Shattered Kingdom: BronyCon 2014 · 7:41am Nov 6th, 2014
It's finally up! After three months of waiting, the BronyCon 2014 panel for Shattered Kingdom is finally online! And that means another info post for everyone who's interested!
Shattered Kingdom is a turn-based tactical role playing game in development by Alicorn Games. Players take the role of Eclipse, an influential officer in Equestria’s military. Between the rise of Princess Twilight Sparkle and the changeling invasion (the first true invasion of Equestria in a millennium), political balance in the nation is beginning to grow tenuous. After an attack on the Grand Galloping Gala nearly puts Princess Luna’s life in danger, she makes a call to arms across the nation, asking every willing and able pony to form an organized militia and strengthen Equestria’s borders. Princess Celestia, having protected her nation for over a thousand years without the need of military force, dissents against this notion, not wishing her nation to become a bloodthirsty empire. Political tensions rise, and eventually Luna flees to the Crystal Empire to form the New Lunar Republic, slowly but surely plunging Equestria into civil war…
Gameplay-wise, the game takes cues from titles such as Fire Emblem, Valkyria Chronicles, and Final Fantasy Tactics, with a heavy emphasis on story. The player’s fate will be decided not through clear, binary choices, but through a natural and realistic progression of tough, real decisions. With a versatile cast of colorful characters (literally) on either side whose lives will be affected by your every choice, both sides will have the possibility of multiple endings, as well as some alternate paths that don’t confine to either side at all (you can even change sides partway through the game if you play your cards right).
Putting this masterpiece together is a hand-picked team of some of the most talented individuals I could find in this fandom. Right now, our lineup includes SilFoe in charge of the art department, and acting as my right-hand woman as associate producer, with Audrarius doing various character and environment sprites, Xeno-Scorpion Alien doing character sprites, and Huussii (aka the Finn of win), who has already produced some incredible environment art. Seventh Element is the lead sound designer, ahead of a team consisting of Radiarc and Radix, who have been building the game's absolutely beautiful soundtrack. Writing the game's story line (aka the architect of that amazing stuff just a couple paragraphs ago) is a very talented team co-lead by Pen Stroke and Kkat, and including Caisius, Dash Attack, Colby Peck, and Charles Gormley. On the design team we have a guy by the name of Russel. And lastly is myself, acting as the game's producer, creative director, and lead designer. Seriously each and every one of these guys are amazing, you should all go and check them out immediately.
So if any of you have any questions about the game, let's hear 'em! I can't promise I'm at liberty to answer all of them, but I'll do my best! You can also follow us at our blog!
Thanks for playing!
FOOKING , , FINAAAALLLLYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!
now to watch.....
busy busy heh....
ok so i didn't realize you were the lead guy on the team , i thought you were just involved on the project , which one where you at the panel then?
so let's see things to ask now....
well one of the major things i had been concerned about which was kinda left uneasy for me is the prospect of a pacifist play style , i would have liked there to be a completely non violent way to play , but something akin to metal gear solid no alert/kill playthrough would suffice i suppose , but you guys mentioned that it's an intent , but might not be possible due to software limitations? i really hope there would be a way to implement that , as if there's 1 thing i don't like when it comes to ponies it's ponies dieing , and i would like to avoid that if at all possible.....
so let's see other general gameplay elements , so the combat is going to stay in a grid locked turn based style , but i wonder if there would be other things that could be done with it , like when they were walking over an angled bridge it of course looked very awkward when they had to move in a grid pattern , would it be possible to implement a 8 axis movement for the out of combat moving , and possibly something to help the movement in the grid layout in combat like how the new xcom did it's movement system?.....
then there was talking about ranking up as a commander and being able to control lots of big armies , it certainly would be cool to issue several assaults/defenses at the same time , i've never seen a game that's done something like that though so i wouldn't know how to comment on it , but i think metal gear solid portable ops had a similar system to what you described where you could recruit soldiers to fight for you , you could suit them up with customizations and send them on missions without you needing to be with them , and they could level up in the process and stuff , so idk if anyone on the team has played that game and is more familiar with those gameplay elements , i could always get the info from a friend of mine who's so obsessed with mgs and idolizes big boss to the point where he changed his name to patch......
and in general about the troops management , again i haven't played many games in this genera because i actually hate most of them , so my experiences to draw from isn't as vast as your guy's , but there are a select few which i really like such as chess and the new xcom and advanced wars which you mentioned (yet strangely not fire emblem , at least i tried the first one and lost interest rather quickly) , oh and i was thinking of trying another game i just found the other day for the ds called Spectral Force Genesis , but i've yet to been able to find a video review of it and so far and all review sites have said it's a terrible game :l .....
but anyways the idea of being able to build up your battalion and deploy the troops you want to sounds pretty cool , if the situation in the story premisses it of course , the only other game i know of that did something similar to that was kingdom under fire , which isn't turn based but rather real time third person skirmish kinda thing , but ugh i hated that game so much , and you only got to have/deploy like 3 or 4 battalions per mission , if you didn't deploy your max amount it would be impossible to beat the mission , and with all of them it was still super difficult to win the scenarios , which were completely linear so no side question or back tracking to gain xp , and the customization for them was bare minimal with xp gained from fighting to level them up , armor and weapons and that's about it.....
and i think i like the idea of having a set main character to play as in the game , but then being able to personalize that character through your decisions in the game , makes your guy's work load easier and makes the thing feel more authentic right?....
and i don't agree with the notion of making this a single player only experience , turn based strategy games originated as a competitive sport , ala chess , so it wouldn't seem right to make such a game without the ability to play a friend in it , and while aw and xcom have multilayer modes i still mainly enjoyed them for the single player campaign , so it's not like it's going to take away from the single player experience.....
and while we're talking about campaigns , what about the possibility of difficulty options? after you beat aw you can play the campaign over again this time much harder than before , and xcom has the fucking iron man impossible difficulty which i still haven't made it past the first month on lol , but i love it , so that's something i'd like to see as well.....
as for the gameplay elements you already have established im unsure either way about them , having this action point system changes what matters from the amount of good units you have to the amount of reaming hp your side has as opposed to the opponent's side , since you can still deal a full army's size worth of dmg to the opponent's side with a single unit in this system , and i have no idea if that's a good design choice or not , i would like to hear what was your guy's reasoning for doing this?.....
ok that should be enough to leave you with for now.....
I'm the one in the middle, the one who's doing most of the talking.
I suppose I can elaborate; making a "non-lethal" kill system that isn't the same thing but more tedious (or less tedious) is tricky to do right, and so making different states for dead and knocked out may be more work than it's worth. The best example I can give is Dishonored, where the non-lethal kills are exactly the same mechanically, just slower and less fun. If we make it so you have the option not to kill, we don't want it to feel like a punishment, and if we don't give the option, we'll probably not specify whether or not their dead or KO'd.
Right now this is being fixed with better level design. If that becomes possible we'll consider it, but right now we need to work on other things.
This is just really unrealistic, though. Setting up multiplayer and making sure it works smoothly can take a massive chunk out of development time, and we don't have the dedicated programmers to even attempt something like this right now. It might not make the single player less fun, but we don't have the manpower or budget of teams like Fraxis, so we really can't pull off both and do either of them well.
It's being taken into consideration, we'd have to manually re-design each battle, but it may yet be a possibility.
The level design and unit design are going to make putting all your weight into just a few units not a really viable idea. Sure, one unit can do an army's worth of damage, but only to a concentrated group of enemies, and enemies in other areas will be able to get around unmolested, then. There may also be penalties for using the same unit more than a certain number of times in the future...
2603715
thought so....
mmm i never played that game so i wouldn't know , but what about my good game example of mgs instead of the bad game example you used?....
i don't see how it could be made to be punishing to the player in a game like this to have a non lethal attack option , like what about something as simple as a knock out blow attack that would be say functionally similar to pokemon's tackle move that's always available that does a set amount of dmg or could even be upgraded which when an enemy troop is finished off with it it doesn't kill them , surely that would be easy enough to implement would it not?....
k....
oh , i was under the impression that adding in the components of another player controller would have been rather simple since you already have all the player controls made for the single player , but if it beyond your capabilities right now that's fine then it can be saved for later and just get this game to us already lol....
well if it's anything like aw hard mode it would be super easy to do just add some units and hazards and you're set....
the same is true for any other game of this kind though , only more so , which is why i pointed out how it shifts the focus of the player....
as for having penalties for massing the same unit i've never seen any such element in gameplay before so i wouldn't know how to comment on it , seems kinda silly at face value to impose a penalty when there should already be the intrinsic penalty of only having 1 unit type and thus a lack of adaptability/utility as a result........
Metal Gear is a stealth action game; you can avoid fighting altogether and a good portion of the game's design is to enable you to do so. When you get into a fight, you pretty much have to kill your enemies or run away. Those mechanics really don't apply to a turn-based strategy RPG.
That's the gist of it, but each placement is pretty carefully decided on. Especially in turn based games, enemy placement is very important
Valkyria Chronicles does this, basically to simulate your units getting tired for getting pushed too hard. We may or may not implement something like that though, it's not decided as of yet.
2607809 gaaaah stupid ass site didn't notify me of this reply >_> .....
mmm fair enough....
oh yeah for sure , you've played those games of course right? every unit and space makes all the difference for you're ability to fight off the enemy force till you're able to get the lead for the eventual win.....
oh well if you're talking about troops needing rest that's something completely different , i thought you were talking about some kind of a stat decrease penalty for each unit you have is the same.....
7 Kingdoms 2 has some mechanics in it which is similar to that....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUvl6lI-_Rg
man that shit's old....
anyways , all the units in the game have a loyalty stat which you need to be aware of at all times , if their loyalty gets to low they will defect to another kingdom
troops will want to fight but if you keep them outside of the forts for a prolonged period of time their loyalty will still decrease , same if they're in a fort , unless there's a really good general in the fort for them as well
and you have a food count in the game which idle peasants will automatically generate for you which you need to upkeep for your troop count which is also automatic , but if you have way more troops than peasants then you'll start to run out of food and once you're out loyalty will drop fast , but you can also buy loyalty by giving troops 'honors' which is basically paying i think 10$ to give them +10 loyalty , also you have a reputation stat for your kingdom in the game which if it goes really low (having to fight a peasant rebellion is a really easy way for that to happen) it will also effect your unit's loyalty......
yeah basically there's a lot of really cool shit in that game , there's a pdf guide someone made which breaks down the mechanics and strategies for the game but i haven't read it since it's like 200 pages big.....
and back on topic having your troops get tired from being used to much would be a really cool mechanic to have in this game , but so would everything else i just mentioned as well......
but some other things i thought to ask , with the whole starting side selection bit , when one does that are those allegiances set and can't be changed at all? as in say you start nlr , will the solar empire always be your enemy state to over come? or can you defect to their side later in the game? and will nlr always be your ally state even if you defect to the other side?
and as for being able to defect and join other factions in the game , what's going to happen with those relations when you do so?
and i guess this segways easily into the ultimate question this is leading up to , what do you guys see the end game of this looking like?
what will the win states look like?
will there be failed states for a bad end scenario?
will you be able to achieve the same kind of win states from playing for other factions in the game?
how bout game end states where all or some of the opposing factions are still left in place/a winner? regardless of which one you were allied to by the end?.....
....hmmm i think that's all i can come up with on that for now....
then there were some other later game stage mechanics i was wondering about , such as the things i already mentioned above where some of the things the player has to do is more like that of civilization building turn based strategy games , where things like loyalty and monetary economy and food and reputation come into play on the larger scale of the game's progress , where you have to make sure the territory you control is sufficient in it's production for your campaign so that you have the apple farm keeping your troops fed , some other territory that produces monetary income to keep fed as well so you can gain income to pay the farmers to keep producing food for you , to purchase or construct hospitals and camps to keep your troops loyalty and health high , to bribe other territories/factions/ponies
actually now that segways nicely into another very large in scope and interesting topic of espionage , 7 Kingdoms 2 was basically famous (for what little fame it had) for having such an intricate spying system along with all the other diplomatic elements thrown into a standard rts game , will being able to do spy missions be an possibility/option? cause that would be super freaking cool , also just being able to place spies in the enemy rankings to gain intel or to arrogate them so they lose loyalty and even start rebellions or flat out defect just like in 7K2....
and most importantly now....
can you make it so that we would be able to assassinate the princesses???......
cause , like , holy fucking shit if that became possible to do in game form , omg......
ok that's all for now , man i spend so much time making these it makes me really tired for how late it is now.....