Every Day We Fight - resistance fighters battle against alien invaders

[Modron]

Figured every single turnbased tacticool had a thread here so why not this since everytime I mention no one has heard about it. Currently about to enter a pre alpha playtest (which you can request to join) so it will probably be a while before it's finished.

You can follow them on twitter as well if you like: https://twitter.com/signalspacelab

About This Game​

Take control of a group of resistance fighters, The Thorns, as they transform from everyday citizens to heroes. During its uniquely crafted rogue-lite campaign, The Thorns take the fight to the enemy across a variety of battlefields - each representing a district of their hometown.

It's up to you to come up with innovative tactics and execute them, as you order your units about the battlefield and take control of them during the action. Every Day We Fight challenges the form of the turn-based tactics genre by introducing a unique blend of strategy and action elements.

DEEP TACTICAL DECISION MAKING

The key to overcoming the challenges keeping the player from their goal is making the right choices on the battlefield.

TAKE CONTROL DURING ACTION MOMENTS

Players are in full control as their units execute their commands. Choosing when and where to shoot adds tactical depth to the action.

CONSTANT PLAYER AGENCY

Engagements in Every Day We Fight possess a uniquely natural and dynamic quality since the flow of combat can be interrupted to perform reaction abilities.

 

[udm]

Trailer:


It looks good, very much like Project Haven. Not a fan of the art style though.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

That ´reflex`-mechanic sounds interesting.
Also nice that ballistics system looks similar to Phoenix Point.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

I just hope it will actually get released at some point - these interesting tacticool gaems tend to be in development for ever...

 

[Modron]

The playtest is open to all: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1546080/view/3699186618500546982

Every Day We Fight - Pre-Alpha Playtest #2: Community Feedback Edition
Hello fellow Thorn members!
In case you missed it, our first public pre-alpha test is available RIGHT NOW here on Steam. Simply request access from our store page and you'll be good to go!

The playtest is running until Monday, May 1st at 1PM EDT, so act fast if you don't want to miss your chance to battle The Harvester and learn more about why Every Day We Fight is so special!

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If you enjoy the game or want to give some feedback directly to the development team, we have a Discord server set up specifically for that. You can join the server here --> https://discord.gg/JecuyCnJWF
As a bonus, anyone who can show us a screenshot of them successfully beating The Harvester (the "Mission Complete" screen) will earn themselves a special role in the Discord server that will give them access to bonus content during the game's development. Let's see those shots!

Wishing you the best of luck in your fight against the Harvester!

Keep fighting!

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Mkay, will take this for a spin this weekend and report back.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Ayo negroes, so I played this for a few hours and… its p. decent. Here are my observations:

• The story is as follows: strange new raw resource appears on Earth, aliens (who look and act fairly human) appear out of nowhere and use some sort of time manipulation technology to freeze people, while they mine the strange new raw resource (this might appear to be somewhat humane approach as opposed to just killing everyone I guess…), the freezing doesn’t work on some people in a small US town and these people start waging guerilla warfare against the aliens
• You have a squad of three characters, which have personalities (writing is OK), their own takes on what happens etc
• Outside of combat the game is realtime and you control it like a top-down shooter (WASD etc), there is some rudimentary stealth, you can climb over stuff, loot items etc
• Once you are detected the game switches into TB mode, there are multiple APs (ie not the nu-XCOM formula), you move the characters by clicking on the target position, there is sticky cover, you shoot in 3rd person view and can target various bodyparts
• The main innovation this game brings is the “reflex action” system: both enemies and your characters have one reflex action that can be triggered in enemy turn (ie when an enemy gets close to your character, you can move it, when your character comes under fire, you can move it and vice versa), this is a simple system which has a huge impact on gameplay and I like it as it makes the game more dynamic
• In practice this changes the way grenades are used for example, since if you throw a nade at a group of enemies, they just scatter and the nade does no damage – they are more useful in flushing enemies out of cover, unless of course you manage to make the enemy use their reflex action before you toss the nade (ie this brings in a new layer of tactics)
• Other than this, the game is standard TBS with various tiers of enemies, your characters have each a unique skill (a special melee attack, an ability to create fake targets etc), though the demo otherwise doesn’t show any RPG elements
• The difficulty is fairly high (you cant save game in the demo) and your characters are fairly fragile (enemies with “shotguns” can down your characters with single hit at pointblank range)

In general, this is worth watching for the reflex actions system alone, looks like a decent game with some innovative stuff. Whether or not this gets released at all is the big question for me.

 

[agris]

how granular was the AP system Parsimonious cook, how many APs did characters have? Was there stances? Did enemies get a scramble turn, and do you see evidence of pods?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

how granular was the AP system Parsimonious cook, how many APs did characters have? Was there stances? Did enemies get a scramble turn, and do you see evidence of pods?

There are circa 25 APs per character (I think there is slight variation which might be due to stats, though I am not sure right now), this allows you to move fairly large distances and/or fire multiple shots (various weapons have various AP costs per shot, with pistols being lowest and the sniper rifle being highest), so this is basicaly the clasic X-COM formula.

As far as I could see, the stances are dictated by sticky cover (ie crouch only behind cover), you can also sneak in the RT mode. There is not a scramble turn per se, if you initiate combat you go first, otherwise the enemy goes first (usualy it will be the enemy going first), you can manage some stealth kills before combat starts.

I am not sure what you mean by pods, pls explain.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I am not sure what you mean by pods, pls explain.

Enemies come in nuXCOM styled clusters which activate (on many cases with some cinematic) when you get close enough.

• The main innovation this game brings is the “reflex action” system: both enemies and your characters have one reflex action that can be triggered in enemy turn (ie when an enemy gets close to your character, you can move it, when your character comes under fire, you can move it and vice versa), this is a simple system which has a huge impact on gameplay and I like it as it makes the game more dynamic
• In practice this changes the way grenades are used for example, since if you throw a nade at a group of enemies, they just scatter and the nade does no damage – they are more useful in flushing enemies out of cover, unless of course you manage to make the enemy use their reflex action before you toss the nade (ie this brings in a new layer of tactics)

Does this imply that reflex action is on cooldown timer, or is there some other mechanic in there?

Anything you can tell about inventory management or itemisation?

 

[udm]

Damn, but 3 characters only though...

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Damn, but 3 characters only though...

It seems to copy Mutant Year Zero.

 

[agris]

I am not sure what you mean by pods, pls explain.

Enemies come in nuXCOM styled clusters which activate (on many cases with some cinematic) when you get close enough.

• The main innovation this game brings is the “reflex action” system: both enemies and your characters have one reflex action that can be triggered in enemy turn (ie when an enemy gets close to your character, you can move it, when your character comes under fire, you can move it and vice versa), this is a simple system which has a huge impact on gameplay and I like it as it makes the game more dynamic
• In practice this changes the way grenades are used for example, since if you throw a nade at a group of enemies, they just scatter and the nade does no damage – they are more useful in flushing enemies out of cover, unless of course you manage to make the enemy use their reflex action before you toss the nade (ie this brings in a new layer of tactics)

Does this imply that reflex action is on cooldown timer, or is there some other mechanic in there?

Anything you can tell about inventory management or itemisation?

Check out the bolded part. It sounds similar to an overwatch / interrupt, where each character has a maximum of 1 per turn. But rather than automated action, it lets you assume direct control within some bounds (move or shoot).

In his grenade example, the AI's interrupt is triggered by you throwing a grenade. But since it's actually a reflex action, it isn't just them plinking at you, the AI decides to move. This consumes their interrupt (reflex action) for their turn. He goes on to explain if you can make them use their reflex action prior to the grenade, even forcing them to huddle somehow, then a grenade thrown at the same group later in the same combat turn would not grant the enemies an interrupt because they burnt their reflex action already.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Regarding inventory/itemisation:

- each character can carry two guns (pistol + assault rifle/shotgun/sniper rifle in the demo) + two special items (frag/smoke grenade in the demo)
- there is no inventory to manage, no backpack etc, you can collect weapons, ammo and grenades
- the demo doesnt imply that there are tiers of items or any way to customise them

Regarding pods:

- objective of the demo mission is to destroy an alien mining machine, which is done in three parts - every time you destroy one part, an enemy squad spawns
- outside of the context of the demo mission (which might be specific) I am not able to say, whether this principle applies in general

 

[udm]

After playing the demo, yeah I'm pretty sure this game uses the XCOM pod system. You trigger enemies when you're in their detection proximity for more than a few seconds (regardless of whether they have LOS to you).

The reaction system sounds great on paper, and in fact is the highlight of the game. It makes combat very reactive, which is great. Positioning matters, you're constantly trading shots and running behind cover. The game also uses ballistics rather than RNG.

But that's about the only nice thing I can say about the game thus far. The UI is horrible. As cook said, there's no inventory. It's all very streamlined. They're not kidding when they said they're fans of Mutant: Year Zero.

The camera also gets in the way of the action when your character is in certain positions. More than once, I couldn't see jack shit because my camera was blocked by a rear wall. Over-the-shoulder view without the ability to change camera location (left shoulder, right shoulder) is cancer.

Then there's sticky cover, which means if you want to peek, you must be behind cover. If you're just a bit behind cover, oops! Sorry, can't peek around corners. No strafing, etc.

I guess I am just very particular about having design inconsistency, a problem that you wouldn't find in older tactics games.

These problems can probably be fixed by a competent dev team, but the streamlined metagame seems intentional, so there's no saving that. If you don't mind a game with interesting ideas but with streamlined everything else, then you could do worse than check out the demo.

 

[Modron]

Regarding inventory/itemisation:

- the demo doesnt imply that there are tiers of items

The characters mention there are hidden thorn (resistance) caches when you approach the one present in the playtest which had a revolver in it that did more damage than the base pistol wouldn't be shocked if there were better weapons in each class.

- outside of the context of the demo mission (which might be specific) I am not able to say, whether this principle applies in general

I don't know if I would call what the playtest demonstrates a pod system just yet just because there were enemies already in place on map in position you snuck around to start off with. Reinforcements came in groups sure but it's not really the nuxcom system of trigger one pod and have everyone in it scramble 100 feet for cover.

The camera also gets in the way of the action when your character is in certain positions. More than once, I couldn't see jack shit because my camera was blocked by a rear wall. Over-the-shoulder view without the ability to change camera location (left shoulder, right shoulder) is cancer.

Given they have things like leaning out windows to line up shots, I am sure they would be amenable to implementing adjusting camera position when aiming around corners or something like making walls behind the direction your aiming transparent if you suggested it to them.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1546080/view/3700313694058068761

Every Day We Fight - Playtest Schedule
Greetings fellow Thorn members!
First of all, THANK YOU for such a successful playtest last week! We gained an incredible amount of insight and feedback that we will be applying over the next few months to make Every Day We Fight the best it can possibly be.

Thank you so much to everyone who streamed the game, created content around it, took part in the conversations in Discord and our Steam Discussion boards. Most importantly, thank you to everyone who took the time to simply play the game. We appreciate you!

The question now, of course, is: What's next?

Answer: MORE PLAYTESTS. We gained a lot of valuable information this time around, but we're always looking for more. So, with that in mind, we have 3 playtests coming in the next 3 months. Each with their own theme, based on the major changes made in each update.

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Playtest #3: The One with All the Attachments - May 25th
Playtest #4: The One with the Legendary Stuff - June 22nd
Playtest #5: The One with Character Progression - July 20th
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Mark your calendars! We're super excited to let you get hands on with even more of Every Day We Fight in the very near future.

Keep fighting.

~ SSL

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1546080/view/3720581795018446035

Every Day We Fight Developer Q&A
Greetings fellow Thorn members!

Just a quick heads up if you're not in our Discord server, we're hosting a Q&A session this week, taking questions from members of the community.

If you have a question that you'd like to ask the dev team about Every Day We Fight, whether that be the future of the game, the creative process or anything in between, you can ask under this thread or in our Discord server (https://discord.gg/JecuyCnJWF) in the #edwf-q-and-a channel.

Keep fighting!

~ SSL

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1546080/view/3667669664002650318

Every Day We Fight Playtest #5 is Officially LIVE
Greetings fellow Thorn members!

We are excited to announce that our 5th playtest, "The One with Character Progression" is officially live!

As the name suggests, this playtest brings a new skill tree to the game which allows you to customize your experience in an entirely new way.

Hop in starting RIGHT NOW through to 1PM EDT on July 27th. Full patch notes are below!

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Skill Tree System Added
A skill tree has been added to the game. You can access it by pressing K when not in combat.
Currently, only Vivian has a skill tree, and not all skills are implemented for the demo.
You are given 20 Skill Points to allocate to the tiers of the various skills available. Not all skills will be available in one run, but we’d love to hear about the paths & choices you make with Vivian!
Skills on the skill tree fall into Passive, Active and Reflex categories.
Passive skills increase the Thorn’s base statistics in various ways
Active skills improve the Thorn’s unique Special Abilities, in Vivian’s case it is her Hologram
Reflex skills improve the Thorn’s Reflex Actions, such as Overwatch or Kill Assist for Vivian.


The following skills and tiers are available in the skill tree for the demo:
Motivated: (5 tiers) Base Action point count increased by 2 AP
Nerves of Steel: (3 tiers) Accuracy while suppressed improves by 4%
Health Insurance: (5 tiers) Maximum health increases by 50 HP
Protective Layer: (5 tiers) The Thorn is given shields at base strength
Throwing Arm: (5 tiers) Cost for tossing Holograms decreases by 1 AP
Bullet Sponge: (5 tiers) The Hologram’s maximum health increases by 50 HP.
Critical Mass: (5 tiers) Chance of critical damage during Kill Assist increased by 20%
Eagle Eyed: (5 tiers) Cost for laying down an Overwatch decreases by 1 AP
Trigger Happy: (5 tiers) Ability to shoot during Kill Assist increased by 30%
Stay On Target: (5 tiers) Ability to shoot during an Overwatch increases by 30%
Killer Instinct: (1 tier) Vivian becomes efficient at sensing when enemies are weakened, triggering her Kill Assist reflex before they become critically injured.


Reflex System Overhaul
The Reflex system has been overhauled to be more user-friendly.
When triggering a reflex action such as Scramble, Kill Assist, Covering Fire, or Proximity Punch, the game will now pause and present a UI with the option to confirm or cancel the Reflex action.
When accepting the Reflex action, the camera will bring you straight to the Thorn initiating the action.
After accepting the action, you have a second opportunity to opt out of it by pressing spacebar to preserve the Thorn’s Reflex Token of another situation.



Other Changes/Additions:
A button to skip cutscenes has been added. Hold the spacebar to skip cutscenes.
Aim view has been remapped to right click by default. Spacebar now cancels actions.
The scroll wheel now changes floors, rather than adjusting camera pitch.
Thorns now Revive automatically outside of combat.
Audio occlusion updates - sounds should now reflect the character’s location in the map & inside buildings more accurately, especially in third person view.


Known Issues:
Holding the middle mouse button to move the camera when a cinematic begins can cause the cursor to behave erratically. Click the middle mouse button again once back in gameplay to fix the cursor.
Dylan’s Taunt ability doesn’t currently taunt enemies as intended, and they will still attack other units.
Canceling movement with the spacebar is not currently working as expected. Movement actions can be canceled easily by entering/exiting aim view.
Enemies can sometimes still display as their red “last known position” visual when they should be within player line of sight.
There is a rare chance of a crash during loading or restarting missions on lower end hardware. Usually if attempted a second time the game will load correctly.
There is a rare chance of a soft-lock when triggering multiple reflex actions close together. This is likely to happen when a proximity punch is triggered at the same time as a kill assist.
Thorns currently have a hard time following the leader in out of combat mode. This can lead to rare cases where one of the Thorns does not follow you into the combat zone & you won’t be able to split up your units to set up for the fight. As a work-around, you can return to their location & then re-enter the combat zone.
Throwing items can be finicky and might not always work as intended, especially when the Thorn is close to obstacles.
Vivian’s Kill Assist can trigger from enemies that are not in her line of sight.
Proximity Punch can trigger from enemies traversing ladders causing time dilation before they can be targeted.

 

[Modron]

This has a regular every day non sign up demo as part of the Strategy Fest if you're interested in trying it out.

Every Day We Fight in Steam Strategy Fest!
Greetings, fellow Thorn members!

We're excited to announce that Every Day We Fight will be included in Steam's Strategy Fest this week!

We've got a new demo for you to get hands on with full of improvements and new content to explore too. Jump in TODAY and test your mettle against The Harvester. We have a few new tricks for returning players too!

As always, if you enjoy your time with the game, consider adding us to your wishlist so you don't miss out when we officially launch!

You can find a full changelog in the following if you are so inclined:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1546080/view/3655287845310890018

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1546080/view/5779865497753715736

Every Day We Fight x Hooded Horse
Greetings fellow Thorns!

We're incredibly excited to announce that we are joining forces with Hooded Horse as the official publisher for Every Day We Fight!

We will share more information on this partnership and what it means for Every Day We Fight in the near future. In the meantime, please make sure that you wishlist the game to avoid missing out on any future updates and demos that are on the way!

Keep fighting!

~ SSL