Battle Brothers - Wrapping Things up

The development of Battle Brothers is coming closer to the finish line:

Dev Blog #96: Wrapping Things Up

We’re beginning to wrap things up this week by finishing the last remaining items on our roadmap of things to make it into the final major update. The obituary is done, the veterans’ hall is now fully working, and we’ve added a whole bunch of smaller features. If all goes according to plan, you can expect the update to hit the beta branch of the game later in February. Let’s take a look at shiny new things!
Training Hall

Formerly known as the Veterans’ Hall, the Training Hall is now working fully in the game. Usually to be found at larger cities and castles, you can pay to have your men trained in various ways here to shape them into hardened mercenaries – especially useful for mercenary companies later in the game that take on new blood.


Obituary

Also known as the memorial wall or graveyard, the obituary is a new screen that lists all of the men that have fallen under your command so you can properly honor their sacrifice. Aside from being reminded of their achievements and time with you, you’ll also get an unnecessarily colorful description of how they died in a column of its own.


Veteran Levels

Old dogs can in fact learn new tricks, as your men are now able to attain levels beyond the 11th character level. Any such level is considered a ‘veteran level’ and, for balance reasons, comes without a perk point and with limited attribute gain, but it does allow anyone living long enough to truly reach their potential, for you to continue to experience the leveling progression also in the very very late game.


Making Enemies

Another new feature is the ability to attack anyone on the worldmap, no matter your relations, when turning your friendly glove mouse cursor into a threatening sword cursor by holding the Ctrl key and left-clicking them. This only works when you’re striking out on your own and are not currently employed, but it does allow you to go the route of banditry and make lots of enemies if you truly want to, without having to first annoy your employers enough to finally declare you hostile. Although there won’t be any new gameplay aspects to support banditry for now, there’s a new deterrent coming: competing mercenary companies that can also get hired by your enemies to hunt you down.


New Contracts & Events

The coming update will add around a dozen new contracts to the game, and several dozen new events. We’re still busy writing more of them – more interaction with your mercenaries, new encounters as one of the late game crises ravage the land, and some hidden stuff to discover. We’re also creating new illustrations to go with these. Have a look!

More information.

Good news! Battle Brothers

The game keeps getting better but the wait keeps getting harder.

I really hope they eventually port this to iPhone and iPad. I own it on steam but would love to be able to carry it around with me to play when I need to kill some time.

I really can't fathom all the love this game gets. Tried it for myself and I found it just so incredibly one dimensional. Get Contract, Beat On Enemies, Collect Reward, Recover, rinse and repeat. There does not seem to be much beyond this. No real storyline beyond this. You cannot interact with anyone in the towns / villages. In a way, you are a mobile combat simulator, and thats about it. The production values are not very high to boot. I tried to love this title, I really did. For me, it went the way of Refund City.

Originally Posted by beldurax
I really can't fathom all the love this game gets. Tried it for myself and I found it just so incredibly one dimensional. Get Contract, Beat On Enemies, Collect Reward, Recover, rinse and repeat. There does not seem to be much beyond this. No real storyline beyond this. You cannot interact with anyone in the towns / villages. In a way, you are a mobile combat simulator, and thats about it. The production values are not very high to boot. I tried to love this title, I really did. For me, it went the way of Refund City.

Well, no, there isn't any story and I don't think one was promised or even suggested at any point. It's a tactical combat game.

If you were interested in a tactical combat game (this is a key point), and gave it more than two hours, you might find it worthwhile.

In my opinion, the production values are very high… for a tile-based, isometric tactical combat game priced at $20.

Originally Posted by beldurax
I really can't fathom all the love this game gets. Tried it for myself and I found it just so incredibly one dimensional. Get Contract, Beat On Enemies, Collect Reward, Recover, rinse and repeat. There does not seem to be much beyond this. No real storyline beyond this. You cannot interact with anyone in the towns / villages. In a way, you are a mobile combat simulator, and thats about it. The production values are not very high to boot. I tried to love this title, I really did. For me, it went the way of Refund City.

it's like saying that xcom is : kill aliens, complete missions, rinse and repeat.

Hmm any news on when release is?

Originally Posted by screeg
Well, no, there isn't any story and I don't think one was promised or even suggested at any point. It's a tactical combat game.

If you were interested in a tactical combat game (this is a key point), and gave it more than two hours, you might find it worthwhile.

In my opinion, the production values are very high… for a tile-based, isometric tactical combat game priced at $20.

Oh I gave it a good sight more than "2 hours". The thing is, this offering isn't worth $20 - I would say it's a $7-9.99 game, TOPS. How can you even say the production values are "very high" ? One look at the plain-Jane Arial font in the text dialogs would squash that statement.

Originally Posted by They Live
it's like saying that xcom is : kill aliens, complete missions, rinse and repeat.

Yes, well at least XCOM had other things going for it like base building and varied & extensive mangement aspects that went along with it.

Originally Posted by beldurax
Oh I gave it a good sight more than "2 hours". The thing is, this offering isn't worth $20 - I would say it's a $7-9.99 game, TOPS. How can you even say the production values are "very high" ? One look at the plain-Jane Arial font in the text dialogs would squash that statement.

You understand that game development costs go beyond making pretty things appear on the screen, right? The gameplay is the point here *but* I'm not agreeing that the graphics are substandard. The hand painted art is high quality.

The fact that you don't like the font… I don't even know what to say, except that sans serif fonts are always a better choice for clarity and readability on a digital display.

Lastly, I would've paid $50 for this game knowing how many hours I've put into (and am still putting in). $20 is empirically not a lot of money in the West, and people have got to get paid in order to make games. Obviously it's not worth that to you (and I'm sure a lot of other people), but it's next-to-pocket-change considering what it costs to develop a game.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Hmm any news on when release is?

1.0 beta release in February, final release in March if all goes well.

Originally Posted by screeg
1.0 beta release in February, final release in March if all goes well.

Nice. I've been holding off for the full release, so to speak, and it's starting to feel like self-imposed chastity.

Originally Posted by screeg
1.0 beta release in February, final release in March if all goes well.

Great thanks! I have it installed but only booted up to fool around.