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I made a game. Not in the sense of "hey, check out my notebook", but an actual finished product. Now it's time to start the hard work - getting it in people's hands. This thread is meant for discussion and reviews. Budding Heroes is a tactical combat game that can be played on its own or plugged into an existing campaign. The game actually started as a homebrew to get my kids into RPGs, and it slowly evolved through multiple rewrites over the years to become its own game developed entirely from scratch. It was designed to be fast to play and simple to understand while still keeping the tactical feel of map-based combat. To quote the blurb from the site, quote:You don't need any grids or rulers, there's no to-hit roll, and every character has its own health regeneration based on how they act during battle. There aren't any equipment lists or spell tables. Want to change your character's weapon or stance? Then change your class mid-battle! Want to use this game in your RPG campaign? The mechanics are generic enough that you can easily apply any coat of paint - high fantasy, pirates, cyberpunk, urban decay, it's all good! Every player character and enemy use pre-made classes, so there's very little setup time. Instead of summarizing the rules, here's a link to a 1-sheeter of the rules along with a few sample cards to get a feel for the game: https://www.buddingheroes.com/pdf/sample-battle.pdf If you're a math nerd, I'll just say that an immense amount of work went into balancing the game. I created a database of the odds of literally every possible outcome of rolling each combination of dice, and I used that to create a tool that can objectively measure exactly how strong a character is. The balancing tool accounts for the health pool, regen, armor, status effects, different attack types, and all kinds of other stuff to make the Threat and Endurance balance numbers. I plan to make a big post about the math side of developing the game as long as there's interest.   Anyway, the site is https://buddingheroes.com - there's some more stuff there including the full rulebook and the link to order a physical copy. Use the promo "awful" to get 40% off, or just let me know if you're a reviewer or someone that plays games publicly and I'll send it out for free. Let loose with the questions, comments, or whatever else! e: The recent orders have all shipped, thanks to everyone for the support and make sure you post in the thread or shoot me a PM with what you think of the game! Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jul 29, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 03:40
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potatocubed posted:It looks real interesting but apparently your shop doesn't ship to the UK? Whoops, that's an artifact of Square's new store - the old one was able to price it just fine, so I'll dig into the settings and see what's up. If I can't make the new store work, I'll take care of it via PayPal directly. USPS seems a bit pricy right now, so I'll dig into other carriers and see what the rates look like. The shipping weight is around 300g for a single copy or 1.6kg for a case of 6 if you want to price it out. Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jul 29, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 16:07
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Not quite - think of it like how a fighting game is balanced. Each player character is balanced to be potentially as strong as another, but the attacks, health, armor, and regen all lend themselves toward distinct styles of combat to take full advantage of that potential. The enemies can all have wildly varying Threats/Endurance ratings, so you can still do things like take on large groups or a single strong boss with a couple weaker supports. The key thing is that there are objective measurements, so you don't have to create new encounters based solely on what you remember about previous battles - this way, you won't risk creating a poorly balanced battle based on previous lucky/unlucky rolls. Here are the 6 main player character classes:  Ambusher is a jack of all trades, but has a little trouble with regen - it's based on the secondary attack, but relying on only that against an enemy with a high armor amount means that you could be screwed if you're unlucky. The burn means that you aren't ever dealing 0 damage with the relatively hit-or-miss multi-attack, but it can kind of be a bit of a gamble if unless you're attacking weak enemies or working with teammates for buffs/status effects. Brute is obviously the tank; it heals itself literally by being surrounded by enemies, and its attacks are designed to make it sticky. Its secondary attack can bring enemies toward you and make it hard to leave, and the special attack can force the enemies that are in your cluster to only target you. Of course if there are too many enemies you can get overwhelemed, but the high armor actually does a lot of mitigation. Commander is a vampire cleric that can also basically poison enemies with its special attack. The game originally had a standard healer class, but one point of playtest feedback really hit home super strongly - the player said they felt like they had to heal and choosing to do anything else would let the team down. That's what led to the game-wide regen system as a whole, and it's what made the ability to heal others also deal damage. You can also use it to sacrifice your own health or an ally's health, but then you get into risky territory if you're already low. Demolisher is there for the big booms, but its regen depends on being able to spread out the damage. It can be easy to keep your health up early in the fight when there are multiple enemies, but when you're down to only a boss, it's a lot harder to hit that 14 damage after mitigation. Grenades also hit any allies the targeted cluster, so you need to plan your team's movements around that or risk/intentionally damage allies whenever you can make big groups clump together. Enforcer is a glass cannon plain and simple; using the d20 as a damage die can lead to attacks that feel really risky/swingy, and the lunge makes the character extremely mobile compared to the rest of the characters. It's great whenever paired with someone like a Brute who can give you the teamwork bonus reliably, otherwise the best course of action is probably stick and move. Longshot is of course the ranged class, because what game is complete without one? It's this game's version of a relatively simple and steady character, one of the easiest for the newest players to pick up and play. In exchange, its special attack is kind of swingy, and its status effects aren't as debilitating as some other characters. As far as how I said the dice can have different feelings, here's an old writeup about why I chose this system for the dice: Using mixed dice instead of XdY±Z gives four main benefits: it removes the need for to-hit rolls, it acts as a built-in crit/fumble system, it allows for Armor to be a simple damage reduction, and it can give wildly different feelings to otherwise similar attacks. To go into more detail, let's take a look at the Brute's primary attack, which is d4+d6+d10. At first glance, you may do some quick mental math and see that the result could be anywhere between 3 and 20. Seeing such a high upper end to damage might give you pause since dealing 20 damage could one-hit-KO a below average enemy, but it's not quite that simple. If you look a little deeper at the statistics, you'll actually see that the probabilities are on a bell curve rather than linear. There's only a 0.4% chance to hit that 20, as opposed to the usual 5% chance if you're thinking of a plain d20 roll. If you remove the outlier results that have a lower than 5% chance of happening, the much more common range for that attack is actually 7-16, with 10-13 each having a nearly 10% chance of hitting. The full range of 3-20 is indeed possible, but those outlier chances perfectly mimic the odds and effectiveness of crits and fumbles without needing any extra rolls or rules! It's also worth remembering that the roll isn't just the pure damage going to the target, you also need to factor in its Armor. If an enemy has an Armor value of 3, then the common results are actually bumped down to dealing 7-10 damage, which is a much more reasonable range. Now to compare how two different attacks feel. The first example is a single d20; it will deal a maximum damage of 16 against an Armor 4, it will deal an average of 6.8 damage per turn, and it will miss (deal 0 damage after Armor) 20% of the time. On the other hand, an attack that uses d4+d6+d8 has a maximum damage of 14 in the same situation, but its average is barely any lower at 6.51, and its chance to miss is only about 2%! The d20 attack has a higher maximum damage, and it has better odds to reach the upper end since the single die isn't on a bell curve, but it also has much better odds to deal no damage whatsoever. On the other hand, an attack with multiple dice gives the attack a solid floor - when you combine that floor with the bell curve, that makes it almost impossible for the d4+d6+d8 to miss. The end result is that the d20 feels very wild and desperate compared to the d4+d6+d8's steadier and more controlled blow. Even without relying on any extra rolls, rules, or flavor text, every attack has a distinct personality! Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jul 29, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 17:30
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e: International shipping has been fixed, the rest of this post can be ignored Oof, that's expensive as well. Looks like about an extra $15usd for a single or $45 extra for a case of 6. (Quoted Toronto, it might vary if you're far from there) Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Jul 29, 2020 |
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Jul 27, 2020 01:06
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Thanks, and be sure to report back when you have it! The international shipping should be working again. It's based on the per-weight shipping costs to the UK. It looks like the shipping costs are actually in distinct steps rather than a gradient, so ordering a couple copies rather than just one at a time should give you a pretty big per-unit price decrease.
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Jul 28, 2020 03:32
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Thanks! There were a couple eureka moments in developing the game, but abstracting the map into clusters was the final big breakthrough that made me say "holy poo poo, THAT'S IT!" and made everything fit together perfectly - I'm genuinely happy that someone else recognized it as being key without me drawing a bunch of attention to it. I get what you're saying about the guard action. The way it's displayed is kind of vestigial from when a large book was planned in the same vein as D&D or Pathfinder - any time that dice were called out by name, it would have a picture of the appropriate die next to the line. I think I'm going to chalk that up as a typo and change it to "roll a [d6 image]" for future print runs. The couple other points of confusion are also good to know - I know the game should be able to stand on its own, but I'm planning to release a getting started video later on, and I'll be sure to address little things like that if they continue to crop up. As far as Four Against Darkness, I haven't tried it personally, but I'm really interested to see how people fit the game into other systems. I'm working on future supplements ("Adventure Flavors", for those who were curious about the mention on the copyright info or for those who hung around the older threads), and they'll include a lightweight system and an intro to GMing. They'll include specific characters to use as coats of paint over the character classes and quite a bit more story than the starter kit's intentionally vague battles, but players are also free to just ignore the story and use the new classes to just create more skirmishes of their own. The first will be pirate themed, and another will be a much grittier urban fantasy setting. I'll probably stay away from Tolkien-esque high fantasy for a while since there's just so much of it, but I also plan to open up licensing to other writers/designers in the future.
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Jul 31, 2020 23:21
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Tracking says that all of the packages aside from a couple of the international orders have arrived. Anyone have any thoughts/questions, or better yet has anyone had a chance to play the game?
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Aug 9, 2020 19:21
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Absolutely - I'm putting together a script for a video, it's just slow going to create new content at the moment due to my day job, finishing up moving, and trying to argue with Amazon about letting me replace the prototype version of the game with the proper one. Hopefully the latter two will be finished up soon, which will give me time to finish up the video and get in touch with game shops. If anyone's willing to help make the video, shoot me a pm - I'm thinking of just commissioning it from someone who knows what they're doing on the production side.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:49
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Yep, that's exactly the idea that I had earlier (especially since I've used Watch it Played so many times to learn other games), problem is that the couple I contacted so far weren't interested due to enormous backlogs, and some others are flooded with Amazon affiliate links so I'd imagine they wouldn't be interested if there isn't an Amazon link (hence why I'm trying to get the listing updated). If anyone wants to do the legwork of finding a reviewer/podcast that's interested in a free copy, shoot me a pm with the details and I'll be happy to send you a free copy too. Hell, maybe I'll even name some characters of upcoming supplements after early supporters if you guys would find that fun vvv: Awesome, thanks! Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Aug 15, 2020 |
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Aug 10, 2020 23:10
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What's the goal of Cloak Gaming? The goal of Cloak Gaming is indeed a laser focus on Budding Heroes and ways that the game can expand. The Starter Kit is the backbone of the system, but I've already planned a few ways to expand - both for monetization and general community building. I think I've already explained above, but I'll be releasing suppliments called Adventure Flavors, which will be much more heavily story-focused than the Starter Kit. The obverse of the character class cards will follow the exact same formatting/styling as the Starter Kit cards (with the exception of the background image - that will likely be based on which AF the cards are from), but the story-based details will be a bit different. They will include character cards which will feature a character portrait, a quick description of equipment/etc, and suggestions of preferred/secondary character classes for the particular character. The reverse of the character cards will have a quick summary of the character's backstory, important relationships with other characters/story aspects, and things like that. A player will choose both a character and a class card to use with that character (which they're still free to change per the usual rules of the game). The setting cards for themed AFs won't have the story description on the settings themselves. Rather, they'll just have small descriptions of the locations, and the map images will also be top-down illustrations of floorplans/landscapes/etc with the cluster locations overlaid rather than the purely abstract layouts used in the Starter Kit. The detailed character information, story hooks, and suggested battles will be in an included booklet of around 44-56 pages total (using the same 4.75x2.75 page size since I want all game boxes to have a consistent size). AFs will include new player/enemy character classes, but the story battles will also pick and choose from other sets like the Starter Kit and even other AFs. If a battle wants a class from a set that the owner isn't expected to have (either the Starter Kit or a prequel to the AF if it's a multi-part story), alternative suggestions will also be listed. I'll also put out non-story collections of new classes/battles with much wider ranges of enemy class difficulties, but those will wait until a couple AFs have been released to not muddy things too much. As far as exactly what themes/stories the Adventure Flavors will have, I'm working on both in-house stories developed wholecloth and also licensing from other existing IPs. I really want to go into more detail about the latter, but I can't for now. Are the cards single or double-sided? They're single-sided at the moment. I tried a double-sided layout in an early test run, but it made things a little difficult to find the cards you're looking for during setup, and using single-sided class cards also means the GM has the choice to do things like stick the card on a character standee to keep information secret from players. Like I mentioned above, cards from story-based sets will use the reverse face for more flavor information, but given the pick-and-choose nature of the cards when making custom battles, I don't think I'll use the reverse for any gameplay-critical information. There are plenty of situations where people might want to use various difficulties of the same enemy in the same fight, and I don't want to discourage that by making it awkward to use. PG Supplement or Stand-Alone Game? The rest of this post has probably answered the question, but it's first and foremost its own game which happens to be easy to plug into other systems. The story suppliments will include some light instructions for non-combat skill resolution, but I don't forsee creating RP story rules for the game beyond what would fit on a single trifold. I actually wrote a bit on my philosophy on the subject of skill points and leveling up which I could paste here if there's interest. As far as where on the shelves it should live, I'd say next to the standard big boys. In a layout like Target where they have some RPG games and then a eurogame section, I'd say smack dab in the middle of those would be the perfect spot. I wouldn't really put it next to party games, nor the super-simple games - it's much more of a Ticket to Ride than a Monopoly. In Stores Outside Of Your Local Area Thanks for the heads up on the distributors! Right now I'm making a sell sheet to send out to small retailers. Once they start to pick things up, I'll get a loan to put in an order for the low 5 digits of copies of the game, then from there I'll put the feelers out to large purchasers like Target and distributors. I know ordering a huge amount after there's indie shop interest but before getting a yes from any of the really big boys sounds backwards, but I feel like I can get costs low enough that I could still cover paying it off if things go wrong, and it has the double benefit of showing a purchaser that I'm actually serious and while eliminating the need to rely on purchaser financing that would let them grab me by the balls.
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Aug 16, 2020 15:48
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Yep, I already have an overseas manufacturer lined up, and the copies I'm currently sending out were manufactured by them. I priced out a few places at the low-thousands quantities, and the people I'm with have the best price by far while still being excellent quality. The only qualm I have with them is the shrink wrap used on the outer packaging; I'll update it to a different type that's a little thicker/stiffer for the next run, but that's a super minor issue. Though given that I hope to make a proper really large order if things take off, I might reach out for some new quotes. I'll also say I wasn't expecting financing from purchasers; I've just heard stories about some very large stores that will remain nameless using that as a tool to act in very predatory ways. Net 180 for the bigger buyers really sucks (and I was expecting more along the lines of 90), but at least my current plans means that 180 shouldn't be crippling - after all, if I run low on stock while a 180 is waiting to be paid, it should be pretty easy to get some short term financing for another print run with proof of the outstanding 180. I also want to run a crowdfunding campaign once some other things are in place - I'll probably have an early backer slot of 100-200 copies at a discount with near-immediate shipping, then the remainder of the project with a lesser discount to be shipped once the print run is completed. Having some reviewers with the game already in-hand and the whole premise of "wait, what? I'll have my kickstarter game in less than a week?!" should be a hell of a thing if I can get the word out. krinklechip posted:Oh hell yes if you're willing. Behold some old ramblings on relevant topics! The text probably needs some cleaning up before I post it more publicly than here, but after a skim the sentiment remains the same. How do I assign non-combat skills to my character? That's simple, you just describe what the character is good at doing. If you're talking about assigning perks or skill points for the purpose of game mechanics, you don't need to. A character can be unique with its fair share of talents and weaknesses without making you spend hours poring over endless tables of data. A huge wrestler will be able to smash open a door much better than a lithe rogue, and that rogue would certainly know more about picking locks or hacking computers than the group's survivalist (who is busy telling the wrestler to NOT eat the mushroom with those pretty red spots). Experienced RPG players might be a bit turned off by not assigning numbers to various skills, but if you think about it, those numbers are actually meaningless. If your character is a rogue with a shady background, then your party members know that you're one who should try to open a locked door. They don't care about your exact lockpicking skill points, they just know that your character is the right choice because what really matters is who the character is. In a game that uses numbers to define skills, the GM plans lockpicking difficulties using your character's expected stats. You'd never be expected to open a door intended for a level 20 lockpicking-focused character when you're at level 1, and level 1 difficulty doors will never show up when everyone is level 20. That means that the difficulty is actually designed to always have the same rough chance to succeed, regardless of the character's skill points. The GM knows how easily you should open the door, and that's all that matters. If the door should open, it does. If you aren't supposed to get in there that way, then it will stay locked. If the door is supposed to set off a trap, then you'll be taking some damage and getting into combat. Skill points are actually just fluff, what really matters are the characters themselves. How do my characters level up? The short answer is that character growth is mainly handled through the narrative portion of the game. It's possible to have additional powers or actions as your character grows in strength, but that would normally be achieved by changing your character's class or changing how you describe different attacks. Mechanically, growing more powerful is usually handled by the world moving around your characters. Enemies that were once Mighty will be downgraded to Common or even Weak as your campaign progresses, and the relative Endurance to Threat levels of your enemies will change over time to make every battle feel different. What happens if my Brute wants to use a ranged weapon? If your Brute wants to use a ranged weapon, then that actually means it doesn't want to be a Brute. Keep in mind that this isn't a bad thing at all, character classes are designed to be fluid. If you're used to other systems, then don't think of a class card as your character, think of it more like choosing a set of daily or encounter combat skills. Characters are encouraged to change classes whenever it's appropriate for the situation. If you know that you're going to be crawling through the tunnels of an underground hive, then that means you'll probably be facing a swarm of enemies in cramped quarters. Your characters would probably want to bring equipment, weapons, or spells that can deal a lot of damage to multiple enemies at once, and that's exactly what a Demolisher is.
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Aug 16, 2020 23:37
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I'm totally on board with the concept, but I won't lie and say that any final designs for AI are done yet. What's made the most sense so far is having another type of card that can be attached to each enemy with overall intent and situational instructions, but i haven't quite nailed down the right level of detail to keep things simple enough wild avoiding being repetitive. As far as distribution, I'm thinking the printed AI cards would be included with the first non-story AF, but I'd also release a free printable PDF of them as well.
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Aug 17, 2020 10:56
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Surprise, the thread isn't dead! I've been preparing for the next print run and taking care of things on the back end. I've decided to go all in and place the order for the next (multi-thousand) print run within the month unless I hear a lot of (valid) negatively really quickly, so now's the time to let the complaints fly!So, some updates - the game's listed at a couple more stores: https://buddingheroes.com/walmart - Approved as a seller at Walmart.com, yay! https://buddingheroes.com/amazon - Available both as Amazon fulfilled and directly shipped for people that don't have/want Prime (Full disclosure, affiliate link) https://buddingheroes.com/square - Direct through Square, the online version of the same checkout I'll use at conventions/etc Also, due to popular request, future print runs will have a small paper booklet manual in the box - https://www.buddingheroes.com/pdf/manual.pdf . I'm trying to get some extra copies printed and shipped over by airmail so I can include them in the packages of any outgoing games from the first print run, though I don't have an ETA yet. If anyone wants a physical manual once they're printed, just shoot me a PM and I'll pop it in the main - a stamp or two should cover it within the States, so NBD (Sorry to any international orderers until I have them in hand). I'll put together another printer-friendly layout of the manual for letter/A4 paper within the next few days, and that'll replace the manual link on the site. If any of you have gotten a copy, speak up! I've sent out more than just a couple copies that used the "awful" code with nary a word, so I feel like the discount code was just scraped - fair warning that the discount code will be bumped down to 20% on the 5th and removed on the 12th. If anyone still wants the discount after that, just send me a PM or an email and I'll make a one-time code. Once I have a final updated quote on the new print run (mainly just for the solid timeframe), I'll put up a Kickstarter. The KS will have a very small goal since I'll be paying for the print run no matter what; 100 copies from the first run are reserved for the KS - an early backer tier will have immediate shipping of a first run copy with the option to add a copy from the second run; the others will basically be reserving a slot from the second run at a discount. I know that was mostly money-related stuff rather than game-related stuff, but that's just what I've been working on recently. As always, I'm happy to hear any trip reports or answer any questions!
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Sep 4, 2020 02:24
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 Print run number two (the big one) is officially underway! All payments have finally cleared with the overseas partners, and the factories are beginning their production. I'll be getting the extra manual booklets via air as soon as they're complete, and I'll mail them out for free to everyone that's already ordered once they come in (even internationally). Now it's time to get more serious about getting the game in reviewers' hands once the manuals are in, and then I finally need to finish planning out videos and kickstarter/advertising Vvv: This makes me genuinely happy, I'm so thrilled at all of the awesome responses that the game's been getting 
Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Oct 28, 2020 |
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Oct 28, 2020 15:29
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 It's been a long road, but there's light at the end of the tunnel! The booklets also arrived - I added them to the existing copies of the game that are already stateside, and on Wednesday I'll be mailing booklets out to everyone that already ordered a copy. I also threw together a more easily printable version of the rulebook in case anyone wants to make extra copies, https://www.buddingheroes.com/pdf/rulebook-print.pdf
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Dec 7, 2020 15:54
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Crossposting here in case anyone has this thread bookmarked but not the TG design one: I'm working on some of the video scripts, and input is certainly encouraged:Sentient Data posted:I'm working on the script for the intro/pitch video for Budding Heroes, and I want to see if anyone has any thoughts before I give it the final pass and begin recording. When read aloud with pauses, it should be just about 4~5 minutes which I think is the sweet spot. Also, update: 2 full pallets of the game have successfully arrived! All the tarriff/customs stuff going on had me worried, not to mention that huge capsized cargo ship (which the games could have 100% been on since the timing was perfect), but I don't need to sweat it any longer. The design/procurement part is officially done (for now), so now it's just marketing/fulfillment time
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Mar 12, 2021 05:49
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Sorry, must have gotten lost in the shuffle. I'll get yours sent out and check if any others are missing tracking info E: after researching it, there were a few orders that never updated. I'll get all those manuals sent out again tomorrow afternoon, and as an apology for the delay, I'll also include another copy of the game to give out to a friend or whatever Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 15:46
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Not yet, I couldn't get interest from the gameplay channels I knew of and I didn't have the money to bribe them or commission anyone else so I basically slammed hard into a brick wall The fact that you asked just now is super meaningful to me, so thank you. I'll try taking another stab at the script
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Jul 25, 2023 17:11
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