Hey everyone! Were excited to let you know that Of Blades & Tails is now fully available in French! Additionally, we worked on certain improvements and bug fixes, including:

• Optimized pathfinding.
• Fixed the issue of consumables ignoring cooldown.
• Some translation tweaks.
• Fixed the bug that caused game crashes when using certain consumables.

Also, if you havent bought the game yet, remember that Autumn Sale lasts till December 4th and you can get Of Blades & Tails now for 40% off! Felix & Pineapple Works

[ 2024-11-29 17:09:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi guys! Following our last major update which introduced full gamepad support (check here for details), we're now super excited to announce that Of Blades & Tails has officially gained a VERIFIED Steam Deck compatibility rating! This means that Of Blades & Tails makes full use of Steam Deck's capabilities and is fully playable on the handheld hardware without any fuss. To celebrate this event, Of Blades & Tails is now on sale with a week-long -35% discount! In order to achieve full compatibility, a bunch of changes have been made:

• Modified the game so that gamepad controls work nicely with the Deck's default controller layout
• Showing Steam Deck's controller icons in button hints/prompts
• Vastly improved text legibility by increasing font sizes in places where they were too small on the handheld screen
• Optimizing visuals & rendering so that the game has flawless performance on the Deck
• Make use of on-screen keyboard in places where we let players enter/modify texts

One thing that you might find missing on the Deck is that we had to disable the use of the game's pixel font, as it really didn't look great after bumping up the text size and we wanted to keep a uniform user interface across the board. We hope you'll enjoy discovering (or rediscovering) Reik's fantastic adventures on your Steam Deck! In other news: we'll be adding French language support very soon! The translation is almost finished. Felix & Pineapple Works

[ 2024-08-14 16:03:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed game crash when an item would be dragged with mouse cursor into the "modify item" slot
• Corrected minor text display issue on new game screen for some languages
• Added auto-focus for the "+" button on stats screen when bonus stat points are available
• Added option to close window and accept changes simultaneously for the talents window
• Fixed being able to select an empty item list slot

[ 2024-07-04 13:50:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fix the issue with mouse clicks in map corner

[ 2024-07-01 10:23:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! We're happy to let you know that one of the most requested features - FULL GAMEPAD SUPPORT - is now available in Of Blades & Tails! Over the past few months we have put a lot of effort into making Of Blades & Tails controller friendly and improving Steam Deck compatibility! We gathered a lot of feedback from players. Everything that you shared with us, we took to our hearts and we're very excited to finally bring the news to you! We genuinely hope that you like what we achieved. Most of the aspects of the gamepad support were covered before in our beta preview post (read here). Additionally, we took some time to work on some bug fixes and other improvements which include:

• New options in settings to automatically switch between directional mode and cursor mode (helpful between fights).
• Gamepad icons next to gamepad prompts (previously was text only).
• Updated translations to support new features (including gamepad prompts).
• Increased label size that indicates number of items in item stack.
• Second tutorial variant for gamepad.
• Fixed long lasting issue causing random crashes when switching between scenes.
• Virtual keyboard support.

With this we're hoping to get the Steam Deck verified badge very soon!
Skill and quick slot wheel
Sorted inventory We'd still love to hear about your experience. We can't stress enough how important your feedback is to us! At the same time we'd like to thank everyone who played Of Blades & Tails on the public beta branch and shared their thoughts in out Discord, helping us polish this update as much as we could! Felix & Pineapple Works

[ 2024-06-27 14:37:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I would like to give you an update of what's cooking right now for Of Blades & Tails. Over the last months, me and my friends at Pineapple Works have put a lot of effort into making the game 100% playable with controller. This has always been ranked high in terms of player requests (especially on Steam Deck) and for us moving forward in bringing Of Blades & Tails to consoles later this year. We also took this opportunity to add a bunch of quality of life improvements to the inventory view! You'll be able to filter for various item types and categories and also sort the list for name, recently added and item value. This will be available for regular mouse and keyboard controls as well (of course).

Feedback appreciated

Right now, we are at a stage where all features and mechanics of the game are fully accessible with controller, but we would love to get your feedback on this subject! We want to get this as good and convenient as possible, but that's only achievable with your feedback :) Therefore we've set up a Beta branch that you can use to check out the latest changes and tell us either in the comments of this post or on our Discord server what you think about the current implementation. To access the Beta branch you have to do the following: [olist]

Go to your Steam library

Right-click on the game > Select Properties... > Betas

Select the "beta" branch from the Beta participation select box [/olist] If you've already been playing Of Blades & Tails on your Steam Deck and would like to check out the Beta as well, remember to change your controller layout back to the default by taking these steps: [olist]

Open the Steam Deck game library

Open Of Blades & Tails

Move option highlight to the controller icon on the right

Select the large button with the currently selected controller layout.

Select your (currently selected) layout from the provided list and set it to "generic gamepad"

Press X to apply Layout. [/olist] [hr][/hr] Some notes before you dive in:

• the help/tutorial system hasn't been rewritten to match the new controller scheme yet, mainly because we're not sure yet which controller input scheme will be final
• there are button hints/tooltips basically everywhere, they don't look super nice but that's intentional (we'll make them look nice when we finalize the controller scheme)
• you can find the full input scheme on the Options screen (no button remapping for now I'm afraid)
• new texts which come with this beta build are only available in English (we'll move forward with translations after we finalize the controller scheme)

Below are a few impressions of the new controls, but be aware that this is still work in progress. [hr][/hr]
Items in the inventory can be filtered and assigned to the quick slots via wheel selection. [hr][/hr]
The inventory items can now also be sorted by various aspects. This also applies to trading and player stash views. [hr][/hr]
Skills are quickly accessible through a wheel selection. The same applies to item quick slots. [hr][/hr]
You can walk and interact directly with the analog stick, but it is also possible to switch to a much more precise cursor control. This will be handy in tough battles, where precise positioning is key and for range weapon attacks as well. [hr][/hr]
Preview of world map controls. Here you can snap from tile to tile, but it will be also possible to scroll through the whole map with the analog stick. [hr][/hr] I really hope you like what we have achieved so far! However, I cannot stress enough how much we would appreciate your feedback after spending some time with these new controls. So go check out the Beta branch and get back to us here or on our Discord server! Until then, take care everyone! Felix & Pineapple Works

[ 2024-03-28 17:03:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Perks that 'have a chance to activate every time you deal damage' didn't activate if you one-shotted an enemy. This problem should now be fixed.

[ 2024-03-04 15:10:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

This patch adds support for Spanish localization by our community member Azrhyga!

• Fixed a minor issue in the area at world coord 13, 6: The road was missing.
• Updated community translations.

[ 2024-02-21 07:45:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a rare cause for getting stuck in a black screen during level transitions.
• Fixed a rare cause for potential crashes during level generation.
• Prevented the penalty on "Challenge" difficulty mode from being applied when a player got defeated during the Combat Arena leaderboard challenge. Players should not lose resources when working on their ranking!
• Updated community translations.

[ 2024-01-10 07:27:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

I finally could reproduce a bug that was around for some time and caused player stats to get messed up temporarily. Everything was back at normal after reloading the savegame, but it still feels good to finally track this one down :)

• Fixed a bug that caused items in inactive weapon sets to mess up player stats. This could happen in multiple cases, such as selling an inactive but equipped weapon or by modifying or upgrading such a weapon. Same for off-hand items.
• Fixed an issue where a weapon could get re-equipped in the wrong weapon set after modification or upgrade.
• Updated community translations.

Happy holidays!

[ 2023-12-27 08:33:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Prevented an issue with weapon switching, when the player tries to switch weapons by button click while a skill is currently active.
• Fixed an issue where players couldn't move anymore by keyboard after attacking with the crossbow in melee range.
• Fixed a situation in Immerfurt where players could accidently slide off the eastern bridge.
• Fixed a minor tile map collision issue in the Magical Hideout level.
• Updated several community translations, including Korean, which is now at 91% completion. (We are getting there! :) )

[ 2023-12-12 15:46:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed an issue with certain sprite animations, that couldn't get cleaned up properly. This also fixes the remnants of the final encounter showing up at unexpected places...

[ 2023-11-30 17:36:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Community translations have been updated and improved.
• 3 additional Orbs of Magnificence have been added to the game, based on player feedback. This increases their total amount to 12.

[ 2023-11-27 12:37:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Yesterday I overshot the mark a bit when fixing the critical damage bug in relation with the "Critical Sneak Attacks" perk. Under certain circumstances, this led to the critical damage multiplier being applied twice, which could result in crazy high (and unintended) damage numbers. Since nobody likes crazy high damage numbers, here's the fix! ;) Thanks for the quick report!

[ 2023-11-20 10:53:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed an issue with the calculation of crit damage in relation with the Stealth perk Critical Sneak Attacks and the Arcane Magic perk Explosive Mana Shield.
• Talisman stat bonusses that affect talents have been slightly reduced to 38% on item lvl 12 (-2%) and to 45% on item lvl 18 (-5%).
• Enemies are no longer allowed to use their abilities if they are outside of the area/level boundary. This fixes an issue where some enemies could pull you outside of the level.
• The Polearm skill Evasive Maneuver is now properly cancelled if the destination tile is unreachable from your current position.

[ 2023-11-19 20:43:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed potential issue with a blocking lever in dungeon level generation.
• Fixed a bug where talent efficiency was not properly applied when healing allies.
• Fixed a potential crash in the main menu due to invalid save files. This counts for saves files that got modified externally.

[ 2023-11-16 19:32:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

• The base (enemy) level of a zone is now shown in the world map info panel.
• Upgrading an item will now be disabled if the resulting item requires a level that exceeds the max player level of 25.
• A right-click on the player will no longer skip a turn. This caused too many accidents and therefore got disabled for the time being.
• An Orb of Retreat can now be found in the starting supply in the fox village. This is mostly relevant for new players.
• The base price for Orbs of Retreat has been decreased from 240 to 150 coins.
• Fixed a bug when swapping to other weapon during crossbow cooldown: If you pressed attack when the crossbow is on cooldown and then switched to another weapon, this weapon then "auto-attacked" unintended.

Additional note to all players that experience crashes on macOS:

We've found out that this is a problem on macOS versions lower than 13 (Ventura). The game should run fine on macOS 13 (Ventura). We already updated the system requirements in that regard. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[ 2023-11-14 19:43:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a problem that could prevent dungeons from being generated properly and just displayed a black screen instead.
• The player's initial health in the "Relaxed" difficulty mode has been increased by +10 to make it easier for new players to get into the game.
• Changed a puzzle in the game to not require diagonal movement anymore.
• When pressing Space during a dialog, it will now first reveal all the text and only if the text is fully revealed the dialog gets skipped (on a potential second key press).

[ 2023-11-11 17:44:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! The day has finally arrived and I couldn't be happier of what Of Blades & Tails has become over the past 3 years. It's been a wild and exciting journey. I'm grateful for everyone of you who helped with their feedback from the first demo back in 2021 and throughout the last year of Early Access! I'm not gonna lie, the last 6 months or so have been pretty intense. Working on an open-world RPG, managing community and trying not to wipe everyones progress with each major update is not an easy task, especially if you have a full time job and family :) It's so great to see that eventually everything worked out! Especially the fact that you could play the game from the early demo to 1.0 (over 2 years) with the same savegame and not losing all your progress along the way. That has always been an issue for me as a player when it comes to EA. Therefore I implemented a savegame migration strategy early on and it did the job quite well. There were 2 updates that required a reset of the players attributes/abilities, but everything else could be silently handled under the hood. Not least because of this it has been possible to receive a wide range of valuable feedback across the whole game and not just the first 10 hours or so, because players were forced to restart after each update. That being said, some of you sure wonder what future plans I have for Of Blades & Tails! The honest and probably not very satisfying answer to this is: It depends... ;) First of all I will definitely work on player feedback and fixing any major issues that might come up! Extra content post-launch will depend on how well the 1.0 release goes. So that's something I can only evaluate in the coming weeks. And because of the intense nature of things in the past months I would definitely like to slow it down a bit / take a little break / regain energy. So TL;DR I will get back to the topic of future content in a separate post. Some time in December seems appropriate! :) Now with all of this out of the way, I wish you all a ton of fun with Of Blades & Tails 1.0! I wish I could erase my knowledge of the game to be able to play it blind and make all the discoveries for the first time! It definitely is the kind of game I always wanted to play. So I hope you'll like it, too :) Last but not least, here is our fresh Release Trailer! [previewyoutube=lP1VSi4npuE;full][/previewyoutube] [hr][/hr]

Feature Highlights during EA

A summary of all highlight features that have been added during Early Access, in chronological order.

• Stealth talent and gameplay
• Achievements
• Detailed in-game statistics
• Treasure Hunting
• Reworked health recovery and balancing
• New region: The Haunted Forest (with a unique survival mechanic)
• Engineering talent
• Beastmastery talent (with abilities to temporarily tame creatures)
• New region: Levendell and surroundings
• Equipment modifications
• Illusion Magic talent
• Reworked unarmed combat
• Random seeds that add more variety to each playthrough
• New region: The Barrenland
• A Combat Arena where players can compete in leaderboards
• New "Challenge (Hard)" difficulty mode

[hr][/hr]

Changelog v1.0.0

Game World

• The main quest "Over Hill and Dale" can now be completed.
• The story quest "Of Haughty Antlers" and following can now be completed.
• A new region has been added: The Wasteland
• New biome and dungeon types have been added.
• Multiple new locations have been added to the wasteland.
• A final encounter has been added.
• 4 new dungeons have been added.
• 2 quests have been added to the Adventurers Guild.
• 1 quest has been added to the Mages Guild.
• New types of enemies have been added.
• 6 new legendary items have been added, incl. 2 artifacts.
• A new human lore piece has been added.
• New music tracks have been added.
• New secrets and hidden encounters have been added.

Mechanics

• A new item and mechanic has been added: The Magic Detector
• Magically hidden objects have been placed at existing locations.

This item allows you to detect magically hidden objects in the game world. There are several ways to obtain a detector:

• Through the Mages Guild quest.
• Bought from the Trader for Magic Supplies in Immerfurt.
• Found at a few locations in the world. [spoiler]In the chest inside the Church Ruins, and in the chest at the larger Cultist Camp[/spoiler] (Unless you already looted these locations, then you'll have to fall back to the other 2 options.)

UI & QoL Improvements

• The path indicator now shows your remaining movement points for this turn.
• Added a "locked" toggle to player/skill bar that prevents skills from being accidently dragged outside the slot. (This has been reported as a potential issue from Steam Deck players)
• An audio option has been added to disable the combat music.
• The feedback form won't pop up on exit anymore, but is now available through a dedicated button in the main menu.

Achievements

8 new achievements have been added:

• Wanderer
• Explorer
• Discoverer
• Become an Adventurer
• Become a Mage
• Magic Detective
• With a little help
• And so it ends

Other Improvements & Fixes

• Adjusted item mods on random loot so it's more likely to find level 16 items now. (This may also affect your existing loot, but only in a way that a former lvl 14 item is now lvl 16.)
• Fixed a missing perk description for "Trained Runner".
• Fixed a bug where object highlighting remained active after pressing Alt+Tab.
• Fixed a bug in item upgrade and modification views when view gets closed in-between animations.
• Prevented an issue caused by clicking quick slot items faster than intended.
• Updated several localizations.

[ 2023-11-09 14:56:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I'm very happy to finally announce that we'll be leaving Early Access on November 9th! So in 2 weeks from now, you'll be able to complete Reik's Adventure and eventually find out what lurks in the Great Lair! The 1.0 Update will feature a lot of new content! Here are some highlights:

• The main quest will be complete and lead you to a new and dangerous, final region!
• The story quests that lead you through the world and get to know the other tribes will be complete.
• New quests for both the Adventurers and Mages Guild will be added.
• A new mechanic to detect magically hidden objects in the world will be added.
• A bunch of new legendary equipment can be obtained!
• More secrets and lore to uncover...

We are already in the process of testing and polishing the 1.0 version to make it a smooth and (almost!) bug free experience for everyone! I can also assure you that all savegames will be compatible, so if you don't want to wait any longer, you may jump in right now, enjoy all the content that already exists and eventually finish your main quest (and more) in November! Moving closer to release, I just want to use this as a reminder that reviews help a lot to reach more players. So if you already joined this Early Access adventure and were hesitating: Yes, a kind and constructive review is highly appreciated :) Our ever growing and friendly Discord community is also happy to help if you need tips or just can't figure out this one mystery in the game! We would love to see you around! I'll be back in November with the full changelog and a more detailed post about the journey so far and future plans! Until then, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-10-26 12:00:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a potential blocker in the swamp lake traversal caused by certain seeds.

[ 2023-10-02 06:43:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a problem where the tooltips of attribute stats did not update correctly after switching equipment.
• Fixed a potential crash when pressing key 6 while the second weapon set was active.
• Fixed a problem with the calculation of resistance multipliers.
• Fixed an issue with the "Back Stab" skill: Jumping back 1 tile does now work even if the target got defeated.
• Fixed a problem where danger/safety detection was not working properly with static enemies like plants.
• Fixed a potential issue when indicating that the player reached the max level of 25.
• Fixed a typo in skill effect description for "Vanish".

[ 2023-09-25 11:56:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all! As you already know, we have recently released an update which included a new game mode and quite a few QoL improvements (read here). We are excited to say, that this update was the last stop on our roadmap before we reach our final destination, which is version 1.0!

Early Access will be ending soon!

There have been numerous updates during Early Access and many new things have been added into the game including a balance overhaul, treasure hunt, equipment modifications, a combat arena with leaderboard, and much more! Right now I'm about to finish the final region and story quests. After that we'll be testing everything thoroughly to make sure it will be in a great shape for the full release.

New Price

Since we're almost ready to launch out of Early Access, we are planning on increasing the price of Of Blades & Tails, which will take place on September 18th. The new price will be set to $14.99. I think the game has improved a lot over the past year and we strongly believe that this is the right course of action. [hr][/hr] I really appreciate all your support, it means a lot to both me and Pineapple Works. I'm also extremely happy to see how great our community has been and I'd like to thank everybody who volunteered in both testing and localizing Of Blades & Tails, allowing it to be available in many languages! Until next time! Felix & Pineapple Works

[ 2023-09-11 19:05:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Here goes the last, slightly bigger update before we reach 1.0 :) It contains the missing "Challenge" difficulty mode, rename/delete options for save slots and other requested quality of life improvements.

Changelog v0.19.0

"Challenge" difficulty mode has been added with these modifiers:

• You will lose 20% exp and 8% of your coins upon defeat.
• Enemy density is increased by roughly 50%. (This primarily affects the overworld levels)
• Recovery at bonfires is disabled.
• Fast travel cost is increased.
• Your starting health is slightly decreased. (This primarily affects the overworld levels)
• Enemy base level is increased by 1.
• Auto-recovery is disabled. (Recovery from herbs, potions, etc. still works as normal)

Other improvements and fixes

• It's now possible to rename and delete save slots within the game.
• The current difficulty is now shown in-game in the statistics view.
• It's now better indicated in the character view if you reached the max player level of 25.
• The attribute tooltips now include detailed numbers of the affecting bonusses, like base value, equipment bonus, and other bonusses.
• A problem with custom keybindings has been fixed, that caused the previous key to still trigger the action that has been assigned to a different key.
• Multi-threaded rendering has been enabled, which should increase performance on mid and low end systems.
• Interactive objects in the world can now be highlighted by keypress (default ALT). Please note that it's possible that you need to rebind this key in the options, if you already changed other keybindings.
• The game now automatically keeps 1 backup of your last savegame. If you run into any issues with your savegame, you can now manually restore it in the save folder. However, this will most likely never be necessary :)

[ 2023-09-05 10:09:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

• (chinese) Fixed a wrong direction description in the journal entry of the first quest.
• Updated several other translation strings.

[ 2023-08-03 14:29:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed an issue where player names with non-latin characters haven't been displayed properly in the arena leaderboard.

[ 2023-07-27 06:39:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug/exploit in relation with the Beast Banishing perk.
• Beast Banishing is now explicitely limited to plants and insects.
• Fixed missing persistence of the mounted witcher in the raider camp.
• Changed how the leaderboard achievement gets triggered: It's now completed the first time you score in the leaderboard challenge.
• Added missing translation string for raider dungeon.

Big thanks to the player who reported the issue with Beast Banishing. Your leaderboard score has been removed. I hope you understand :) Would love to see you again on the top though!

[ 2023-07-21 06:55:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! This is the next big chapter for Of Blades & Tails, which adds a new region to the world, with a completely new biome and settlement. It also brings a Combat Arena and allows you to compete with other players in the leaderboard.
Please refer to the last preview post to learn more about the new region and how the arena works.

Changelog v0.18.0

General

• The max player level has been increased to 25.

Game World

• The game world has been expanded to the east.
• A new region has been added: The Barrenland
• A whole new biome has been added.
• A new settlement has been added: Murzork - Home of the Boar Tribe
• Several new NPCs have been added.
• New music tracks have been added.
• A new dungeon has been added.
• Several new types or variations of existing enemies have been added.
• New locations have been added: Horned Beast Grounds
• New locations have been added: Raider Camps
• 2 new quests have been added.

The Combat Arena

The arena can be found in the northern end of Murzork. It features 2 competitions: [h4]The Leaderboard Challenge[/h4]

• Endless waves of alternating types of enemies.
• Players earn an arena score by defeating as many enemies as possible.
• Arena score can be boosted with Combo Multipliers, when multiple enemies are defeated in very few turns.
• Each player who participates is ranked in the leaderboard.
• The leaderboard can be viewed just outside of the arena.
• All difficulty modes (Relaxed, Adventure, Challenge) are normalized in this competition. Allowing all players to compete in the same leaderboard under the same conditions.
• Enemy levels range from 22 to 40+. Be prepared for a definitive challenge!

[h4]The Tournament[/h4]

• A quest is offered to the player to compete in the tournament.
• It contains 5 individual stages.
• Each stage offers a unique challenge.
• This tournament will also be part of the upcoming story line quest. (You can complete it now or later.)
• The "Champion of the Arena" is granted a new legendary armor.

Items & Equipment

• A legendary item has been added: Champion Body Armor
• A legendary item has been added: Champion Leg Armor
• New item stat levels have been added to address the increased max player level of 25.

Achievements

4 achievements have been added:

• Level 20
• Level 25
• Get Ranked!
• Champion of the Arena

Fixes and Improvements

• The artifact slot has been removed from the "Avg. Equipment Level" calculation.
• A problem with the world map view has been fixed, that caused it to not center on the player location after game load or defeat.
• The Fog of War (in overview mode) has been disabled in all settlements.
• Several smaller fixes.
• Improved several translations.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.17.x are compatible and future savegames will remain compatible as well :) [hr][/hr]

What's next

This will most likely be the last major content update before the 1.0 release! Feels pretty unreal to write this actually. We started EA last October and now we're in a great spot to reach the estimated timeline of ~1 year to full release. So here's the (rough) plan until then: I will work on all the remaining story quests, the guild quests and of course the final region/encounter. Then there are still a bunch of smaller feature requests and QoL improvements on my list, which I will try to put in another minor update 0.19 along the way. I'm planning to take my time with all of this and not rush it. Therefore I can't give you any exact dates right now. All I can say is: Stay tuned, we're almost there! Meanwhile, if you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :) Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-07-20 13:55:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a problem with certain seeds in dungeon level generation that caused a locked door to appear before players can toggle the switch that unlocks them.
• Fixed a problem with certain seeds in the Odd River Spur level.
• Fixed persistance of the bandit engineer at the Occupied Mine camp spot.

[ 2023-06-25 14:34:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! There's still plenty of work to be done until the next content update for Of Blades & Tails will be ready, but I figured it's about time to give you all an idea of what you can expect from world expansion part 3. So in this post I want to show you impressions of new Barrend Land biome and how the Combat Arena will work!

The Barren Land

The update features a whole new region with a new biome. It is also the home of the Boar Tribe, which have their settlement Murzork in the heart of the Barren Land. You can reach it by following the road from Levendell to the east.
(The final region layout is still subject to change.) The Barren Land features a dried out, earthy soil, tall mushroom trees and clay-like rocks.


Unfortunately I can't show you screenhots of the new boar settlement yet, but it will feature a new architectural style that is somewhat inspired by orcish/barbarian housing. However, the thing I can show you is a glimpse of what Murzork is widely known for...

The Combat Arena

As teased in one of the previous posts, the next update will feature an exciting combat arena and I can finally share a few more details with you now. The Arena of Murzork will have 2 different events:

The Tournament

The tournament mode contains a finite number of stages, each stage will throw 3-5 waves of enemies at you and comes with special modifiers to the combat and the arena layout. For example, one stage may be flooded and contain only little walkable areas, while you're being chased by flying enemies. Another stage could have a rule that you must end your turn next to an enemy or otherwise all enemies will get healed. Things like that :)
(The arena level is still work in progress and not final, but with this you can get an idea of its size.)
You'll be able to leave the arena after each stage to receive your reward and prepare for the next stage. This tournament will probably be also related to certain quests and the tribe story.

The Leaderboard Challenge

The combat arena will also feature online leaderboards in the challenge mode! This mode is one "endless" wave attack. With each wave enemies get tougher and grow in number (with a limit of 8 enemies per wave). By defeating enemies you can increase your arena score. Defeating multiple enemies within a short amount of turns will also grant you score combo multipliers. For example if you manage to defeat 2 enemies in max 3 turns, you'll get a x2 multiplier. If you manage to defeat more enemies you can keep the multiplier up or increase it even more! Otherwise it will eventually drop back to x1.
The challenge mode will also have other surprises for you, that will pop up every X turns and make the following turns more thrilling ;) Ultimately, your own defeat in the leaderboard challenge is inevitable! Once you're defeated, your final score will be submitted to the online leaderboard and you can see your global rank on a board outside of the arena. It's worth noting that only your highest score will be displayed in the leaderboard and this score is saved by your username, not by your character. Of course you're free to participate with as many characters as you want.
I also managed to make this feature cross platform, so players from Steam, GOG and eventually consoles will be able to compete in one leaderboard. It will also work independently of the difficulty mode you have chosen. The difficulty modifiers will all be normalized when you enter the arena in challenge mode, so there is no separation between difficulty modes necessary. There might be more categories of leaderboards introduced in the future, but that's completely depending on its popularity. I'm aware of the fact that many players will never see the challenge mode or participate, because it's meant to be an "end game" feature for high level characters. However, for all the hardcore fans out there, I hope this will be a pleasant surprise! Needless to say that I'm more than excited to see where some of you will take this :) A few more thoughts regarding fake scores or playing with modified savegames: Originally I wanted to introduce a validation for new savegames, so they can't be easily modified anymore and then used to achieve otherwise impossible scores in the challenge mode. But that would have caused older savegames to be disqualified from the leaderboards, because figuring out programatically if a savegame was already edited turned out to be very hard and/or inaccurate! This would also have excluded almost all of our current early access players and I didn't want that to happen. So while the actual score submission is reasonably safe, the possibility that players just "tweak" their stats in the save file, is still an open concern. To address that, the related savegame (with only your game data!) will be referenced when submitting leaderboard scores. With this information it will be possible to detect if unreasonable high scores in the leaderboard are legit or probably fake and therefore subject for deletion. For now, I'm happy for anyone who joins the leaderboard challenge, fake or not! :D But the possibility to investigate and curate the entries in the future is possible, making it hopefully a fair competition for all players. TL;DR: Everyone can participate in the leaderboards and fake entries can be detected!

Update 0.18 when?

I need you to stay patient a little longer this time! There's still the entire boar settlement to be set up, NPCs, quests and more surprises to be added. Even though the leaderboards are already fully working, the remaining expansion content might still take another month or so. I hope you're nevertheless happy with the things I introduced in this preview post and I would love to read your thoughts in the comments! Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-06-21 08:21:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a problem with certain seeds in dungeon level generation that caused a door to be blocked by a table.

Thanks for reporting this issue! :)

[ 2023-06-18 19:04:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a problem that prevented dragging over items from one inventory to another, such as in the trading or stash view.

Thanks for reporting this issue! :)

[ 2023-06-03 11:58:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! A new update is here that brings a new talent line, adds a weapon type that can be used with the Unarmed talent, improves certain UI elements and many other things.

Changelog v0.17.0

Illusion Magic

A new talent line "Illusion Magic" has been added. The abilities of this talent require expertise, which can be bought at the wand (magic supplies) trader in Immerfurt. (Please note that the sources for receiving this talent expertise might change during EA.)

• Blinding Light: Reduces sight range of all enemies within range to 1 tile.
• Spectral Copy: Creates a copy of yourself that taunts nearby enemies, but disappears again when hit.
• Charming Whisper: Allows you to charm any type of enemy, making them fight by your side for some time.
• Illusive Defense: Increases your dodge chance for any active ability of the Illusion Magic talent.
• Shadow Minion: Summons a shadow minion that fights by your side.

New Weapon: Knuckles

This new type of fist weapon can be used with the Unarmed talent, allowing "unarmed" players now to wield a weapon and gain access to related bonus stats. However, knuckles are limited to +1 physical damage, regardless of their item level.

New Arcane Magic Ability

A new perk has been added to the end of the Arcane Magic talent, which modifies the previous Mana Shield talent and make the absorbed damage being reflected to all nearby targets when the Mana Shield runs out. The perk requires expertise, which can be bought at the wand (magic supplies) trader in Immerfurt.

Activation of Random Seeds

Each new playthrough will now use a random seed upon which many areas are generated. Depending on the type of area you will see more or less differences to the original level generation that has been used since day 1. Hand-made areas like the first quest dungeon or any settlements are not affected by the new seed. Most other dungeons and outdoor areas will have a new layout (once you start a new playthrough). Existing savegames are not affected by this change.

UI & QoL improvements

• Improved positiong of various tooltips, especially in inventories. They should not get in your way anymore now when you hover over items.
• Added a subtle hover effect for items.
• Added more texture to certain UI elements.
• Added a display option to toggle between low and high quality visual effects. This should improve performance on low end devices.
• Giving better feedback for when tiles are blocking a tile selection for certain skills.
• Prevented an exploit that allowed upgrading/modifiying items that shouldn't get altered.
• Missing talents have been added to attribute descriptions.
• Updated several translations.

Balancing & Fixes

• Minor perk bonusses in the Unarmed talent line have been slightly adjusted.
• Prevented an exploit that allowed upgrading/modifiying items that shouldn't get altered.
• The wand trader in Immerfurt has expanded their stock and is now called "Magic Supplies Trader".
• Fixed a potential problem where the treasure spot of a treasure map could be covered by a rock.
• Fixed a bug that prevented modification of certain items.
• Fixed a bug with expertise traders not offering expertise after re-entering the level.
• Fixed a potential quest blocker for the inn delivery quest.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.16.x are compatible, but your ability points will be reset and you need to redistribute them again at the bonfire. [hr][/hr]

What's next

I think alternating between small updates and bigger world expansions works well. So the next one will most likely be World Expansion #3. In fact I already started working on some of the new contents. It will introduce a new barren land biome, which is also home of the boar tribe. Their combat arena is as famous as it is dangerous and will play a bigger role in the upcoming adventures :) As usual, world expansions take their time, but I'll make sure to update you with a preview post as I go! If you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :) Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-05-30 08:42:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! This is the next big chapter for Of Blades & Tails, which adds a new region to the world, allows you to modify your equipment and offers a few surprises for the brave explorers. Please refer to the last preview post to learn more about the new content and how the added mechanics work.

Changelog v0.16.0

Equipment Modifications

You can now extract item mods and reuse them on your preferred equipment. Visit any crafting NPC like blacksmiths or carpenters to use this mechanic. The whole process is also described in detail here.

Game World

• The game world has been expanded to the north.
• A new region has been added: Levendell - Home of the Deer Tribe
• Several new NPCs have been added.
• A new autumn-based forest biome has been added.
• New music tracks have been added.
• A new secret region has been added.
• A new puzzle mechanic has been added.
• Several new dungeons have been added.
• Several new types or variations of existing enemies have been added.
• New enemies now often have a perk, which can modify their behavior.
• New locations have been added: Wasp Hives
• New locations have been added: Marksman Camps
• The Abandoned Bonfire spot just north of the Haunted Forest has been replaced with a Deer Guard Camp.

Quests

• 2 quests have been added to Levendell.
• 1 quest has been added to the Deer Innkeeper south of the Haunted Forest.

Items & Equipment

• A new type of item has been added: Artifacts Their occurance in the game is limited to only a few. The first one can now be found.
• A legendary item has been added: Leggings of Beast Banishing
• A legendary item has been added: Wasp Stinger
• New lore about the human age has been added.
• A new Material category has been added to the inventory that is used for extracted item mods.

UI, Controls & Accessibility

• Improve inventory performance when new items are added.
• Quest rewards are now listed in the message log.
• A new icon on the enemy info tooltip (bottom right) will indicate if the enemy has a perk. You can then see the perk details when inspecting the enemy.
• A small arrow will now indicate better who is talking during a dialoque.
• A hint about the Shovel shortcut key has been added to the Treasure Hunt help section.

Achievements

3 achievements have been added:

• Modifier
• Catch me if you can
• Legacy of the Enchanter

Balancing and Fixes

• Crit and dodge chance both have been limited to max 75%.
• All gatherables in the fox village are now persisted permanently.
• Fixed an issue with setting paths in overview mode while the 'hold to move' option is enabled.
• Fixed a potential game lock in relation with game menu (ESC) and entity detail view.
• Fixed a rare situation where certain quest NPCs would not give all rewards.
• Fixed an issue with 0 travel cost if player has no stack of Bug Meat in inventory.
• Several smaller fixes.
• Improved several translations.

Community Translations

Our community added support for the the following languages:

• Chinese (simplified)
• Russian

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.15.x are compatible. [hr][/hr]

What's next

I will most likely prepare another minor update next, which could contain a new talent line and some UI improvements. Nothing set in stone yet. I'll sort things out within the next week. What's more certain is the content of World Expansion III: It will feature the home of the boar tribe and a thrilling combat arena! If my theories will work out as expected it might(!) even feature Steam Leaderboards... But I'm not able to promise yet... Just a wild idea (and another teaser) ;) If you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :) Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-05-10 13:50:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Disclaimer up front: This preview post is going to be a short one :) At least compared to the others... I'm still in the middle of content creation and can't show you all the things in detail. However, I figured it's about time to give you all a little insight on what I have planned for the next update 0.16!

Equipment Modifications

Even though Update 0.16 will be focused on adding new content, there will be also a new mechanic introduced: Modification of your equipment!
This means you'll be able to extract stats from equipment items and put them on another item. Here's an example: Let's say you're playing a Quarterstaff/Crossbow/Athletics build. You just defeated this creepy insect boss in that dungeon and the loot contains a heavy armor helmet, that has +Dexterity. Well, +Dexterity is great, but heavy armor is not what you're looking for! Thankfully, most crafting NPCs are now able to modify the stats on your equipment. So you take the heavy armor nonetheless and give it to the local blacksmith. They can extract the +Dexterity bonus, which will destroy the heavy armor, but you'll receive the +Dexterity modification as a new material in your inventory. So you decide to do just that and then pick your beloved crossbow, which already has great stats, but you very much prefer an extra dexterity bonus instead of the +Combat Exp bonus that is on the crossbow right now. The blacksmith will gladly use your extracted +Dexterity material and replaces the +Combat Exp bonus with it. This replacement will cost you a small fee to the blacksmith, but your crossbow will be much more awesome now! TL;DR: Here's a 1 min video that shows the new modification process :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz14XHK5rrk There are also some restrictions: - You can't modify Legendary items. They are somewhat unique and their stats are fixed. - You can't add more stats to an item. You can only replace existing stats. The number of item stats is defined by the item's quality. I'm really looking forward to this addition because it will hopefully make some unfortunate loot drops, much less unfortunate and gives you more freedom to tweak your build :)

Levendell and the Autumn Forests

The Home of the Deer Tribe and the surrounding areas will be the next stop on our Road through Early Access Valley. It will feature a colorful, autumn-inspired biome and new music tracks!
It's also in extreme contrast to the dark and eerie Haunted Forest, so squint your eyes if you leave it heading north in the future! ;)

The village Levendell is almost ready, but there's still much work to be done when it comes to filling the new region with meaningful content.
So that's why I will just share these few impressions with you but can't dive deeper into any more details right now.

What else to expect?

What you can expect is of course more of the things that you'll probably already love about the game: - New enemies with different traits - New puzzle mechanics - New secrets - New locations - New legendary items - New side quests The storyline quest will most likely not continue with this update. I would like to wait until all the world content is set up and in a good shape, before making the next steps here. That was the original strategy anyway, so I hope you're okay with that. It just makes more sense for me to put it together once all the mechanics are in the game.

Official Wiki

You may be interested to know that our Discord community has already started working on an Of Blades & Tails Wiki! It already includes a list of all legendary items and their locations, how to solve certain secrets and quests, and a few more things! Wiki: https://of-blades-and-tails.fandom.com/wiki/ Everyone is welcome to jump in and add content! There are many things still missing, but I believe it's a very good starting point and can help players who want to experience 100% of the game or struggle with that one thing :)

Update 0.16 when?

Right now I'm expecting to release it mid May. Plus I can already assure you that current savegames will be 100% compatible (as always so far ;)). I hope you're happy with the things I introduced in this preview post, even though it was a short one. Would love to read your thoughts in the comments! Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-04-18 12:20:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed an issue with water tiles in the "closed bridge" level that could cause the player to get stuck.
• Fixed an issue where player summons spawned globally instead of in the current level.
• Enforced regular font for turkish language since the default pixel font doesn't support all characters.
• Updated and fixed translation strings.

[ 2023-04-06 10:32:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed potential visual issue with Reik during level transitions.
• Added missing translations for Turkish.
• Updated several other translations.

[ 2023-03-28 15:34:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Spawned enemy healing plants will (again) wait 1 turn before preparing their healing ability.
• Disabled exp gain for any spawned entities (enemy and allies).
• Fixed some localization issues.
• Fixed translator name in credits.

[ 2023-03-24 10:40:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! A new update is here that brings lots of new abilities to play around with. It also introduces support for new languages, thanks to our amazing community! <3

Changelog v0.15.0

Engineering Talent

A new talent line around "Engineering" has been added. It allows you to place stationary weapons and other utilities in combat. In addition to the familiar resources like stamina or mana, these abilities also cost Toolkits. Each minor perk along the talent line grants you a chance not to lose any toolkit when using an ability. A master of engineering won't waste any toolkits at all, but the less experienced engineers have to deal with this extra resource cost. All active abilities require expertise before you can learn them! A skilled woodworker in Immerfurt probably knows more about this craft... (Please note that the sources for receiving this talent expertise might change during EA.)

• Explosive Barrel: Places an explosive barrel at the selected position.
• Defensive Training Dummy: Taunts nearby enemies and reflects 50% damage back to the attacker. (Only close range)
• Double Shot Ballista: Places a ballista that fires 2 shots per turn, with the last shot having a chance to knockback the target.
• Frost Turret: Places a turret that freezes (stuns) nearby enemies for a few turns.
• Explosive Catapult: Places a catapult that shoots burning projectiles which cause a 3x3 explosion at the target position.

Beastmastery Talent

Beastmastery has been added and allows players who earned the respect of the wild to tame beasts and make them fight on their side for some time. To earn the respect (read: expertise ;)) you have to complete newly introduced wave attack challenges, which are placed across the overworld. Activating the challenge requires you to place a "Beast Bait", which has a low chance to drop from all insect or plant-based creatures in the game. (Please note that receiving the bait(s) may require a good amount of grinding, if you want to rush it. However, for any new playthrough it should be something that just drops along the way at some point. Beastmastery is meant to be a supportive talent and nothing you can learn/focus on right from the start.)

• Insect Taming: Allows you to tame insects and make them fight on your side for some time.
• Such A Good Pal: Heals a tamed ally and extends the taming duration.
• Plant Taming: Allows you to tame plant-based creatures and make them fight on your side for some time.
• Call of the Battle Bug: Call for the help of your new bug friend, who can taunt enemies and will stay with you until the end of combat.

New Ranged Weapon: Crossbow

Crossbows are now a thing and can either be found through random loot or be bought alongside bows.
Note the 2 turns cooldown which the base attack of this weapon has.

Balancing

• Bosses (enemies marked with "Hard!") now gain a stun immunity for a few turns after they recover from a stun.
• You can now see in the enemy details view (right-click) a list of perks, which can tell you more about the effects on each individual enemy.

New Languages

I'm really happy to finally add new languages to the game on which members of our amazing Discord community have been working on over the past weeks. Important: All of these languages are translated by volunteers who love the game and want to make it more accessible to players in their native language. Please be aware that there might be issues with some texts. Any missing translations will appear in English. Especially after future updates, there will be times when new game content might not be translated into all supported languages in time for the update to be released. Now to the additionally supported language and their level of completeness with the current update: [h4] Ukrainian: 100% Finnish: 100% Brazilian Portuguese: 100% Korean: 100% Japanese: 100% Turkish: 82% [/h4] Everyone is welcome to help translating the game in their language (this includes helping out with existing translations, proofreading, etc.) Join our Discord server and let us know if you'd like to join the localization team!

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.14.x are compatible. [hr][/hr]

What's next

I'm working on a new system that allows you to modify the stats of your equipment items. My goal is that (i.e.) if you find a sword with +Dexterity but you're playing ranged only, then you can still extract the stat modifier from the sword and place it in another item that you actually use and strengthen your ranged build anyways. Besides that I'm also taking the first steps into the new region for the upcoming world expansion, part 2. The next update may take a little bit longer now, but I'll make sure to update you with a preview post as I go! If you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :) Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-03-21 15:20:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a small update that adds a few quality of life improvements and fixes some issues.

• The Ancient Talisman now proccs when you're dealing damage, instead of receiving damage.
• Added an option to stop any queued movement on enemy sight.
• Pressing the key for "Skip turn" now also stops any queued movement.
• Added an option to display text with a regular font, instead of the default pixel font.
• Fixed an issue where some enemies won't use their skills as intended. Especially in melee combat.
• Fixed a potential cause for enemies getting stacked upon each other. (May not be 100% fixed yet)
• Fixed various locales.
• The feedback form now allows copy & paste, so it's much easier for you to copy your kind words over to the Steam review box ;)

[ 2023-03-10 15:06:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! This is the next big chapter for Of Blades & Tails, which expands on the story, world map, and adds a lot of new content to the game. Please refer to the last preview post to learn more about the new content and how the added mechanics work.

Changelog v0.14.0

Story & Quests

• The story quest Of Rats & Ferrets has been fully added.
• You can now become a member of the Adventurers Guild.
• A secret has been added that reveals more lore about the human history.

Game World

• The game world has been expanded to the east.
• A new region has been added: The Haunted Forest This region also features a new mechanic where you will get haunted by spirits the longer you walk into the forest.
• A new region has been added: The Southern Swamp
• 2 new dungeons have been added.
• An overworld encounter has been added: Ancient Sentinel
• A new faction with unique enemies has been added: Cultists
• New locations have been added: Cultist Camps
• A new faction with unique enemies has been added: Spirits
• New location has been added: River Crossing / Guarded Bridge
• New location has been added: Twisted Twig Inn
• New POI has been added to several areas: Altar of Fortune
• New POI has been added to several areas: Sprout of the Golden Tree

Items & Equipment

• Upgraded items can now get downgraded again using the newly added Orb of Modesty. This also returns the spent Orb(s) of Magnificence.
• A legendary treasure map has been added.
• New legendary items have been added.
• New consumable item added: Potion of Elemental Resistance
• New consumable item added: Potion of Magical Resistance
• New consumable item added: Juice of the Golden Tree
• New consumable item added: Cheap Swill
• Other items have been added.

Talents & Abilities

• New abilities have been added to One-Handed, Ranged Weapons and Polearms. (They require expertise to learn them.)
• Shield Block is now instant, but damage mitigation has been set to 75% and it now has a 2 turns cooldown.

UI, Controls & Accessibility

• Skill bar has been reworked: You now have access to 2x5 skill slots and they are swapped based on your current weapon set.
• An additional quick item slot has been added.
• NPCs/enemies that are not visible will mostly complete their action instantly now, to avoid unnecessary delays to the global turn system when enemy factions are engaging with each other.
• Defeated sentinels are tracked in game statistics.

Balancing

• A reset at the Shrine of Oblivion now always requires an Orb. It's not possible to just have it reset your level experience anymore. Additionally you can now find 2 Orbs of Oblivion at the first shrine you visit.
• Traps are now harder to detect, but do slightly less damage.
• Reduced the amount of restored stamina for One-Handed and Polearms training perk.
• The amount of exp required for leveling up on higher levels has been slightly increased.
• The amount of exp you receive for defeating enemies on a lower level than yourself has been reduced.
• Increased the stamina cost of the Grappling Hook.

Achievements

These 5 achievements have been added:

• The Good Stuff
• Diminisher
• Lore Master
• Fearless Adventurer
• Fearless Cult Buster

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with 'Hold to Move' option and instant skills that cause movement.
• Fixed an issue when player wants to sell an item but has no money stack in their inventory yet.
• Several smaller fixes.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.13.x are largely compatible. This is what you need to know:

• Your abilities will be reset. You need to redistribute them.
• The Quest Of Rats & Ferrets will be reset.
• The bonfire near the Church Ruins has been removed. You will spawn in the top left corner of this area, if this was your last save spot.

[hr][/hr]

What's next

I'm already working on the Beastmastery and Engineering talents! So that's something that will most likely be ready in March as well. Besides other QoL improvements and smaller features that I can implement along the way. If you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :) Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-03-01 12:59:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! We're happy to announce that Steam Community Items for Of Blades & Tails are finally here! With that being said you can now load up the game and have a chance to receive a trading card drop. Collect your trading cards to receive cool badges and profile backgrounds that you can then show off on your profile. Here's a preview of some of the trading cards you can get:
We have also dropped profile backgrounds and emoticons but we will let you discover them on your own! Please don't forget to show us your customized profiles and those beautiful badges. We would love to see them! Best regards, Felix & Pineapple Works

[ 2023-02-22 15:39:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! In this preview post I want to share more details of what I'm working on right now and what you can expect not only for the next update but also for the months to come! We've got a few things to cover, so let's get started :)

World Expansion

First of all I want to tell you more about the upcoming world expansion. It will be part of Update 0.14 and introduce the Haunted Forest and Southern Swamp regions. The Home of the Deer Tribe will already be part of the map but not yet accessible. It will get introduced in a separate update, same as the other displayed regions on the map below.
The new swamp area will feature tall (new) mushroom trees, which we of course all love since the dawn of Morrowind ;) It contains a dungeon and new legendary rewards. The Haunted Forest is a dark and spooky area, occupied by cultists and summoned spirits. It also introduces a new overworld mechanic which I'll explain below. The new regions will be based on existing biomes, but I try my best to add enough variety to them so that they still feel fresh when you first visit them.

Story and Main Quests

In Update 0.14 you will be able to advance further in the story line. However, I want to point out that I divided Story and Main quest in two different branches. It's just a subtle change that you may not even notice, but if you want to read more about my reasoning here we go: When I started Of Blades & Tails I knew I wanted it to be a game that quickly delivers the main plot and target destination to the player, so you don't have to play through a bunch of story quests in order to "beat the game". Instead you could focus on the core gameplay (combat, character development, exploration) if you want to. So the game's basically saying: "There's where you need to go eventually, good luck!", and with that the player is free to roam. (Well, at least you have to complete the first quest and find Aro. But I hope you get the idea anyways ;) ) Now the Story Quests on the other hand will be for players that enjoy storytelling along their journey and want a bit more guidance. They will lead you through the world and also ensure you will obtain certain items that will make beating the game easier! I believe this separation will also make sense for everyone who starts a second or even third playthrough, where you aren't required to play through all the story quests if you already know them. So what actually changed in the game? TL;DR the quest Of Rats & Ferrets that sends you to Immerfurt and the following quest(s) are all part of the story line. The Main Quest is Over Hill and Dale and sends you directly to the Great Lair. Eventually the story line will join in with the Main Quest. Okay... Lots of text. I hope you found it interesting enough :) Let's have some screenshots now!

The Haunted Forest

As mentioned before, the Haunted Forest will be part of Update 0.14 and it will be a much darker area than what we've had in the game so far.
The area also introduces two new factions: Cultists and Spirits They both are allies but are hostile to all other factions in the game. So you can expect to see plants and insects having smaller skirmishes with them as you explore the forest. Besides an eerie atmosphere and dangerous enemies I also implemented a new overworld mechanic for this zone. I don't have a cool marketing name, so I just call it the "Haunted Feature"! (Same as in the code actually, because naming things is hard...)
As you stroll through this area, you will inevitably incur the displeasure of the spirits that haunt it. This will be visualized by a larger spirit sprite that floats along your left or right screen edges. After some time more spirits will join in, up until 4 of them. A vignette effect will continously darken the corners of the screen as well. Now it's definitely time for you to find and activate one of the Light Pools that are placed throughout the forest. Activating a Light Pool will dispel all spirits that are currently haunting you and also damage all spirit enemies around you by 50%. If you don't make it to a Light Pool in time, the 4 spirits will "spawn" right next to you and hopefully give you a hard time, since especially a pack of them is designed to be pretty hard ;) My intention is to make travelling through the Haunted Forest a more intense experience than previous areas. Also there is no bonfire inside the forest, so if you don't make it through it by using the Light Pool mechanic (or being very powerful?), you'll have to start over at the beginning. Little bit of a mini-roguelike experience if you want. But Of Blades & Tails wouldn't be an accessible game that rewards exploration if there weren't things that could make your forest crossing easier... And I don't necessarily mean this one thing that already can be found in the game ;) So yeah, it's a new mechanic. I hope you like it and enjoy the challenge. If not we'll work on it until it's great! In that regard I'm really looking forward to your feedback.

Reworked Skill Bar & Slots

Another highly requested feature that will make it into Update 0.14 is weapon set based skill bars, or simply put: More skill slots! Instead of the current 6 skill slots total, you'll be able to use 2x5 slots. The skill bars are swapped based on the weapon set that you're using. A button to switch the weapon set has been added to the bar as well.
This gives access to a total of 10 skills during combat. I do believe this should be enough to make use of most (if not all) skills in a specific talent line and still requires players to choose their loadout carefully. It also encourages to use different weapon types. Additionally one more quick item slot has been added as well.

Item Downgrading

Yes, you will be able to downgrade your items if they became too powerful and you started hurting yourself!
Jokes aside, this is the way to reclaim already spent Orbs of Magnificence, if you want to use them on a different item. As you may know Orbs of Magnificence are very limited, but you should still be able to experiment with new and old equipment. Therefore Orbs of Modesty will be added. You can find them throughout the world and also for defeating specific bosses. Those encounters can be repeated as often as you want for as many Orbs as you need. Which leads to ...

New Overworld Encounter: Ancient Sentinel

Ancient Sentinels are very hard bosses, that can be encountered at specific spots in the overworld. They have a new Defensive State, which means they won't attack you on sight, unless they feel threatened and/or you stay in their territory for too long. This way you hopefully won't start a fight with them by accident. Another new mechanic is that Sentinels have a random set of skills that they use. They have like 8 skills in total and select 4 of them randomly when they spawn. This way it should always be a bit of a surprise how they will engage in combat and also make repeating encounters more interesting. They can also have slightly different appearances each time.

New Locations (in Old Places)

Update 0.14 will also introduce new (small) locations that won't be marked on your map! You can only discover them by careful exploration.
They will reward you with small bonusses to your character stats or very handy consumable items. However, they are completely optional side locations. Therefore similar to Spider Nests, they won't mess up your world map with ?-icons. Even though you may want to find them all, once you stumpled upon one ;) As the headline indicates, they can already be found in the starting area and forward. Oh, before I forget: New secrets and lore around humanity will be added as well!

Updated Roadmap 2023

I want to use this post to revisit the Roadmap and give you a better idea of what's already done and what's coming in the future.
As you can see Winter is already done. Parts of the Spring/Summer content will be implemented in Update 0.14, including first quests for the Adventurers Guild.

Future Talents

New talents won't make it in this update. They will be part of a separate update that won't focus on world expansion. You can also see that a pure Summoning talent maybe won't make it in. You will be able to summon minions, that's for sure! As a matter of fact that's already something you'll be able to do in Update 0.14..... Even without a new talent... But enough of the teasing! Most likely there's gonna be a new magic-based talent that also contains one or two summoning skills. I just have to figure out what makes the most sense and offers enough overall utility for magic players. Talking about utility: Engineering is something I've had in mind now for some time. Actually since I added the Portable Dummy to the game :) This talent will evolve around putting together gadgets like turrets and other placeable utility objects (like the dummy). It will most likely be a supporting talent for stamina-based play styles.

Future World Expansions

I also want to share how I want to divide future world expansions during Early Access.
As I mentioned in one of the last posts, creating world content is the most time consuming part. It is probably also the hardest part when moving forward, because there's so much stuff to consider to make it fresh and interesting and still working together with content and mechanics that already exist in the game. However, it's very rewarding to see the world growing! That being said, I think it makes sense for me to divide world expansions in smaller parts and alternate between them and other updates. Other updates may introduce new systems/mechanics or add new talents for example. I have ideas for a reasonable crafting system, but I need to get Update 0.14 out before I can focus on it or even share details with you... Stay tuned please :)

Support for Additional Languages

Last but not least I think it's safe to say that new languages will be added to the game in the near future! This has been made possible by the amazing members of our community Discord server. Portuguese (Brazil), Finnish, and Turkish are already in a very good shape and should be available soon! Please keep in mind that these translations are entirely managed by the community, so it's likely that after an update there will be strings missing and still appear in English (default fallback) or that they contain smaller issues. If you'd like to help out with translating the game to your language, please join our Discord server and let us know.

Update 0.14 when?

After this rather long post, I keep this section short: Early March :) I hope you're happy with the things I introduced in this preview post and I would love to read your thoughts in the comments. Until next time, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-02-15 13:26:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a small update that adds a few quality of life improvements and fixes some minor issues.

• Added an option for "Hold to move", which allows you to keep walking to the direction where your mouse pointer is, as long as you press/hold LMB.
• Added a keybinding for Shovel usage (default: X).
• Added MMB as action to reset the camera.
• The skill Staff Thrust now requires a valid target, so you cannot execute it by accident anymore.
• Fixed an issue when selling an equipped item from the inactive weapon set.
• The quest item for the Thief in Immerfurt gets now correctly removed upon quest completion.
• Fixed a bug that triggered the "Off the Shelf" Achievement, when taking items from the player stash.
• Fixed some locales.

I'll be back next week with a preview post on the next big update that is in the works right now! :)

[ 2023-02-07 12:56:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! The next update for Of Blades & Tails is here and it adds Treasure Hunt as a new side activity, changes how health recovery works, rewards experience for exploration, and more! Click on the links on top to learn more about how the new mechanics work :)

Changelog v0.13.0

Treasure Hunt

You can now collect Map Fragments across the world and take them to a Cartographer who assembles a Treasure Map for you. The map contains clues on where in the world you can dig up a treasure chest, which contains new kinds of rewards.

• New Cartographer NPCs have been added to all settlements. They should be the first stop to learn more about this activity.
• New items were added for this feature: Shovel, Map Fragment, Treasure Map
• You can now dig in the soil with a Shovel.
• A new Help topic on Treasure Hunt has been added.
• New statistic for Found Treasures has been added.
• 3 achievements have been added.

Items & Equipment

• New equippable item added: Talisman They can be found as reward for a treasure hunt.
• New item mods have been added for Talismans, that can affect a talent's SP/MP cost, cooldowns and efficiency.
• An average equipment level indicator has been added to the inventory view (top left).
• New potions have been added: Small Health Potion, Small Stamina Potion, Small Mana Potion

Game World

• You will now receive Exp for discovering a new location.
• You will now receive Exp for gathering herbs and similar resources.
• You will receive Exp for a successful treasure hunt.

Health Recovery & Balancing

• You now always regenerate up to 35% health when out of combat. (50% health in the Relaxed game mode.)
• Medicinal Herbs now heal 20% instantly when consumed and will slowly (5% per turn) regenerate up to 100% when out of combat. This effect will last for around 200 turns. You won't be able to consume another Medicinal Herb while this effect lasts. Instead you can consume a potion for another in-combat burst heal.
• The amount of Medicinal Herbs that can be found in other cases than gathering has been slightly reduced. This is due to the fact that you simply won't require as much of them as before.
• Recovery Herbs will regenerate 10% health for 10 turns, in and outside of combat. Similar to Medicinal Herbs you can only consume one at a time,
• Starting items in the Fox Village have been adjusted for an easier start.
• Some active abilities in the mid and end of each talent line have been slightly adjusted in terms of SP/MP cost, cooldowns, and their duration.
• Added a max player level cap of 20.

Fixes

• Improved inventory performance. (Picking up items that do not stack may still cause small lags if you carry many items with you, but I'm working on that as well.)
• Fixed a bug where the thief in Immerfurt could get stuck on his nightly foray.
• Fixed a problem where spider hatchlings attacked turrets in dungeon trap rooms. They will now ignore turrets but are still hostile to the player and other bandits.
• Fixed an issue with doubled attribute stat application after upgrade of an already equipped item.
• Fixed a potential issue with enemy pathing in alert state after knockback.
• Fixed a problem with the reward of the herb delivery quest in Immerfurt.
• Fixed item upgrade view on ultra widescreens.
• Fixed a few locales.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.12.x are compatible. [hr][/hr]

What's next

I think it's time to expand the game world and add more general content like quests, new locations, factions and secrets. It will probably take a bit longer before this update will be ready since working on new content is the most time consuming part. I will try extracting some things into smaller updates inbetween, like new talent lines for example, but I can't promise at this point. I will get back to you in an upcoming preview post and tell you more about the new contents that await our hero. If you want to join any discussions about the ongoing development, I'd love to welcome you on our Discord server. Until then, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2023-01-10 14:02:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a situation were chests (and other containers) won't respawn if you get defeated after opening them, but did not loot their content.

If you ran into this problem: The related items in the container will still be gone even after the patch. But the problem is fixed for future playthroughs. Sorry for the trouble.

[ 2023-01-03 07:58:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy New Year everyone! In this preview post I want to share more details about the upcoming Treasure Hunt activity. My plan is to add more side activities to the game and this should hopefully make up for a good start. Treasure Hunt should reward exploration and awareness. You have to carefully look out for buried stashes across the overworld. So if you've already had a hard time spotting medicinal herbs, this might not be for you ;) On the other hand Treasure Hunt is completely optional and not required to beat the game. However, there might be some interesting rewards waiting for the perceptive explorer! Let's take a closer look!

Meet the Cartographer

If you want to become a successful Treasure Hunter you need to meet one of the new Cartographer NPCs. They can be found in all settlements and provide you with everything you need to get started... Which is a decent Shovel in the first place!

Start Digging

Once you bought your shovel you can set out to find buried stashes, which can be digged up and have a good chance (>50%) to contain Map Fragments. You need at least 3 of those fragments and hand them over to the cartographer who will be able to assemble a Treasure Map for you.
The more fragments you use, the higher the chance to get a high quality map, which also leads to a better reward at the end.

An X marks the Spot

With the assembled Treasure Map in your inventory you can always bring it up to get clues on where the treasure can be found. The map contains the related world map coordinate and a drawing of a formation in the environment. The rough position where you have to dig with your shovel is also marked with an X. Your task is to find this formation in the area!
The formations are all created by hand, so you won't end up looking for a random formation in a randomly generated level. This proved to be very hard to track ;) So instead the system picks one of several unique formations for the related biome. Some will be slightly harder to find then others, but all in all it should never become unfair or tedious.

New Rewards await the lucky Treasure Hunter

The biggest challenge for me when developing this new activity was to find an incentive for all players to grab their shovel and start collecting map fragments :) So I came up with a new type of item that you can only find in buried treasure chests: Talismans. They can be equipped to a new talisman slot and will provide unique bonusses for talents and can also affect the quality of loot you can find.
The image shows a level 4, uncommon quality Talisman, which can be considered an early game item. With increased levels (based on the location it is found) and higher quality (luck or affected by the new quality bonus) you can find Talismans that can heavily improve your preferred build. With the next update you'll also receive experience points for successful treasure hunts and for discovering new locations.

When?

It will be available within the next 2 weeks. All features are ready and I'm only testing and tweaking a few stats right now. Also I probably want to add the changes to health recovery as well in this next update. Any way, it won't take too long :) If you enjoyed your time with Of Blades & Tails during the holidays, you may want to consider writing a short review on Steam. It helps a lot to increase the game's visibility. I'm wishing you all a wonderful and healthy new year! Cheers Felix

[ 2023-01-01 11:01:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a potential freeze related to unmoveable enemy in alert state.
• Fixed a bug where an enemy could target a same faction ally.
• Fixed healing plants not healing their allies properly.

[ 2022-12-30 12:56:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I wanted to share my thoughts about changes to the health recovery in the game. As I already stated here and there, I'm not 100% happy with how the current health recovery works. I agree with your feedback that it can lead to an inflationary use of consumables (medicinal herbs), especially early on in the game. Reik should not require to consume loads of medicinal herbs in and outside of combat. Even though I showed that you can play through the first quest without using any herbs at all (and with only reasonable stops at the bonfires ;)), I agree that the current healing/recovery system is not ideal. So with your feedback in mind I thought about how the system can be changed to make it feel less tedious. Here's what I came up with so far:

• You will always regenerate up to 50% health when out of combat.
• Med herbs will heal 25% instantly when consumed and will slowly (10%/turn) regenerate up to 100% when out of combat. This effect will last for around 200 turns. You won't be able to consume a new med herb while the effect lasts.
• Recovery herbs will regenerate 10% health for 10 turns, in and outside of combat.
• The current health potion stays as is.
• New small variants of potions will be added for health, stamina and mana: They recover 25% instantly and 5% for 5 turns, in and outside of combat.
• More herbs and a few small health potions will be available during the start of the game. Even though you won't require that much med herbs anymore, since you can only use 1 every 200 turns.

So on the bottom line: You will get a steady health regeneration outside of combat, BUT you will most likely get less instant heal for free (potions don't grow in the wilds ;))! I hope that these changes will make the combat and resource management more interesting. Please know that these ideas are all theoretical and I have to actually implement and test them first. And please share your thoughts in the comments and let me know if this feels like the right changes to you. Thanks everyone! :) Cheers Felix

[ 2022-12-29 09:36:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug where the effects of Icy Pillar were not applied correctly on enemies.
• Fixed a bug where the drowning damage from water tiles was not applied correctly on enemies.

[ 2022-12-27 07:55:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug with the persistence of objects like chests and enemies near previously cleared bonfires.

Please note: After this patch those objects may still appear, but after you loot / defeat them once more, they should stay disabled. Sorry for trouble. At least some of you now have almost infinite amounts of learning points and upgrade orbs to mess around with...

[ 2022-12-18 16:45:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! The next update for Of Blades & Tails is here and it implements Achievements and an all-new Statistics screen.

Changelog v0.12.0

Achievements

17 Achievements have been added to the game. A full list can be found here: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/1768780/achievements There are Achievements that will unlock as you play, some require a bit of grinding, and others require you to collect legendary items. There is also a combat challenge "Fearless Rookie", for the bravest foxes among you. Please note: Achievements that are related to player level, quests, or defeated enemy count will unlock once you continue any existing savegame. Others require you to repeat a specific action, even though you may have done so already. More Achievements will be added in the future!

Game Statistics

20 Statistics are now tracked per playthrough.

• Number of turns passed
• Distance travelled
• Spots discovered
• Number of own defeats
• Defeated enemies
• Biggest enemy defeated
• Hunted wildlife
• Most used weapon
• Skill execution count
• Most used skill #1
• Most used skill #2
• Most used skill #3
• Highest outgoing damage
• Highest incoming damage
• Destroyed containers
• Looted items
• Gathered herbs
• Used items
• Highest fortune (coins)
• Coins spent

You can find the Game Statistics under your Character tab and then the third icon on the left.

Balancing

• The skill Block in the Shields talent line now reduces 90% of the incoming damage (instead of 50%). This should make it much more useful, even though it still costs 1 turn.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.11.x are compatible. [hr][/hr]

What's next

I already started working on a new side activity: Treasure Hunting It will introduce fragments of treasure maps, that you can find or buy at specific NPCs. Once you have a minimum amount of those fragments you can put them together to a map that gives you a hint on where in the world a treasure chest is buried and waiting for you. Then you grab your shovel, try to find that location and start digging in the right spot... where you hopefully will find treasure and new loot ;) Once I have more of the base mechanics ready, I will share it with you here in another preview post. Until then, take care everyone and enjoy your holidays! Felix

[ 2022-12-15 13:15:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

• A problem has been fixed that caused the game to crash on Linux/SteamOS and macOS.

[ 2022-12-09 20:01:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! The first content update is now ready and I'm excited to share all the changes that come along with it. If you want to learn more about the new Stealth mechanics and improved enemy behavior, please read the preview post. In addition to that, Of Blades & Tails is now on a 15% discount during the Turn Based Fest!

Changelog v0.11.0

Talents & Abilities

• A new talent line has been added: Stealth Including 3 active skills and 4 perks.
• Added a skill that can distract enemies and force them to change their position.
• Added a skill that allows to become invisible for a few turns and lose enemy attention.
• Added a perk that reveals the line of sight of an enemy.
• A new Visibility stat has been added to the player.

Enemy AI

• Enemies can now enter Alert State if they get distracted by something or get alarmed by a nearby ally.
• An enemy will no alarm nearby allies if they enter combat state. (No more sniping a single enemy from a far without consequences ;) )
• All enemies now belong to one of the following factions: Bandits, Insects, Plants
• Insects and Plants will now attack Bandits and vice versa if they encounter each other.

Game World

• A new stealth-based quest has been added to Immerfurt.
• New items have been added to the stock of some merchants (see below).

Items & Equipment

• A new legendary item has been added.
• A Portable Dummy (useable item) has been added that can distract nearby enemies.
• An Adrenalin Potion has been added that resets all remaining cooldowns.
• An Invisibility Potion has been added that allows the player to become invisible.
• A Scroll of Fireball (consumable item) has been added.
• A Scroll of Teleportation (consumable item) has been added.
• A Toxic Spore (consumable item) has been added that can be dropped by Explosive Growths.

Misc

• Fixed a potential crash in relation with dungeon levers and secret walls.
• The feedback form will now open again upon exiting the game.
• Godot Engine has been upgraded to 3.5.1
• Implemented a new Steamworks integration.
• A few minor fixes and balancing changes along the way.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from version 0.10.x are compatible. [hr][/hr]

What's next

Next up will be the addition of Steam achievements and an all-new game statistics screen, where you'll find stats like "Defeated enemies", "Highest damage", "Discovered locations", "Looted items" and many more! Expect this to be out within the next two weeks. Cheers Felix

[ 2022-12-08 14:03:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Good day everyone! It's the beginning of the new week and today we are happy to announce that Of Blades & Tails has been selected for the very first Turn Based Fest coming up this week! On December 8th - 12th you will have a chance to check out over 100 turn-based titles, thanks to the TurnBasedThurs team that has put a lot of work into making this massive festival that celebrates all kinds of turn-based video games happen! Our already announced Stealth Update will also make it just in time and will be available on December 8th.
We hope you are as excited for the new content as we are! So mark your calendars and we will see you for the event with a fresh update!
Cheers, Felix & Pineapple Works

[ 2022-12-05 14:06:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Two weeks have past since Of Blades & Tails launched into Early Access! Four minor patches already found their way into the game, adding a bunch of QoL improvements and a few fixes. Before we dig into the upcoming content, I want to thank everyone who took the time and wrote a review on Steam! It's very much appreciated and already helps a lot to reach more players! So if you haven't done so yet, please consider writing a review. Even a few words will already do just fine! <3 I believe it's a good time now to give you all an idea of what I have planned for the first content update and how some of the new mechanics are going to work. So the first update is about stealth mechanics and improved enemy behavior. It also builds the ground for future talents like Beastmastery or Summoning!

Enemy Sight

Knowing the area that an enemy overlooks plays an important role when it comes to Stealth-based abilities. Therefore a perk will be available that reveals the enemy's sight on hover. This allows you to observe the area in which an enemy can detect you.
There will also be a new stat Visibility, that starts by 100% and by progressing the Steath talent line you'll be able to reduce it, which essentially reduces the range at which enemies can detect you.

Distraction and Enemy Alert State

Enemies will enter an alert state if they got distracted by something or if a nearby ally enters combat! So that also means pulling out single targets from a bandit camp will become much harder, but also more immersive. You will also be able to throw objects near enemies to lure them away or ...
(Please ignore the green mess after the explosion. Bug in my gif recording software.) ... to lure some hungry crawlers right into a camp of bandits! As you can see both targets (Poison Bee and Bandit Warrior) are inside the affected area of the Distraction Throw ability. So both enter the alert state and start to check where this noise is coming from by moving towards the origin. If they see each other, they enter combat state and start to fight, while Reik keeps hiding in the back and waits for his opportunity... You can also see that an Insect Drone follows after the Bee, even though it was outside the noise area. This happens because the Drone got alarmed by the Bee as she entered combat state with the Bandit. To give a little more detail how this works: All enemies are assigned to a faction and they will chose their next target based on their standing with that faction. (Now please don't expect any overly complicated reputation system or something :D) For now at least, this faction system says that Bandits are hostile against Insects and Plants. Insects and Plants on the other hand are neutral to each other. They won't fight themselves, but they also won't "support" each other. If they see a Bandit however, they will go all in :) New factions might be added in the future.

The True Stealth Ability

Of course the one ability that every stealth gameplay needs will also be available: Vanish! You'll be able to disappear from the battlefield for a couple of turns and any enemy that was in combat with you will enter alert state. You can now decide whether you want to retreat or just reposition to use a sneaky attack with increased damage while undetected ;)
Or imagine what might happen if you run into a bandit camp with a bunch of crawlers in your back and then you suddenly disappear..? Fun stuff probably! :D I'm also working on a new type of item, that could make a great addition to stealth gameplay and distraction in general...

When?

Soon! But on a more serious note: Most of the mechanics shown here are in a good shape and already available for internal testing. I have still some more ideas around content that could be added along these new features, like a new quest, more items, and a few surprises maybe... :) So I'll take some time to work on these things as well. I'm planning to have the Stealth Update ready early December. Until then, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2022-11-03 15:57:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added a "Take all" functionality for loot. You can now press F to take all items. Also a button for this appears in the loot popup if there are more than 2 items on the ground.
• A keybinding for "Take all" has been added to the options menu.
• Your total money is now always visible in the inventory view. (The item entry for money has been removed.)
• The feedback form can now be accessed through a dedicated button in the main menu.
• Fixed a display issue with fog of war in the overview mode.
• Fixed a potential with issue the mages guild entrance quest reward.
• Fixed an issue with Narn repeating his dialog when trying to exit with ESC.

[ 2022-10-28 09:21:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another patch with more requested Quality of Life improvements and a potential fix for the "soft freeze" issue :)

• Added an item compare switch when you hold RMB. It will then show the info popup of the item that is currently equipped in the same slot. This should already ease the process of item comparison, but I'm still looking into ways to add a side-by-side view. However, positioning it properly is tricky.
• Attribute increases during level up now also change all related stats (immediately), giving you a better idea of what affects what.
• Added an Unstuck-Button to the game menu (ESC). This addresses an issue that a few players have reported, when they found themselve being unable to move or perform any action, even though the game was still running fine. If you experience such a problem in the future, please open the menu and click the button. Let me know in the feedback form or in the comments below if it helped!

v0.10.3a

• Added more situations that the Unstuck-Button can resolve.

[ 2022-10-25 14:21:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added an extra skill slot and made some minor adjustments to the player bar layout.
• Remember item type in quick slots, so they auto-refill even if your stack ran out.
• Automatically assign the first picked up consumable to a quick slot during the introduction level.
• Limited the spitting plant reproduction to 2, but also decrease their reproduction cooldown from 6 to 5. So they spawn new plants a bit faster but won't spawn anymore than 2 offsprings.
• Adjusted position of Hunter's Trap sprite on ground.
• Fixed a crash when picking up an item during level transition.
• Fixed a potential issue with mages guild entrance quest when game gets auto-saved after completion.
• Fixed a typo in Mana Shield description.
• Fixed persistence of chest reward in tower ruins dungeon.

[ 2022-10-23 18:18:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here's a first patch that incorporates some of the early feedback I got. I'm still digging through hundreds of emails from the in-game feedback form, so bear with me :) I read it all, (almost) everywhere, but it takes some time...

• Resource values (HP/SP/MP) are now shown on the player bar if their value drops below 80%.
• Fog of war exploration (black areas in overview mode) are now persisted during the game session or until defeat.
• Reik is now displayed barefoot if not wearing any shoes/boots.
• Renamed talent Staves -> Polearms, and staff weapons -> Quarterstaff
• Toolkits have now a description for their purpose.
• The Shredding Cleaver also has a better description now.
• Added a kind hint to the feedback form :)
• Fixed some translations.

A gentle reminder: If you want to support the game, please consider writing a short review here on Steam. It helps a lot to increase the game's visibility! Thank you!

Hotfix 0.10.1a

• Fixed an issue with fog of war in dungeons.
• Erna now remembers the correct name of her fellow blacksmith.

[ 2022-10-21 13:59:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! The Early Access version is just around the corner and I'm beyond excitement to read what you all think of it. But first of all, I hope you enjoy your adventure as much as I enjoy developing it! Below you can find a list of all the (important) changes and improvements compared to the Demo version. (Please note: The Demo will be disabled once the game goes live.) I've also prepared a roadmap with my plans for future updates! Of course it's only complete if your feedback is incorporated, so please let me know what you want for the future Of Blades & Tails. Either in the Steam discussions or preferably on our Discord Server. One request in advance: If you enjoy the game, please consider writing a review. This will increase its reach on Steam and allow more players to learn about Of Blades & Tails. Thank you! <3

Changelog v0.10.0

General

• A new Game Mode has been added: Relaxed (easy difficulty)
• Multiple Save Slots have been enabled. (You can now safely start a 'New Game' and then later select the slot upon 'Continue'.)
• Fixed issues with localization.
• Fixed countless minor bugs.

Game World

• The game world has been expanded. (It's roughly 2.5x the size of the previous demo.)
• A new biome has been added: The Swamp.
• New quests and unique locations have been added.
• Fast travel has been enabled.
• Added a new major settlement: Immerfurt, the home of rats and ferrets.
• The Mages Guild has been added.
• 10 new enemy types have been added.
• More destructible containers have been added.
• New types of vegetation have been added.
• New music tracks have been added.

Items & Equipment

• Armor parts are now visible on the player character.
• Armor classes have been added: Light, Medium, Heavy
• You can now upgrade your equipment at the new Shrine of Magnificence.
• 5 legendary items have been added, each with a unique ability.
• Added a Player Stash Container in every major settlement to store your too-good-to-be-sold items.
• New consumable items have been added.
• Items can now grant an experience bonus.
• Item icons have been reworked.
• Every weapon base attack now has a unique set of effects or damage type.

Talents & Abilities

• New talent line: Elemental Magic
• New talent line: Arcane Magic
• New talent line: Dirty Tricks
• Some abilities now require Expertise to unlock them. (You'll be able to gain expertise through loot/rewards.)
• New Perk in Athletics allows to switch between weapon sets instantly.
• Shield talent line and Block skill has been adjusted.

UI, Controls & Accessibility

• Reworked in-game help with various topics.
• Better introduction to game mechanics from the start.
• It's now possible to view details of an enemy, such as behavior and active effects.
• You can now move the camera by holding RMB or MMB. (Scrolling on screen edges has been removed.)
• Indicating non-verbal actions in dialog texts has been changed. (*Emotes* have been removed.)
• Added an UI animation to better indicate journal updates.
• You can now change the game language in the options menu.
• You can now decide to decline a side quest.
• Improved line of sight feedback for range attacks.
• Numpad support for diagonal movement has been added.

Balancing

• A weak form of enemy level scaling has been added. (You can still out-level enemies and become the strongest fox in town.)
• Enemies with a much lower level than the player now have a reduced aggro range.
• Giant Spiders got nerfed.
• Rebalanced enemy stats on higher levels.

Savegame Compatibility

Savegames from Demo version 0.5.x should remain largely* compatible. However, it's recommended to start a new game in order to give proper feedback. *Known issues:

• You will have to redistribute your attribute and ability points.
• You will only see visible armor parts on your character sprite with newly gathered items, not with your current equipment from old saves.
• Enemies at previously cleared bonfire locations (like bandit camps) might have respawned. If your last place of retreat is at such a location, then you will have a hard time, since you cannot redistribute your abilitiy points with enemies nearby. You can either try to run away or fight without abilities. Check the items in your inventory. Especially Spider Secretion Bags might save your day!

[hr][/hr]

Roadmap

I will get into some of the ideas in an upcoming post. Also depending on player feedback the priorities might change :)

Thank you!

To everyone who stayed with me on the game over the last months (or even years): Thank you so much for your support and your feedback. I really hope you see in the changelog that it was not only appreciated but also found its way into the game, making it a better experience for everyone now. Let's keep it coming and together let's make Of Blades & Tails an even better turn-based Action-RPG during Early Access! :) Cheers Felix

[ 2022-10-18 10:28:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I'm very excited to finally (and officially) announce that Of Blades & Tails will launch into Steam Early Access on October 19, 2022. If you followed the last dev logs you know that there's a huge amount of new content coming along with it. The world map of the EA release version will be 2.5x the size of the demo. But of course size alone doesn't matter: There are new quests, new talents, new enemies, a new biome, secret locations, a few mysteries to solve and definitely a bunch of fresh legendary items to loot! To celebrate, we've put together a new trailer that gives you a glimpse of what to expect ;) [previewyoutube=eqSazeJhdHc;full][/previewyoutube] I hope you like this little insight and that you will join us at the start of Early Access! In fact, you can still play the demo now if you haven't yet and then take over your progress into the main game. (You will have to redistribute attributes and abilities, though). Expect more information about Early Access within the next weeks! Until then, you're very welcome to join our growing (> 120!) Discord community and discuss tactics or share one or the other treasure location...
Stay tuned! Felix

[ 2022-09-22 14:33:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! This month's dev log didn't quite make it in August, so here we are with a few days delay! :) First of all I'm very happy to announce that I've teamed up with Pineapple Works as a publishing partner and together we'll be releasing Of Blades & Tails on Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles in 2023! They will also support me in marketing, QA, localization and more! But our next major milestone remains the EA launch some time in October! Speaking of which, I've been working on new content and mechanics over the past weeks and want to share some of them with you now. Let's take a look!

New Talents: Arcane Magic & Dirty Tricks

In one of the last dev logs I showed you the Elemental Magic talent line, which focuses on delayed elemental damage and damage over time. In addition to that comes Arcane Magic which contains burst damage and a few utility spells, including a mana shield! Minor perks in this talent will increase your max. mana.
Dirty Tricks also found their way into the game, which (for now) includes 3 abilities that require expertise to unlock them. They can be used with all weapon types and are designed to be a supportive complement to other talents. The minor perks will increase your critical damage.
Oh, before I forget: There's gonna be a new perk in the Athletics talent that allows you to switch weapon sets without losing a turn ;)

New Quests, Secrets and Legendary Rewards!

I spend a lot of time creating new content, like quests, secrets/puzzles, new locations and enemies... Primarily in the swamp region and around Immerfurt. The image below shows a treant ritual site.

Upgrade your Items

A new mechanic to upgrade your beloved items will also be introduced with the EA version. To make this work, you'll need an Orb of Magnificence and use them at the new Shrine of Magnificence. Upgrading an item will boost all its stats by 50%, including the level requirement. The first upgrade costs 1 Orb and the second costs 2 Orbs, and so on...
The amount of Orbs in the game will be limited, so you should think carefully about which items you want to upgrade. (Yes, you can and probably want to upgrade your legendary items! :) )

More Destructibles and Gatherable Items

New kinds of herbs and shrooms have been added as well. Most notable is the Recovery Herb, which lasts 200 turns and will automatically recover your health up to 65% when you're not in combat. Manashrooms can be gathered now and are used to restore your mana.
You can also find new destructible containers around the overworld which have a chance to drop all sorts of gatherable items and other nice things...

More Help Topics

Last but not least, all important game mechanics are now covered in the help section that can be accessed through the game menu (and various tutorial popups).

[hr][/hr] And that's it for the moment! But I'll most likely be back in two weeks with an Early Access release date and maybe also a new trailer! If you want to support the development with your feedback and get access to an EA preview build, you can join our growing Discord community and give me a hint.
Until then, take care everyone! Felix

[ 2022-09-04 13:03:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Another month of development ends and I want to give you an update about the things I've been working on. Before we get to the actual new game content featuring the titular rats and ferrets, let's take a look at some new and updated systems.

Game Modes

As mentioned last month I spent some thoughts on how to implement difficulty levels. I'm happy that I already managed to implement a first version of this feature upon starting a new game.
As you can see there will be 3 game modes in total: Relaxed, Adventure and Challenge. Relaxed: You start with more health, deal more damage, and receive significantly more experience points. Adventure: This is basically the original experience without modifiers. Challenge: Wont be available any time soon, but I'm open for ideas here! Maybe this introduces some kind of death penalty as well.

Multiple Save Slots

While working on the new game modes I figured it would be also a good time to finally implement support of multiple save slots. So now when you select "New Game" from the main menu it will automatically create a new savegame and you can then select the slot when you "Continue".

Improved Introduction & Help Menu

Another important feature on my feedback list was the overhaul of the in-game introduction. I wanted to add something that is as unobtrusive as possible but also gives players with not much experience in this genre a good foundation to learn the various mechanics.
So I added a small tutorial window at the side of the screen that asks if you want to learn more about a specific topic. Those tutorials pop up upon specific events in the game. I think it's about 3-4 times, so not too much, but enough that every player should be able to see there's an in-game help menu with various topics that they can look into if they have questions about how the game works.
Of course there's much room for more help content in the future, but as it stands now I think it's a good starting point. I'm very confident that the new help menu along with the Relaxed game mode ensures that more players will have a great experience no matter where they are coming from.

Immerfurt - Of Rats & Ferrets

Now for some of the new content I'm still working on, but I want to show you what I've come up with so far. Immerfurt is the next big settlement in the southern part of the map. Rats and ferrets both try to make it a place of prosperity, trade and crafts. However, both tribes are not always completely united in their worldview, which increasingly leads to conflicts between the business-minded rats and the craft-skilled ferrets.


Immerfurt is also the home of two guilds that the player can join: The Adventurer's Guild and the Mages' Guild. Both offer a questline with some unique rewards, but this will be further developed during the Early Access phase and I'll share more info once the time is right :)

Player Stash Container

Last but not least, I also added a special, persisted chest for you, where all "too good to be sold" items can go in!
[hr][/hr] That's all for this busy month! I hope you like the new additions! If you want to learn more about upcoming features, you're very welcome to join our growing Discord server. I'm posting there frequently about development or discuss new ideas. I'd love to see you around :)
Until next time, take care! Felix

[ 2022-07-28 16:05:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

A small update that adds numpad support and fixes some minor issues:

• Added support for diagonal movement via numpad.
• Fixed an issue with range calculation on bow weapon attacks.
• Fixed some issues with camera scrolling and its responsiveness.
• Fixed a rare bug where stamina could drop below 0 and you couldn't use weapon attacks anymore.
• Fixed character walking animation on very high framerates (>60).

[ 2022-06-26 09:29:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Time for another devlog to get you all updated on the work that is going on behind the scenes. But before we're getting to all the exciting upcoming features I want to thank everyone who participated in the Steam Next Fest for wishlisting and giving feedback on the Demo version. I received hundreds(!) of mails with a lot of great suggestions and constructive criticism. I really appreciate all the input and it already helps me a lot to shape the game to an even better experience once we start into Early Access later this year. Now let's get to the stuff that I've been working on over the last weeks!

New Swamp Biome

I added a new swamp environment that contains a lot of small lakes and all new assets for vegetation and rockwork among other suprises ;) Here is an early preview:

Expanded World Map

The swamps will then be the next larger region in the expanded world map:

Fast Travel

And with an expanded world map comes the ability to fast travel quickly between discovered locations!

Visible Armor Styles

You will be able to change the appearaece of Reik by wearing different armor sets. There will be light/medium/heavy armor classes and each piece will give you different advantages or disadvantages.
Light armor comes with the least phyical resistance per item level but gives +5% mana. Whereas heavy armor grants the best resistance and +5% health but also comes with the cost of -10% stamina. Please know that this is just the first iteration and stats or numbers may change in the future!

New Enemies and Experimental Gadgets

Magic and Expertise

Elemental magic will be the first available talent for all you wizards and sorcerers out there!
Expertise is another addition for more advanced talents like arcane magic, dirty tricks, (probably stealth?), and so on... Some abilities in those talents will require expertise to unlock them. You can gain expertise points through books or scientific papers that you can find throughout the world. This should give you yet another incentive to explore the world in order to optimize your preferred talent build. Rumor has it that some NPC guilds encountered later in the game also offer expertise to those willing to join their ranks...

Enemy Details View

Still pretty much WIP but you will be able to review more information about an enemy and especially the status effects and their duration that are active on the target.
It's a start and there's of course room for more information in the future.

Tutorial and Difficulty

These topics are hot! :D Mainly because I just got as many mails in which people thanked for the easy to understand mechanics and the challenging but fair difficulty level, as from those who missed a better tutorial and found the game very difficult to unfair! I haven't done any work on those issues yet but I have ideas for a better introduction and also consider adding difficulty levels that you can select upon the start of a new game. I personally want the difficulty to be challenging but I also want enable most people to enjoy the game even without experience in the tactical turn-based genre. After all it can and should be a relaxing experience if you want to. So for the time being, rest assured that I will try to make those ideas possible in the future.

Last but not least ...

Some honorable mentions because quite a few of you asked for it! :) - Improved camera panning by holding down RMB or MMB - Numpad support for diagonal movement [hr][/hr] That's it for now! I hope you like all these new featues and changes and you are as excited as I am for Of Blades & Tails' next step in development!

[ 2022-06-25 12:49:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I'm happy to announce that the Demo version just got another big update in order to celebrate the upcoming Steam Next Festival!

Some highlights

• New room-based dungeon type, filled with new dangers and rewards
• Traps, along with detection and refusing mechanic
• Overview mode, so you don't get lost in levels anymore
• New NPC and quest
• Water tiles for rivers and small lakes
• Optional retro CRT shader effect in the options menu
• Camera scrolling when moving mouse on edge of the screen

Savegame compatibility

This update resets your ability points so you have to redistribute them at a bonfire. [hr][/hr]

Full Changelog

Including v0.5.0 - 0.5.2 - Added a new room-based dungeon type, filled with dangers and rewards. (The new dungeon can be accessed from the Tower Ruins.) - Added traps to the game, along with detection (based on PER) and refusing. - Added an overview mode that zooms out the camera far enough so you don't get lost in levels anymore (default key: TAB). - Added a rat NPC: Narn the Traveling Merchant, and his bodyguard Darl. (You can find Narn [spoiler]at map coordinate 4, 1. The ? marks the spot.[/spoiler]) - Added a new quest that is given by Narn. - Added water tiles (rivers and small lakes) to the game. - Added a new skill 'High Awareness' to the survival talent. - Zoom in camera during dialogs and interactions. - Enabled scrolling the camera by moving the mouse on the edge of the screen. (This replaces the previous camera 'look ahead' feature) - Added an optional retro CRT shader effect, that can be toggled in the options menu. - Added new types of enemies. - Show an indicator (light beam) when high quality loot or a quest item gets dropped on ground. - Added a new skill to the bandit rogue. - Fixed an issue with slow moving projectiles that also stun the player. - Added a bandit ambush event to the overworld. - Added another unique item. - Changed default damage / hit sound effect. - Animate appearance of spawned objects and sprite effects. - Added a signpost to the fox village: Never gonna miss your local herbalist anymore! - Fixed an issue with skill selection and execution phase. - Fixed issues with persistence of some game objects. - Made various small balance and gameplay adjustments. - Many more fixes!

[ 2022-06-01 12:45:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I don't have much to share this month so I thought I just give you a quick update of what happened in the last weeks rather than skipping the dev log completely :) So first of all everything is going as planned! Even though I spend a bit more time with the dungeon generation than I thought I would, I'm still on track in terms of the roadmap that I showed you early this year. Here's an updated version:
(Right-click and show image in new tab if it's too small) Most of the points are done or in a very good condition, with a foundation I can work with. I also found time to add a solution for a very popular feature request: a level overview/zoom/minimap (that doesn't break with my vision for the game). Spoiler: I don't like classic minimaps! In OB&T you basically can press a key to zoom out the camera, get an overview of the current level, move the camera around, and click anywhere to set your next walking path. Then the camera zooms back in. So no actual gameplay in the overview mode, but you can always use it to view all parts of the level that you discovered and don't get lost anymore (hopefully :D). Here's a preview (with a smaller angle than in the actual game):
I will spend the next weeks to refactor some older parts of the game code, adding some improvements to make my dev life easier and playtest all the latest additions (and there are quite a few!). If everything works out I will publish the next demo update in May with a new dungeon, new enemies, new unique items, new NPCs and a new quest... And then finally focus on expanding the game world for an Early Access release in the second half of this year. At least that's the plan right now! :) Thank you all for your interest in Of Blades & Tails! Until next time, take care! Felix

[ 2022-04-29 19:38:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

A small update with bug fixes and a visual improvement:

• Fixed a bug that prevented bug meat from being applied again after its effect ran out.
• Fixed a bug where player could switch weapons while moving (without using up 1 turn).
• Fixed a potential game freeze due to explosive chain reactions.
• Smoothly fade out finished sprite animations.

[ 2022-04-10 15:03:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Time for a new devlog! Since the last update I'm pretty much focusing on more overworld and dungeon variety.

Overworld

In terms of the overworld this means (for now) adding rivers and lakes! And where there are rivers, there need to be bridges :) So that's what I already added in a first iteration.
There's also shallow water which is walkable and has no negative effect. It may be used later for other types of biomes.
My primary goal with rivers was to have more natural barriers to shape the game world in general. But I soon realized that it would add a lot to the strategic gameplay to utilize water in combat as well. So I allowed pushing enemies into it.
While in (deep) water enemies receive elemental damage every turn. Oh, and the player makes no exception here. I imagine settling a bunch of Ram Bugs near larger lakes will be a lot of fun..? :D

New Dungeons

Another part of the game that still requires a lot of love are the dungeons. Of course there are already cave-like dungeons, which work good enough in terms of the procedural generation algorithm (they just need more POIs). But what I yet have to tackle are actual room-based dungeons with corridors, traps, doors, hidden areas, and all that kind of interesting stuff. What I have so far is an algorithm that generates rooms and corridors. I can define branches and secret areas in a basic way and for now this is a good foundation to progress a bit further with the actual mechanics I want to add. Like doors (sprites are WIP):
... and switches/levers for doors and secret walls:
Like I said traps (and pressure plates?) will be added as well and with that the ability to detect and refuse or avoid them. So there's still a lot to do in order to make dungeon crawling more exciting and meaningful. I want this to be a thrilling and rewarding part of the game so if you don't hear anything from me for a while I'm probably still "down there" and setting things up for your underground adventure! :) If you want to see much more of those in-dev snippets you're very welcome to join our growing Discord server.
Thank you all so much for your feedback and enthusiasm for Of Blades & Tails! I will do my best to make it an amazing game! Until next time, take care! Felix

[ 2022-03-22 18:50:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added new character portraits.
• Fixed wrong value in the description of the 'Sprint' skill in the survival talent.

[ 2022-03-01 18:59:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I'm happy to announce that the Demo version just got a big update! It includes a lot of the features I showed in the last devlog.

Some highlights

• New combat mechanics
• Reworked stamina management
• New enemy types
• Explosive environment
• 2 new talents: Unarmed combat + Athletics
• A magnificent new main menu screen

Savegame compatibility

Existing savegames should remain compatible, but your attributes and abilities will be reset. You have to redistribute them once you continue with this new version. However, I recommend starting a new game! :) [hr][/hr]

Full Changelog

[h4]New enemey types and combat mechanics[/h4] - New: Danger zones - New: Slow moving projectiles (high damage on impact) - The new mechanics should make you pay more attention to your positioning during combat. They also make it necessary to use more than one type of weapon (melee/range). - Knocking enemies against other objects/enemies causes now extra damage. [h4]New stamina management[/h4] - Global (slow) stamina recovery has been removed. - Bug meat now restores a great amount of your stamina when you're out of combat and lasts for a long time (~200 turns). - The amount of bug meat that you find in loot (other than from common bugs) has been decreased. - All weapon-based talents have a perk that can help you recover stamina when in combat. [h4]Explosive environment assets[/h4] - Explosive barrels and poisonous plants have been added. - You can also knock enemies into them and enjoy the consequences from a safe distance. [h4]New talents and abilities[/h4] - Unarmed combat - Athletics [h4]New damage types[/h4] - Elemental damage - Spiritual damage (not in use yet) [h4]More changes[/h4] - UI: Absolutely magnificent new main menu screen! - Gameplay: Added a new consumable item: Javelin - UI: Added a display of your active status effects at the top of the screen. - Gameplay: You can only use a consumable item again after all its effects on you have been expired. - UI: Added a display of day/night cycle at the top right corner of the screen. - Gameplay: You can now wait for another time of day at a bonfire. - World: The first quest dungeon has been redesigned. - Gameplay: A new unique item with a magic-based attack has been hidden somewhere. - UI: All talent ability icons have been reworked and now use a talent-based color. - Gameplay: A lot of balancing adjustments were made. - Audio: Added a bit more variation to hit and footstep sounds. - Misc: The player character has been renamed to Reik. - Fixed: You cannot out-range enemies with long range shots anymore. - Fixed: You cannot place traps on a tile that is already occupied by an enemy. - Fixed: Charge effect triggered cooldown even if it couldn't be applied. - Fixed: A lot more minor issues.

[ 2022-02-17 16:50:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! In this devlog I want to show you some of the things that I have planned for improved combat and what's the state of the magic implementation.

New Damage Types

So after fixing the most important issues that people reported over the demo, my primary goal is now to add more strategic depth to the combat gameplay and to set the ground for interesting magic abilities. I've started by adding more damage types and their related resistances to the game. Besides physical damage there's gonna be elemental damage and magical damage. I've struggled a bit if I should add more fine-grained types like fire, cold, lightning, etc... but for now I don't want to add more than I feel necessary. Once that was done and resistances were implemented into armor generation, I moved on to the more fun side and created new skill effects.

New Skill Effects

First of all an AoE with a configurable "danger indicator" so the player gets warned to better step out of this area to avoid massive damage.
Then I added slow moving projectiles that you need to avoid by estimating their rough line direction.
This probably helps to keep Riff on his toes! ;) Next I worked on destructible/explosive environment and ended up with the golden standard in game design: Explosive red barrels!
As you can see it's also possible to knock enemies into them and enjoy the consequences. A new enemy type will also join insect forces: The self-destructive Poison Bee! You really want to make sure not to end up in melee combat with this one... But hey, there's a second weapon set for a reason!
[hr][/hr] Okay, that was a lot of animated impressions from the ongoing development. I hope you like all the upcoming changes so far. I would love to read some comments about your thoughts on this. And if you want to see much more of those in-dev snippets you're very welcome to join our growing Discord server.
Thank you all so much for your feedback and enthusiasm for Of Blades & Tails! I will do my best to make it an amazing game! Until next time, take care! Felix

[ 2022-01-20 16:25:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug with merchants and especially with Sid the Herbalist, who refused to sell items under some circumstances
• Decreased size of first quest dungeon and adjusted enemy density in general
• Fixed an issue with persistence of spiders at the raided caravan
• Slightly decreased volume of footstep sfx

[ 2022-01-12 19:25:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Size of tree colliders has been decreased to allow cornering and easier keyboard navigation in the forest
• World map view now automatically centers on current player location
• Increased cooldown of Stamina for Life skill
• Fixed a bug where target dummy blocked bonfire interaction
• Fixed a bug that caused a corrupted savegame when dying in the village without triggering checkpoint at village center first. Denn's quest is therefore now available at player level 2 instead of 1.
• Fixed some translations

[ 2022-01-10 19:16:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! The demo is now finally available on Steam. Big thank you to everyone who played & tested it over the last weeks and helped with their feedback! I think it now gives a good preview of what Of Blades & Tails is about! Of course this is only the beginning. Many features are still missing and there's plenty of room for way more quality of life improvements. The demo contains 3 quests, 2 dungeons, many locations to discover, lots of dangers and even more loot including 1 unique weapon (for now)! Playtime is about 2-3 hours.

Roadmap 2022

So talking about features and improvements, I have prepared a very rough roadmap, which shows the main goals I have in mind to add in the upcoming months.
I have not decided yet on how to roll out future releases. One way could be extending the demo to some extent, another could be a closed beta branch and then there's of course paid Early Access... We'll see about that!

Your Feedback!

If you want to participate in the development of Blades & Tails make sure to join our growing Discord server. It's the best place to chat and share feedback about the game and your individual adventure! I'd love to see you there and get in touch.

Changelog v0.3.11

Last but not least, this (new) Steam demo version comes with 2 changes:

• Added a dodge chance to the player character that is based on your dexterity stat. (Abilities around dodging coming in the future!)
• Fixed a potential issue when loot dropped on the map exit borders.

I hope you all enjoy the Of Blades & Tails Demo and have as much fun as I have developing it! If you do then spread the word, WISHLIST, and tell your friends and family to do so as well! Cheers Felix

[ 2022-01-08 11:07:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! The demo I'm working on is in a pretty good shape! I already received some extremely valueable feedback from early testers. For the last two weeks I've been tweaking it and added a bunch of gameplay improvements already. Before I'm gonna release it on Steam I want more feedback first! To make it the best fast-paced, turn-based experience it can be! So that's where you jump in! If you want to be part of this adventure and share your thoughts and ideas, then join our Of Blades & Tails Discord server! There you can download the latest demo build for all major platforms, read the changelogs and share your feedback. I'd love to see you there and do this together with you!
(Look, I made this charming button just for you!)

Options Menu

Besides news of the current demo state, you might be interested what else happened in dev land... The truth is: Not too much fancy stuff! Many smaller improvements and fixes were made. But one important milestone was the implementation of the options menu. It allows you to change various game, display and audio settings and adjust all important key bindings to your needs!
Of course the options menu will grow over time and more settings will be added when available or necessary. So I guess that's already it for this DevLog! I hope to welcome a lot of you on our Discord server. Until then, take care and keep on gaming!

[ 2021-12-14 17:22:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! From now on I try to publish regular devlogs here that give you some insight of what I'm working on. Since the last month I'm tinkering together a demo of the game. A lot of the core gameplay mechanics are already in a good shape, so the main tasks were related around setting up the game world: Thinking about the lore and storyline. Creating some quests, points of interest and unique treasures to discover.

The World Map

Here's a WIP preview of the world map for the demo area.
As of now, this covers roughly 1/6 of the total map size.

The First Village

Another major task was setting up the first village in the game. The home of the fox tribe.
It features a bunch of friendly NPCs that provide goods for trading, offer quests or tell you rumors that you may or may not want to investigate.

Quick Slots for Items

One of the most requested feature from early playtesters has been quick slots for items. I always thought, since the game is turn-based and doesn't rush you in any way, it would be okay to just open up your inventory and pick/use the desired item. But turns out having a healing item assigned to a single button press makes it much more convenient So here we go!

A Bit of an Intro

Last but not least I put together a short but moody intro video before you start your actual adventure. It gives a quick and mystic summary of the back story and why the world is what it is...
So as you can see quite a few things came together after the launch of the Steam page. Do you have any feedback, questions or ideas? Let me know in the comments! If you can please spread the word and wishlist Of Blades & Tails, it would mean a lot to me! Until next time, take care!

[ 2021-11-20 09:53:17 CET ] [ Original post ]