The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming - turn-based roguelike RPG inspired by GoT's Night Watch

[orcinator]

It has been inspired by Guild Wars

What


Also is this another case of "characters can die and there's some random shit so we'll call it a roguelike"

 

[Bitmen Studios]

There is no generic increase. As the story progresses, higher level missions will become available and they will contain higher level monsters. While you may battle mere goblins or skeletons or relatively harmless other stuff in the early game, the late game will feature more powerful characters with much more sophisticated abilities. There will be huge monsters like Ogres, Trolls or flying creatures like wyverns that can kick some ass. Also, enemy spell casters with their own sets of spells will appear giving you new challenges to think about. They will heal their own team, use protection spells or use offensive spells to cast meteor storms or what not. You will run into flying demons with magic abilties, fast running hard-hitting cyclops, or well-armored dragonoids, just to name a few.

Part of the challenge will be to form a team that can cope with many different situations as different monsters will come with different abilities that require different strategies from your part.
Overall, there are about 40 different monsters and most of them also learn new abilities as they level up.

 

[Celerity]

Sounds like Derpest Dungeon, except actually a game and not a walking simulator. I'm interested and will be following how this is going, but will not purchase until out of Early Access so I do not repeat my mistakes. It's a shame, as I'm actually a really good tester/modder for these sorts of games but hey, fool me once...

 

[Jimmious]

By the way I'm noticing constant updates in Steam about this one, balance-wise and bug fixing ones. Gotta give credit where it's deserved, the devs seem to be actively working on the game

 

[Celerity]

It does seem that way. I'll probably look at it once it's out of Early Access.

 

[Jimmious]

Time goes by so fast, and it was busy times! Our first month in Early Access is over; time for a short recap. Overall, we made five updates to the game with a nice mix of bug fixes, balance changes and improvements. I'm quite happy with the progress, even though there's still a long list of todos and for every item resolved, a new one pops up.

We have introduced new mechanics you guys suggested with the new zone of control and made the game more accessible to new players. A new hero, the Dwarven Priest, was added and probably will see a few minor changes. Balance-wise, I was hoping that after the first month, we'd be good and the game is definitely heading in the right direction, but I feel that a few balance tweaks will still be necessary over the next weeks.

We will also have to talk about the end game at some point, particularly the dragon. Boss fights are always difficult to get right, and it will be important to walk the narrow line between a push-over and a frustrating experience. Also, the fight against the dragon must not reward a particular playstyle too much over another, or make the fight a breeze if you run skill X on character Y.

Last but not least, big thanks to you guys in the community that have helped tremendously in shaping the game in the last month. Your feedback is much appreciated and helps a lot making this game as great as we all want it to be.

Thanks for your dedication!
Mark, Bitmen Studios.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Do you explore dungeons in this game?

 

[Severian Silk]

I am curious about this game. Also, who gives a fuckityfuck about the graphics?

 

[Bitmen Studios]

By the way I'm noticing constant updates in Steam about this one, balance-wise and bug fixing ones. Gotta give credit where it's deserved, the devs seem to be actively working on the game

The feedback the Early Access community provides is great and we're very grateful for this. It helps us discover imbalances, improve the accessibility and UI, fix bugs or even improve on the current mechanics.

Do you explore dungeons in this game?

You bet. Every new mission, you explore dungeons and have to deal with new random events.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Played for about 45 min, and there's probably a good game in here.

So you got like, 2 classes of recruits, the Hero types what can actually learn new skills and acquire new equipment, but cost money to recruit, and soldiers, who can only upgrade existing skills but are free. You get a random set of heroes every week to hire, and there will be some soldiers so you aren't exactly stuck in a totally hopeless situation.

There's a Panic meter that seems to increase with every failed mission or if a mission is not taken up every week, which probably adds some urgency, no clue yet if high panic has any adverse effect on the keep.

The missions I got were pretty straightforward, plain old go and kill stuff. There were some interesting events in their course, like being able to hire a free assassin at the cost of fighting a hard Chimera+friends and so on. The mission interface is a bit too simple, just a map with squares where you choose the next room to walk into. Could probably use something more interesting there.

The combat is alright, so far, but I'll see if I can say that hours later. There appears to be a reasonable degree of enemy variety, with harpies, chimeras (chimerae?), ghouls, spiders, wolves, etc., each with specific tactics. The spider can obviously web opponents, whereas the chimera can knock a bloke down and leave him useless till the next turn, ghouls are capable of stringing combos of attacks together, and wolves can cover a lot of distance in a move. The act of fighting itself is kind of simplified by the fact that your crew and the opponents start facing each other, and there's not much of navigation across obstacles or terrain to speak of, you just close distance and do your stuff, this part is probably where the game could use some serious work, though flanking and such do exist on the square grid.

I like it alright so far, but I really have to see if I can say that hours later. That probably depends on the missions and how varied they can be in terms of objectives.

Oh, and Bitmen Studios, any chance of the Lord-Commander joining in the fights and sorties?

 

[Drowed]

Well, how is the game now? Anything changed in those months?

 

[Galdred]

I found the core system pretty good, and the variety of enemies quite impressive.
The texts and dialogues are not really the strong point of the game, but that's not a big problem.
The game seems to remain hard, as the missions get harder regardless of how well your performed. The small team size (3 early, 4 later on, I suppose it will get upped more as the mission level gets higher) means that a death can quickly spiral into a total party wipe.
Gold is a rare commodity, and it doesn't seem to get any better as the game goes on (but I am still early), so I'd say the challenge is quite high.
It is a bit strange that gold is the only thing limiting the number of skills you can teach a character (there is a level requirement too, but for me, gold is the most limiting factor).

 

[Galdred]

I really like the way the conditions and skills work together:
Many skills have a condition requirement on the target (the ninja for instance has an elite skill that requires the target to suffer from 4 conditions, but he cannot inflict 4 different conditions by himself. Some skills require the target to be bleeding, or knocked down...), which forces you to find good synergies between your characters, but then, you have to weight sending them against the same target against trying to tie up several opponents to protect your casters/ranged characters.
I wish there were more diversity in the enemy groups (they almost always have the same number of character you do, except for some big guys who take several slots. There are no swarm opponents).

Given how much it costs it is to train a single character, playing ironman seems to feel like an exercise in frustration (but you get to keep the gear at least): I have unlocked the final missions, but I have not been able to afford to train every character of my A team, so my B team got 0 gold spent in training or gear so far.

 

[4249]

Apparently this thing is out of Early Access today. Anyone given the latest version a go? Sounds interesting enough, but not sure if worth 20 jewroes.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Their website looks a bit suspect to me, but I have a feeling there are folks in Codex who find this stuff agreeable.

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/

 

[Kev Inkline]

One thing I'd like to emphasize is that the game is not a Diablo clone in any way. It has been inspired by XCOM, FTL, Guild Wars, etc. and is more about tactics rather than grinding. Just to set the right expectations.

As someone who spent way too many hours in GW (pvp mainly), I am interested how the game is inspired by it. Is it the conditions, or do you have deck building as well?

 

[Bitmen Studios]

Hi guys,

Early Access is now over and the game is now released. Thanks to everybody who helped us during our six months of EA shape the game.

Cheers,
Mark.

 

[Bitmen Studios]

One thing I'd like to emphasize is that the game is not a Diablo clone in any way. It has been inspired by XCOM, FTL, Guild Wars, etc. and is more about tactics rather than grinding. Just to set the right expectations.

As someone who spent way too many hours in GW (pvp mainly), I am interested how the game is inspired by it. Is it the conditions, or do you have deck building as well?

Many mechanics have been inspired by GW, mainly conditions, enchantments, hexes, shouts, and countless other skills as well as some of the hero classes. I'm not sure what you mean by deck building, but you need to build a team of heroes and develop them (e.g. train specific skills that have good synergy).

 

[Kev Inkline]

One thing I'd like to emphasize is that the game is not a Diablo clone in any way. It has been inspired by XCOM, FTL, Guild Wars, etc. and is more about tactics rather than grinding. Just to set the right expectations.

As someone who spent way too many hours in GW (pvp mainly), I am interested how the game is inspired by it. Is it the conditions, or do you have deck building as well?

Many mechanics have been inspired by GW, mainly conditions, enchantments, hexes, shouts, and countless other skills as well as some of the hero classes. I'm not sure what you mean by deck building, but you need to build a team of heroes and develop them (e.g. train specific skills that have good synergy).

By deck building I mean a system where you have skill slots that you can fill with different skills to match the demands of the particular quest at hand, like the setup in GW (I think the term deck building stems from MtG)

 

[Bitmen Studios]

You can set up the skill bars of your team in town before embarking on a mission. However, I don't find myself tailoring that to a future mission mostly because you will run into different stuff during a mission. You'll usually want to use a team composition and skill composition that has good synergy and can cope with may different situations.
For example, if you want to counter hard hitting huge monsters, then bringing a class and skills that can inflict blindness or hexes like clumsiness or ineptitude can be a good idea. If you have troubles with ranged characters, an assassin who can shadowstep to the backlines and burst down a soft character can be a good addition. It all comes down to having a good team setup and skills that have good synergy. Obviously, some skill combinations will work better than others.

 

[Kev Inkline]

You can set up the skill bars of your team in town before embarking on a mission. However, I don't find myself tailoring that to a future mission mostly because you will run into different stuff during a mission. You'll usually want to use a team composition and skill composition that has good synergy and can cope with may different situations.
For example, if you want to counter hard hitting huge monsters, then bringing a class and skills that can inflict blindness or hexes like clumsiness or ineptitude can be a good idea. If you have troubles with ranged characters, an assassin who can shadowstep to the backlines and burst down a soft character can be a good addition. It all comes down to having a good team setup and skills that have good synergy. Obviously, some skill combinations will work better than others.

Yes, well I think what you described is pretty much deck building - not just a single character build, but for the whole squad.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Dyspaire]

Well, I'm just about to start my first battle, so about 15min in so far and please make of that what you will, but holy shit this is the best first 15 minutes I've had with a game in a very long time.

I almost want to stop right here for the sake of a good memory.

 

[Dyspaire]

An hour in and still lots of fun... I don't know how deep the combat gets, but it's really well-implemented turn-based combat. Reminds me of Gold Box combat. Bold statement, I know. Really a lot closer to HOMM3, I suppose.

Again, don't know how deep it gets, but great turn-based combat, plus a cyoa exploration system.

Fun.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Urge to buy, rising

 

[Severian Silk]

Bubbles

Codex review.