In a post-funding update the team of Legends of Eisenwald lets us now that they are now greenlit on Steam.

Thanks to your many players and to your ongoing support, we have been greenlit today!

We planned quite a bit of activity to support our campaign on Greenlight and now we would have to change a few of our plans, but this time around this is a much nicer change compared to postponing the release. 

We didn't expect to be greenlit this round but regardless, we really appreciate it and Greenlight is a great service for indie developers. Alexander talked about it a few days ago in this article. If you want to hear his (well, actually our) thoughts about it, check it out.

Last week an update came available for Legends of Eisenwald that informed us that patch 0.85 is out and tha the first stage of beta has been concluded, with these being the highlights of that patch:

• French translation added; 
• Quest journal significantly expanded - quests are marked on the mini map and tabs for all, completed and not completed quests are shown correctly;

• Personal items are displayed in the info window of a character; 
• Added calculations of payment for mercenaries and units without castle support; 
• The cost of hiring depends on the relationship to buildings owners; 
• Skills are displayed in the info window of a character; 
• Added icons of a character’s hiring status (mercenary units, followers, regular units with castle support have no icons).

They also could use more votes to get greenlighted on Steam.

In a lengthy post on the Kickstarter page for Legends of Eisenwald it is explained that the game is being delayed until September and the reasons behind this decision.

Delay and reasons 

Those of you who have access to beta probably already know that delay is inevitable judging by the state of the game now. We could have taken a “quick and dirty” approach and released our game in somewhat workable state, but we don’t think anyone would appreciate that. Also, this approach can pretty much ruin everything we worked for. Therefore, after looking at our schedule, at things that remain to be done, we think a realistic date to release our game will be sometime in September. 

How did we end up in this situation 

When last year we came out to Kickstarter, we really thought that having brought our game to alpha means that not many things were left to do. Core mechanics were in place and we thought all the “niceties” such as hints and tooltips would take much less time to implement. The only experience we had was based on development of our first title, Discord Times. However, that game was much simpler in terms of gameplay and user interface (UI), so our estimate was wrong. As you know, we only managed to get out early beta in November and that early beta could have been called by some the late alpha. 

In November we got optimistic again and thought that now we can finish things until April and that’s why when we came to Greenlight, we set April as our target month. But again, it’s April now and our game is still not finished, even though much closer now. But this time reasons are a bit different than just a bad estimate. What took too much time was testing gameplay and making sure that certain things work, especially in combat, because it’s brand new combat system. Also, we experimented with hits system and ended up with something completely different. You saw already version 1 where hits were not restored, there was version 2 where hits restored but characters received wounds and that was not the last version it seems, the final one will contain both approaches since each system on their own proved to have some disadvantages.

Thanks Memling.

The Legends of Eisenwald beta has been patched and is also available in German now.

What has been fixed:

• All known crashes (thanks for all those bug reports!)
• AI behavior for casting spells
• A lot of problematic things in the AI

What has been added:

• A window of the first stage siege result before the actual siege, with a possibility to cancel the siege.

In case you missed it before, on Gamasutra a post mortem can be found on the Kickstarter experience of the Legends of Eisenwald devs, with 6 recommendations of which, out of laziness, I only quote 3.

 

We knew PR was important. We still managed to underestimate how important it was.

Mistake #1 There was no information anywhere in the media that we were going to start our campaign on Kickstarter. Our game wasn’t even announced.

Recommendation #1 Send out press release (press packs) about an upcoming campaign some time ahead. Announce your project.

If we had to do it again, we would announce our game a month or two before, then announce our plans for Kickstarter and then start the campaign itself.

Mistake #2 We started our campaign on Saturday. Weekends are slower than weekdays on Kickstarter because the biggest percentage of Kickstarter backers are from the US and it seems to be a national US tradition to leave somewhere for the weekend )(good tradition, I would say).

When we started our campaign we got to learn it very fast. Also, sending our press releases on the weekends proved to be very inefficient. As later some more experienced people told us, on the weekends editors get a lot of spam so often they don’t look at any of the messages received. For two first days we were pretty much without any press coverage.

Recommendation #2 Start your campaign on a week day.
Personally, we think Monday or Tuesday could be a good day to launch a project.

Mistake #3 We didn’t have enough promotional materials and we had to make a lot of them during our campaign. Also, we had to explain many things how our game worked.

Recommendation #3 Create a lot of promotional materials. Videos seem to be the best for this.

Update number 32 for Legends of Eisenwald is about the combat mechanics of the game. It explains the combat is based on the Discord Times system, including some Disciples 2 and evolving from that. One of them being that moves in a battle always have a result and another that the speed of the battle depend on the skill of a palyer and not something random.

Battles can be lost quickly if your tactics aren’t sound. It’s very important to choose which units to attack, and how to place your units initially, since it is impossible to move ranged or casting units later.

Choices are not only important in battle, but also when preparing for action. It is very important to have a balanced army that is ready to deal with any kind of challenge. That is why unit management is essential for any successful battle. Recruiting a wide range of units such as bowman, mages, knights and dual wielding units, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses, provide a tactical depth that is fulfilling and challenging.

Players can enter battle with a maximum of 12 units, all of which have unique attributes. These are made up of initiative, attack, willpower, melee defense and ranged defense. Certain units are locked to certain weapons; a knight cannot use a bow while a mage cannot use a sword. Setting the formation of your units before entering battle, and protecting your support units, is crucial. While recruiting units is important, players need to pay special attention when equipping and upgrading their units. Certain weapons will have unique properties, and equipping healing potions could be the difference between success or failure

Craig Stern reviews Legends of Eisenwald over at IndieRPGs in a video preview, based on the beta of the game.

Basically: there is a lot of good stuff here, but I also have some gripes. The balancing of many early game battles seems off. Further, as things currently stand, the game does an exceptionally poor job of explaining itself to the player, both in terms of its rules and in terms of providing visual feedback to the player during combat. (Dergay tells me that there was some sort of documentation about how to play that they forgot to send me, but alas, games are no longer in the age of RTFM.)

Luckily, all of this is stuff that can be easily fixed. Less likely to change is the fact that I can’t independently move my units during combat, a design choice that I am still far from sold on. Hopefully I will grow to appreciate it when I sit down to try LoE out at greater length in the future.

IndieStatik got a beta build of Legends of Eisenwald and like to share their thoughts on the game.

The combat engine feels and looks like a blend of HoMM (back when it was hex-based) and Disciples. An initiative bar at the side shows what order you and your enemies are going to be taking their turns in, and most of the time you’ll just be giving simple ‘move to this hex, attack this guy’ orders. There are some support units such as clerics and herbalists, but nothing too taxing at this point. I’d imagine that there’ll be more interesting abilities layered onto the formula as the campaign advances, though. As you can see from the screenshots, this is a pretty game. Production values are great all round, and animations are smooth. There’s quite a lot of detail to the authentically medieval gear worn, and even the long-haired Baroness character wears a convincing looking ensemble of plate, chain and leather.

Update #30 of Legends of Eisenwald brings news on the beta patch that is avaialble for those who are actually in the beta of the game.

We uploaded a patch to Desura and we hope it will be approved soon. Those of you who use Desura, will get automatic update. Others, please mail us here and we will give you DRM-free version some time soon, we have to create a list to notify you. 

This patch has a lot of new things:

• You can play as a Mystic now;
• The life hits system has changed, we call it vitality now, see how it works for yourselves and let us know what you think;
• The limit on units in army has been introduced - castles provide support slots for units and each castle provides support for a certain number of units;
• Draft version of hints have been introduced: there are hints in battle, hints on spells, and hints on skills;
• Some new spells are added for witches and heretics;
• Save/load functionality has been improved - in addition to auto saves, quick saves now with F5 will not overwrite anything; also, game can be loaded from the main menu, but no progress bar yet there;
• Dual wielders now have a response attack.

Some smaller things and fixes:

• Crash entering a tent has been fixed;
• Bug with loading saved game before battle has been fixed;
• Upgrade for named characters changed;
• And some other minor things.

Legend of Eisenwald saw 2 updates on Kickstarter in the last couple of days. The first is for a video preview of the game done at Pixabyte.

The second update is about the beta invitations that have been sent out and a promo for the Skyjacker Starship Constructor.

We sent out now invites to the beta to everyone in the $15 reward tier. We are still working on the patch with many different improvements and bug fixes and it will be probably ready tomorrow. But it will be the weekend and then Christmas time, and admins at Desura might not approve the patch right away. We don't want to leave you without promised access to the beta and the possibility to play over the holidays, so we sent invitations to all of you now. If any of you didn't receive it, please write us here via Kickstarter mail and we will sort it out. If you have the patience and the possibility to wait until the patch is out (likely Wednesday next week), please do so, we would like to have a handful of impressions that will be fresh if that's possible.

RPGCodex has received a beta copy of Legend of Eisenwald resulting in an article on the game.

You're not developing towns and you're not controlling several individual armies, as you do in strategy/RPG hybrids such as Heroes of Might & Magic or Age of Wonders. Instead, you focus on controlling a single band of adventurers led by your hero. Perhaps a likeness could be drawn to Mount & Blade in this regard. As you come across villages, churches and other locations, you will be able to recruit low tier units such as peasants or priests. Your followers, like in Mount & Blade, will gain experience in battle. With sufficient experience points, you will then be able to upgrade them. Peasants will become armored and blonde women will turn brunette. Your hero on the other hand, will instead be able to upgrade via skills chosen in a talent tree.
Another way to improve your hero and your hero's followers is to equip items. These items, such as weapons, armors, potions and trinkets, can be bought from merchants found in locations scattered all over the scenario map. You may also see some items drop from defeated enemies if you're lucky, or get them as quest rewards.

Thanks GhanBuriGhan.

The Kickstarter for Legends of Eisenwald finished yesterday with a total of $83,577 - just shy of one of the stretch goals, but a good effort against their $50k goal. From the update:

It’s official – Legends of Eisenwald will be made!

Thank you all, our great and amazing 2729 backers! Thank you who just backed our project, thank you for all our active backers who spread the word about us and thank you who didn’t get upset with 4 letters sent to them :) Thank you Kickstarter that it exists and helps bring to life many different projects.

This month brought us a lot of new experiences. We answered to the questions of journalists, wrote press releases and compiled press packs, argued a lot about new ideas how to attract new backers. We followed how our project was becoming more popular and read on forums what is written about us and participated in some of the forums ourselves. We got used to that and we have to admit we are going to miss Kickstarter!

Also, while we didn’t reach our stretch goal at 85k, the hope is not lost! Maybe we will get the missing amount through Paypal and Yandex money. And since castle assault was more popular, maybe we can even get to that goal there.

Darklord reminds us to keep an eye on the Legends of Eisenwald Kickstarter, which is currently at $64k with three days to go. An improved storyline has already been unlocked and other goals are on the horizon - the next is a backer's choice based on a poll:

Based on the voting results, this will most likely be a possibility of upgrading castles or a pack of storyline characters. You decide! If you have not voted, you can select any three items. A link to the poll can be found in update #8.

To reach the goal, we need to collect at least $15 000 within four days. As shown by some other projects, there is nothing impossible about this! Only you can help us make the game better — simply click on FB like under our video if you have not done so yet. We have almost 2 000 backers and just 800 likes, so 1 000 more likes would help nicely. And certainly, share the news of our campaign at message boards and blogs: there is not much time left until funding, and this very fact may persuade many to support us.

Legends of Eisenwald has just inched past their funding target of $50k (currently $50.3k, 9 days to go). There's a new music sample on offer and presumably they'll start looking at stretch goals soon.

A new combat video has been posted for Legends of Eisenwald at Kickstarter. Being Alpha, they note a number of things are missing such as visual effects but it does demonstrate some tactical elements.

Thanks, jhwisner.

RPG Codex has an interview about Legends of Eisenwald, which you may remember from Kickstarter newsbit a few days back. Here's a bit on their previous work, Discord Times:

At first glance, Legends of Eisenwald looks quite similar to Discord Times (2004), Aterdux' previous title. What kind of game were you aiming for with Discord Times, and in what ways will this game be different from its predecessor?

AD: Since Discord Times was created way before King’s Bounty: The Legend our motivation back then was a desire to revive forgotten gameplay of the original King’s Bounty. And our enthusiasm for Disciples 2 was reflected in the combat system.

Unfortunately, Discord Times lacked good graphics. And it was also quite, no, TERRIBLY difficult to play even though some fans think that it's a plus! And yes, we have to admit, in some areas it lacked balance. But we learned from our mistakes. The main problem of Discord Times – constant lack of gold – is solved: now only a special category of units will require pay – mercenaries. As for difficulty, in Legends of Eisenwald the player will have a choice on what level of difficulty to play at. (For the record, “Impossible” is a level that a player needs to choose to reflect the difficulty of Discord Times).

Aterdux Entertainment sent in the press release below, announcing a Kickstarter campaign for Legends of Eisenwald. The presser references King's Bounty, Mount & Blade and Disciples II and it appears they have completed a substantial part of the development. Interestingly, the Kickstarter page says the project is based in Belarus, which I thought Kickstarter didn't allow.

Aterdux Entertainment: Legends of Eisenwald

Independent game studio «Aterdux Entertainment» announced its new project Legends of Eisenwald – a role playing game with elements of strategy and turn based tactical battles.

The game can be described as Knight Errant simulator. A hero travels on a global map, conquers castles, receives tribute from villages and gather troops for his or her army. Main focus of the game is not on the economy but on battles and adventures. Fans of King’s Bounty and Mount-n-Blade will understand well what it is about.  

As for battles, creators of the game decided to solve what they perceive to be the main problem of turn based battles: lack of dynamics and slowness. For that reason they discarded “empty” movements without strikes. As a result, a player faces a choice whom to attacks at every move. According to developers, it makes a battle intense from beginning to end since a battle outcome can depend on one strike. Those who played Disciples 2 remember similar battles.

Despite the knightly romanticism and presence of magic the world of Eisenwald is not a fantasy but alternate Middle Ages. There is a place for adventures and heroic deeds but there are no arrogant elves or stupid orcs, no ancient gods or other fantasy clichés. Heroes of Legends of Eisenwald are not saving the world and are not participating in the wars between gods. Rather, they are directed by human motivations: by a desire to find glory (and wealth), by blood feud, revenge and even by unrequited love.

Right now developers have an alpha version of the game. Following an example of many independent studios Aterdux Entertainment addressed their future players through a popular in recent months Kickstarter with a rather original presentation video. Release of the game is planned for the autumn of this year.

http://www.aterdux.com  company site

http://kck.st/JWdHEH Kickstarter

http://www.facebook.com/groups/aterdux/