Incline MENACE - sci-fi turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers devs

[Yosharian]

We've had exactly one X-COM clone ever and it was called Xenonauts and it was pretty good. I'd like another. Not that this looks anything like an X-COM clone. Still looks more like a wargame to me than anything else.

What about Phoenix Point?

I've been playing Phoenix Point with the Terror From The Void mod and it's pretty good

 

[Hydro]

Wow 2024 is like now

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Developer interview.


There's also some stuff about Menace.

 

[The Wall]

Developer interview.


There's also some stuff about Menace.

GERMAN BROEZ! TRANSLATION TIME, YA!

 

[gabel]

The host is a complete retard.

 

[moleman]

...
GERMAN BROEZ! TRANSLATION TIME, YA!

They say, everything will come out all right after Steiner's attack.

 

[Alienman]

Weird somewhat creepy room.

 

[Space Satan]

From reddit cesspool

I will list the most relevant informations about Battle Brothers and Menace here. Also, sorry if my english is a bit wonky now, it is already late in Germany.

BB

-> One of the devs very clearly hinted that they plan to release a small content update for BB before Menace comes out.

-> One of the devs said that he COULD imagine making a Battle Brothers 2 game after Menace. This was more of a theoretical thought, but it shows that they really consider coming back to BB after a while.

Apart from this nothing new, they just said that they were really exhausted with BB and needed Menace as a way to work on somethink new and fresh.

Now to Menace. There was sadly not much new information about the game in the video, which you can't already read on the steampage. But a few noteworthy thinks were:

-> while they are making steady progress Menace takes more time than anticipated and will likely be releast in the first half of 2025 instead of this year.

-> the streamer was able to watch them play and said that he really sees a lot of potential and Battle Brothers character in it. The devs also said that they really think it will also appeal to the battle brothers community.

-> the game will also be hard but way easier to get into than BB and not as punishing. This time they wanted their game to be able to be enjoyed by a bigger audience. This time the game will actually start easier and become more difficult with time.

-> The game will have a bigger focus on an overarching story.

-> The maps were fights take place will be pretty large, much bigger compared to XCOM.

 

[Serus]

This time they wanted their game to be able to be enjoyed by a bigger audience.

I never like the sound of a developer saying that. It more often than not translates to: "Let's dumb this down so that morons could enjoy it". I hope it isn't the case here.
This part, OTOH, gives me hope and actually would be a very good thing to do:

This time the game will actually start easier and become more difficult with time.

Overall I'm happy that they possibly consider making BB2 at some point and I'm waiting for Menace with hope as well.

 

[The Wall]

Well, reddest red flag if you ask me is that Devs stopped posting on Codex. There wasn't one time when that happend and games became better. They sold better sometimes, but never became better

 

[Sweeper]

Weird somewhat creepy room.

Just German things.

 

[Shaki]

This time they wanted their game to be able to be enjoyed by a bigger audience.

I never like the sound of a developer saying that. It more often than not translates to: "Let's dumb this down so that morons could enjoy it".

That's exactly it. As I always said, good dev is a poor dev. Once they have even the smallest financial success, they taste the money and it's over. They will keep sacrificing the quality to chase the dollar.

 

[Barbarian]

Developer interview.


There's also some stuff about Menace.

GERMAN BROEZ! TRANSLATION TIME, YA!

Germoid twins developed battle brothers? I can't even.

They are exactly as I would have imagined them btw. I bet they always arrive to the workplace on time and would be designing efficient railway motorcars if they weren't game developers.

I also think a meeting between them and J Sawyer would be like that moment in Torment where TNO convinces Vhailor to cease existing. The man would immediately vanish into an ashen mist upon starting to discuss balance and design with these two.

 

[Krivol]

They have... legs!

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

From reddit cesspool

-> the game will also be hard but way easier to get into than BB and not as punishing. This time they wanted their game to be able to be enjoyed by a bigger audience. This time the game will actually start easier and become more difficult with time.

-> The game will have a bigger focus on an overarching story.

-> The maps were fights take place will be pretty large, much bigger compared to XCOM.

Those are some very worrying signs. Nothing good last forever, but couldn't they make at least 2 great games?

 

[Serus]

They have... legs!

Of curse they have. This game was made by people who have a fetish of being legless but don't have courage to do it in real life. Wasn't that obvious from the start?

 

[Hydro]

Did they say anything about the release date?

 

[rojay]

This time they wanted their game to be able to be enjoyed by a bigger audience.

I never like the sound of a developer saying that. It more often than not translates to: "Let's dumb this down so that morons could enjoy it". I hope it isn't the case here.
This part, OTOH, gives me hope and actually would be a very good thing to do:

This time the game will actually start easier and become more difficult with time.

Overall I'm happy that they possibly consider making BB2 at some point and I'm waiting for Menace with hope as well.

I don't know; I like that BB is pretty hard at the outset. It makes you pay attention to the mechanics and even when you get your crew geared up and have some levels under your belt there's always the chance you'll run into something mid-game that wrecks you anyway. Part of the fun is carrying on after you lose two of your heavy-hitters and have to scrape your way back up to face an end-game crisis or try to take on the Kraken or another legendary location.

If they make the start easier, they'll get shit from all over (and especially here) for it and once you leave the impression you've made the game easier it won't matter how tough the mid/late-game is because a lot of people won't experience it.

Battle Brothers is not that complicated a game but it all works so well together that it seems a lot more deep, tactically, than it probably is. If they can duplicate that, I'm in.

 

[Darth Canoli]

The formula is not so simple, they didn't do everything right but most of it is.
- Great 2D and original artstyle
- Great weapon skills
- Good and original feats turning a bland skill-tree system into something good
- Quite difficult but completely unbalanced and exploitable. (= incline)
- Nicely drawn and designed enemies with some different skills / Builds / AI / Tactics
- Great music
- Good sound effects
- Gore kills
- Open world exploration
- Sandbox mode which works well because of all the previous points
- Moddable in spite of their best efforts.
- Weapons variety and design, named weapons.

 

[Serus]

The formula is not so simple, they didn't do everything right but most of it is.
- Great 2D and original artstyle
- Great weapon skills
- Good and original feats turning a bland skill-tree system into something good
- Quite difficult but completely unbalanced and exploitable. (= incline)
- Nicely drawn and designed enemies with some different skills / Builds / AI / Tactics
- Great music
- Good sound effects
- Gore kills
- Open world exploration
- Sandbox mode which works well because of all the previous points
- Moddable in spite of their best efforts.
- Weapons variety and design, named weapons.

I'd say skill tree is ok but not great. One thing that I'd like to see improved in BB2 is character progression. I'd like more variety, the amount of possible builds is too limited and could be better as Legends mod show. Balancing is an issue though. Unbalanced can be fun - to an extent. I don't want to actively avoid several builds because they are OP.
What is nice about the leveling system - it is relatively flat. Difference between high and low level is very significant but still less so than in many other systems.

OTOH world building and the sandbox aspects aren't very good and they should be improved in BB2. I don't mean simply adding content. Authors should follow the idea of a world that doesn't exist only for your company. Make it a living, simulated world. Factions fighting and changing with time, making wars, alliances and intrigues. Contracts existing not only for the player. Other companies as entities on their own. Stuff like in Space Rangers 2 with it's dynamic "political" map. Everything could be, slightly, influenced by our bros by making high risk missions like: Kill (or not) a diplomat, there is war (or peace). Armies battle, pillage and rape (or veteran soldiers are cheap to hire and caravans are plentiful). There is peace somewhere else (war erupts later somewhere else). Stuff like that.

Overall, Battle Brothers' game mechanics in tactical combat and design of enemies are great. Presentation is very good. Everything else is average. A great game but could be better. BB1 + interesting "living" world = potentially one of the best games ever.


Fake edit: For God's sake, don't add any legs!