Hey everyone!
I would like to give you an update of what's cooking right now for Of Blades & Tails.
Over the last months, me and my friends at Pineapple Works have put a lot of effort into making the game 100% playable with controller. This has always been ranked high in terms of player requests (especially on Steam Deck) and for us moving forward in bringing Of Blades & Tails to consoles later this year.
We also took this opportunity to add a bunch of quality of life improvements to the inventory view! You'll be able to filter for various item types and categories and also sort the list for name, recently added and item value. This will be available for regular mouse and keyboard controls as well (of course).
Feedback appreciated
Right now, we are at a stage where all features and mechanics of the game are fully accessible with controller, but we would love to get your feedback on this subject! We want to get this as good and convenient as possible, but that's only achievable with your feedback :)
Therefore we've set up a Beta branch that you can use to check out the latest changes and tell us either in the comments of this post or on our Discord server what you think about the current implementation.
To access the Beta branch you have to do the following:
- Go to your Steam library
- Right-click on the game > Select Properties... > Betas
- Select the "beta" branch from the Beta participation select box
If you've already been playing Of Blades & Tails on your Steam Deck and would like to check out the Beta as well, remember to change your controller layout back to the default by taking these steps:
- Open the Steam Deck game library
- Open Of Blades & Tails
- Move option highlight to the controller icon on the right
- Select the large button with the currently selected controller layout.
- Select your (currently selected) layout from the provided list and set it to "generic gamepad"
- Press X to apply Layout.
Some notes before you dive in:
- the help/tutorial system hasn't been rewritten to match the new controller scheme yet, mainly because we're not sure yet which controller input scheme will be final
- there are button hints/tooltips basically everywhere, they don't look super nice but that's intentional (we'll make them look nice when we finalize the controller scheme)
- you can find the full input scheme on the Options screen (no button remapping for now I'm afraid)
- new texts which come with this beta build are only available in English (we'll move forward with translations after we finalize the controller scheme)
Below are a few impressions of the new controls, but be aware that this is still work in progress.
Items in the inventory can be filtered and assigned to the quick slots via wheel selection.
The inventory items can now also be sorted by various aspects. This also applies to trading and player stash views.
Skills are quickly accessible through a wheel selection. The same applies to item quick slots.
You can walk and interact directly with the analog stick, but it is also possible to switch to a much more precise cursor control. This will be handy in tough battles, where precise positioning is key and for range weapon attacks as well.
Preview of world map controls. Here you can snap from tile to tile, but it will be also possible to scroll through the whole map with the analog stick.
I really hope you like what we have achieved so far! However, I cannot stress enough how much we would appreciate your feedback after spending some time with these new controls.
So go check out the Beta branch and get back to us here or on our Discord server!
Until then, take care everyone!
Felix & Pineapple Works