Battle Chasers: Nightwar is an RPG inspired by the classic console greats, featuring deep dungeon diving, turn-based combat presented in a classic JRPG format, and tons of secrets, story and randomly-generated replay goodness. The game is being created by ex-Vigil Games veterans, including two of Vigil's co-founders, Joe Madureira and Ryan Stefanelli.
Plan for survival. Choose three of the heroes you've unlocked, fill your travel backpack with items from your stash, make sure you've chosen the best equipment and abilities for each hero... and then strike out.
Explore an overworld presented in classic form, peppered with hidden dungeons, rare bosses and randomly appearing characters.
Old-school combat inspired by the console RPG greats, with a unique two-tiered mana system and turn-based initiative featuring random buffs and debuffs on initiative slots.
Action oriented, randomly-generated dungeons loaded with traps, puzzles and secrets. Use each hero's unique dungeon skills to survive!
Non-linear story driven by the discovery of lore on items, landmarks and secret elements in the world. Discovering these will both provide deeper insight into the mysterious Lost Vale, and also reward lore points, which are used to upgrade the heroes' different abilities.
Truly key story moments will be depicted in gorgeous, traditional 2D animation from Powerhouse Animation Studios. For these, sit back and enjoy.
Supposedly this was a very popular comic book series and the game is looking all kinds of delicious It's on the first day of the campaign and they already have $185k of the wanted $500k, so I reckon this is going to succeed quite nicely
(ignore the terrible transparency of the image, I suck at Photostop... heh)
Last edited by sabin1981 on Tue, 8th Sep 2015 20:21; edited 1 time in total
The comic was great in the late 90's, glad to see Joe Madureira bring it to game form and it looks like it should be pretty fun but that trailer needs some Red Monika in it.
Fantastic! This looks so much fun (for now... I'm well aware of my propensity to fall in love with something pre-release and hate it post-release ) and I'm glad it's successfully funded
Battle Chasers: Nightwar is an RPG inspired by the classic console greats, featuring deep dungeon diving, turn-based combat presented in a classic JRPG format, and a rich story driven by exploration of the world.
Classic JRPG-style combat with randomly generated dungeons, loot and skillshots
Story driven by item and lore discovery
Player-driven dungeon difficulty – give them tools for playing with dungeon generation
Randomly generated dungeons with traps, puzzles and secrets
High difficulty ceiling
Town upgrading
The best-selling comic book Battle Chasers was first released in the late 90s and quickly generated a passionate cult following.
So some new things were revealed in the April issue of Game Infomer.
- Joe Madureira is working on 3 issues for the comic book (this we knew) the issues will tie up the current story (it was left at a cliffhanger in issue 9 never to finish until now!) and lead us into the Nightwar story where the game picks up!
- Classic Dungeon Delving: Repeatedly guide a custom built team through several dungeons gathering power and loot before returning to a central hub.
- The Hub Town (Called Harms Way) is central to your character and team building, crafting, leveling.
- Crafting is the primary way to improve items/weapons. You find crafting materials in dungeons and level up Artisans by completing recipes, and gifting upgrade tools.
- When crafting, you can use special items (Sweeteners) to gain higher chance for High Quality Items/Weapons
- Town Tavern has some sort of arcade mini-game.
- Dungeon Modifiers (Consumable Items)
- You can set specific modifiers for the dungeons before setting off... these include things like: Spawn all enemies as Elites. (better drops harder fights)
- Higher difficulty dungeons allow more modifiers to be placed
- Difficulty (5 different difficulties)
- Preperation is important before setting out. You only get 3 party members, so choosing the right members for the mission or modified dungeon is absolutely imperative.
- Inventory is limited, so choosing what to bring before the mission is also important.
- Die in the dungeon and you die in RL. okay no, but if you die in a dungeon you lose all items found in that dungeon instance and all items brought with you (potions, buffs)
- Dungeons are Randomly generated Tile sets. So while the background art isnt random, the map layout, exits, loot, monsters, and traps ARE randomly placed.
- Monsters are visible (wanted to avoid random encounters)
- Monsters have different ways off aggroing before the fighting even begins. Some are patrolling, some are passive, there may be an Archer that hits you from a distance and knocks some of your health out, so you start the fight with less health. You might get poisoned and start the battle poisoned... etc.
- Each hero has different special dungeon skills that can help avoid or buff fights, find secrets, overcome traps.
- you can swap between the 3 heroes while exploring to use each of their skills effectively.
- Misc story elements scattered through dungeons in the form of Books, gravestones, plaques and more.
- Fights are going to be very tactical, you WILL use everything at your disposal, and will need to manage mana, items, attack initiative order... etc.
- Ability and Spell use: Players start each battle with 2 distinct Mana pools that fuel those actions, red and blue. Blue is finite that carries over from one fight to another. It depletes after spells and abilities are used and can be replenished at rare rest points.
Red Mana is accrued in each battle starting at zero at the beginning of a battle, and increases through the use of specific actions. Red mana is always consumed before blue, so a player may spend a battle waiting for their Red to accrue, before unleashing a devestating spell that will consume both red and blue mana pools.
- Nordic Games is in, and will help get those missed stretch goals such as Voice Acting, Special dungeons called Mana Rifts and new cinematic sequences.
“Oh my god,” Joe Madureira exclaims before pondering the unexpected question for a second. “We knew we wanted it to be some sort of RPG reference, since those are the kinds of games we wanted to work on.”
The co-founder of Airship Syndicate is recollecting the moment when his team hit upon a name for their independent outfit. The RPG inspiration is unsurprising (“Airship was something we loved — the visual image and the RPG flavor of it”), given how big a fan the comic book artist turned game creator is of the genre. Perfect example: upon leaving Marvel Comics in 1997 to co-found comics imprint Cliffhanger, his creator-owned debut Battle Chasers wore its fantasy RPG influences proudly.
It’s a series and world he left — on a cliffhanger, no less — in 2001. He’d be the first to tell you he wasn’t expecting to return to it 15 years later through the lens of interactive entertainment. “I kind of had the feeling we should be doing something new,” he reminisces. There was a flirtation with doing a Metroidvania side-scroller at first, but ultimately Airship Syndicate settled on an RPG for its first project. Yet the “where” was a lot harder to choose than the “what.”
Quote:
There are odd parallels between Madureira’s two careers. Just as he shifted from one of the biggest comic book companies in the world to co-found his own label, so too did he create a smaller development studio with fellow Vigil Games ex-staffers after it shuttered due to publisher THQ’s liquidation.
The 12-strong team (backed by a dozen remote contractors) are housed in a small studio. Work’s fluid, creative checks a matter of looking over a monitor and offering input rather than waiting for weekly meetings (“I can literally see you doing it right there. It’s instant,” Joe says input opportunities). Everybody “wears many hats”, and the unofficial mission statement seemingly boils down to “if an idea’s awesome, we’ll implement it, irrespective of who came up with it.”
Quote:
The title’s pencilled in for a summer 2017 release (“Right now we’ve got all the systems working. It’s just really building content at this point”) and the game’s design reflects the era it’s launching in. Two decades ago it’d have been easy to imagine the finished product being an ode to Diablo hot wired to turn-based battles a la Final Fantasy. Inspirations that admittedly are still coded into the game’s DNA today: gameplay emphasis is on dungeon-crawling and a chess-like combat system.
But you also note more current trends. Dungeons are randomly-generated, and different difficulty-based runs call into mind everything from Spelunky and other roguelikes to high score-chasing mobile titles. Thankfully altering difficulties isn’t a case of yanking enemy HP sliders up and friendly health bars down; enemy attacks will differ, dungeon layout will alter, treasure chests will drop randomized loot. Certain bosses only appear on certain star ratings. Re-roll, replay.
Exciting news for the music lovers among our community! Legendary composer Jesper Kyd,best known for his work on Assassin's Creed, Hitman, and of course... DARKSIDERS II, is joining Clark Powell on the soundtrack for Battle Chasers: Nightwar!
Jesper is a BAFTA-award winning composer, and someone we love working with!
Signature/Avatar nuking: none (can be changed in your profile)
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
It's on the first day of the campaign and they already have $185k of the wanted $500k, so I reckon this is going to succeed quite nicely 
) and I'm glad it's successfully funded 
