Boy, do we have a lot of content for you this month! It is fitting then that it's a round Tenth Development Update for our game. Fasten your seatbelts, people, and enjoy the ride!
BETA TIME!
Backer Beta Release Date Announcement
That's right! We can finally announce that the
Backer Beta will launch on June 1st, 2016 (Wednesday). A nice little gift for you all on Children's Day.
For your comfort, the build will be distributed through Steam. All qualifying backers will receive their Steam Keys via e-mail on the day of the launch.
PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THE BACKER BETA IS AVAILABLE TO 35$+ BACKERS ONLY.
More information about the delivery of the Beta, along with the FAQ and feedback forums will be available in the beta release Kickstarter update, which should also land on June 1st.
What's in the Beta?
Our Beta features quite a lot of content, so here's a list. Lots of numbers ahead!
- 2 playable chapters of the game - Tutorial and Chapter 1
- 5 playable party members - Kay, Griffith, Signy, Aliss, Levant
- 6 recruitable villagers - Baz and Lilka the Innkeepers, Gunther the Blacksmith, Miri the Pathfinder, Haksun the Merchant and Shichiroji the Hobo
- 9 Social Links for both party members and villagers, pursuable up to Level 2 (out of 5).
- 2 full regions to explore - The Heartlands and The Biting Sea
- 24 battle encounters - complete with the new Objective and Challenge Systems (more on that below) and hidden mini-bosses
- 18 unique text adventures
- 1 minigame - gather resources all over the world
- Full Orchestral Soundtrack
- Professional English voice acting
- ...and more to discover!
Here are some sweet, sweet gifs from various beta encounters:
....aaand some screenshots:
What's NOT in the Beta?
POLISH! Seriously, the Beta is a very different beast from the Combat Preview, which was a very small, self-contained piece of code. There will be bugs and there will be many rough, unpolished spots in it. Animations, User Interface, World Map and general Player Feedback all need major polish passes before the release.
Please have this in mind as you play! As before, we will have feedback forums and we will be paying diligent attention to your suggestions. Nothing is set in stone - there's always room for improvements!
NEW COMBAT FEATURES
Major Combat Improvements
What's the silent killer of most tactical RPGs? We would say it's tedium. What's one of the major causes of tedium in games like ours? We would say it's lack of variety. This is also something that we have discussed in our Backer Teamspeak Meetings.
We are happy to announce three new, major systems that were added to the game and will be available in the Beta - Objectives, Challenges and Combat Modifiers.
Objectives are what you, as a player, need to achieve in order to win in a battle. If you were worried about all battles being simply about smashing your enemies in their stupid faces, then worry not anymore! We have prepared 6 distinct types for you in the Beta:
Challenges are completely optional mini-objectives that ask you to win fights in a specific way. Remember Judges from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance? This is something similar but without penalizing the player for not complying with the system. Each challenge is worth additional experience and possibly new loot. They have various level of difficulty - some might be very difficult to achieve indeed! Examples of challenges include:
- win without using specific skills
- win using only specific skills
- win in X turns
- win without missing a skill
- win without moving at all (!)
- win with a single deployed character... the list keeps going on!
Combat Modifiers work in tandem with Objectives and Challenges to crank up that encounter variety even higher. Instead of presenting you with a specific task, they modify the battle even further, introducing wacky rules or setups. This ensures that two Annihilation encounters will play differently, despite having the same objective. Here are some examples of modifiers you will see in beta:
- unusual deployment pattern - what if you had found yourself lost in the swamps with your characters scattered around the map and monsters circling around them?
- reanimation aura - what if there was a dark presence on the battlefield that summons new undead monsters on every turn?
- odd wind - what if there was a strange, magical wind blowing that moves combatants around the battlefield randomly every turn?
- spawning pools - what if there were destroyable objects on the battlefield that spawn additional enemies on every turn?
BETA'S VOICE CAST REVEALED
As you probably already know, Regalia will feature a very hefty dose of professional English voice acting thanks to our cooperation with
Sound Cadence Studios. For Beta alone we have
over 1400 lines recorded for 22 characters.
Today we have the pleasure of revealing the full cast of voice actors for the Backer Beta. We have attached a sample voiced line for each below.
(the voices are on the
Kickstarter update page)
- Kay - Nicholas Andrew Louie
- Gwendolyn - Amber Lee Connors
- Desideratus - River Kanoff
- Aliss - Melissa Sternenberg
NEW CONTENT
Emotions on character portraits
One of the recurring suggestions we were getting from our backers was to add emotions to characters' portraits during cutscenes. Well, we're happy to announce that this is currently in production and will be available in the Backer Beta. Here are some examples:
New location
Oooh, would you look at that - a new location has appeared!
Someone's clearly not cool about fire safety.
New interiors
You won't see these in the Beta, but still - here's two new house interiors for Winter the Prospector and Riehl the Alchemist.
Stones Have Eyes o_o
Steampunk is (not) dead!
New Enemy type
A completely new type of an enemy will appear in the Beta - Bandits! They appear in various flavours - Muggers, Brutes and even Bosses. A JRPG without a "Steal" ability wouldn't be a JRPG, right? :D
Acvtvs Id Verberat
New World Map
Our very own Runshin has been working diligently for the past month, painstakingly creating the new Overworld map that will be used in game to travel around various regions of the Rashytil Expanse. It's definitely one of the most colourful artworks we have!