Halfway - A Sci-fi Squad Based Tactical RPG

Halfway is a new game from a two man indie developer called Robotality. They describe the game as a sci-fi squad-based tactical RPG.

Halfway is a turn-based strategy game taking place a few hundred years in the future. You take control of a small group of people who are witnesses to a violent overtake of their spaceship by an unknown species. As you fight your way through the dark corridors and rooms of the ship, you will uncover more and more details of what has taken place.

At the heart of the game are tactical gun fights. Battles are conducted in a typical turn-based manner with transparent but interesting tactical decisions. The whole game is entrenched in an engrossing storyline that unfolds more and more the deeper the player delves into the game. Your squad will be built out of distinct characters you pick up along your journey, each with their own part to play in the whole story. You will develop skills and find items as you uncover all the corners of the spaceship, adding a touch of RPG elements to the game.

Halfway will be released on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux later this year.

More information.

Cute!
Add some Commodore64 music in it (althout that one in the vid isn't bad at all) and I'm instabuying it.

Graphically I find it extreamly appealing. But I think the flow, also by the sound design didn't look just right. It didn't feel like doing something important each turn. Maybe because the effects were too silent, because the enemies to weak or just because there were no confrmation messages by the solders. It just looked like "dipping along" if that makes sense.
In addition such a game stands and falls with the combat mechanics for me.
And since XCOM EU was such a huge disappointment for me personally I don't want to get too excited before I actually played it. However this game doesn't even pretend to be 3D and realistic so maybe even the XCom mechanic would work for me here, in addition th mechanic already looks differently and less abstract.

I for one couldn't be happier to see a rebirth of turn based games again. I'm glad a few others are interested in this game also.

Turn based ftw

Another RPG to look forward to, that list keeps getting big.

The gameplay needs a huge enhancement. What shows this trailer is there isn't enough options from far, very basic gameplay. There isn't the immediate chance to hit feedback, probably a future feature I suppose. But also the constant action mode will mean it won't be a RPG, only fights, you can't decently moves 4 characters when just exploring.

Yeah cute but needs show a lot more.

Originally Posted by Ihaterpg
There isn't the immediate chance to hit feedback, probably a future feature I suppose.

Yes there is. Note the "hit chance" followed by a percent value above enemies.

Originally Posted by Ihaterpg
But also the constant action mode will mean it won't be a RPG, only fights, you can't decently moves 4 characters when just exploring.

While it sounds like most of your forrays through the ship will be in combats, there is down time for conversation and decision making once you secure a staging area.

from their blog:

What happens besides the battles?
After one of the first few levels, you will recover a sector of the space ship which will become your temporary headquarters. After every battle, you will return to the headquarters for strategic planning. Here, you can walk around your headquarters and talk to the other members of your small group of survivors, organise your equipment and put together a squad for the next level. Another aspect we’d love to add is that the player can delegate tasks to his remaining members, whilst he is out on the next mission. For example, they could go scouting for equipment, other survivors or just defend the headquarters to make sure they won’t be overrun by aliens.

Since this is an alpha gameplay trailer and it sounds like it's very early in development, I'm not entirely sure you can draw as many conclusions as you are from just this video.

Originally Posted by Ihaterpg
there isn't enough options from far, very basic gameplay.

At least in terms of character customization as well as the uniqueness/abilities of individual members it sounds like there will be a decent number of options when it comes to your character and selecting your team mates. Individual members having unique abilities does make it seem that chosing who to take with you and how you develop them will lend some complexity to decision making.

What about Squad customisation?
In Halfway your squad members don’t have fixed classes. Instead each squad member is made up of a tactical skills tree and some positive and negative perks. Some characters will share certain skills and specialisations. When a member has gained enough experience the player will be able to choose from skills and perks to customise their team.

We won’t put any limitations on what equipment a character can or can’t use. However, some characters will be better trained or experienced to make use of certain items and weapons.

An important aspect we wanted to ensure is that your squad is not just composed of “disposable” members. Instead they are characters with a story that you pick up throughout your journey in the game. They all bring a different angle to the story, and with that also certain abilities and specialisations that will be entirely unique to them. Learn how to use each member of your squad properly and you might just find some interesting new strategies to overcome the next level!

As a side-note: You as the player will directly play as one of the squad members.

Yay for turn-based combat! Boo for cuteness (cartooniness is a big turn off for me).

Originally Posted by jhwisner
Since this is an alpha gameplay trailer and it sounds like it's very early in development, I'm not entirely sure you can draw as many conclusions as you are from just this video.

If it was like that it would be fine. But they are also writing

Halfway will be released on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux later this year.

And as this year is only 4 more months long (since the video) I doubt the trailer is far away from the released product.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Yay for turn-based combat! Boo for cuteness (cartooniness is a big turn off for me).

I don't think they have the funding for realistic graphics. Anyway the graphics don't bother me, but I understand your point.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
If it was like that it would be fine. But they are also writing

And as this year is only 4 more months long (since the video) I doubt the trailer is far away from the released product.

Yeah, they set themselves a deadline (not the most stupid idea, really), so it might be that a lot of cool possible features never see the light.

Not bad at all. It's hard to tell whether low objects like desks provide partial cover, but I'm assuming so based on the tactics. I think this could be a fun play.

It'd be nice to see more details, such as inventory control, character interaction, healing, and so forth.

It reminds me of SotS: The Pit except squad-based. If it's half as good as The Pit then it'll be worth checking out.

This looks interesting! Very much so. Turn-based, squad-based, sci-fi tactical/RPG hybrid with X-Com and System Shock mentioned as inspirations… SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!

@jhwisner: Thanks for the explanation, well I haven't seen obvious different skills from the video and the current interface design won't allow adds too many.

To take an example with a mobile game with a touch mobile interface, so simpler than what's possible with computers, Shadowrun Return that has also a part with turn based tactic squad. It offers potentially 6 usable items (grenades, healing, boosts,…) + 6 spells or special skills actions + crouch toggle + Oversight and aiming + Reload + switching between 4 weapons (no AP used) + For each weapons from 2 to 4 or even 6 modes + Cooldown (sometimes none) for spells/kills and weapon modes. And it's not an overly complex tactical game.

I mean that the context menu I saw in the video is a wrong start and the game won't work without one or multiple action bar if they want a real good range of possibilities. SRR use multiple small action bars with some menus on them, a better computer implementation would probably use less menu on action bars.

About the DAO party camp hub approach, I'm not very fan and I wonder how you interact if you don't control a character. But yep this can drag a bit the game on the RPG side.

Originally Posted by Ihaterpg
The gameplay needs a huge enhancement. What shows this trailer is there isn't enough options from far, very basic gameplay. There isn't the immediate chance to hit feedback, probably a future feature I suppose. But also the constant action mode will mean it won't be a RPG, only fights, you can't decently moves 4 characters when just exploring.

Yeah cute but needs show a lot more.

I'll agree with you on this one. It sounds more like a tactical strategy game with some RPG elements than the other way around. I do however not have a problem with that, so I'm still curious about this game. But I'm pretty doubtful I want to spend my PC gaming time on this one, I hope they make a port to Android.

I wrote mobile but I don't think SRR can work on mobile, I was meaning tablet. Halfway could work on mobile with a similar approach but I think the range designed isn't compatible with mobile.

A good example I know on mobile (but played only on ipad) is Tactical Soldier - Undead Rising (http://www.tacticalsoldier.com/) with a second campaign as an in app purchase, I wrote campaign but each is rather short (well at least the first, I haven't played the second). It strangely works despite it is doing what I'm quoting as a bad design, you constantly move all your team one per one.

The point is its design is that almost each step can requires caution and could trigger a surprise. So most movements require some analysis and thought. It offers about 1/3 of the number of actions choices of SRR but adds a tense ammo management and its oversight management is more important and adds complexity.

But it isn't yet on Android.

EDIT: If you want a turn based tactical Resident Evil game, try it, I'd say the mood and tension is probably the best achievement in the game.