Hi folks!
It’s been quiet from me for a bit because I have been working hard. I do tend to focus so much on the game that I sometimes forget to keep you all updated. Especially after the successful Kickstarter ate up quite some of my time and I really wanted to knuckle down and work on the game.
But I’m resurfacing again because there are plenty of fun things to talk about!
If you’ve been paying attention, you might have noticed Crownbreakers being featured as part of TactiCon or that it’s been showcased in the Games Composed In Germany Steam event! But wait, there’s more:
Crownbreakers will be playable at the Indie Arena Booth at gamescom, alongside a stunning lineup of fellow indies!
If you’re be attending gamescom, come by! You can find me in Hall 10.2, Booth F010 - E019, Stand 25. And who knows, I might be bringing a little merch for you…
The final version of Crownbreakers will offer four playable characters, each with their own deck, abilities and synergies. If you’ve played the demo you've already met Ten Winds and Kieran but there are two more Champions waiting in the wings. One of the current goals is to make sure all of them have their cards, relics and stickers designed and added to the game.
Luckily I have managed to acquire reinforcements to help me work on that monumental task! Since June, Mauro, the game designer of Into The Grid, has joined me for a stretch as a freelancer! It’s been an inspiring collaboration and together we’ve made great progress!
At this point, three out of the four characters are complete and already feeling pretty good!. We’ve just started on the fourth with some fun new ideas! I’m excited to have all of them ready so they can go through some testing to make sure they’re as fun to play as they can be!
A big part of Crownbreakers will be the city gameplay: Returning to Cascade, visiting your contacts, completing quests, and unlocking new stuff! The demo has only shown you but a glimpse of this but with the upcoming Early Alpha Access will let the Kickstarter backers get their hands on a first version of this! So of course I have also been working hard to get this in tip top shape.
And that makes this a perfect moment to talk about the city gameplay design: The heart of the city is made up of three things: Districts, Contacts and Champions.
Districts are the places where you fight. Each district offers you different Routes, with their own waves, enemies, obstacles, structure and final boss. In the demo you fight first in Downfalls, a poor and cramped district, and later on in Neru Khan, an industrial area.
When you first unlock a District, you can access its three lieutenant routes. You need to defeat each of them once to “Build Mayhem”. Once that’s done you can square up against the Tyrant of that District. Defeating them will “Break Mayhem” and unlock the next District. And after you have taken down the last district's tyrant, you gain access to the final tyrant!
Contacts are the people of Cascade helping you on your mission. Nana Soma runs a little curry kitchen and is your first contact - you’ve probably already met her in the Demo.
She has a stock of Upgrades you can unlock by sharing Vapor (for most Upgrades) or Fluxstone (for the more impactful ones) with her. Vapor is soul that the tyrants have stolen and which you can reclaim in runs. Fluxstone is earned whenever you defeat a tyrant for the first time on each difficulty level. (More about difficulty levels in a moment.)
Nana Soma also has a number of quests available that raise her Hope if you complete them. At certain thresholds she will reach a new hope rank, giving you access to more quests and upgrades.
She is your core contact, offering you the main questline and key unlocks. But there are more contacts, one assigned to a district. They offer quests relating to that district and different categories of upgrades that expand the game as you progress.
And finally Champions are the playable characters. In the city they work much like Contacts, in that they offer Quests and Upgrades related to them. Complete Quests (or win fights) with them to increase their Hope.
The Upgrades Champions offer will let you increase their health, add more powerful cards to their pool and more! (Got to keep some things for you to discover!)
Where the upgrades from Contacts require Vapor, Champions instead need Insight. Insight is a little like “Skill Points”: It is gained whenever a Champions’ hope rank increases, and also by completing specific quests. However insight can be shared between Champions so you can invest the Insight gained from Kieran’s quests into Ten Winds, if you want.
And what do you do, once you’ve fought through each district once and beaten the final tyrant? Well, one thing you will be able to do is play the different districts at higher difficulties! Each difficulty will modify the game slightly, changing the rules and ratcheting up the challenge.
To unlock a new difficulty level, you need to beat the final tyrant once. This will unlock the next difficulty level and build Mayhem in all other districts. Break Mayhem in all Districts again by defeating their tyrants at the highest difficulty level, and the increased difficulty is now available on the final tyrant! Repeat this to unlock max difficulty in all districts!
I’m excited to share the city gameplay with the Kickstarter backers in the early alpha soon. And I’m also super curious about your thoughts on the city gameplay I described above. For example: How do think difficulty options should be accessible in roguelikes? Do you prefer them to be available right out of the gate so you can play at the level of challenge you want? Or do you think it's better to unlock them step by step as a reward for mastery like Ascension levels often do?
There’s still plenty of time to iterate and improve so jump into the Sharkbomb Studios Discord to discuss! And of course, as always, don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam!
💚 Martin