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Vagri! Were sure many of youve been waiting for more information about our next DLC (shaping up to be expansion-sized once again) and the time has come to deliver just that in the form of a special story trailer were excited to share:
[previewyoutube=TkUKrDakcGY;full][/previewyoutube]
So, there you have it. Some exposition delivered by award-winning voice actor Phil Rowe, along with a title reveal and the year of release. Although the latter is fairly vague, we can already say that we are aiming for the first half of 2025, as weve been working on it very diligently for months now. Theres still a lot to go, but were making good progress and were very satisfied with how its shaping up. Can you guess where itll be set? There are quite a few indicators, we think.
We cant wait to share more, of course, including a launch trailer with some gameplay closer to release, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can wishlist the DLC on Steam.
Hey everyone,
As we approach the end of 2024, it's time to give an update on our upcoming DLC. While our hope was to release it this year, it has become clear to us that it is an unrealistic target. We cannot announce its release date just yet, but we can be sure that it will take at least until next year to complete, and with good reason.
What is that good reason? we hear you ask. Well, lets call it a habit at Lost Pilgrims. While developing large bits of content like the next DLC, we keep enriching them to have better density of content than previous releases. Part of this is organic, the rest is a deliberate attempt to push the envelope. In this case, the region is not going to be as large as the Bronze Desert of Sunfire and Moonshadow, but we are trying to do something special with depth. This includes stories, NPCs, enemies, varied and complex quests, improved reactivity, and so much more.
Needless to say, we shall keep you updated as things develop, writing here and on Steam about the DLC and how it is coming along. And of course, as we move closer to release, well be introducing you to more folk like those pictured below, though we can promise theyll not all be cannibals. Well ride the line between keeping your eyebrow raised and you cracking the code, because thats what we love. However, the theme and location of the DLC is so telling that its quite difficult to reveal something without giving it all away.
Vagrus is currently taking part in Steams AdventureX Sale. If youve been on the fence about jumping into our newest content or have a friend who you want to introduce to the Riven Realms, you can make it happen.
Until next time, see you out there in the wasteland, vagri; dont get too caught up in the struggles of the Riven Realms. Theres much, much more to come!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
Hey everyone,
This week wed like to broach a matter for the sake of transparency. Reality in the context of global gaming industry trends has set in, and the result is hard times for everyone. We are no exception and, since we have an insatiable desire for creating quality DLCs, this has left us in a rather precarious situation.
Financially, our DLCs need to break even for it to make sense for us to produce them. Indie game development is a passion, thats true, but its also a business that needs to sustain itself and the developers. To that end, we have decided to increase the price of our Sunfire and Moonshadow expansion (SaM), along with the Season Pass, which will of course only affect future purchases.
[previewyoutube=VdsuE051DeI;full][/previewyoutube]
Why are we reposting this?: Apparently, Steam does not allow a build to be linked to a DLC release announcement type post, so the game was shown to be last updated in August. Hence, we are reposting our patch notes along with the Hotfix I-II notes to be able to provide the algorithm a post about a new build. #indiedevlifehacks
It is the Year of Our Lord 2754
You will never feel the suns warmth under a blue sky, never hear the wind in the branches of a tree, and never swim in the ocean, all because you had the misfortune to be born on the Ship, chained to a fate you didnt choose. You have never seen Earth and youll never see Proxima Centauri either. Youre doomed to live and die on the Ship in the name of the Mission, like your father before you, like his father before him.
The Ship is old. She had already been twenty years in service when she was rechristened Starfarer - a pretty name for a retrofitted interplanetary freighter. No one is certain the Ship will actually reach its destination, and nobody much cares, since no one alive now will live to see it. Might as well get on with your life and try to make the best of it.
From our friends at Iron Tower Studio comes COLONY SHIP - an isometric, party-based RPG inspired by Heinleins Orphans of the Sky. Your character's world is a generation ship, a massive spacecraft on a centuries long voyage to colonize a distant planet. The Ship's original government has been disbanded following a violent mutiny and you must negotiate a treacherous path among your fellow passengers and the contentious factions striving to dominate the Ship. Your choices will determine who your friends and enemies are.
A generation ship is a perfect ant-farm where different societies can coexist within a limited space, influencing and affecting each others' development while fighting for that limited space, which adds 'the end justifies the means' pressure.
Your adventure starts in the Pit - a sprawling heap of vacant cargo containers slowly getting filled up with those who couldn't afford to stay in the Habitat or needed to get away from its bosses and factions. Out here, folks live free and die fast...
Once tasked with adapting Terran plants and grasses to the alien environment of Proxima Centauri, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. Quickly overwhelmed by out-of-control mutant vegetation, it more closely resembles a deep jungle than a research complex. In addition to the abnormal plants, oversized pest control species bioengineered to safeguard the colony's farmlands are also on hand to punish the careless.
Before the Mutiny, the rooftops of the Habitat supported a sprawling amusement park. There, the people of the Ship could experience at least a few of the novelties they would never enjoy on Earth or Proxima: walk barefoot on real green grass courtesy of Hydroponics or soft, red-tinted 'Proxima' sand; sit under tall, artificial trees; and watch the sunrise on gigantic screens suspended all around. This last was said to be indistinguishable from the real thing, not that anyone aboard had ever seen it.
Nowadays, the three remaining rooftops are heavily fortified platforms, patrolled by armed guards. The sky-screens went dark long ago, a frivolous luxury in a decaying world. The grass underfoot and simulations of golden fields have likewise vanished, replaced by watchtowers and checkpoints. With enemies on all sides, cheap entertainment is a useless distraction from reality and its harsh demands.
Come try the demo and play through the entire first chapter:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/648410/Colony_Ship_A_PostEarth_Role_Playing_Game/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms
Its been a while since we posted an update on the release of Sunfire and Moonshadow, and given our previous announcement in May on aiming to release the expansion in Q3 2023, its only fair that we share a project update.
In the last few months, the whole team has been hard at work to set up and fill the huge new region we picked for our upcoming DLC that slowly grew into an Expansion. Its been a daunting task given the size of the Bronze Desert and our goal to keep the standards we set in the main game regarding engaging storytelling and activities. We wanted to pick a region that was not tied up by existing in-world historical events too much, so we could be free of those constraints when designing new storylines but that freedom also meant that there were more things to expand upon and work out the finer details of locations, NPCs, dynamics, and storylines. Overall, it has taken a lot longer to create all the content we set out to but we are finally getting there.
Our progress has been impacted by external factors as well, namely sickness and some changes on the team. Life is turbulent these days with the economic pressure mounting up on firms and individuals alike so its natural that such changes occur even if their timing wasnt ideal.
Another factor that played into delaying the expansion beyond Q3 as you have surely figured we were gonna share here was the crowded RPG release schedule of the last two months with Baldurs Gate 3, Starfield, and a number of smaller titles. Not wanting to be overshadowed by those giant games and their marketing machines, we decided to go further: expand and polish our DLC until we are happier with it, and, of course, find a more suitable release slot. While we have not nailed down the exact date yet, we are still aiming for this year, so just bear with us a little longer.
Thanks for your continued support.
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated!
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Our friends at Kitfox Games and A-Sharp just released Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out today! Combining rich narrative, deep world-building, and strategy gameplay, the stand-alone sequel to 2019s Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind launches today at $24.99, with a 10% launch discount, click to buy now! A bundle including the game and its soundtrack will also be available on Steam at a discount.
Watch the launch trailer:
[previewyoutube=nhnY1PkQUMw;full][/previewyoutube]
The Six Ages 2 Soundtrack is also available for purchase:
Six Ages 2 is all about life after myths. Death, disaster, despair.
This new installment in the Six Ages series is a stand-alone survival-storybook combining interactive fiction and turn-based strategy. The world is ending, and your small clan's survival depends on how you manage its relationship with the remaining gods and their followers.
Hey everyone,
In this next installment of our little devlog series focused on the upcoming expansion Sunfire and Moonshadow, we are taking a look at the three new factions that your vagri will be able to ingratiate themselves with, earning their respect and a slew of rewards, of course.
Note that this post contains mild spoilers, so if you wish to wade into the expansion completely blind, perhaps postpone reading this until you have done so.
Before we talk about each of the three, we have to make a distinction between the regular factions the type the ones already in the game belong to and the new type, the nemesis factions.
Nemesis Factions
Nemesis factions come in pairs and they relate to each other exactly how it sounds like: they hate each others guts and will not be reconciled nor tolerate anyone allying themselves with their foe. For this reason, befriending a nemesis faction will ultimately lock you out of befriending their opponent in the given playthrough. Sure, you can play both sides for a while when you begin exploring the new regions but it will come to a decision soon enough.
This is fundamentally different from regular factions where you can essentially tank your reputation by working against them or for their enemies but you will almost never reach a point of no return even if you lower your reputation to the absolute minimum (in theory, that is, because crawling out of such a pit is extremely time-consuming). Not so with nemesis factions. Once a certain threshold is reached with one, their foe will forever be closed off from interactions and they will become your dedicated enemy, too.
Also, due to their nature, nemesis factions are more local and will only have effects, tasks, and interactions in their own areas of interest, not in all regions of Vagrus. They are still powerful, with their own forces, bases, bonuses, boons, and rewards, but they will not have a faction presence or interest outside of their zones.
The Ahari and the Chimera Legion
The first pair of nemesis factions ever to appear in Vagrus are the Chimera Legion of the Bronze Deserts Legate and the Ahari, Bandul insurrectionists opposing the Imperial occupation.
The Ahari are a faction of Bandul who follow the guidance of Ahar, the Great Sun, whom they worship as their one and only god. The Suncallers, spiritual guides who originally looked after holy oases and can channel Ahars devastating magic, have taken up leadership of the secretive group recently. Ever since then, the Ahari have been growing and becoming bolder, not content with resisting Imperial harassment but waging a guerilla war against the Empire, and to hell with collateral damage. When allying yourself with the Ahari, you will have to find them first, as they are a clandestine and elusive organization, hiding in the deep desert, where their kind are masters of misdirection and survival. Rumors are circulated about a new leader emerging recently and taking the Ahari into an even more violent direction but nobody has managed to substantiate those claims yet.
The Chimera Legion, on the other hand, are not at home in the Bronze Desert at all. Having completed their previous assignment by the Imperial Senate, they were stationed in the arid wasteland when their commanding officer was appointed as the Legate of the region. This task might seem like unimportant guard duty but because of the war against the Green Continent beyond the Bronze Desert, Imperial forces making their way across the wasteland require constant supervision. As for the Legate, a decorated career military officer, keeping the locals in check and securing the Path of Glory has been a challenge, but some say that it has also moved her into position to carve out her own fortune in this remote, chaotic region.
One thing is certain: no quarter will be given by either side of this escalating conflict. When pressed and having to take sides, who will you choose the expansion drops?
The Handjari
Handjari are a new faction that were adding to the roster of currently existing ones. And, yes, this means that if you own the expansion, their faction presence will show up in the main game areas, too. Competitors to Imperial Trading Houses (but on fairly good terms with them), the Handjari are the alliance of a loosely connected Tarkian trade princes and their substantial commercial empires. Specifically, Prince Faisal al-Turhen, the Coiner, Patriarch of Akena, Victor of the Battle of Garesh, is the leader of the Bronze Deserts Handjari and he oversees most of the regions trade in the name of the Empire, their allies, of course.
The Handjari of the Bronze Desert have their own interest in the conflict between the Ahari and the Chimera Legion but they are rarely directly involved. On paper, they support the Imperials but you might find that their agenda is more complicated than that. In general, staying on their good side unlocks a great number of opportunities for enterprising vagri.
That concludes our second devlog on the expansion Sunfire and Moonshadow. In the upcoming weeks, well have more of these posts on certain aspects of what weve been brewing up. Until then, stay tuned, stay vigilant, and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated!
Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord
Hey everyone,
With the announcement of Vagruss first expansion behind us, we thought that itd be a good idea to create a short series of devlogs about certain frequently appearing topics regarding Sunfire and Moonshadow. The first of these the one youre reading is about the region itself and its boundaries, with some lore tidbits sprinkled in. So, lets get to it!
How Does it Measure Up?
Lets not beat around the bush. The playable area of the expansion has the following borders:
The time has finally come to announce our upcoming expansion for Vagrus and go into a little detail about what weve been working on for the past seven months. Its been a long, hard road, and while were slowly making our way to the finish line, we still have a great deal of testing to do, plus numerous final touches to iterate upon. Its a terribly exciting time at Lost Pilgrims Studio, and its time to share at least some of it with those who made it possible: you, the players. The expansions store page is available for viewing and is ready to be wishlisted here on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2297000/ Those of you who watched Tacticon may have already seen our short teaser, but rest assured, weve embedded it in this post for your perusal (and speculation!). First, we want to answer the most pressing question, however what exactly is this expansion about? Weve put together some of the key details below, as well as the trailer beneath it: Occupying the northwestern corner of the continent of Xeryn, a desert older than the Calamity lies between the Brown Mountains and the River Lethe: the Bronze Desert. It is a realm torn by war in more than one way. The Empire rallies its immense legions here, sending them north toward the Green Continent to lay waste to its lush lands while the elite Chimera Legion remains behind to oversee this arid staging ground. Deep in the desert, however, lurks a different threat that of the Ahari. Birthed by the native Bandul and tempered by their unwillingness to yield in the face of Imperial oppression, the Ahari seek to win back their sacred oases and holy sites, fighting an impossible campaign of terror. Amidst it all are the Handjari, sworn allies of the Empire and stewards of the greatest city in all the Bronze Desert Kabur, the Jewel of the North. The stage is set, the stakes are high. Who will you, a mere vagrus, align yourself with? The mysterious Ahari and their Sun God or the cruel Chimera Legion and their ruthlessly pragmatic leader, the Legate? Your decisions will shape the fate of the region writ large, paving the way for a new, uncertain future throughout the Realms. [previewyoutube=wWJYG04v2_A;full][/previewyoutube] Sunfire and Moonshadow offers a new, vast region to explore complete with a swathe of new settlements, new enemies to conquer, new stories to be a part of, a large cast of characters, and new quests to complete through which your vagrus may make their mark on Xeryn. With all this, as well as the introduction of a central conflict involving three new core factions the Ahari, the Chimera Legion, and the Handjari the expansion features content roughly one-third the size of the core game. We hope youre as excited as we are to return to the Riven Realms and explore and exploit an entirely new region. Well keep updating you on the exact date of the release as we know more, but for now, rest assured the expansion will drop sometime in Q3 of 2023. Until next time, stay vigilant, stay awesome, and conquer the wasteland! Oh, lest we forget: we have also deployed our latest Public Beta built to the default branch here on Steam. Enjoy! Important Note: Considering the extent of the improvements, there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuilt reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello everyone,
As you may know, terra supra, the northern part of Xeryn, is dotted with perilous and deadly places most people tend to avoid. Now, we are going to take a look at these, focusing on the ruined cities of yore. Embark with us upon a dread journey into the most dangerous ruins in the Riven Realms. Be warned, though, they are not for the faint of heart!
Arx Mortis
The Desert of Black Sands is a terrible place where no living thing can exist for more than a few hours due to its life-draining curse. At night, a strange bluish-white, sickly glow can be seen on the horizon: the dread mirage of Arx Mortis, the City of the Dead, and the source of all evil in the region. The place used to be Calderum, and it was the capital of the Sanvorati province. Known as the City of Light, Calderum was turned into its most horrible caricature by the Calamity. These days it is a dead city filled with eerie moaning and groans, cast in perpetual twilight, and beset by bone-chilling cold and a pale, warmthless light emanating from the faded rocks that are almost all that remain from its beautiful buildings and walls. The curse affected the surroundings of the city as well and thus the Desert of Black Sands was born, bereft of life and joy, and light forever.
Rhadamantis
Rhadamantis lies in the ancient valley of the River Lethe. It is known far and wide on the continent that touching the rivers waters will almost certainly erase ones memory. Constant change storms rise from the valley and strike out north and west. Furthermore, the cursed ruins of the city itself are rumored to change people in even more despicable ways. Everything in the region is considered accursed, and it is said that people exiled from their tribe often wandered up the valley to meet their doom. Still, most travelers maintain that no sane person has any reason whatsoever to venture even close to Rhadamantis, so this region is largely abandoned. Unfathomable dangers lurk in these lands and the shattered city, the gray, broken ruins of which spread out on both sides of the Lethe for miles under strange skies. Is the doom that reached ancient Rhadamantis, oldest of cities, the same as the creeping blight that took over Agathon to the southeast?
Scorponar
The strange desert called the Plains of Bone used to be a place of rolling flats and gentle hills, but now it is a rocky desert region of gray and beige sands, as well as large piles of bones. In its heart, travelers can find the ruins of the once beautiful Madrigos, an Imperial city famous for its wealth, hospitality, and snow-white marble walls. Today it is a forsaken ruin that has become the capital of the Scortaur, a race of scorpion-men who hunt all other races mercilessly and uncompromisingly on and around the Plains of Bone. They call their city Scorponar, and very few can tell the tale of seeing its shattered buildings and crumbling walls. Those who did see it talk about bone scaffolding and fortifications from ivory taken from the surrounding plains , flayed bodies hanging from battlements, and banners crafted crudely from the skin of the Scortaurs victims. Scorponar is a place of horror and despair, with the old white stone of Madrigos peeking out from under the colorless sands like broken teeth or shattered bones. Much like a dreadful nest of poisonous wasps, Scorponar belches forth vermin when kicked, which has happened whenever someone decided to put an end to the Scortaur threat by attacking the ruins and failed spectacularly every single time.
Vaelenesthil
Vaelenesthil is a great Elven ruin in the region of hills on the southern edge of the Bronze Desert. Before the Calamity, the place was a city-state of Elves that was loosely associated with the elder races realm of Dor Anthelas. Its inhabitants were famous for creating a magnificent garden in the otherwise arid regions of the northwest, although these Eldin (or Green Elves) were disinclined to contact and educate humans though they were not hostile either. They traded with the Imperials and the Bandul locals but remained diplomatically detached from them.
The Calamity devastated the tranquil hills and great forests south of the city, turning them into cragged, arid rock desert and into the Dead Forest, respectively. Vaelenesthil's Elves did not survive the magical cataclysm and no account of their fate exists. Today, the city's ruins are half-buried under rocks and sand at the center of maze-like ravines and valleys that make them very difficult to approach. The few travelers who dare enter speak of cracked marble towers and domes, heralds of a faded beauty, but not much else. No gardens or riches remain, except perhaps deep below the ruins, though none have lived to tell the tale after delving below. There is talk of strange noises, voices, eerie lights even odd scents during nights that make people avoid Vaelenesthil altogether. However, in truth, most ruins on the continent have such phenomena attributed to them.
Some whisper of the great ruins being haunted, fearing in equal measure the terrifying, azure apparitions that lurk in the night and at its tenebrous crannies and nooks. Such accounts are few and far between in the Fourth Age of Xeryn, though one such story does exist a story we wrote of a comitatus that dared venture forth into its depths, facing down Yrg and the even more horrifying denizens that reside there.
If you fancy a read, you can find that story here. Sadly, as of yet the story remains unfinished, but we dont want to give everything away now, do we?
Carravon, the Howling City
Carravhon, called the Howling City, is one of the most prominent ruins of the middle regions of Xeryn. It is of Elven origin, and it is said that the ancient magic of those fey people made the winds around its silver towers go mad. For that reason, no living soul has been able to enter Carravhon since its fall during the Calamity.
Carravhon was an independent Elven city-state on the edge of the Empires arboreal middle provinces. It seceded from Dor Anthelas - the Elven kingdom of the continent - many thousands of years ago when the Elven Queen Orowen aen Mur Dramwa took her people over the continent and settled at the foot of the Sepis Mountains. There the Elves built a city of wonderful white marble and clear silver, and were foremost among those that taught the humans, thus aiding in their rise to dominance. Cultured and learned, Carravhons Elves were the masters of music. Orowens singing voice was said to be able to make people weep in joy, and her magic worked wonders through that voice. When the Calamity burned and destroyed everything, Carravhon was not spared either: the magnificent city shook and collapsed, its residents and music falling silent forever. Now situated at the far end of the Singing Winds, Carravhon is a haunted place.
The ruins look pristine from afar. The city was built of white marble with Elven decorations of silver and gold running in floral patterns along its slender towers and clean walls. Golden domes were rising above gardens and parks. Now only desiccated trees remain but the shining metal decoration and white marble can be seen even from afar, drawing many treasure hunters close who then fail to return. People speak in hushed tones of the voice of Queen Orowen being carried on the melodious winds of the desert but anyone going close to the ruins themselves tell tales of a horrid, deafening cacophony coming from there on the brutal gales and tornadoes.
Quite recently, the city has seen a lot of activity. A series of earthquakes and terrible, screaming winds burst out of the ruins northward, opening up the earth in giant, snake-like chasms. Ever since, the wind does not relent, burning the mind of anyone who ventures too close.
The Dread City of Agathon
Once a marvel of culture, creativity, art, tradition, and learning, Agathon stood as a symbol of prosperity long before the Calamity struck. Nestled in the ancestral lands of ancient Daromar southeast of the River Lethe, the great city fell into ruin in the wake of the Calamitys decimation, and it is said that it has now been entirely consumed by a fleshy, membranous mass of interwoven organic matter, infused with an entropy that corrupts everything it touches. The dreadful corruption is said to have originated from the nearby source of River Lethe to the northwest, from whence it spread, enveloping and consuming everything in its path.
During the Restoration Period in the Fourth Age, legionnaires and settlers attempted to retake the city, only to perish against the tide of otherworldly corruption that the strange organic growth brought with it a growth, which, according to some accounts, ails its victims with a sickness not dissimilar from the Taint or as is sometimes the case in the area, through Change Storms. For these reasons, the Imperials soon learned that survival in or near the confines of the Dread City was an impossibility, though their losses were already manifold. They named the accursed region the Plains of Agony and forsook their attempts for good. To this day, the reasons for the citys surrounding corruption and deadly effects remain an enigma, for few dare to approach its dreadful, looming presence, and even fewer have returned to tell the tale in the thousand years that have passed since its thaumaturgical downfall.
As you can see, the Calamity has caused great damage to the once-great cities of the Empire but even worse - it cursed them so that they now cling onto a bleak, terrifying existence, waylaying travelers and corrupting whole regions around their sad remains. However, if you like reading about these kinds of things, we might return with another round of perilous ruins from the wasteland.
Until then, stay safe, stay sane, and conquer the wasteland!
-The Lost Pilgrims Team
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If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated!
Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Discord
Our friends at MuHa Games (Thea I-II.) and Slitherine have just released their amazing game here on Steam.
Imagine yourself looking into an arcane mirror and finding the other side calling out to you,
promising great power and knowledge. You step through
Imagine you see before you a realm where all the mirrors connect, where the very essence
of Magic resides. The twin worlds of Arcanus and Myrror, ripe for the taking
Whatever power and status you might have had before, here you must start anew. You will
need to re-learn your magic and prove your worth to your new subjects.
Imagine leading your new subjects to conquest, carving a mighty empire, one that can fuel
your thirst for knowledge and power.
In time, you would meet other Wizards, each rising from equally humble beginnings, each
striving for the same prize - the ultimate power promised by the whispers from the mirror.
They will be your rivals. You might ally with them, for a time but war is inevitable. Crush
their armies, conquer their cities, and take their spellbooks.
For, In the end, there can be only one Master of Magic
Master of Magic is out now.
Today we celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the full release of Vagrus The Riven Realms. We are happy to have reached this point, and perhaps most importantly, we couldnt have done it without the help of our backers, supporters, and players along the way. So heres to you, vagri, for all your encouragement, assistance, feedback, and goodwill! In this post, well be taking a little bit of a trip down memory lane, from the beginning and creation of the game to its release exactly one year ago. Well finish up with a small glimpse into the future of Vagrus and what players can expect moving forward.
We first imparted our vision for Vagrus back in 2017, establishing Lost Pilgrims, with a small team of just four developers. We had and still have a love of games, strategy, and tabletop roleplaying, but when it all started, we might say that we were a little naive. Not because releasing a game we could all be proud of was impossible indeed, where we stand now makes it more apparent than ever that it wasnt. However, we were naive in that we did not fully comprehend the gargantuan task in front of us, nor the intensity with which we would have to work to create the game we wanted and promised to our backers. Weve always said that the game is a labor of love, and thats exactly what we needed to cross the finish line: love. Oh, and a lot of hard work, naturally!
Nevertheless, in July 2020 we released our first public build an Early Access version of the game already featuring a ton of content. We continued to plod forward before eventually dropping a full release of the game on October 5, 2021. We were blown away by some of the critical reception to the games launch, some of the highlights (like being included in IndieDBs PlayersChoice top ten), having the game covered by numerous high-profile media outlets, along with receiving a plethora of awards and nominations, most of which can be found on our Steam page for those interested.
All in all, we were greatly honored by the critical reception of the game, and by the wealth of positivity about it from many independent content creators on YouTube, such as SplatterCatGaming, who covers indie games extensively (and covered ours here). After the success of the games full release, we immediately set ourselves to the task of finding a new office, and to recruiting additional Lost Pilgrims. The process began with kos, a graphic and UX/UI designer. Then, in February, we took on Viktor and Beni as coders and programmers, and finally, in April, we welcomed James and Zeli to the team as new writers to be able to keep adding content in the long run.
We were also able to create various merch for the game provided to those who backed us on higher tiers or who purchased the Emperors Edition. While we were certainly elated to see what we had worked on brought to life in physical form, the process was far more daunting and difficult than we had anticipated. Regardless, you can take a look at merch here, and wed also like to say that there are those who have still not claimed their goodies because we do not have their addresses; if thats you, please dont hesitate to get in touch with us and we will send it along.
Moving forward now, lets focus on what has happened since release. We have continued to improve the game, adding a slew of quality-of-life features such as custom notes, map movement UI reworks, a slew of Companion Combat improvements, and a complete overhaul of Scouting as requested by the community on many occasions.
On the content side, we started out with Kingpins of the Realms: a sizable patch introducing new questlines for the Loaders and Carpenters guilds, then releasing our first free DLC with the new companion Vorax in May. More recently (last week) we released Seekers of Knowledge, our second free DLC and major content addition, which has further expanded the ways players can achieve victory in the game by acquiring Codex entries and working towards the Knowledge Ambitions fulfillment. It is our hope that these pieces of content will pave the way for our next big DLC a paid piece of content that we have just begun working on, and that will open up an entirely new region for vagri eager to continue or resume their journey in the Riven Realms! Provided that everything goes swimmingly when we can release this content next year, we have many more ideas for future additions to the game moving forward.
We hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, and a short glimpse into the future. We have a great deal more to speak about in the coming weeks, so until then stay tuned, stay safe and conquer the wasteland!
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland!
- The Lost Pilgrims Team
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If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated!
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Our team at Lost Pilgrims Studio is delighted to announce that we have been chosen for an ongoing event this week, which aims to showcase some of the smallest studios and their indie games. Called the Tiny Teams Festival, the event is run by Yogscast and will be covered online through both Twitch and YouTube. Several streamers who are involved in the event have requested keys to play Vagrus The Riven Realms and naturally, were happy to comply. You can check out those streamers below:
Our friends at Hooded Horse and Mohawk Games have just released their amazing game here on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/597180/Old_World/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms
Designed by Civilization IV and Offworld Trading Company designer Soren Johnson, Old World is a revolutionary historical strategy game where you lead your dynasty over generations of rule against rival kings and queens. Wage massive wars, manage your court, and build a dynasty or watch your empire crumble to dust. What legacy will you leave behind?
Old World plays like a marriage between Civilization and Crusader Kings: how you interact with your family and rivals is just as important as how you manage your growing empire!
There's a 10% launch discount on Old World, and if you buy the game before June 1st, you'll get the brand-new Heroes of the Aegean DLC included for free.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1952840/Old_World__Heroes_of_the_Aegean/?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=vagrustherivenrealms
Check out Old World, and tell our friends at Hooded Horse that we sent you!
A fellow indie developer team from our hometown has just released their role-playing game so we are very happy to share this Steam cross-promotion post with you all.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374930/Black_Geyser_Couriers_of_Darkness/
If youve ever played Baldurs Gate or Icewind Dale, youll feel right at home in the old school Black Geyser. Developed by a small indie studio in Budapest, Hungary, its a love letter to those titans of the genre, with plenty of its own twists. Developed since 2015, backed on Kickstarter, and having entered into Early Access in August 2022, its launch is today at 11 AM EST (4 PM GMT).
Black Geyser is set in Yerengal, a world where dark gods have brought nothing but venality and greed. For centuries, the Devil-god Rothgor has spread fear and terror, waging war upon the mortal races. Eventually banished, the nation of Isilmerald has enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity. Yet discontent has begun to fester once more, and a bloody civil war is brewing between the capital Isilbright and the wealthy mining town of Deron-Guld.
[previewyoutube=oNVCb5PmJ-I;full][/previewyoutube]
Like any classic isometric CRPG, life starts out at the character creator. There are 5 playable races (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Feldegug and Rillow) and 13 unique classes, from 4 unique class groups (Priest, Outlaw, Warrior, and Wizard). Each plays completely different from the other and theres enough here to suit all styles. After tinkering on the attribute screen (time to panic over those points!), youre dropped into a world thats plagued by pestilence and mysterious abductions. Without wishing to spoil the story, its your job to uncover the hidden legacy of your birth, across a world youre free to explore.
Since its Early Access and over the last seven months, Black Geyser has taken the time to improve almost all areas of its game. The entire purpose of getting the game into the hands of players as soon as possible was clearly to refine its vision, identify problem areas and put them right. Having delivered over 20 huge updates, including Mac and Linux support, Black Geyser has made sweeping changes. From vastly improved loading times, to clearer player tutorials, improved crafting, new zones, enemies and questlines, the small development team have ensured they've focused on addressing and reacting to key player feedback.
As a CRPG with a large open world with dozens of unique locations, exploring, interacting with NPCs and managing Black Geysers tactical-combat-with pause is key. Just like most party-based titles of old, youll need to recruit key allies, discover their motivations, choose your formations and deck them out in any weapons and armor you can lay your hands on, whether thats from taking on epic bosses, or stealing from a nearby inn (just dont get caught by the guards).
Black Geyser is undoubtedly a challenging experience, but first and foremost it puts its story and unique greed mechanic at the center. The choices you make will either advance the cause of the Goddess of Greed, or maintain the flame of hope to impact directly on the game world. Yerengal is brimming with content to discover, with varied grim biomes that have plenty of atmosphere that are filled with dangers. If you camp for the night, theres every chance youll be ambushed. If you stray too far from the beaten track, dont be surprised if you encounter enemies waiting to smash you to a pulp.
With a branching narrative spanning more than 300,000 lines of text and multiple endings, theres more than 60 hours of content available here, not including all the side quests and secrets to uncover. Scratching that old school itch is the name of Black Geysers game, and with future launch plans set to bring pets, strongholds and additional content, its launch this week is only the beginning.
Available now on Steam at a discounted price before it launches into 1.0 today ($29.99).
Are you ready to be corrupted by Black Geysers greed?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374930/Black_Geyser_Couriers_of_Darkness/
Hey everyone,
we are happy to share that Vagrus has been included in the Big Adventure Event (#theBAE) on Steam organized by Hitcents. The event will be running between January 20 -24 with 100 demos and games.
As part of #theBAE and with our schedules finally lining up with our dear content creator friend, KormakrTv, we recorded a special Vagrus session for you all. While showing off the game, Kormakr have had a little chat with Sztaszov, Lost Pilgrims' co-founder and game designer on Vagrus - The Riven Realms. Check out the event if you missed the actual livestream!
The event will be on air here on Steam from 12:00am CST/7:00am CET, 22st of January.
We hope you will enjoy the show. Conquer the wasteland,
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
Hey everyone,
we are happy to share that Vagrus has been included in the Big Adventure Event (#theBAE) on Steam organized by Hitcents. The event will be running between January 20 -24 with 100 demos and games.
As part of #theBAE and with our schedules finally lining up with our dear content creator friend, KormakrTv, there will be a special Vagrus Let's Play on his twitch channel. While showing off the game, Kormakr will chat with Sztaszov, Lost Pilgrims' co-founder and game designer on Vagrus - The Riven Realms. It's a great opportunity to ask any questions during the stream, so come along and watch it if you can.
The event will be on air from 8:30am CST/3:30pm CET, 21st of January.
We're looking forward to talking about the game and our future plans as well. See you around,
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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If you like Vagrus, please consider sharing our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). It is much appreciated!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
Hey everyone,
this last month has been slow but we managed to push out new builds for both the main game and our demo last week, so that's a relief.
Throughout November, most of our team members were either on sick leave or vacation, while the rest of us were trying to finish tasks related to our physical Vagrus products or were busy formulating plans for the future of Lost Pilgrims. Bear with us though, as we are getting closer to realizing these plans. For now, let us look at what we are working on in more detail.
Hey Folks,
Having played decades of tabletop RPG campaigns in the setting and Vagrus' narrative landing north of one million words in the form of stories and codex entries, Story-Rich certainly rings true when it comes to our game.
If you enjoyed the setting and stories of Vargus, it would be an honor to receive your nomination in the Outstanding Story-Rich Game category.
Thank you very much for your support!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
Ps.: the category template art of Steam does seem a little off from the dark tone of Vagrus but hey, here goes anyway. :D
Hey, everyone!
While we work on our next patch and formulate our plans for this and next year, we wanted to say thanks to our indie developer friends at Sever studio who helped us with a great Vagrus cross-promo post on their The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante Steam community page at the time our launch.
The timing is just great as they have just announced their new game:Mother of All Secrets, an RPG of mythical intrigues and occult mysteries.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1747660/Mother_of_All_Secrets/
If you are one who's into the text-based game, consider following and wishlisting the game, so you won't miss the upcoming news, latest devlogs, and sneak peeks!
Mother of All Secrets, a mystery RPG about an orphanage where the fates of the heroes irreversibly change with every tick of the clock. Become one of the pupils and unravel the mysteries of the House by influencing the minds, hearts, and plans of its inhabitants.
Here's their official trailer:
[previewyoutube=nlJLqRXFtbA;full][/previewyoutube]
Get ready to dive into the very heart of the events that unfold inside the orphanage's closed society. Hand-drawn graphics will immerse you into the reality of your new home.
Create your own character and live out a unique story only you decide how to spend each and every hour. Go about uncovering the asylum's secrets however you like. Make friends or enemies at your own discretion. Explore the darkest and most dangerous corners of the House. Unravel other people's schemes and draw up your own plans. Obey or risk breaking the cryptic rules that govern the orphanage and face the consequences.
Also don't miss other games from Studio sever and 101XP, including critically acclaimed narrative-driven RPG The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante. If you are interested in getting a glimpse of the game, check its free prologue now OR participate in the community event to win your personal Deluxe Edition.
The day is upon us! Vagrus - The Riven Realms is out now!
[previewyoutube=a9YepcSLYEI;full][/previewyoutube]
And by Ahskul what a journey this has been so far. Speaking of which, there is a bit of a parallel here that could be drawn between caravans trudging across a barren, post-apocalyptic dark fantasy world and a tiny studio scrambling to deliver a huge open-world game but we let's not go there on this fine day! :D
What's truly important in this whole journey is that it would not have been possible without the continued, constructive, persistent support of so many of you, the players. Everyone who spent hours and hours delving into the Early Access, everyone who dropped a few kind words or a review of the game, shared posts, talked to friends about Vagrus, sent bug reports, pointed out typos, and of course, bought the game - you are what made all this work worth it. If you could keep this up by playing the game and sharing this post we would be eternally grateful.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
Size and Content
With companion questlines, a new companion, and a new region, the game grew by about 30-35% compared to the last public Early Access build, with a lot of UI and feature improvements. Because of this large amount, there are certainly still glitches here and there but the team is ready and eager to address those as they rear their ugly heads. We also have some unfinished business regarding the Wealth victory path and the adding of new playable races, which we'll get around to presently.
For a detailed description of what is to come, check out the previous devlog post here. Below you will find the full patch notes, which is basically the same in a bullet point list.
The Future
Because the Riven Realms have been part of our lives in one form or another for 30 years, rest assured that we have no intention of abandoning the game now that 1.0 is out, of course. On the contrary, our plans involve improving mechanics, adding content, and creating DLCs if there is a demand. We'll share more detailed plans when the tumult of the release abates somewhat.
And again, thank you for coming along for the journey with the Lost Pilgrims!
Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button) and our Discord server.
Now let's jump into the details:
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This weeks devblog is all about the plethora of quests being added to Vagrus with the full launch on October 5th. The update will include a revamped UI, a new companion to recruit, and plenty of quests to find on your journies across the wastelands. Lets take a look at whats coming!
The time has come to reveal the miniature of Finndurarth that is packed in the game's Collector's and Emperor's Editions (available via fig)! It is a 40mm scale figure and here you can see the 3D model that is the base of the final product. [Shipped in three pieces so it needs assembly.] Soon, we'll reveal painted versions of it, too.
Although we are thinking about releasing these minis for sale separately, we can't make promises due to the difficulties involved with their production. But if you are dying to get your hands on one, you can still upgrade to the Collector's or Emperor's Editions - for now.
For a long while now, Geri has been working on what we call loyalty questlines for the eight companions in the game. These are long, complex stories, often with branching endings, personal to each companion. In this project update, we wanted to give you a heads-up about certain aspects of these without spoiling any content.
How Loyalty Questlines Work
Until now, players have not been able to start these questlines (although the beginnings of some of these were available in certain cases, like Criftaa or Harvek) but now companions will open up more easily about what they want or proceed with their personal story. This means that you'll always need the specific companion to continue their quest. By following these stories, you'll have the chance to earn the companions' trust, discover more about them, and gain Insight as well as a wide variety of other rewards.
Prowess Gating
The other important aspect of these personal storylines is companion progression. Prowess levels have been gated from the beginning because the design was that you have to progress with the loyalty questline to be able to level up a companion. Prowess levels 3, 5, and 7 can only be unlocked if you progressed past certain points in the companion's storyline (with 7+ levels only available after completing the whole story).
Loyalty
Another great addition of these questlines is that a lot of sections provide opportunities to gain Loyalty for the given companion. Until now, you could only use gifts to raise Loyalty, but that will not be necessary if you follow the quests. No longer will your most trusted lieutenants complain over and over again while you wait for gifting cooldowns.
Rewards and Endings
Unique Gear or Equipment, valuable Faction reputation, treasures worth a fortune - these and more can be yours if you follow through with companion quests. Of course, not all companions are made equal, nor are the rewards or endings of their stories are equal in any way.
Lastly, although some companions have only one ending to their personal questline, most have choices and consequences in their story that produces several outcomes, often with differing rewards.
Hope you are just as excited for the upcoming 1.0 release as we are.
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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Wanna help to make the game's launch successful so we can keep expanding and improving it? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
As we teased in our latest post, IGN has picked up our Official Release Date Trailer as an exclusive for the live show they hosted as part of Gamescom. Watching our game trailer live on such a prestigious event was a blast, and now it is time to share it with all our players and followers!
So Steam has this new Event type called 'Game Discount' and we thought we would give it a go now that Vagrus is discounted* by 10% to celebrate its upcoming new trailer with the official full release date.
Tune in to Gamescom Studio. between 12:50 pm and 1:15 pm PDT (9:50 pm -10:15 pm CEST) if you want to watch the reveal live! [It's a live show hence the wide time frame.]
If you are new to Vagrus try the FREE Prologue to get a taste of what to expect.
Thanks, cheers,
The Lost Pilgrims Team
* The discount runs between Aug 25. 10 am PDT and Aug 31. 10 am PDT
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
We have some amazing news to share with you all today: IGN - the biggest gaming news site - has picked up our Vagrus release date reveal trailer as an exclusive for their live show streamed from the [url=https://www.ign.com/articles/gamescom-2021-schedule-announcements-how-to-watch-games]Gamescom Studio.
That means that our full release date will be revealed live on August 27 as part of the Gamescom show. It's a huge opportunity for us and the game to reach new audiences and help us with a final push before the release. Tune in to Gamescom Studio between 12:50 pm and 1:15 pm PDT (9:50 pm -10:15 pm CEST) if you want to watch the reveal live! [It's a live show hence the wide time frame.]
You can find all the various ways to watch Gamescom shows here (details are being added by the IGN team).
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
This week's devlog post is about the shiny new User Interfaces for settlements and crew.
Settlements
There are a large number of settlements (cities, towns, villages, outposts, encampments) that you can visit in Vagrus, all of them unique locations even though they share some characteristics and features. For a long while now, we have planned a rework for the original UI - as we usually do with all UI elements, really.
The most apparent change is that we did away with the tabs on the side and introduced buttons on top that now match other UI elements (but kept the stack of papers design that everyone knows). This allowed us to fill out the larger available space and show more on one screen.
The Stories pane now also has hover effects (in the same way as the Event choices) and numbering, so you can use the keyboard to select from the available stories. There have been other changes in the background, too, like the subtle substitution of a better-quality parchment under all of it, or tweaks to scrolling, among other things. With all these, we feel that the settlement UI has become more user-friendly and intuitive with some QoL elements you can personalize in the menus. We hope you'll like it!
Reworked Crew UI
In the long line of UI reworks, our next stop is the crew UI where all the panes will now receive a lot of changes and upgrades. We planned to make these changes earlier but the design was in motion all the time - with new stats and mechanics being added - and so other things were completed and added before these in the end. And so now, so close to 1.0, we finally got around to implement the new crew UI.
Apart from tweaking the visuals, there were technical considerations as well. Most importantly, we had to have UI elements on a single paper instead of four overlaid ones, with buttons switching between different contents of the page. This is not only more efficient with resources but also solves issues with the overlaid pages getting stuck, leading to soft-locks, which had us blocking this UI during settlement resting. The redesign solves this issue at last. Additionally, the buttons on top now share the same design as on other UI panes, resulting in a more unified look, which boosts usability.
The most spectacular changes appear on the Crew Pane since new stats were added to the display here. Among these is the workforce requirement and production of crew members, as well as their Combat Strength and Defense scores, along with the usual Upkeep and Consumption values. The same is true for Passengers, too, making it clearer when some of them pay with work beside coins.
The other vastly reworked part is the Companion Perk sheet. The formerly tiny and crowded Perk pane now opens onto the larger sheet and is thus easier to see and navigate. We love this new, clean design and we hope that it'll be well-received.
As ever, we are grateful for the continued support - this game would not have been possible without you, the players.
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
As we are gearing up for the 1.0 release of Vagrus, we are finally coming around to implement the victory mechanics, which means that you will soon be able to complete a playthrough! There are caveats, of course, since we are still in Early Access, but we thought it was time to discuss what to expect (now and later).
The Design
Even in the first game design documents, winning the game was connected to Ambitions - Wealth, Fame, Knowledge, as well as some hidden ones perhaps. That is, you will select an Ambition at character creation and you win the game by reaching that Ambition through gameplay, then completing an Event that will reward you with a victory.
Freeplay
Once victory is achieved, the game offers you to continue in Freeplay Mode. This is mostly for fun or if you wish to complete some additional stories, because Achievements are turned off, and the longer you go, the less sense some stories will make when you put them in the context of elapsed time. Still, we wanted to give players the chance to keep on wandering the wasteland if that was their desire.
Victory Screen(s)
Once you complete a victory, you will receive a victory screen - for now. We are planning a series of screens touching upon the most important storyline states and companion questlines, but initially, only the single Ambition-related screen will be added, primarily because we want to hold back on story reveals and endings until 1.0. Also, only a Renown Victory is available for the time being as some things are still being worked out for the other two.
Abolitionist Rework
We've been working on the Abolitionists, too. It is a unique faction that is a bit hidden and up until now, their presence was very minor apart from their main base of operations. The build now includes a new system that you will be able to use to unlock new faction locations for the Abolitionists. This involves getting ciphers from an already unlocked location (initially their main base) and taking it (within a time limit) to a new settlement where it will unlock the faction's presence there.
What is the point of this? Most importantly, it allows you to get Tasks from these locations, making it possible to raise your Abolitionist reputation to its maximum more fluidly. Apart from that, some quests involving the faction at certain places now require you to unlock the specific location before interacting with the cell there.
This system fleshes out the somewhat shunned Abolitionist more and we hope that it will lend the much needed depth and infrastructure to a slaveless playthrough. We hope more of our players are now motivated to try a successful Abolitionist run.
New Wyrms
By 'alternative Wyrms' we do not refer to a group of odd subculture, but a series of new enemies that are coming to ruin your day! These Sand Wyrm variants share the general look of the basic creature with slight modifications (and in some cases, differences in size). The reason for this diversification is that the long, high-end storyline involving them we are working on called for more and more varied enemies to make fights interesting and keep players on their toes.
And so please welcome the Armored Wyrm, the Frenzied Wyrm, the Spitter Wyrm, and the Great Wyrm. We hope that they will cause the right amount of trouble. We are looking forward to hearing your reactions to the Renown victory aswell and see how easy or difficult you find it to reach.
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland,
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
Hey Folks,
In case you have not heard the good news yet, we are participating in DreamHack Beyond with Vagrus between July 24- July 31.
This unique game show does not only have their Steam sale page active already, they have also created a video game that you can log into, pick your avatar, and walk around in a Rick and Morty reminiscent world.
Within the game, you can roam around and check out rooms full of video game and creator booths, talk to NPCs, and complete quests.
You can claim a free ticket with the link here, and start playing here: DreamHack Beyond Game.
Enjoy! Cheers,
The Lost Pilgrims Team
During the event, Vagrus is available with a 10 percent discount.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
[previewyoutube=CRidAlq_NIg;full][/previewyoutube] This week, we return to talk about the recently updated Companion Combat targeting options that suit different play-styles. The changes include a number of options from the main menu that allow the configuration of the way you target your foes and friendlies during the fights in Vagrus:
The greatest thing about running open development is receiving amazing feedback from players that helps improving your game. The hardest thing about open development is identifying what the actual problem is that your players are having an issue with.
The perfect example of all this is Crew Combat in Vagrus, which is an aspect of the game that players complained about fairly regularly. After adding the Flee/Appease option, it got slightly better but not as much as we had hoped. While digging for the reasons, we came to some interesting realizations. Whenever we heard someone getting irked about how they bled out against a much stronger enemy, we asked whether they tried appeasing them and they pretty much all said "No, 'Flee' implied losing big time".
So we renamed the button from Flee to Buy off/Lure Away to better indicate the appease options lying underneath it. It got slightly better again. Yet many players still ignore it. When we asked why, we learned that they had a bad experience with it. They used the Auto Offer function that gave away all their slaves, which in turn resulted in a workforce shortage and sent them into a death spiral. Boom. Never touched the option again.
The Auto Offer function was indeed something that we left unfinished. It only offered money and crew, but not cargo, nor items. Thus, it often proposed a deal that was far from being optimal. So from the player feedback, "Crew Combat is insanely hard" we got to "a small piece of the Appease feature was left unfinished and coupled with no explanation, it led players to fight unwinnable battles they should be just avoiding".
The good news is: the current build has Item Offers and improved Auto Offers in it. And hope to see more players get the hang of when and how to avoid fights that are way out of their league.
Item Offers
Items are a resource that is often overlooked. They have no weight to be considered in the cargo hold and can accumulate silently. Items looted from events or combat encounters can turn otherwise unfortunate ventures profitable - if sold in the right place.
It also makes sense that these valuables be traded or used during Crew Combat appeasing. They can even add new flavor, since the various enemy types are interested in different items - tribal folk in trinkets and charms while Necromancers in ancient tablets and arcane texts. We even decided to introduce beast lures and Undead charms that are highly effective against those kinds of foes.
Items are split into two categories. Well, more like three. The items listed in blue are the ones that will help the player the most to successfully Appease the enemy (or aid their Flee in case of Beasts or Undead). The second group lists the items that can also be used but with less efficiency. There is also an implicit third category of items that the player owns but cannot be leveraged in the given situation.
Auto Offer Improvements
With Item Offers added into the mix and considering the feedback we deciphered, we spent some time shoring up our Auto Offer logic, too. For one, now it offers cargo and items as well, though it does not apply advanced mathematics to optimize the offer, there is an underlying logic that takes the enemy's goal into account. It will offer Supplies and edible goods first to voracious opponents, valuables to looters, mounts to poachers, and so on.
We think - and hope - that these changes brought us one step closer to addressing some of the unintended difficulties players face in the game as we continue to improve other features as well.
As ever, we are immensely grateful for all the support and feedback!
Stay tuned and conquer the wasteland,
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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Wanna see the full game released as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
Companion Combat is an important facet of Vagrus even though players have quite a lot of control over how much they want to engage in it. At the same time, it is the most complex part of the game when it comes to code, so whatever changes we make requires more time relative to other parts.
After we added Mercenary Tasks, our focus has moved back to improving Companion Combat, partly because a lot of players opt to enter it from Crew Combat, so it is our goal to keep these fights interesting for as long as possible. The current set of changes are thus aimed at spicing things up a bit: more movement and thus further emphasis on positioning instead of spamming Skill 1 while standing still. The changes include:
Push-Pull Improvement:
When enemies are pushed into or pulled into another enemy, instead of being damaged slightly and staying at the previous position, the two combatants switch places, potentially setting weaker targets up for attacks or messing with their available Skills.
Skills Involving Move Action:
These Skills no longer require a free position to move into. Instead, the acting combatant will switch places with the one on the target position. In the example here, Gor'Goro charges forth, switching places with Harvek in the front line.
Here, Harvek jumps back, taking Renkailon's position while throwing his dagger.
Multi-phase Skills:
Speaking of Renkailon, one of the changes is not mechanical but visual, namely that Skills that have multiple phases will now perform these during the same camera zoom clash animation as originally intended, making it much more pleasing to the eye.
Acrobatics Perk:
Acrobatics is a Perk that is typically used by certain very agile characters - and opens up a new mechanic for them. When a combatant with this Perk Evades an attack successfully, they do not move onto a random empty position but can choose where to Evade, even onto an occupied spot, thereby opening up new tactical considerations.
Diehard Perk:
This Perk essentially saves a combatant from becoming Downed 30% of the time. When successful, Diehard makes it so that the character stays standing. Although far from reliable, it can save you in a pinch.
Although that's it for now, more improvements on the way for Companion Combat.
Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/909660?utm_source=steam&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=website&utm_content=footer
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What is this 'Dissonance Mode', you ask? Essentially, it is a game mode you can select when starting a new game, and that shifts the experience toward a more narrative route, easing up on the management and combat mechanics to transform Vagrus into more of an exploration game with a strong visual novel element for those that find the challenge too taxing.
We decided to include this game mode due to player feedback, but the decision to do so was not an easy one because we dreamed up Vagrus as a game that closely fits its setting: a cruel, harsh, merciless world that pulls no punches but once the challenges presented by it are conquered, the sense of accomplishment would be all the more satisfying. So if the world is presented as savage and unforgiving while the difficulty is lower, it can easily cause what is called ludo-narrative dissonance, which in the broadest terms means that what you are told in a game does not match what you play.
This kind of dissonance has been reported by a number of players in times when more experimental patches caused the economy to pour money on enterprising vagri. Most of this feedback described the lack of challenge and the resulting tension, which caused the dissonance, eventually leading to players to abandon a playthrough.
However, not everyone is looking for the same thrills when they play video games, and those players that do not enjoy the tactical combat or the strategy aspect of managing resources and logistics will ultimately feel that they want to delve into the world but not at the cost of a steeper learning curve. Well, Dissonance Mode is tailored for them.
In general, it comes with easier combat challenges and a more forgiving economy, allowing players to explore more freely. However, with the removed challenge comes the removal of Achievements, too. It is our hope that those who still wish to earn these badges will get practiced in Dissonance Mode and then go on to enjoy the full experience that we'll from now on call Wasteland Mode.
The list of what Dissonance Mode and 'an easier playthrough' exactly entails is not final yet and will probably change quite a lot until the final release. We'll see what to add partly based on future feedback.
Here is the list of impacts [effective from v0.6.02 going live (hopefully next week)]:
As we teased in our latest devlog post about Mercenary Tasks, we have extended Crew Combat with a new feature: you can decide how to deal with the enemy from now on following a victorious battle.
The option appears on the Crew Combat UI at the end of the fight opposite your heal options provided that your enemy surrendered (remember, only humanoids can), fled, or retreated but you caught some of them while pursuing them.
Your options are:
Recruit: Depending on their willingness to join, this results in a few fighters, scouts, or workers to be added to your ranks. That, of course, will not sit too well with your existing crew who have fought them just moments ago, and the result is Morale loss. It's also considered to be a 'kind' action and certain companions may like or dislike it for the same reason.
Conscript: Somewhat similar to Recruit, except joining is not voluntary, and so in this case, neither your existing crew nor the newly added members are happy about it, leading to an even more significant Morale drop.
Enslave: Instead of joining as free crew members, all surviving enemies are pushed into slavery. As expected, a massive drop in Obedience accompanies this decision.
Release: Once you stripped the foe of their valuables, you set them free. It may sound kind but in fact, it's a relatively cruel decision given the dangers of the wasteland.
Execute: This is a drastic measure that is considered 'malevolent' and brings no benefits since the valuables of the enemy have been turned over anyway at the time they surrendered or got caught.
Imprison: The last one is an option that players will only see when they have an active Mercenary Task to capture such enemies (be them bandits or other faction rivals). Hence the timing of us implementing this feature alongside Mercenary Tasks.
These expanded options provide further incentive, strategic depth, and even immersion to Crew Combat encounters and we hope you'll like them and provide us with the usual valuable feedback.
Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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In Part I. of our breakdown of Mercenary Tasks, we discussed what this new kind of gameplay element brings to Vagrus, how it works, and began describing the types implemented in the current build. Now it is time to delve into the rest of the Mercenary Task Types:
One of the latest content updates (Patch 0.5.30 Codename: Brimstone and Bones) brought with it a spacious region to explore, the most prominent part of which are the Smolderbone Flats. Players who took the 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland' standalone story for a spin surely recognize this place, as it was an important location in that story. And yet you will find that much has changed since your last visit, with 10 years passing, allegiances shifting, and new threats rising.
The Riven Realms, the setting of Vagrus, is a harsh, violent place. Up until now, many players have felt that their ventures are the primary targets of this cruelty but with Mercenary Tasks, you will have the opportunity to return the favor. This facet of gameplay has been in the works since we began developing Vagrus, and it not only adds a ton of variation and replayability but also goes a long way in softening up story content. Along with the branching story and trading, we consider mercenary work as one of the three pillars that hold up the game. Of course, we leave it to players which facet they want to concentrate on at times in each playthrough. Mercenary Tasks even allow for a completely combat-oriented gameplay, concentrating on forging a warband from your comitatus.
Mercenary Tasks are received from factions. Their orientation influences the ratio of Trade versus Mercenary Tasks with a given faction and also the type of mercenary contracts they hand out. Enemies in these missions can be almost any kind, from beasts to outlaws and Undead - even the mercenaries of other factions.
There has been a number of Quality of Life changes to the game in the last couple of months and we wanted to collect them in one post.
In this short article we've collected the recent changes to the Event UI in a more detailed format. This is something that's been a long time coming and we believe that it improves the playing- and reading-experience considerably.
We are immensely honored, happy, and proud to share that Vagrus has been nominated for two awards in the upcoming Unfold Games Awards show. It feels like quite an achievement for a game still in Early Access, especially since over 400 high-quality games entered the contest. The nominees were selected by a panel of 20 judges comprised of top industry professionals. The two categories are:
- Audience Award - Vote for Vagrus
- Best Game Design Award
We cannot express how much these mean to the whole team, how their love for the game and dedication to turn it into something truly special got recognized in the form of these nominations.
The Audience Award is, of course, one that will be awarded on the votes by players so we would very much appreciate your show of support for Vagrus under the link [url=https://unfoldgamesawards.com/index.php?p=nominees&category=11]here:
We are also grateful to You, our players, for having made it possible for Vagrus to get here. Your continued support, constructive critisicm, and dedication to the game keep pushing us to deliver more and better.
Stay tuned, stay safe, and conquer the wasteland!
-The Lost Pilgrims Team
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This time, we come to you with a double feature of sorts, combining two topics into a single devlog post: changing the types of the beasts of burden of a comitatus and the mechanics of Trade Offers.
[previewyoutube=7u1s_LIW7LY;full][/previewyoutube]
Dear fellow vagri,
This short video was made to give you a rough idea about how the new comitatus equipment screen and system were changed. Categories have been revamped, with new ones added into the mix.
The new mechanic allows players to use these items in more diverse and specialized ways. New types of equipment, like armaments, tools, and animals were added while we ironed out the older ones as well to make it more consistent and interesting. Many pieces of equipment are available for several slots, so you can mix and match in more ways than one.
Another change is that Deputies are now linked to equipment in a new way - they will open up extra slots for certain types when assigned to their post, further deepening the system. Now you'll be able to make use of more equipment at the same time and come up with combinations that better suit a large variety of situations in game. We also added a lot of new pieces of equipment with the last several patches, making the list of available ones fairly long by now, including some unique ones only acquirable through questing and faction reputation.
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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[previewyoutube=L7wVhvi6vYQ;full][/previewyoutube]
With the arrival of Factions to Vagrus, you guys got a new way to specialize your comitatus. Up until the addition of Faction rewards, however, this meant some obscure (albeit very welcome - we're looking at you, road tax) boons and perks but then with claimable rewards, Factions quickly became our players' new best friends.
The Name of the Game
In its core, the system is well-known in video games: build more reputation by doing repeatable, procedurally generated Tasks as well as unique stories, unlock higher tiers of Standing with a Faction by doing so, and receive your rewards. The higher the Standing, the better the rewards - it is that simple. Or is it? Of course, staying friendly with a Faction might be a challenge of its own, seeing how they tend to hate each other so passionately. This means that gaining reputation with a Faction will reduce reputation with their enemies, albeit not with the same intensity. It was deliberately implemented this way so that you can not get all the goodies in a single run - a balancing act, a tool of immersion, and a factor in replayability.
The Rewards
Two kinds of rewards are bound to Faction Standing:
Our friends at Iron Tower Studio have just released Colony Ship on Early Access. You can play the first chapter of the game and explore the first three locations.
Colony Ship is an isometric, turn-based RPG inspired by Heinleins Orphans of the Sky. Your character's world is a generation ship, a massive spacecraft on a centuries-long voyage to colonize a distant planet. The Ship's original government has been disbanded following a violent mutiny and you must negotiate a treacherous path among your fellow passengers and the contentious factions striving to dominate the Ship. Your choices alone will determine who your friends and enemies are.
Turn-based combat with action points and different attack types with different pros and cons. Gather a party of adventurers or explore the Ship alone.
Turn-based stealth: action points, noise and alert meters, and takedowns.
Dialogues with various checks: stats, skills, reputation, items, deeds, etc.
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You start the game in the Pit, a container town sitting in one of the Ship's cargo holds. From there you can travel to two nearby 'locations': the Armory and Hydroponics. These and other locations will change and evolve throughout the game.
The Pit. The Free City. Ever since you were a kid, this has been your home: a sprawling heap of vacant cargo containers slowly getting filled up with those who couldn't afford to stay in the Habitat or needed to get away from its bosses and factions. Out here, folks have lived free and died fast, with those who survive earning their keep by either "diving" into the wreckage of Mission Control and bringing back valuable relics of the past, or figuring out a way to make money off the fools who do the diving.
Your destination lies ahead a triply reinforced door flanked by twin auto-cannons drawing on a seemingly inexhaustible power supply. No one made it past during the Mutiny, and no one's made it past since. Like the proverbial flaming sword outside of Eden, it sits as a guardian, a symbol of ancient strength, and a promise of marvels beyond.
The Hydroponic Division was originally conceived to adapt Terran plants to the anticipated environment of Proxima Centauri. Extensive gene-editing was employed to develop resistance to alien fungi and pests, and accelerated adaptation hacked into the plants' genetic code.
Like many other critical systems, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. The carefully cultivated flora and fauna was left on its own in harsh environs designed to propagate rapid and brutal evolutionary cycles. When men returned to reclaim Hydroponics, they discovered an environment as wild and hostile as any Earth jungle.
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Party members with personal quests, development arcs (reflected in changing portraits), agendas, and beliefs. The first chapter gives you 3 party members out of 10:
... and introduces a party member who might join you later:
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Wishlist and follow Colony Ship for up-to-date information about its development milestones and get notified about its release when the time comes.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/648410/Colony_Ship_A_PostEarth_Role_Playing_Game/
[previewyoutube=SFQQYD3slPU;full][/previewyoutube]
Hirelings
Hirelings are a new kind of ally we have recently added to the game. They are in effect companions but can only be hired for a limited time - and for a steep price. They have no story of their own because they are only meant to represent nameless mercenaries, rounding out the abilities of your companions or making up for something you are missing in your comitatus. You always hire these henchmen from certain Factions.
Types and Use
There are two kinds of hirelings: non-combatants and combatants. The latter can take part in Crew- and Companion Combat encounters, and are quite capable in both, armed with their own Skills and Combat Traits. Non-combatant hirelings do not fight but provide their versatile skills to anyone who can pay them. They will be added in a later content update.
There are stronger variations of each hireling available to those vagri who can pay more.
Abilities and Limitations
Hirelings can not be leveled up, their Prowess is fixed. However, they start at a higher level, which makes them much more powerful than most starting companions. Several hirelings have Deputy Perks, which can make them useful when you want to obtain a character with a specific role. Hirelings' combat skills complement those of your own companions, with most of the mercenaries adept at crowd control, tanking, or support Skills.
Where to Get Them
House Venari is the sole purveyor of hirelings at the moment but you do not have to be on friendly terms with them, only neutral, to be able to make use of this service. Higher standing with the Faction will give you a significant discount on hirelings. If you are interested in these specialized mercenaries, seek out the Venari villa in the city of Larnak in-game!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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Hey everyone,
2020 has been a challenging year for us at Lost Pilgrims as much as for anyone else but it also brought a number of things that we really appreciate.
One of these is a gingerbread Vagrus fan art. Yes, that's a thing! Besides the Krawag we also received orc marauders and three replicas of the pilgrim with the lamp from our logo. Those have not survived long enough to be part of the final photoshoot, though.
The First Open-World Region
But let's rewind for a bit - to the start of 2020, in fact. It was a year we entered with big hopes, albeit with a lot of uncertainty. In January, we were in a frantic push to share the first open-world region of the game with our Fig and Patreon Backers, finally revealing our true vision for the game. We were all very excited to hear what people thought about it.
On March 26, the time has come to taste the pudding as they say. It was yummy but the crust was a bit too hard: new players struggled with the strategic aspects of Vagrus. After a few weeks, we knew that the game was not ready for an Early Access release in May as we had originally planned. We needed to implement Trade tasks first, along with a number of improvements in other areas.
COVID Impact
Soon after publishing the open-world patch, our team opted to work from home-office. An interim measure, or so we thought at the time. It took some getting used to but eventually, we got the hang of it. The occasional scare that one of us got the virus was not helping our mental health, and we had a storm gathering on the financing side. The private investment round we planned for spring tanked as one by one our candidates pulled out due to the global pandemic. We had to pull our belt in a few notches while working hard to get ready for Early Access and start generating some income. In the end, we held a smaller round of investment the same week that we released the game into EA. It wasn't fun but it bridged the gap until our first revenue share payment.
Early Access on Steam
After some shuffling around due to the Steam Summer Festival and Summer Sale date changes, we set a course to release the game at the end of July. We knew we were developing a niche game with a lot of reading from the start, so we set our expectations accordingly. Compared to that estimate, our debut ended up being a huge success (while remained modest in the grand scheme of things, of course). Most importantly, it was enough to keep us going.
The amount of initial feedback quite frankly overwhelmed us. At a certain point, we were over two weeks behind with processing our bug reports and other forms of communications we received but gradually worked it down to an acceptable threshold.
From all that insight from players, we gleaned new truths on how we should prioritize the upcoming features and fixes. It quickly became apparent that crew combat needed some additional love first. The good news was that there were plenty of people enjoying the game even in its Alpha state, which gave us hope and strength to march forward.
A Growing Team and Game
We got to know Laci, who joined Lost Pilgrims as a programmer, back in February and kept in contact, with the turbulent times of COVID ever-delaying our target-date for joining forces. His commitment to safely hand over his previous project to his replacement was something we admired a lot and proved that we picked the right person to join our team.
We added new content and features one after the other. Most recently, the largest content drop to date opened up the Deven region with a lot of new things to do. Looking at Steam, one can find many players with 60-70 but some over 150 hours of playtime. It's hard to grasp for how long some folks might play Vagrus when all the content will be added and finalized.
At the end of summer, the team decided to make home-office permanent and we canceled our office rent. With the second wave of the pandemic hitting not very long after, it proved to be a wise decision.
Social Numbers
It's been a while since we shared our progress in numbers. The trends have been similar to previous years. Traditional social media platforms grew a little but not significantly while the number of our following on gaming portals has more than doubled - a clear sign that most people follow their gaming news where they play.
The good news is that since Vagrus's Early Access release on Steam and other platforms back in July 2020, the revenues coming from those places cover the cost of our small development team, which means we can safely continue working on the game, adding new features and content with each patch to the great satisfaction of our existing player-base who come back to play and see more of Vagrus.
Perhaps the most significant news of 2020 for our team was that from our Early Access revenues we could expand our crew and so Laci joined us later in the year. He has proven himself an excellent and fitting addition to our team and we have high hopes as to our reinforced ability to deliver a great game during the course of 2021.
We still have a lot to do, of course. First, to add all the regions we plan to include in the final release, then to build on that and develop mid- and end-game content that connects all the places like a web. On the game design and code sides, the biggest ticket will be implementing Mercenary tasks, a feature that is much more complex than the already existing Trading tasks. As it stands, Exploration tasks will likely be added in a post-release patch only but who knows. We have an incredibly long list of other improvements we plan to cover until the 1.0 version, ranging from visual enhancements through complete User Interface revamps to Quality of Life features requested by our players.
We very much look forward to this new year and we'll see what it brings.
Thank you all for everything and cheers,
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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Hey Folks, so we uh... broke a few things again. Early Access for the win! If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details:
Hey Folks, Our concern that we may have broken some things with all the changes stuffed into the Beasty patch was not baseless it seems. We hope that the glitches have not botched the experience much. Although the game will have fewer bugs with this patch we have certainly not squashed all of them, so if you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. After releasing this hotfix, we will continue working on the next big patch, which will include Ash and Larnak. Stay tuned for that, too! Now, let's see the list of things we fixed and added:
Hey Folks, this patch is a beast in all sense. So many new features and changes have been added that if you ever considered starting a new play-through, this might be the perfect time for it. A shedload of tweaks has been applied to make the early game a little more forgiving (without making the late game easier), and we look forward to your feedback on the direction of these changes. Important note: considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details.
We at Lost Pilgrims Studio want to wish you all Merry Christmas (or whatever else you celebrate in your neck of the woods at this time of the year) and a hopefully-much-better 2021 than this year has been globally! We hope that you are safe and well in these dark times.
Keep a weather eye on the horizon, as we'll continue working hard on Vagrus, releasing content and features continuously, to be able to deliver a final game (in 2021) that has the high quality we aim for as well as our quirky, unique touch. :)
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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One of the most requested additions by our Early Access players has been Companion progression for a while now, and it's no surprise. Being a party-based RPG at its heart, Vagrus has a roster of unique Companions that are your most trusty lieutenants with their own backstories, skills, and personalities. It is only natural that they can become stronger with time and effort - and we have naturally designed this progression system in the beginning, but we held off on adding it because there were a lot of specifics to work out and the EA experience functioned fairly well without it.
Now, however, the time has come to introduce the progression system to see what our players and fellow vagri think about it.
Prowess and Insight
Character levels (exclusive to Companions) in Vagrus are called Prowess. You unlock new levels of Prowess by spending Insight - the same Insight you can spend on your vagrus. Once you gain a level, you can spend Proficiency points on your Attributes, Professions, Combat Traits... and now the all-new Companion Traits and revised Combat Skills, too. These round out progression with the ability to make your Companions much stronger in combat.
The Prowess cap will be 5 for the time being, as we are still testing higher-end progression (and mostly lack high-end content), but it is more than enough for a significant rise in power.
Combat Skills
You have seen them already but the Combat Skills now have fully developed second and third (maximum) levels. These level ups potentially change the Damage, Accuracy, Critical Chance, and effects of the Skills, often quite drastically. A good example is Garrik's Gas Bomb that covers more and more ground with level ups.
Additionally, several of the Companion Skills were revised to be more desirable in certain situations. A ton of enemy Combat Skills are also now working as intended, but more on that in another post.
Companion Traits
Each Companion now has a set of unique Traits that raise several baseline stats like Vitality, Armor, Resistances, base Accuracy, Power, and more. This is the only way to change these stats apart from Gear, so you will have to think hard about what to pick. Especially because most of the Trait levels - as well as Skill levels - have requirements.
Requirements
We've planned to include Attributes (Mighty, Savvy, Tough, etc.) one way or the other in the progression from the beginning but we did not want to assign incremental stat increases to them directly. The way it works now, most Combat Skill levels and all Companion Traits have Attribute requirements you need to unlock before being able to purchase them. This means that with each Prowess level, you need to consider what build you are going for, what your desired Trait is, and plan accordingly when it comes to purchasing Attributes.
This also means that no Companion will be able to unlock all their Traits and Skills by reaching Prowess 9 (the absolute maximum), so you'll have to plan builds.
As ever, we are very excited to see how the community reacts to the progression system. We hope that we can build on this system from now on and we'll be able to round out Companions fully in the future based on this. Even now, though, the system's depth is intriguing, and every Companion can focus on certain things ahead of others to specialize according to your needs.
Let us know what you think!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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Lately, we have been working on Crew Combat to further enhance its mechanics and the latest improvement is the 'Flee' feature. Let's check it out!
Flee!
Fleeing will now be added to a selection of Crew Combat encounters with the following considerations:
Fellow vagri,
we thought that this would be a good time to take a look at the recently implemented User Interface changes in Vagrus.
With the Factions tab, you can track your standing with the various factions of the game's world. At a later point in the developement, it will be possible to claim rewards for each unlocked reputation tier (although there are already a lot of implicit benefits and rewards for high reputation with almost every faction).
The Leader Status and Perk Summary UI pages might seem superfluous gains at first, but they round out the status effect UIs, as well as provide vital information about Perks, so it is indeed a very important milestone in our march towards completing the game's interface.
Below you can read about each of them in more detail.
Faction UI
In short, factions are organizations you can gain reputation with. Enough reputation points unlock tiers of faction standing that award the player with all kinds of goodies: discounts, items, equipment, and better paying Tasks, to name a few. Factions are often at odds with each other, so gaining reputation with one might lower reputation with another or two. You can absolutely lose standing, which results in losing the passive benefits of that tier. Most factions also provide quests and other content with the right tier unlocked.
There are several places where you can find factions on already existing UI elements. First and foremost, factions appear as a separate UI tab under the Leader main UI (since faction relations belong to your character the vagrus). You can check your standing with all factions here as well as what each tier provides, read about all the factions, and check on their allies and enemies.
Apart from that, factions also appear on the settlement UI, where Tasks can be taken, turned-in, and rewards are redeemed, provided the faction in question is present in the given settlement. Faction presence is also varied, with headquarters allowing for the most interaction. The majority of factions have a presence in large cities, though.
There are 11 factions currently in game, though several of them are partially implemented and will be fleshed out more with upcoming content patches. Some of them you have already encountered when playing the Open-world campaign, like the Church of Sergorod, the Ratharnak Alliance, the furtive Abolitionists, or one of the Imperial Trading Houses. We'll discuss them in more detail in a future post.
Leader Status
All kinds of long-lasting and temporary status effects can be received that affect the vagrus, your character, and these are listed on this pane. Its addition became especially important with the coming of Faction rewards, many of which provide bonuses borne by the leader of the comitatus (while companion- and crew-related effects get listed on their respective UI elements).
Perk Summary
With this addition, you can check each Perk's cumulative value. These are collated from your vagrus, your companions (including their Gear), equipment, and enduring effects. You can also see the breakdown of these Perks ordered into categories. Naturally, this UI only shows Professions and Attributes, as only these can be gained from multiple sources.
We hope these additions will make your lives in game easier. Stay tuned, for more is to come!
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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We have always planned a fairly elaborate system of healing mechanics but when creating 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland', we first focused on getting the main features ready and implemented a more streamlined, placeholder set of healing rules.
Out with the Old
The PotW system simply had you use a relatively valuable resource - medical supplies - to fully heal one Companion at a time during camp. This is not only too 'gamey' but also very obtuse and not what we intended for the game or the setting.
The old healing system did have hidden statuses, however they were not used for anything really:
[previewyoutube=mgtG1Jdr0aw;full][/previewyoutube] Thanks to all the insights you have shared with us during Vagrus' Open Access period, the game has grown and improved massively in the last twelve months. We are proud to share that we kick off our Early Access journey with over fifty hours of available content that we look to expand further during our EA period, which is expected to last until the eventual full release sometime in 2021. We have come very far but if you dive in for the first time and play the current build, please keep in mind that the game is in no way finished yet - see bugs and less polished areas for what they are: potential to make the game even better. Your help by reporting those using our in-game tool (F1) and sharing your experiences on our Discord server (discord.gg/vagrus) will continue to be the key for learning about and prioritizing focus areas in our development process. Check out our game and if you like it, spread the word, and dont forget to leave a review on its store page! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
The time is upon us! As we have previously announced, a permanent version of Vagrus' free Demo has finally landed on Steam today (July 10) following its success on the Steam Summer Event, released as a separate application here on Steam called Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue.
You will probably be pleased to know that this incarnation of the demo has a small set of achievements you can complete, too.
The Prologue is made up of two parts:
We promised that we would bring Vagrus - The Riven Reams to you in Early Access on Steam when we felt the game was ready for it. Today we are proud and exhilarated to announce that the time has come, and now we know the exact date.
The demo of Vagrus is more story-driven so we would not want to spoil it for you, however, our dear friend, Nookrium agreed to stream the open-world part for you. Enjoy!
He will be in fact looking to meet himself in the game as we love his indie game videos so much that we decided to use his likeness for a non-player character (NPC) portraits.
Interested in the setting of Vagrus, the Riven Realms? Want to understand more about the strategic aspects of the game? Have a question regarding development or the team?
According to players currently testing the open-world, it is hard to make a living as an independent comitatus in the Empire. That was an intended design choice, because almost all the trade is controlled by factions on the continent, be they Trading Houses, religious organizations or criminals. With their Imperial trading monopoly licenses or their raw negotiating power, factions buy and sell at significantly better prices. With that in mind, we have planned to include a Task-system from the beginning and we are now getting closer and closer to implementing it.
What we call Tasks now in Vagrus are essentially procedurally-generated contracts offered by factions. If you fulfill the Task, you get rewards and reputation with these factions. At this time, we are concentrating solely on Trade Tasks, though there are going to be other types later on.
The main goal of the Task system is to allow players to ease into the open-world part without having to have an extensive meta-knowledge of what can be bought or sold for a good profit in the different parts of the Empire. While completing these Tasks for a fixed commission, players also earn reputation with factions, gaining access to higher tier Tasks, better market prices, and one-time rewards.
The design considerations and building blocks we are using for Trade Tasks are as follows:
[previewyoutube=5LZxYu3t6uo;full][/previewyoutube] Initially, we built Companion Combat without too much focus on the combat AI, knowing full well that it would be a massive task to code and having most of the combat features locked before we do so would make it overall a more efficient undertaking. Thus, vanilla Companion Combat AI was 'equipped' with nothing more but brute force, running thousands of random choices without any direction that were then evaluated in the back end by a not-too-sophisticated point system spiced up with a dash of random generation aiming to make the AI choose sub-optimal scenarios too from time to time. Otherwise it would have been much too strong. That unfortunately had its share of drawbacks. It was either extremely slow (too many iterations) or dumb (not enough iterations). After some tuning, we went for the middle ground with a rather slow and occasionally irrational setting. Truth be told, it felt awkward every time we saw someone stream the game like that and initially planned to return to it earlier but our players felt more concerned about other areas of the game, so we moved it behind other open-world features on our priority list. Now that the first open-world region is in the hands of our backers and patron testers, we finally got around to improve AI, too. First Objective: Increase Speed We introduced a number of new attributes for all characters to drive their behavior, such as:
Our friends from Dark Crystal Games team released the second content patch for Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG.
Encased is an old-school isometric RPG, heavily inspired by the original Fallout, Baldurs Gate and Divinity. Story takes place under the mysterious Dome, left by unknown civilization. Player has to fight for life in the harsh post-apocalyptic wastelands, explore anomalies, solve mysteries of the Dome and decide the fate of humanity.
New content patch adds many new locations, characters and mechanics to the game. Players will be able to meet ferocious cyberhyenas and heavily armed raiders, recruit the new companion and witness the dynamic day and night cycle under the Dome.
The Riven Realms has been around for over two decades now for us who created it for our tabletop campaigns, and the setting has quite a lot of currencies, even if one only considers the continent of Xeryn. When we set out to develop Vagrus, we picked three coin types not to overcrowd the UI: the Lyrg, a copper coin; the Bross, a silver coin; and Draka, a rare and very valuable golden coin. These are all coins that are used fairly often in large-scale commerce on the continent, and they are also fairly easy to identify as the copper-silver-gold trio of currency is fairly common in historical and fantasy settings.
Problems arose soon from the fact that a lot of common, everyday things are bought and sold for a smaller currency called Changers. For example, food for a day typically goes for around 2-3 Changers, or the daily wages of a worker are also typically around that sum. However, we had no Changers, so we implemented Supplies to represent 10 points of Consumption each. Individual crew wages were raised to 1 Lyrg - the absolute minimum - but this started an internal inflation that led to the rise of a lot of goods and services to make ratios match the world and to allow vagri to earn enough to pay upkeep. Unfortunately, this led to a situation where Drakas became very common, even in the beginning of the game, which in the metal-starved world of the Riven Realms goes against the lore and atmosphere, eroding immersion.
Recently, us Lost Pilgrims decided that Changers have to make a return, and they have to do so before the Open World campaign launches (otherwise the change would mess with saved games later).
At first, you might think this is a simple decimal shift, but it sent ripples out that shook most areas of the game in one way or another.
On the technical side:
Code had Lyrg/Bross/Draka hard-burned in several places, which had to be altered.
Our databases, however, store prices as numbers only, so it was fairly straightforward to have prices shift (for example, if something used to cost 1 Draka, 2 Bross, and 5 Lyrg, now automatically costs 1 Bross, 2 Lyrg, and 5 Changers).
On the design side, things were looking much more complicated:
Hey everyone,
we wanted to provide an update on Vagrus as we come close to releasing the first Open World build. We've been talking about it for a long time now, we know, but we hope you will appreciate the ambition of this small team, along with all the effort and heart poured into the game when you get your hands on it.
As it stands now, funding for the milestone is almost complete and you will be glad to hear that we've been working on this for over a year now so we are ready for the release.
Opening It Up
We are so ready, in fact, that today (3/19/2020) we started to give access to the build for our most hyped Fig Backers to filter out the larger bugs or errors that slipped past testing. We want to have some time to adjust, but then the plan is to give access to all backers in March - if the testing mentioned works out fine then sooner than you think.
What It Brings
A ton of stuff, really. This is the game we've been working on, compared to which 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland' was only a small appetizer. That said, this large segment is only the beginning, and areas (with their content) will be added later on at intervals. We have discussed this an other details of the Open World Campaign here.
In short, a gigantic area with
One of the last big additions to Vagrus' Open World Campaign that is now coming very close to being released is the character creation sequence at the start of the game. That is the feature that allows you to customize and set up your own vagrus by selecting a variety of options in subsequent steps. To give a quick idea of the many amazing options, here's a little rundown:
[previewyoutube=fI2NQd_QauE;full][/previewyoutube] The video above is a little peek into how Crew Combat works. At first, you can - as the attacker here - set what you wish to accomplish by assaulting the foe. Then a 3-round fight commences where you can decide which type of your crew and which companions fight. You can see the chances of a successful round above between the current Combat Strength of each side, and the casualties after each round are allocated based on that roll. Later on, we'll be adding special actions that you can perform each round to bolster your chances. Crew Combat is the most common way you will handle violent conflicts as you roam the wastelands of the Riven Realms. We wanted to give you a rundown of the basic concepts here so that those interested might find some insights.
[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1240020/Thea_2_Wrath_of_the_Sea/]
Here's another bunch of videos that showcase some of the milestones we have recently delivered. We've been quite busy.
Dear future vagri, we've been busy implementing the milestones backers unlocked on Fig in the last few months but thought to give a heads-up to those of you primarily following us here on Steam. In the following collection of short videos we demonstrate some of the many recently added features to the game. Stay tuned, for we'll soon return with another round of short vids about a whole other set of features. Chart Exploration [previewyoutube=yg4u3YAdf7I;full][/previewyoutube] Your chart is one of your most important tools in Vagrus, and we keep adding to and expanding on it with subsequent builds. Milestone 10 unlocked what we referred to as 'chart exploration', which really means that from now on, Rumors, Passengers, and Codex entries you gain of locations also reveal them on your Chart, adding a whole new depth to hunting for information and mapping out the region. The short video above shows how the player purchases a Rumor on a certain quarry and gains its location on the Chart afterwards. Companion Select [previewyoutube=QrhB_5m9mSA;full][/previewyoutube] This video showcases the feature we refer to as 'heroselect', though the people you are selecting from are rarely heroes. Rather, they are your Companions, and you will often be asked to select a certain number of them to take on ventures or on segments of missions. In the video, you can see the arena fight Event ask you to select four Companions you take into the fighting pit. After selecting your Companions (and before rejoining the others), Perk tests, combat deployment, and all other effects only calculate with the selected Companions' stats. Hidden Stash and Contraband [previewyoutube=gplANMyDBPg;full][/previewyoutube] This video demonstrates the difference between showing up to the gates of a major city with contraband in your cargo hold and contraband hidden in your stash. In the first case, you can try to bribe or con the guards but it's a difficult (and often expensive) venture, which can end in fines, faction reputation loss, or worse. Contraband tucked away in the hidden stash - a piece of equipment you can get from certain places - hides the goods from the inspection however, and you can safely take them into cities and hope to find buyers. Hope this gave you a rough idea what we've been working on. We'll soon be back with more! The Lost Pilgrims Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it! Fig| Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook|Instagram|Patreon|Discord
In the meantime, Patch 0.4.9 went live mid-December and all the goodies it brought can be checked out below or in-game, of course! I hope you enjoy the fixes and additional features, we'll be back soon with more.
New Features
- MS 6: Crew Combat Alpha
- MS 14: Unrest and Obedience Mechanics (Partial delivery): Liberate or Discipline Slaves to
gain Obedience. Unrest will be added in a later update.
- Butcher beasts or mounts for supplies
- Warning triggers if an action would result in cargo loss
Here is a short video featuring the Crew Combat:
[previewyoutube=fI2NQd_QauE;full][/previewyoutube]
Additional milestones delivered that will only appear in the main campaign
- MS 10: Chart Exploration
- MS 11: Companion Select during Events
- MS 13: Hidden Stash and Smuggling Contraband
New / Updated Content or Game mechanics
- New sound effects for a number of creatures
- Camping without guards decreases Obedience
- Radial menu icons automatically pop up on the campaign map
- Node sizes increased for Point of Interests to better indicate them
- Goods tooltips now show more trade information
- Merged a few perks to make them more impactful
Fixes
- Passenger destinations are now generated correctly in new games (thanks for catching and reporting this!)! Old saves remain bugged.
- New Day save now works after combat encounters in the Fighting Pit event
- Cargo slot changes are now applied immediately
- Fixed tutorial pins for closing the Journal and the Codex
- Fixed a bug causing Companion conversation portraits to be empty
- Healing companions no longer triggers the incorrect Event result text
- Fixed the Journal entry order for The Black Knight chapter V, Eliminating the Abolitionist Camps
- Clicking on the Journal or Codex during "Hold space..." tutorial/narration is up now does not open them
Coming Up Next
- More Sound Effects
- Vagrus Creation for the Main Campaign
- Companion Combat tweaks and additions
- Factions UI
- Animations for all characters
...
- Open World Prototype
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig
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Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
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Hey All,
it's been a long time since we posted a project update, and we have a number of important news to share so here we go!
We went to London to exhibit Vagrus at AdventureX 2019 on the first weekend of November and it's time to talk a bit about all the amazing things that happened there.
The two-day event was full of awesome speakers who gave talks about the aspects of narrative in video games, be it writing, design, methods of storytelling, or other intriguing subjects. Wish we had more time to attend these but the two of us very so busy talking to participants and showing off Vagrus that we could only watch a handful of speakers, taking turns. We did have a great time chatting with people though - the event was very cozy, intimate even: a lot of like- and open-minded people coming together for a common interest's sake.
Similarly, we had too little time to check out the projects of many fellow indie devs who were also exhibiting there but many mages looked fantastic even at a cursory glance. Although the majority of titles were pure adventure games, the sheer variety and inventiveness of the genre blew us away - no two games were too similar. Just like Vagrus is a hybrid of narrative adventure, RPG, and strategy, some games showcased at AdventureX were displaying platformer elements, while others were puzzle games at heart or cinematic adventures.
The upside was, of course, that there was always someone talking to us about the game and someone else playing at the same time. Many attendees ended up playing for over an hour, reading stories and learning game mechanics, which is not a typical sight at gameshows. A lot of people loved Vagrus, the kind words and exclusively positive feedback was really heartwarming. Many of those we spoke to would not believe that such a small team could develop something this ambitious in such a short time.
This, together with how smoothly the event was organized made AdventureX 2019 a fantastic gameshow experience. If you are interested in narrative-heavy games and have the chance to visit the next show, we highly recommend taking part. Given the chance, we would surely go again.
Geri, Lost Pilgrim
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One of the great benefits of our successful crowdfunding campaign is being able to expand on parts of the game we felt we were unsatisfied with. One such area was Sound Effects, which was largely (but not exclusively) populated by placeholders up till recently.
We are now happy to announce that we have began to cooperate with Gbor Szab, a sound designer (and a great guy!) who is creating amazing effects for our combat characters and will go on to recreate sounds for all other areas of the game. We are very happy to work with him even though he seems to be enjoying creating sound effects for horrid monsters and undead a little too much. :)
Some good examples can be sampled below:
Jhakra Alpha - Roar
Congregated - Flail
Yrg Warrior - Acid Spit
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig
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Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
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Obedience is a stat describing how disciplined (or disgruntled) the slaves owned by the comitatus are at a given time. It was implemented to give a rather fluid drawback to owning slaves: they might provide a free workforce but keeping men and women enslaved does have its risks even if it is 'part of the system'. You typically lose Obedience if you do not guard your slaves well enough (too few fighters to look after them), if you get or buy a lot of new slaves, if you do not feed them enough, if you arm them in Crew Combat, or keep choosing options in Events that endanger or embolden them.
With a high Obedience, your slaves over-perform and you can end up with some small surprise Events (with a positive outcome). This is in addition to the fact that you won't get a headache thinking about what can go wrong.
Low Obedience is where it all goes from bad to worse. Slaves start to steal, escape their bonds, or even commit more serious crimes. You can try to punish all the slaves in this case in the hopes of raising Obedience but it can backfire.
So how can you keep slaves in check? Well, a thoughtful vagrus might consider liberating slaves from time to time, which raises the Obedience of others to a great extent - if there is a chance of becoming free, they will work more diligently towards it. Nevertheless, it is a very expensive route to take, as slaves cost a lot of coin. Then there is the Deputy role of Slavemaster, who generates Obedience, making a critically low score very unlikely (and also can punish unruly slaves more reliably). Some equipment also has similar effects. Additionally, certain Events can positively affect Obedience and it behooves you to pay attention to those.
But if you could easily influence everything about Obedience inside your comitatus, it would be too easy, right? And this takes us to Unrest. Unrest is a region that belongs to regions in the game. In most cases, there is no Unrest but from time to time, dynamic changes can occur during the game that raises this stat: Abolitionists or other elements cause strife among the slave population, or your own actions can cause Unrest to change, and this can easily affect your own slaves. Thus, high Unrest lowers your Obedience - the longer time you spend in such regions, the more Obedience you'll lose.
All in all, we've been poised to implement a fairly complex system to make your journeys interesting and in-depth mechanics-wise, and we feel that Obedience-Unrest is a great part of that. We are very excited about how players will react to this when the Open-world campaign opens up later this year.
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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Workforce is a fairly hidden stat that measures the complete work output of your comitatus. There are a lot of tasks to be done around a venture like yours in the game, and your workforce has to meet the requirements. These include feeding and tending to beasts and mounts, logistical tasks (such as loading or setting camp), cooking, and much more. This is represented by each type of crew member generating a certain amount of 'workforce need'.
To meet this requirement, your workers and slaves generate 'workforce' (with sometimes passengers potentially adding to the mix as well). Ideally, the workforce generated is enough to cover your needs but this can change fairly rapidly out in the wasteland. For one, low Morale and Obedience - a stat we will tell you more about next week - affect workforce and by losing crew you lose workforce directly.
When you fail to produce enough workforce, bad things start to happen:
As the new Trading system was shaping up for Milestone 5 alongside the emergence in our storylines of some of the less lawful factions (such as the Loader's Guild), we figured we would need a sub-system for smuggling goods as it makes sense that these organizations would be willing to hire a vagrus to do just that.
The key to this are the comitatus equipment called Hidden Stash and the contraband property of certain goods. These goods are either monopolized by the Empire or some kind of organization or are outlawed completely. Good examples of the former are Obsidian Blades (Imperial Trading Houses have a monopoly on them) while Dragonbone is for the latter. Whichever the type is, goods such as these are contraband, and if you have any of them in your cargo hold, guards in major cities will stop you and confiscate it at the gates unless you can pass a difficult test of hiding it.
Unless you have them stashed away in your Hidden Stash, of course. When equipped, it converts some of your cargo hold into a stash that can be used normally, except that contraband put in it is disregarded by checks and guards. Alternative smuggling methods include bribing the guards or having connections in the criminal underworld or Imperial organizations or Churches (though these inevitably lower your reputation with said factions). Once smuggled into town, contraband goods have to be sold to the right people, too, so there are still further considerations.
We are also looking into adding different ways contraband will work with different powers (such as Tarkian cities, the Dragonlands, and so on) later on, as well as adding specific faction Tasks that ask you to smuggle certain things into faraway cities. So if you are interested in risking smuggling, it could become a viable option for your comitatus.
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig
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In short: GameDevDays was phenomenal. The speakers and the community made it an absolutely amazing experience for us.
It started off a little rough considering that we could not borrow a reasonable size car for the trip to Graz and with all the tech equipment we needed to bring along it was a miracle that everyone could squeeze in. In the end we did get there even if a bit cramped. The next hoop we needed to jump was a mix-up with our accommodation (someone was already in the room we booked :O ) but eventually we solved that, too.
From then on, our trip just became better and better. The organizers of the show were helpful and easy-going, the venue was really cool for the size of the event, and then there were the speeches. It would be hard to list all of them, but our favorite two were probably Josh Sawyer (Obsidian) and Marta Fijak (11 Bit Studios).
The visitors who played Vagrus all praised its art, music, story, and enjoyed it so much that one guy that they often ended up playing for hours on end. Someone managed to establish a new record: he played for three hours straight. On the second day we had to put an additional laptop to work so more people could try the game without waiting for long.
The greatest moment of course was when RPG dev legend Josh Sawyer came to our table and played the game himself.
As the lead designer of many great RPG titles (Neverwinter Nights 2, Pillars of Eternity I-II, Fallout: New Vegas), Josh is a role model for us and his works are very important sources of inspiration, so him playing Vagrus and talking about RPGs was a dream come true. Our team was beaming when he joined us for a team photo, too (see the header image of this post).
The conference was an eye-opening experience from a community perspective as well. With support from the city of Graz and Technical University Graz but mostly thanks to the many dedicated organizers and volunteers from the gaming community, this event felt like everyone knew each other and looked at each other as friends. We listened to the local GamedevTunes orchestra with awe at the opening of the event and at the closing night-out, not only because they were awesome but because having a group so enthusiastic to practice and play on stage game soundtrack tributes from within an already small game developer subculture was almost unbelievable.
All in all, we had a great time in Graz and felt that we met more enthusiastic Vagrus fans than at any gameshow before. We would not be surprised to find ourselves attending GameDevDays Graz on future occasions as well.
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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For the last couple of weeks, Szonja has been busy animating our idle characters after we had finally managed to settle on a process. There are still a lot of things to test and work out but after the first few prototypes we came to several important conclusions.
For instance, we decided to have two distinct types of idle combat animations. One would be a very simple 'breathing' anim that is the default one for characters, in an endless loop. The other is a more pronounced movement that sometimes breaks up the more monotonous breathing one. A good example is when Javek fiddles with his goatee or when Gor'Goro brandishes his axe and stomps on the ground. We may even end up using the latter type for character activations in combat.
But for the time being enjoy these gifs that provide a glimpse into the future for our Companion combat idles.
The Lost Pilgrims Team
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We are actively working on what we call Enduring Effects for the game. What are these? Well, in short and to put it simply, these are all buffs and debuffs that last for several in-game days or are permanent (until removed somehow). They come in a variety of types and can be used for a lot of things to enhance gameplay and narrative alike.
Challenges and Results
The challenges of implementing such a system are more complex than one would think simply based on how they are supposed to work. We had to create a property system and make it compatible with a huge number of stats and attributes across a variety of in-game entities. Though it involved some heavy lifting (mainly from coding) and it is almost impossible to demonstrate, we are very satisfied with the results. The goal was to have a system that allows content creators to go wild and expand indefinitely, to keep adding stuff wherever the story or the gameplay requires it.
Enduring Effect Types
Apart from the simple distinction of positive and negative effects (that aid and hinder the player, respectively) we identify a number of parameters that set Enduring Effects (EEs) apart into neat little categories.
Leader: This type of EE affects your character, the vagrus. Typically it'll modify stats like Resourcefulness (or making certain Leadership Skills cheaper or more expensive), or alter Perks your character might have.
A good example is Inspiration, which raises the maximum Resourcefulness temporarily, or Blessing of Bal Ur Kaal, which raises the level of social Perks like Charismatic, Con, and Persuade.
Crew: EEs of this kind affect your crew and only your crew (meaning they don't affect Companions for example or your character). Crew-related stats are typically altered by these, such as Vigor or Morale.
Examples include Favor of Irafons, which gives MP to your comitatus, or Hangover, which lowers maximum Vigor for a day.
Companion: This type of EE affects a specific Companion or all of them. Since these characters have a wide range of abilities, combat skills, and Perks, these EEs tend to be complicated more often than not.
The Blessing of Sergorod, for example, gives a Companion some Accuracy and Critical Hit boosts, while the Wrath of Sergorod makes it so that enemies are more accurate and score criticals more often against your cursed Companion.
Comitatus: EEs that effect your whole comitatus can be more complex, modifying a wider variety of stats and mechanics. They tend to have a Companion-related EE counterpart that is automatically assigned when the parent EE is assigned.
Black Rot, for instance, is a dreadful disease that is very contagious. When your comitatus receives this EE, it is transferred to all Companions currently in your employ as well - and keeps killing your crew and Companions until you can rid yourself of the horrid sickness.
Disdain of Ahskul affects the whole comitatus, making it more common that Undead show up as random encounters as well as buffing Undead type enemies against you.
Hope this allowed a little glance into what goes on behind the scenes and gives you all an idea of what to expect from this feature package. Next up, we'll probably talk about animation. See you around, dear Follower!
The Lost Pilgrim team
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We are extremely proud to announce working alongside Chameleon Comix and Ian Livingstone on a City of Thieves graphic novel. Ian has been our hero ever since our little group of friend gathered around one of his books in elementary school. It has been without a shadow of a doubt a key moment in our lives to turn towards table-top roleplaying games, and eventually start our indiegame development studio, Lost Pilgrims. Having this opportunity to work with him is a dream come true and it's even better since we are joining forces with one of those friends huddling around said book. Gyula has been a long time member of our RPG group, played countless hours on our own world, The Riven Realms too, and he now leads this awesome project with his comic books publishing house. Interested in hearing more? Be sure to follow Chameleon Comix and Lost Pilgrims, and meet us at our stand next to Ian's at Fighting Fantasy Fest 3 at the end of August.
This is a small project compared to Vagrus but it still feels great that such esteemed author like Ian Livingstone thought us worthy to carry on and support his Fighting Fantasy Universe this way.
Ever since we came up with the idea of Vagrus, a game where you manage a comitatus, we knew we needed to develop an elaborate, dynamic trade system that would serve as one of the major features of the game and would also aid in fleshing out a living world.
As we are getting closer and closer to releasing the first playable build of the main campaign of Vagrus, it is perhaps a good time to talk a bit about the differences between the open world campaign and 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland'. The focus of this is going to be narrative design and stories but there are going to be implications on gameplay as well.
At long last, Scouting is making its way intoVagrus. It is a vital feature in navigating and surviving the many wastelands of the continent of Xeryn.
Have you played the previous Open Access build ofVagrus? Or are you considering just now to dip your feet into the deep lore of the Riven Realms for the first time?
Visit ourcrowdfunding campaignand you can jump right in with some pretty neat improvements (via Discord).
The soundtrack ofVagrusis of key importance in conveying the powerful atmosphere of the setting. Be it foreboding or hauntingly beautiful, the score by George Olah captures the essence of the ravaged world of the Riven Realms perfectly. Even more importantly, the majority of fans and influencers have told us that one of the most important parts of theVagrus experience for them was the music.
Ever since we started working with George, we usually had him pour over the specific environment artwork and game world descriptions for each theme and together we listened to fantasy music that evokes the feeling we were looking for in that environment. With our tabletop RPG background, we were aiming for ambient, atmospheric music that goes well with each region of the game. Yet it was important for the environment tracks to be non-intrusive not to detract from the reading parts.
You can now get a taste of the main theme of the game above and listen to some other themes over atour SoundCloud page.
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Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig
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Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig|Game Jolt |Itchio |IndieDB
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Throughout your journeys as a vagrus, you will come across many people who want to get from one place to another on the broken continent of Xeryn. This might seem trivial but travel over the accursed wastelands of the Empire a perilous venture which makes most people try to avoid it whenever they can.
Those who that do undertake journeys often pay comitati such as yours to take them where they want to be. In-game, this provides an optional source of revenue to help you keep afloat but one that requires you to plan your path ahead considering several factors, including where your passengers wish to go and how long you have to deliver them there.
Passengers are available at mansios (and are randomized) or sometimes in events (where they are specific). You do not only have to feed them on the way but also have to protect them as attacking monster or outlaws can easily slay them. Mind you, some of them can even give you a hand in defending your comitatus (more on that later).
You can see the statistics of passengers related to crew on the Crew Pane, while other information can be observed in your Journal (redesigned to include a Passengers Page).
We feel this system adds another layer to planning and risks during travels in Vagrus, one which also has the potential to tell tiny stories of people who risk a lot by venturing forth with you.
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Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!
Fig|Game Jolt |Itchio |IndieDB
Website|Youtube|Twitter|Facebook
Instagram|Patreon|Discord
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