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[Jaysen]

Battle Brothers released to Early Access! (Update April 2015)


Finally! After all that waiting you can now experience for yourself how it feels to get your men slaughtered and, in some rare cases, even emerge victorious in a game of Battle Brothers. We hope you enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed designing it!

Please keep in mind that this game was just released into Early Access and is far from finished. We consider it a solid foundation upon which we can now build a truly great game over the course of the next year.

Where to get it
The best place for buying the game is at our very own website. You’ll receive a Steam key with which you can start playing right away. In addition, you may leave a tip to further support us if you want.

You can also get the game on Steam itself, especially if you want the Deluxe Edition or Supporter Edition.

Feedback and Bugs Reports
Head over to our forums at http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/forum/game-discussion/ to share your opinion, tell us of your ideas and experiences, and give us feedback.

It’s pretty much inevitable that once all of you play the game a pile of bugs and glitches will turn up that we never experienced before. We’ll do our very best to fix any issues in a timely manner, but we also need your help.

Please report any bugs at our forums at http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/forum/bugreports/ and try to follow the guide in the sticky post.



Update (September): Battle Brothers on Steam Greenlight

We just launched our Steam Greenlight campaign so head over there and vote for us - many thanks!


Also, here is our new feature trailer, check it out!


Update: Combat Demo Released!

It’s done. Finally! Get out your party hats as it’s time to celebrate the release of the Pre-Alpha Combat Demo of Battle Brothers. You can download it here!

Just keep a few points in mind when you give it a spin:

• It’s pre-alpha, meaning it is an early release of a product still in development. Everything in the game right now can be improved and most probably will for the final game.
• It’s a combat demo. It only reflects part of what the final game will be about and doesn’t cover the strategy part at all. The final game will not consist of a few scenarios but have an open worldmap. Read more about it here in our dev blog article on the worldmap.
• The demo can be hard. This is intentional. Every scenario can be consistently beat with the right strategy. That said, the game isn’t properly balanced and if you find something clearly out of balance or plain stupid, let us know.

The demo requires an OpenGL 3.0 compatible video card and Windows XP, 7 or 8. If the game refuses to run on your rig and gives you a shader error, update your video drivers!

We’ll take the easter weekend off to recover a bit and lose the crunchtime-related rings around our eyes. Come monday we’ll be back and look forward to your feedback and the inevitable myriad of technical problems. Let us know in our own forums or directly here in the Bay12 how you feel about the game, about any ideas you have and about any bugs you encountered. Thank you guys for your support, and enjoy the game!



Hi all, I came across the Bay 12 forums and thought it would be a good idea to present you the game project Im working on with three other guys.

The game is called Battle Brothers, its a turn based strategy game with a lot of RPG and also management elements in it. If you stretch your imagination it can be thought of as an Xcom or Jagged Alliance in a pseudo-medieval setting with fantasy elements. There will be a tactical combat element that is hex-based and has a lot of tactically challenging features like height levels, sight range, zone of control, terrain effects, equipment, skills and so on. The other part of the game is a strategic element with a worldmap where you manage your soldiers between battles, develop their characters rpg-style to fit your strategy, hire new troops, manage and craft your equipment, research ancient artifacts, and more. For maximum replayability both the tactical combat maps and the worldmap will be procedurally generated.

Right now the game is in a pre-alpha stage and so far we have focused on the tactical combat part. Right now we are working on designing and implementing the strategic part. If you are interested here is a gameplay presentation of the tactical combat:
Battle Brothers Tactical Combat Commentary


If you want to know more, here is a planned feature list from our website:

• Procedurally generated. Worldmap, combat maps, characters and even the nature of the invasion itself are procedurally generated. No two games will ever be alike!
• Open and dynamic world. No boring linear missions, you decide where to go and what to do! But with choice come consequences – the world will change permanently as the invasion sweeps the lands, and you may just find a town burned to the ground if you don’t come to its aid.
• Permadeath – decisions really matter. If a Battle Brother is killed in combat he is dead forever, his experience and skills will be lost. So you better think twice about that suicide charge with your most experienced Brother.
  
• Complex yet intuitive mechanics. Below the surface is a complex system working but we dont want players to study manuals and tutorials all day long. If it makes sense in real life it makes sense in Battle Brothers.
• Huge tactical combat maps. This is not checkers, this is a grown-up combat simulation. Field up to 12 Battle Brothers at the same time on huge combat maps. Send your rangers through the woods into the back of the enemy while your armored shieldbearers stall the enemy attack.
• Height levels in combat maps. Use the high grounds for your tactical advantage! Increase the range of your archers or repell overwhelming attacks against unsurmountable enemy numbers.
• Diverse enemy roster. Enemies don't just differ in name. All enemies have unique skills and unique AI behavior, and you have to adjust your tactics if you want to stand a chance.
• Character development. Each Battle Brother gains experience through combat. Level them up and aquire new, powerful skills and abilities to fit your own strategy.
• No restrictive class-system. Your Battle Brother’s skills and abilities are given by their equipment and level. You want to make an all ranged squad? The only limitations is whether it stands the test on the field of battle!
• Detailed inventory system. Equip your Battle Brothers with weapons, arms, armor and powerful accessories.
• What you see is what you get. Every piece of equipment your Battle Brothers are wearing is displayed on the tactical map. This allows for making your troops look like you really want them to!
• Dynamic damage display. See your Battle Brothers smash shields, get their armor shredded to pieces or get beaten to a pulp! Of course the same goes for the enemies.
• Full fledged crafting system. Find and research new crafting recipes, gather resources and craft deadly weapons and impenetrable armor.

You can find out more about the game and how we are going about developing it in our dev blog at www.battlebrothersgame.com or subscribe on our social channels (see signature).

I hope you like the concept so far! Of course we are happy to hear what you have to say, so any feedback is appreciated!

[Sharp]

Hmm game looks interesting, I know a few people that would be interested in a medieval X-Com. The game looks a bit like Battle for Wesnoth but customisable units.

And speaking of Battle of Wesnoth what is your financial model? Is this going to be free/donation or kickstartered/indiegogoed or buy the game once it's done?

[Jaysen]

Hi Sharp,
the character customization goes pretty deep in our game. We have planned an inventory with slots for head armor, body armor, left hand, right hand items and so. On top of that, all characters will be able to obtain skills from a substantial skilltree just like in your typical RPG. Of course the striking difference to Wesnoth is the worldmap where you manage all your troops, equipment and so on. I hope i can show you an early screen of it soon!

Concerning funding we are not decided yet. Kickstarter will be difficult to pull off as a germany based company (lots and lots of organizational and bureaucratic hurdles). The best option right now seems to be an early access version that we sell for a reduced price via digital distribution channels to fund further development. However, right now we focus on getting out the word and get some feedback on the game from potentially interested players.

[Neyvn]

Obligatory "Gah, First Post is Shameless Plug/Selfpromotion. SHAME ON YOU"
But, still...

Looks like something I will be looking into...

[Sharp]

Yup will be nice to see the campaign map and other meat in the game.

1 suggestion though would be floating damage numbers on hits, can be red for hits on health and blue for hits on armour, this makes it easier to show how much damage is done and also gives a nice indicator if it was a hit or miss.

[Drakale]

Look very nice.

Though, I must admit that the size of the weapons icons on the busts feel a bit wacky, it make it look like that are fighting with tiny weapons.


On the character permadeath thing, I hope it comes with an optional ironman mode, because otherwise it just becomes reload on death (for me at least).

[nenjin]

Never really pleased when someone makes an account just to advertise their game.

That said, you seem human and took the time to make a legitimate OP.

I like the detail of the art, although legs would be nice.

[Jaysen]

Hi Drakale, we fiddled around with the weapon icons and character visuals quite a lot until we came up with the current design. For various reasons we were forced to use this style that is somewhat abstracted and a bit unusual to look at at first. If you want to know all the details i recommend you have a look at our Character Design Blog Entry we published a week ago. There we explain how the visuals came to be.

We also thought about save scumming as this can be a big issue when you have permadeath in a game. For me personally i feel like cheating when using a save to "reroll" some results so i dont use it. However, we are planning on making an optional ironman mode where you only have one save to keep things spicy for the hardcore crowd. I think this is a thing that can be expected from a game like ours nowadays.

[Jaysen]

Sorry for getting in the forum just to present our project, i can totally understand that this is not wanted for obvious reasons!

Still i looked around a while for relevant forums to present the game to in order to get some qualified feedback by people who would hopefully appreciate a game like this. The Bay 12 Game Forum obviously has a very large and very active community that also knows a lot about games that are not "casual" and are rather complex. We just entered a stage of development where it makes sense to get input from a larger audience and thats why i started this thread. Right now we want to get our design and ideas out in the light for a "reality check". As we are still not even half done with the game we hope to gather some valuable feedback and ideas for the further development.

[Wardo]

Loved the art style. Yes, my inner child would've preferred full bodies, but the solution you found is brilliant: effective and extremely pleasing to the eye.

Sounds like a great game. I wish you success in making it.

[Levi]

Looks fun assuming there are no microtransactions.   

Loved the art style. Yes, my inner child would've preferred full bodies, but the solution you found is brilliant: effective and extremely pleasing to the eye.

Agreed.  Plus I can imagine they have whole bodies, but have itsy bitsy tiny legs that are covered by their shirts.   

[Sharp]

I also hope that Battle Brothers facing left and enemies facing right will be in the final version. I can understand not wanting to do facing for all 6 directions but left and right shouldn't be too hard, it seems a bit weird seeing enemies to the left and your guys facing right. Just like how Battle for Wesnoth does it is fine so character facing will be based on last movement and then auto-turn when being attacked.

EDIT: Also no direction change required when going up or down or being attacked up or down.

I think it's a bit surprising in both Wesnoth and Battle Brothers that the Hex grid is aligned on a horizontal split instead of a vertical, by which I mean another adjacent unit will always be north or south of another unit, never on the same horizontal plane while if it was vertical split then it would be an adjacent unit is always east or west. Gameplay wise it doesn't make a difference (apart from in level design) but when drawing units it means you can have a clear left facing and right facing while only facing north or south would be ambiguous but both games don't show units facing north or south in wesnoth or battle brothers.... something I think is interesting anyway

[Rap]

Thanks everyone for your interest and feedback!

1 suggestion though would be floating damage numbers on hits, can be red for hits on health and blue for hits on armour, this makes it easier to show how much damage is done and also gives a nice indicator if it was a hit or miss.

We made a conscious decision not to have floating damage numbers or similar intrusive UI elements. Our goal is to present as much relevant information as possible directly on the battlefield, for example by showing damaged armor directly on the characters and have them have bloody noses if they're wounded. That said, it's a challenge and we may yet fall short on presenting all information as clearly as is needed. Since you mentioned damage to health VS armour specifially: We've added blood spurts on hits to health since our last gameplay video, so that should help better communicating what's going on when a character is hit. If you guys have any other ideas with this philosophy in mind, we'd love to hear them!

I also hope that Battle Brothers facing left and enemies facing right will be in the final version. I can understand not wanting to do facing for all 6 directions but left and right shouldn't be too hard, it seems a bit weird seeing enemies to the left and your guys facing right. Just like how Battle for Wesnoth does it is fine so character facing will be based on last movement and then auto-turn when being attacked.

That's actually something we're toying with right now. Having Battle Brothers always face right and enemies always face left is helpful sometimes to see at a glance who is who, that's why we originally went with it. However, we've since introduced distinct sockets for every faction (player, undead, etc.) which might be sufficient in that regard. We'll see how it plays with dynamically changing directions. If we were to go with it, we'd do it like you suggested - base it on the character's last action.

I think it's a bit surprising in both Wesnoth and Battle Brothers that the Hex grid is aligned on a horizontal split instead of a vertical, by which I mean another adjacent unit will always be north or south of another unit, never on the same horizontal plane while if it was vertical split then it would be an adjacent unit is always east or west.

In our case the decision was made because our tiles are distorted by perspective; their height is compressed to half of that of a symmetrical hex (like Battle for Wesnoth has) so that tiles of higher elevation and objects in front can partially occlude tiles in the back. We found that having hexes with the flat side top just worked better visually for this.

Looks fun assuming there are no microtransactions.

Hell no

[Remuthra]

I am very disappointed this was not the sort of Battle Brothers depicted.

[nenjin]

I am very disappointed this was not the sort of Battle Brothers depicted.

I was counting the posts until that reference.