Talespinner is full of branching narratives, which mean you’ll encounter different biomes and bosses depending on which path you decide to take. In our demo, we’ve included 2 different mini-bosses and 2 bosses that you can encounter depending on the path you choose, so we thought we’d take a closer look at some of them in… A Tale of Two Bosses!
The first mini-boss you could encounter on your hero’s journey as Gyokushin is the Ronin.
Unlike many of the other enemies and bosses in Talespinner, the Ronin isn’t based on a yokai, but is instead a warrior with a deathly sharp blade that you’d do well to avoid.
In Japanese culture, a ronin was once a samurai, a caste of powerful warriors who were highly trained in the use of many weapons but were arguably most well-known for their mastery of razor-sharp swords. Samurai who did not have a lord or a master were referred to as ronin. In some cases, they may have even cut ties with his family or clan. The term itself can be roughly translated to mean “drifter” or “wandering man”, which gives a hint as to the status of such people.
According to the traditional code that samurai were meant to follow, known as the Bushido Shoshinshu, a samurai was supposed to commit ritual suicide after the death of his master. Any samurai who did not honor this code would be labelled as a ronin and suffer great shame as a result.
In Talespinner, the Ronin has a chance to inflict a status effect known as Nasty Cut on one or more of your cards. You can tell if your card has been subjected to a Nasty Cut by the large slash running diagonally across it. This renders the card totally unusable for the duration of the turn. We wanted to incorporate the ronin’s history as a samurai into his mechanics in-game, which is why he uses his skills with the blade to slice your cards!
If you make it past the Ronin, you may have the misfortune of facing off against the devious Kitsune!
In Japanese mythology, the kitsune are highly intelligent yokai that are known for their magical abilities and their distinctive fox-like appearance. What sets them apart from wild foxes, however, are the multiple tails that they are often depicted with.
According to most tales, kitsune would target wicked priests, greedy merchants, and boastful drunkards for punishment. They were portrayed as magical tricksters, who would vex their target by creating phantom sounds and sights, steal from them, or find other ways to humiliate them publicly. In other words, they were the pranksters of the yokai world!
We wanted to incorporate their playful and mischievous nature into their mechanics, which is how we ended up with the Prank status effect!
When you face off against Kitsune, there’s a chance that one or more of your cards will be “Pranked”. A Pranked card will have a bow neatly tied around it with a mocking fox face at the front. If you choose to play a Pranked card, you’ll then have to choose between one of two pranks. The choice of pranks won’t always be the same, but you can rest assured that they certainly won’t benefit you!
You could end up having to choose between strengthening your enemy or adding a negative status effect to your card, or you could have to decide whether you’d rather give your enemy a turn to dodge or add a Rotten Fish to your draw pile! This adds a layer of complexity to the fight with Kitsune, since you have to calculate any potential risk you might be taking if you want to play a Pranked card.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1725410/Talespinner/
What would you like to see in our next dev diary or yōkai tales? Let us know in the comments! Don’t forget to click the buttons below to join our Discord and follow us on social media for more updates 🌸
