It's been a while so let's have a quick progress update! Progress on game content (story, maps) is coming along, and there have also been some system reworks and visual upgrades. Visuals: Here's a taste of the updated battle map showing some of the improvements. In particular the sprite art, animations, and post processing have been improved to create a more consistent and polished look. This is ongoing but is already showing major improvements.

Game design: There have been a lot of minor design tweaks and class/system reworks, with one consistent emphasis being on action economy. Bleddyn the bard, and the bard class that is unlockable later in the game, now have an ability that grants an extra action to any soldier directly in front of them - this tradeoff can be very effective if a powerful ability that is normally only used once is now doubled. Goronwy also has two passives that can grant him extra actions - one if he's alone in the front row, and another when his health is low, giving him up to four powerful melee attacks at the cost of very high risk. Balancing these abilities is going to be a key to success.

For simplicity, the support ability system, where nearby units could choose from various support abilities to assist an ally's encounter, has been removed. Archers, who had the most useful support ability and the only one capable of dealing damage, retain this ability as a passive. So having nearby archer units will still result in a powerful Arrow Rain attack before combat begins. Story: Finally, the style of narrative scenes has changed. Previously the game relied entirely on dialog to convey the story, as in most JRPGs. This is a bit limited due to the visual style where characters' emotions and reactions aren't really visible, and results in some forced exposition that can come across as unnatural. Now, dialog will be mixed with narration in the style of some CRPGs. This feels much more dynamic and provides a richer atmosphere with better clarity.

Given the level of rework we'll have a new version of the demo available as we get closer to release. We'd love to hear your feedback!

[ 2024-02-08 16:19:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

A playable demo of Grand Arms: March of the Red Dragon, including the first three missions, is now available! Typical time to complete the demo is around 2 hours. You can play it in your desktop browser right here on itch.io We'd love to hear what you think, so please reach out with any questions or feedback!

[ 2023-04-07 15:05:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

As Grand Arms development progresses, we'll be posting introductions to some of our game systems here. Grand Arms is an RPG patterned after the classic Ogre Battle series from SNES and N64. If you've heard of Tactics Ogre (including the fantastic recent release of Tactics Ogre Reborn) you're in the right ballpark, but Tactics Ogre is an offshoot of the original series with fully turn-based gameplay. Ogre Battle, and Grand Arms, feature a mix of real-time and turn-based games that few other games have attempted. Here's how it works.

Units

Like any RPG, as the story progresses, you'll recruit characters to join your party. But unlike most RPGs, these characters don't stand alone. Each leads a unit of up to 5 characters who move and fight together, organized into a specific formation.
During a mission, you'll see your leaders on the map - click on them and you'll see the other characters that make up their unit.

Movement

In this map view, the game plays out much like a real-time strategy game. Click on your units and direct them where to go; they'll move in real time. Each unit has a different base speed depending on the characters that make it up, the terrain they're crossing, etc. You can pause the game at any time to issue orders and consider your strategy. In most missions, the goal is to capture towns and strongholds held by the enemy. To do so you'll inevitably come up against enemy units, who will try to defend their territory. Once two units come into contact, a battle will commence.

Combat

When two units approach each other, you'll see this screen, showing both units' formations. Each character within a unit has a class, which determines how they'll act in combat. Each class has front and/or back row abilities that they'll use depending on how they're positioned. Classes also have resistance to specific types of damage (slashing, piercing, or blunt.) Battles are turn-based but you, the player, don't issue orders to your characters; they fight automatically. Melee classes will attack the closest enemy character in the front row; ranged classes prefer attacking the back row. Characters act in order depending on their Agility stat, and their class determines how many turns they can take in a single encounter.
Clicking into the Battle Preview screen will give more details on how each character will attack. Importantly, you can adjust your formation before battle begins, so by lining up your characters appropriately to take advantage of damage types and resistances, you can turn a bad matchup into a good one.

Objectives

Once an encounter ends, the side with the highest morale - which is lost as characters sustain damage or fall in battle - is the victor, and the losing unit is forced back, losing ground. By defeating enemy units you'll clear the way to liberating the towns and strongholds they defend. You'll move fluidly between these two systems - real-time movement, turn-based encounters - until you defeat enemy units, capture specific objectives, or whatever else a particular mission requires.

Development Update

Currently we're putting the finishing touches on a playable demo which includes an introduction to the world and story of Grand Arms, and the first three missions of the game, finishing with an important plot twist that sets the stage for the rest of the story. Unlike the full game, the demo will also be playable in your browser, without needing to install anything. The demo is now feature complete and we're just wrapping up some of the final art and music. Stay tuned and we'll have more to announce in the coming weeks.

[ 2023-02-17 15:35:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Grand Arms: March of the Red Dragon is a tactical RPG that combineds real-time troop movement with turn-based combat. Currently we're working towards a playable demo that will feature the first three missions of the game (out of 40 planned.) We have a "vertical slice" including all of the essential gameplay systems already implemented - you can choose a mission, watch story sequences, organize your army, change classes, and play through missions. Here are a few things we've finished recently, and what remains to be done:

Playable characters

There are a total of 5 playable characters available during the first three missions; this week we put some finishing touches on the final one, Hywel.

• Goronwy: the main character of the story, Goronwy is the son of the senschal of the Kingdom of Gwyneth and serves as the captain of Llewelyn's guard. Early in the story, a seemingly ordinary mission undertaken by Goronwy turns out to have unforeseen and dire consequences for the kingdom.
  
• Llewelyn: a prince of Gwyneth, the nephew to the current ruling prince. Llewelyn's father contested his uncle for the throne and is now, with his wife and three other sons, imprisoned for it. Llewelyn serves his uncle, but seeks a way to ensure his family's safety.
  
• Morfydd: a talented archer and close friend of Goronwy. As the bastard of a petty king, Morfydd was raised by her commoner mother and had to make her own way in life. She currently serves the princes of Gwyneth.
  
• Bleddyn: a carefree, winebibbing bard. Bleddyn keeps the old ways, rejecting Christianity, and follows great men wherever he finds them - so that he can write a great ballad about their exploits. Bleddyn was trained by a fellow bard and seer, and believes he has the prophetic gift as well - although there's no good evidence of this as of yet, and some of his predictions have most certainly failed to come true...
  
• Hywel: the elderly Bishop of Bangor. An unfailingly loyal friend to the princes of Gwyneth, he despises any who threaten his Brythonic, and Christian, culture.
  

There's some character art for non-playable characters in progress now. The period covered by the demo establishes a good amount of backstory and setting.

UI Enhancements

This isn't "finished" per se as we'll definitely do more UI work before release, and plan to improve things based on player feedback as well. But we added a number of quality of life improvements that should make the demo a smoother experience. For example, formation is an important part of strategy - soldiers in a unit will attack and target automatically, so having them positioned correctly can turn a bad matchup into a great one. So, we added an easy way to adjust your formation right before a battle starts, without having to navigate to a separate window. You'll get onscreen feedback immediately on who's targeting who and how much damage they're expected to deal.

Abilities

Like its inspiration Ogre Battle, Grand Arms features a system of tarot cards - when you liberate a town, the liberating unit may draw a card. Holding the card grants either a bonus or a penalty, and before combat, you can choose to discard the card for a one-time powerful effect. Each card is unique. With 22 major arcana, that's a lot of abilities to implement, and there's no limit in the demo - you can randomly draw any of the 22. There are still five more that need to be implemented, and the visual effects for many of them need some iteration, but that will probably continue after the demo is live.

Chores

Of course, there's a lot of work that isn't player-facing and doesn't make for a good screenshot. We recently added crash reporting for example - if the demo does crash, you'll have the option to send anonymous details, which show up directly in our development Discord channel. There's a bit more of this plumbing and testing to be done for the demo still.

Goal

Given the set of work remaining to be done, we're aiming to have the playable demo available by the end of February. We'll give a more firm date as soon as we have one. Stay tuned!

[ 2023-01-15 00:33:34 CET ] [ Original post ]