loan and not a Cleve-esque one.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Steam reviews are the equivalent of youtube comments, except they can be the life or death of a small game on the platform. From a non-developer and developer point of view, that's just chaos, I don't know how anyone benefits from it. Our negative reviews are either well-earned from early bugs when launched, to being the same comments we get from refunds, which is always confusing (neglecting a demo, reading a manual, and a refund just to get a negative review in?). The upshot of no one knowing about the game is since the folks that do are usually already invested enough to want to play it, we haven't had to deal with Steam much either way.

The review are just one part of dealing with the information asymmetry when buying games (aka the seller knowing much more about a game than the buyer). That they are imperfect is quite obvious, but I think that all parties are still better off with the than without them. One could argue that with the refund system, their importance is reduced, but I still think they have their place, because with the refund system, there is additional friction involved. They are also sometimes the only diverse source of opinion when it comes to smallish titles or even DLC of a bigger game.

It's a sad state of the industry that a game as well thought out as telepath tactics can't make bank.

That's of course true, but that's always been the case.

 

[gestalt11]

The review are just one part of dealing with the information asymmetry when buying games (aka the seller knowing much more about a game than the buyer). That they are imperfect is quite obvious, but I think that all parties are still better off with the than without them. One could argue that with the refund system, their importance is reduced, but I still think they have their place, because with the refund system, there is additional friction involved. They are also sometimes the only diverse source of opinion when it comes to smallish titles or even DLC of a bigger game.



That's of course true, but that's always been the case.

I dunno I think anyone going by Steam reviews is a complete dumbass. If I really want to be choosy/circumspect about a game I watch a video of gameplay and maybe watch/read a survey of user reviews. And that survey of user reviews never involves Steam reviews and I buy a lot of games off steam.

If any kind of visibility stuff is generated of Steam reviews or thumbs up/down I think they should revise their stuff. I understand they want to leverage their platform and all, but there are just tons of idiot on Steam saying dumb and wrong stuff. The Signal to nose ratio is off the charts, its almost gone to plaid speed.

In general though they really should have categories to do thumbs up/down on. For example

-Stability
-Gameplay
-Art
-Graphics
-Story

Just giving a thumbs up/down on those categories would make things way better. Still the only one I would pay attention to on Steam is probably Stability.

 

[Ellef]

So i've got the demo and gameplay seems good, but the font is unreadably small. Is there any way to change resolutions or increase the font in some way?

 

[Craig Stern]

So i've got the demo and gameplay seems good, but the font is unreadably small. Is there any way to change resolutions or increase the font in some way?

I'm going to be pushing an update soon that addresses that by scaling up the entire scene when in fullscreen mode. I'll be posting when that's out!

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Craig Stern
Wasn't really paying a lot of attention to this other than thinking it looked promising some time ago and a mental note to check it out later. Combed through this thread and read the excellent financial analysis pieces. Need to support you in this great work and personal sacrifice.

Looks like the BT Micro pays you the best return. Is this correct? I'm going to buy two and gift one here.

 

[Craig Stern]

Craig Stern
Wasn't really paying a lot of attention to this other than thinking it looked promising some time ago and a mental note to check it out later. Combed through this thread and read the excellent financial analysis pieces. Need to support you in this great work and personal sacrifice.

Looks like the BT Micro pays you the best return. Is this correct? I'm going to buy two and gift one here.

Thanks! BMT Micro takes the smallest cut, so I see more money that way. On the other hand, if you buy it from Steam and leave a positive review, that arguably helps more over the long haul because that improves the game's positive-to-negative review ratio (and thus, its visibility). It's totally your call which place you want to pick it up.

 

[Sitra Achara]

I dunno I think anyone going by Steam reviews is a complete dumbass. If I really want to be choosy/circumspect about a game I watch a video of gameplay and maybe watch/read a survey of user reviews. And that survey of user reviews never involves Steam reviews and I buy a lot of games off steam.

If any kind of visibility stuff is generated of Steam reviews or thumbs up/down I think they should revise their stuff. I understand they want to leverage their platform and all, but there are just tons of idiot on Steam saying dumb and wrong stuff. The Signal to nose ratio is off the charts, its almost gone to plaid speed.

In general though they really should have categories to do thumbs up/down on. For example

-Stability
-Gameplay
-Art
-Graphics
-Story

Just giving a thumbs up/down on those categories would make things way better. Still the only one I would pay attention to on Steam is probably Stability.

Maybe they should weigh scores by correlating the reviewers' ratings with yours. Might also encourage giving positive thumbs to things you like.

 

[Ellef]

More sales stats: http://sinisterdesign.net/telepath-tactics-brass-tacks-and-sales-stats-part-2/

This convinced me into buying myself a copy right away. Worked better than any review

btw the tooltips for my abilities aren't working in the full version. The top row of generic actions are working on each character but not the bottom row.

 

[Craig Stern]

Thanks!

(BTW, it's easier for me to keep track of stuff if you report bugs here.)

 

[Ellef]

Figured it out anyway. Size font 18 kills the special actions tooltips. I'll crosspost it over there.

 

[Ellef]

http://sinisterdesign.net/telepath-tactics-v-1-04-patch/

Spoiler

Telepath Tactics v. 1.04 patch
Hey folks! Telepath Tactics got an important patch today. Here are the fixes and improvements:

– first and foremost, a fix which addresses one of the game’s biggest, long-running criticisms: how zoomed out it appears to be on large monitors. When in fullscreen mode, the game now actively upscales so that everything that’s visible on the screen appears as large as it would be if you were playing with 1280 x 720 screen resolution. This includes the game’s text, which means that it should remain legible even on 4K monitors.

– to keep the game’s pixel art from looking absolutely terrible when scaled up to an arbitrary resolution, all bitmap images now have a smoothing algorithm applied to them when the game is scaling.

– the fullscreen title screen graphics are now smoothed so that they are no longer jagged and janky-looking when stretched to fit monitor dimensions in fullscreen.

– in the Settings menu, I replaced custom font size functionality with an option to toggle fullscreen scaling off for people with weird monitor dimensions (or who simply prefer the practicality of having a zoomed-out view of the battlefield).

– implemented XML-based saving and loading in place of SOL files. This means that going forward, saved game files will be easy to locate, be human-readable, and be subject to easy editing in case bugs cause characters or attacks to duplicate (or otherwise get messed up). The new XML saved game files will be located in Documents > My Games > Telepath Tactics > Saved Games.

– added a “Convert Save Files” button to the title menu; if you press it, it will automatically generate XML saved game files based on your old SOL saved game files. This way, you can continue playing your saved games from pre-1.04 versions of Telepath Tactics.

– fixed a bug in which one could not swap reserve characters onto the battlefield after moving the Characters in Reserve window around.

– fixed a bug in which weather effects would stop animating mid-battle.

– talking, interacting with doors, giving inventory items, and using objects with a Use trigger now require the interacting character to either be flying, or have an elevation difference no greater than 1 with the target.

– fixed tutorial message not displaying midway through the Meridian rescue mission.

 

[Zetor]

Note that the last version seems kinda... er... broken, at least when loading existing savegames. If you have the game on gog or bought it through the bmtmicro store, I'd hold off on updating until those problems are fixed.