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

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
No, converted the save files. This happened after. Thanks for your help though.

So the XML save files from My Documents > My Games > Telepath Tactics > Saved Games just...vanished?

Seems like it. My last time with the game....I converted files and played the bar mission. I became frustrated and stopped playing again. Uninstalled the game using steam. Reinstalled it. No saves.
 

Mustawd

Guest
No, converted the save files. This happened after. Thanks for your help though.

So the XML save files from My Documents > My Games > Telepath Tactics > Saved Games just...vanished?

Seems like it. My last time with the game....I converted files and played the bar mission. I became frustrated and stopped playing again. Uninstalled the game using steam. Reinstalled it. .


Still haven't passed the bar level after more than 20+ attempts. I can clear the main area, but trying to make it to the switch always get me killed. It's those damn thieves.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Still haven't passed the bar level after more than 20+ attempts. I can clear the main area, but trying to make it to the switch always get me killed. It's those damn thieves.

Really? I dunno if you want suggestions, but...

I suggest drawing out the thieves to engage in a choke point, like at the rightmost edge of the bridge or at the top of the stairs, so that they can't circle around and backstab.
 

Mustawd

Guest
I actually tried doing that in my last attempt, but I got a bit impatient. Nice to know that the strategy is sound tho.

Really, my main issue in that level is impatience. By the time I clear the main hall I start to make dumb mistakes due to not being patient.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
Messages
4,229
Those thieves are easy to deal with. If you don't let them rape your back(have a sensible formation and keep it while moving) you will easy dispatch them. If I remember correctly, right after the bridge there are tougher enemies. Use a golem with an archer/spearman against them and you will do fine. Use somebody to sneak behind archers controlling the other side of the bridge and do simultaneous attack on them and bridge guards
 

Zetor

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
1,706
Location
Budapest, Hungary
Yeah, my setup was something like this (ignore the weird slowdown, my ScreenToGif FPS settings were kinda screwed up):


Essentially two tanks in front (having the kite shield with the defensive stance ability on Harriet helps a lot here), disabling/debuffing the two thieves that can hit them, and killing the rest with AOEs while they're bunched up. If one of the tanks is Sabrina, you can further troll the thieves by placing traps.
 

Mustawd

Guest
I think my main issue is that I've lost like 4 characters in previous missions, and just kept going. So my tactical flexibility is limited. And sometimes it bites me in the ass. I think I'll restart from the beginning and try and keep all my characters this time.
 

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
Um, so I transferred my saves. Them seem to work except.....I can't equip items. I can unequip and use items. I can't equip.
 

Craig Stern

Sinister Design
Developer
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
398
Location
Chicago
Ah, yeah--that was a formatting thing that got fixed a few versions back. Email me the save files and I'll look 'em over.
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
Just finished it with a score of 1502; fun game. I loved almost everything except for the final two battles, which were not my idea of fun; this whole "rush in to close off the reinforcements" strategy didn't fit at all with my hyper-cautious style. As a consequence, the penultimate mission took me a whopping 53 turns with 94 kills; after that, I decided to just rush the final mission and suffer the consequences. Finished it in 7 turns and only lost the light mage, although I was forced to use a consumable for the first time :M

edit: By the way, I found a bunch of bugs, but nothing game breaking. Most annoying was the fact that leaving the "manage items" view in a shop tended not to return me to the store window, but instead acted as if I was in combat; I had to "Surrender", reload, and re-do all my shopping and equipping again every time it happened.

Equipped items also tended to show as "unquipped" randomly when I equipped new stuff; I would put a sword on Emma, and the "E" icon would vanish from her chain mail. I could only select to "unequip" the chain mail afterwards, so I assume it was just an UI bug.

I also had the guy guarding the mine entrance shoot out the bridge, and people standing on the bridge just seemed to drop down 20 levels without taking any fall damage.

The engine also slowed down to a crawl after spending more than X turns in battle, which made my play time on that damn second-to-last map far longer than it had to be.
 
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vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Just finished it with a score of 1502; fun game. I loved almost everything except for the final two battles, which were not my idea of fun; this whole "rush in to close off the reinforcements" strategy didn't fit at all with my hyper-cautious style. As a consequence, the penultimate mission took me a whopping 53 turns with 94 kills; after that, I decided to just rush the final mission and suffer the consequences. Finished it in 7 turns and only lost the light mage, although I was forced to use a consumable for the first time :M

I'm not that far yet, even though I started at release. But I definitely have eaten a lot of apples so far.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Just finished it with a score of 1502; fun game. I loved almost everything except for the final two battles, which were not my idea of fun; this whole "rush in to close off the reinforcements" strategy didn't fit at all with my hyper-cautious style. As a consequence, the penultimate mission took me a whopping 53 turns with 94 kills; after that, I decided to just rush the final mission and suffer the consequences. Finished it in 7 turns and only lost the light mage, although I was forced to use a consumable for the first time :M

I'm not that far yet, even though I started at release. But I definitely have eaten a lot of apples so far.


I must really suck at this game. I eat apples and use bandages in every battle. Then again, I do have a few beers when playing, so that might be it.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
Messages
4,229
Really? You have 2 healers, one of which is extra mobile. Using healing items is a sign of a mistake if you know the map.
 

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
Beat the bar level on my first try after a long hiatus. Thanks to craig for his help with fixing the game....One of the best developer interactions I have had in a while. I am a few levels after the bar now. Have to say the bar mission is one of the hardest missions in the game. It's filled with little encounter "traps" that will mess you up if you're trying to avoid character deaths. This feels strange given that the mission feels like a side plot.
 
Last edited:

Kalasanty11

Learned
Joined
May 1, 2014
Messages
154
I almost completed bar mission on the first try... just to get Sabrina sidestabbed to death by one of the last thieves. I hate them. Though I think mission would be even better if thieves in the first room had levels higher than 3. That makes first fight a bit too easy.
 

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
Beat the game! Overall a very solid rpg strategy game. Will have more thoughts later.
 

Niektory

one of some
Patron
Joined
Mar 15, 2005
Messages
808
Location
the great potato in the sky
There's an update on KS:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1426761469/telepath-tactics-a-strategy-rpg/posts/1656867

Update #39

Aug 16 2016

A new game, and the future of Telepath Tactics

Hello there, Telepath Tactics backer! It is I, Craig Stern. This account has been quiet for the past year or so, and I figured that you might appreciate an update on what I've been up to during this time.

First, let's recap a bit. As you may recall, Telepath Tactics released in mid-April of last year. It was critically acclaimed for its mechanics and excellent level design, but (quite unintentionally) was also saddled with lots of bugs, nearly all of which were first revealed to me in the form of a tsunami of written complaints beginning the day it hit Steam.

Nearly as bad, I quickly learned that I had vastly underestimated what it would take to get Steam to play nice with the non-Windows versions of Telepath Tactics. I could use words like "byzantine" and "archaic" to describe Steam's pipeline for packaging and uploading games, but frankly, that would be soft-pedaling it. You literally have to use a DOS prompt, if that gives you any indication--and that's for the Windows builds, which are a dream to prep and upload compared to non-Windows builds! The fact that I was using Flash made this problem even worse, as none of Steam's bizarre work-arounds for getting Mac and Linux games working with it were created with Flash in mind. I purchased a Mac Mini, nearly zeroing out my checking account, just so I could get the Mac version working on Steam--and I still couldn't get it working.

From the day of launch onward, I spent about 6 straight months obsessively hunting down and fixing every bug and every issue that I could, using every spare moment not devoted to my day job (I do have one of those, unfortunately). This meant ignoring my friends, pissing off my girlfriend, and generally working myself into something that--in retrospect--approached a state of nervous exhaustion. It was, to put it simply, not good.

It became increasingly clear to me that I needed to take a break from programming in order to salvage my mental health. So I switched gears and threw myself into a short board game project, True Messiah:

4dd528a6fca091dfd97a8a1d96953663_original.JPG

I mean, okay, I'm far too into complex strategy games to ever undertake a truly short project--but by comparison to my usual games, this has been a really quick one to develop! (It helps that I first developed it 13 years ago, and had it sitting around, ready to complete.) I'll be launching True Messiah next month; and once it's out, I'll be ready to dive back into making video games.

"What is True Messiah, anyway?"
A strategy board game and deck-builder of surreal religious horror for 2-4 players. This should give you the gist:


There's a lot more info over on the game's official page, though, so if you want to know more, go ahead and check it out!

"So what does this mean for Telepath Tactics?"
Good question!

There are a few bugs I was never able to fix in Telepath Tactics despite many months of trying--and to be frank with you, that really bothers the hell out of me. I tried so many different things to fix those issues, all to no avail; I've concluded that I may have simply run up against some of the limits of Flash (the engine I built the game in).

At this point, a game developer interested in things like "making smart business decisions" would probably just say, "Oh well, I guess those bugs are just there to stay," then reuse the existing Telepath Tactics engine and cough up a sequel or two to help defray the years of investment it took to build that engine in the first place.

But I am not that sort of developer! Instead of doing the rational thing that basically all of my developer friends have been urging me to do, I've instead been quietly, simultaneously teaching myself both a brand new programming language and a brand-new development environment, and remaking the Telepath Tactics engine in it (only better, because I learned a lot during the process of programming this game the first time around). Mind you, I was doing this at the same time that I was completing development on True Messiah.

It's still early days, but here is what I've got so far:

d72ddf115b83370c701f31f49b88f224_original.png

Now, understand: it'll be a good long while before this is ready to roll. We're talking years--the Telepath Tactics engine was complex and difficult to program even when I was working in a development environment I knew really well, and I'm still figuring out how to do certain things in this new environment (like palette swapping sprites and syncing up sounds to animations)! That and, y'know, I still have a day job sucking up 9+ hours out of every weekday.

So don't expect anything too soon on that front. I just wanted you to know that I'm far from done with all this. :)

Yours in tactics,

Craig Stern


Craig Stern
That's interesting. Good riddance to Flash, really. What tech are you using now? Also the screenshot suggests you're going further than that. Are you going to convert Telepath Tactics into a Final Fantasy Tactics-style 3D game?
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
I think he mentioned that he'll use Unity for the next engine - not sure if that's still the case.

Thanks for the dedication Craig, the non-Windows version were probably responsible just for a fraction of the sales, and still seemed to require a disproportionate amount of work from what I read.

I'm not so sure about the "real" 3D in the screenshot - the old 2D engine was visually nice, while this looks a bit confusing.
 

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