Shieldwall Chronicles: Swords of the North - Upcoming tactical RPG

Hi everyone,

This is the developer. Sorry, if this ends up duplicating a message … I just posted but it seems to have been eaten by the forum.
Welcome! Thanks for registering to answer any questions about the game.
As for your post, the first seven posts won’t show up until a moderator has validated them. This is done to keep out spammers. Since we are all volunteers we are not 24/7 keeping an eye on any new entries. I am sorry that this means a certain delay in your posts being visible on the forums to all, but I hope you’ll understand. Me, I check at least twice a day. Thanks for your patience.

Other info that might be interesting for new members like yourself can be found here:
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40414
Hope this helps.

Thanks for posting this link. I just stumbled on it and this website from a google search. I'm the developer so would be happy to answer any questions.

Not sure of the rules but would it be okay to give away a few steam keys?

Sure! No problem. Thank you!
 
Do heroes have personalities, backgrounds, agendas?

It seems a bit too much focused on combat for my tastes. That wouldn't be necessarily bad, but it all looks very generic and I question what depth it has to the story and roleplaying.
 
Joined
May 6, 2018
Messages
73
Welcome, Wavelightgames!

I just wanted to say that I very much enjoyed the combat in your Demon's Rise games (mobile port or not) and am very looking forward to a more fleshed out game.
You also fixed a bug with one of the character abilities I reported on the Steam forum the next day!

One thing that could have been better in your earlier games is itemization. In the end it was too much comparing stats (as in quantity over quality). I guess the items were generated randomly a la Diablo? In your new game, will the items be "unique" or similar to the earlier games?

PS: Thanks for offering some keys! I also donated two Demon's Rise keys for the Winter giveaway so people can check it out. ^_^
 
Joined
Feb 21, 2015
Messages
2,164
Location
BW, Germany
Do heroes have personalities, backgrounds, agendas?

Thanks for your interest. The game doesn't feature dialogues and interactions between party members. It's more like a fighting fantasy gamebook where you have 6 characters in your team rather than just one. There are various choices throughout the story and some will be simple go left / go right ones while others will be you deciding to support one major faction in the world or another that will have repurcussions to your story later on. The game can be finished successfully regardless of which choices you make, it's just that some will result in harder battles against different opponents.

The meat of the game is the tactical combat and building a well functioning that support each other and equipping them with powerful items. There are lots of different combinations between different abilities and you face many different enemies from small goblins all the way to huge dragons.

I'd say if you're looking for a really heavy story-focussed RPG like Planescape Torment, this is not for you. It's more for those who enjoy tactical RPG's as their primary focus and like low fantasy settings.
 
Joined
Dec 15, 2018
Messages
12
Welcome, Wavelightgames!

I just wanted to say that I very much enjoyed the combat in your Demon's Rise games (mobile port or not) and am very looking forward to a more fleshed out game.
You also fixed a bug with one of the character abilities I reported on the Steam forum the next day!

Thanks very much! I really do care about my games and want them to be as good as possible.

I do this largely as a side project as my day job pays the bills. The games are set in a world I invented when I was a kid playing role playing games with friends and I adopted it in my tabletop gaming and now am trying to develop it more with these RPG's. The Demon's Rise games are set in the same game world but this game is really my first attempt at making the game look and feel more like how I want with custom created character models and such. The world is a bit like 11th century Europe with fantasy elements and I'm trying to marry that level of technology and battle strategy with what I think magic and monsters would have done to it.

I was really fortunate this time around as a lot of the fans from the Demon's Rise games volunteered to help me beta test this game. We've been doing hardcore testing during the past 2 months and it's improved by leaps and bounds in that time. This is definitely the most polished and most thoroughly tested of my games at launch. I'm hoping to not have to rush out any quick fix patches but will definitely do it if I have to. :)

One thing that could have been better in your earlier games is itemization. In the end it was too much comparing stats (as in quantity over quality). I guess the items were generated randomly a la Diablo? In your new game, will the items be "unique" or similar to the earlier games?

The items are still randomly created from a item database like diablo. However, one thing that's new is that now some items actually grant new powers to their wearer. So while in earlier games, your magic sword would only give you +15 strength or whatever, now you might find a magic sword that lets your elf knight hurl a fireball once per battle. I have about 30 or so items that do that at launch but plan to add more items via updates that add new items of this type.

PS: Thanks for offering some keys! I also donated two Demon's Rise keys for the Winter giveaway so people can check it out. ^_^

Awesome. thanks again for helping out.

Here are some keys for you and anyone else that would like to try out the game:

8PYNI-3CL4D-HJCQB
Z6Y0L-46FKR-3ADRF
T878G-ZIDHM-N82VQ
TG3HG-AFYT5-GFTXE
DWGHJ-QWCYN-04DGV

If you do grab a key, please share your thoughts and let me know what I'm doing right and what I can do better.
 
Joined
Dec 15, 2018
Messages
12
Thanks for the in-depth explanations!

This sounds great and I'm very looking forward to it! That there is no Planescape-like story is not a problem since I already enjoyed combat in Demon's Rise greatly.

I grabbed the last key (5th) and already installed it (thanks a lot!). I was looking for something to play in between RogueTech sessions and this fits perfectly. I'll make sure to let you know what I think of the game. Do you prefer it here or on Steam?
 
Joined
Feb 21, 2015
Messages
2,164
Location
BW, Germany
All 5 codes are taken (didn't take one, just saying so you don't waste your time trying).
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
5,645
Location
Tardis
Thanks very much! I really do care about my games and want them to be as good as possible.

I do this largely as a side project as my day job pays the bills. The games are set in a world I invented when I was a kid playing role playing games with friends and I adopted it in my tabletop gaming and now am trying to develop it more with these RPG's. The Demon's Rise games are set in the same game world but this game is really my first attempt at making the game look and feel more like how I want with custom created character models and such. The world is a bit like 11th century Europe with fantasy elements and I'm trying to marry that level of technology and battle strategy with what I think magic and monsters would have done to it.

I was really fortunate this time around as a lot of the fans from the Demon's Rise games volunteered to help me beta test this game. We've been doing hardcore testing during the past 2 months and it's improved by leaps and bounds in that time. This is definitely the most polished and most thoroughly tested of my games at launch. I'm hoping to not have to rush out any quick fix patches but will definitely do it if I have to. :)



The items are still randomly created from a item database like diablo. However, one thing that's new is that now some items actually grant new powers to their wearer. So while in earlier games, your magic sword would only give you +15 strength or whatever, now you might find a magic sword that lets your elf knight hurl a fireball once per battle. I have about 30 or so items that do that at launch but plan to add more items via updates that add new items of this type.



Awesome. thanks again for helping out.

Here are some keys for you and anyone else that would like to try out the game:

8PYNI-3CL4D-HJCQB
Z6Y0L-46FKR-3ADRF
T878G-ZIDHM-N82VQ
TG3HG-AFYT5-GFTXE
DWGHJ-QWCYN-04DGV

If you do grab a key, please share your thoughts and let me know what I'm doing right and what I can do better.

Wave, thanks for the keys. I missed out but that's okay. I may still buy a copy.

Next time have people PM you. These threads are still public and we get about 300 lurkers for every logged in member - most of them I suspect are some either some weird China bot not knowing what its looking for targetting the forum software by name, or something scraping for Steam keys just like these.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
5,212
Location
The Uncanny Valley
Ah okay, that's good to know. I'll keep that in mind next time.

It seems like there are regular giveaways so I'll donate some keys to the next one for my various games.
 
Joined
Dec 15, 2018
Messages
12
I have been playing the game for 9 h now and it is similar to the Demon's Rise games but more polished. The story is conveyed via short story pieces before and after a fight. The game consists of different battlefields, so this is more a tactical combat game than a true RPG. Nonetheless it is great fun!

I play on hard with complex rules enabled. My party looks like this:

Silver Elf with greatsword => damage dealer
Spear Warden with spear and shield => tank
Hunter with bow => range damage / finisher
Cleric with pole-arm => support / buffs / healing
Assassin with dual-blades => crit-chains (the bloodlust stat gives you random bonus actionpoints when you kill an opponent)
Warlock with staff => spells / summons

When creating your party you can choose between male (slightly more hitpoints) and female (slightly more actionpoints). Imo more actionpoints is always better, so an all-female party it is.

The beginning was not easy since just one crit could kill off your char. I'm now level 8 and things go much smoother. You can replay all scenarios for xp, gold and possibly loot. Every now and then you will likely have to do that because a new battle it too tough. No problem since even replaying battles is fun. In a tooltip it said you can change difficulty in replays, but I could not find a button/slider for that. You click on the mission number and it starts right away.

There are sometimes special tiles on the battlefield that do something good or bad to whom stands in them. I would like to see a better visual cue for that in some cases, because you could only see it when you moused over it.

The UI is good and you can get most information rather quickly. I would like to have some small icons below the health bar so you can see which chars/opponents are affected with something. Iirc, in the Demon's Rise games you could see what skills an opponent had by right-clicking him. It also showed how many rounds a buff/debuff was still on. Both seem to miss in this game.

Here are some minor bugs I had while playing (nothing game-breaking):
- some effects are not displayed on the char/opponents (i.e. Hunter Weak Spot) so I was not sure if they did anything.
- tomes do all the same in one group, no matter the quality (polished, improved, superior, etc.)
- in one case reinforcements did not move/attack
- when cancelling a ranged skill/spell the complete movement range is green and not green (move + attack) and yellow (move). By clicking the char again, it is back to normal.
- in one case a char got stuck in a obstacle (a portal I summoned) and I had to reload.

I recommend this game to everybody who likes tactical turn-based and at this pricepoint you cannot go wrong!
I would like to see a real RPG with this combat system one day, but can understand that that is a huge undertaking for a very small team. One can dream, though!

More thoughts when I have played some more...
 
Joined
Feb 21, 2015
Messages
2,164
Location
BW, Germany
Personally I'd prefer male/female characters to have the same stats, otherwise it's sounds like all female parties will be the default.

Daniel.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
732
Location
England
This is not something I'm interested in. Not a full fledged rpg, but looks more of a concentrated battle type game. Kinda reminds me of a strategy game with the fighting armies and focus.
I also don't like the art style either, but I'm admittedly rather picky.
It does appear some others are interested in the game.
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2009
Messages
2,244
Location
Pacific NorthWest, USA!
I have mix feelings after the playing the tutorial and two fights of the campaign:

First there should be a way to insta quit (esp doesn't bring up the menu per sey esp in the tutorial)
Second there is no way to see the key bindings. The tutorial provides them but f1 I don't see them listed anywhere and they are not in the options (which is where I usually find them) since you don't allow remapping - mind you they are simple enough they dont' require remapping but still...
Third I don't see anything indicating a status . I.e, if I use find weak spot - there is no indicator on enemy that it is enable. When there are many status - that different combatants can use it would be good to have a way to see which ones are active.
Fourth - i don't like that enemies always get unlimited counter attacks on mele. It woudl seem that this could easily be abused esp for mele vs mele. Basically you wan to avoid mele and mele actors. In the specific case i surrounded an enemy mele with three combatants since he was much stronger. Naturally since he always get a counter attack all three of my attackers ended up in bad shape.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
7,758
Location
usa - no longer boston
Fourth - i don't like that enemies always get unlimited counter attacks on mele. It woudl seem that this could easily be abused esp for mele vs mele. Basically you wan to avoid mele and mele actors. In the specific case i surrounded an enemy mele with three combatants since he was much stronger. Naturally since he always get a counter attack all three of my attackers ended up in bad shape.

I have never seen this happen in my game. All opponents had different but fixed amounts of counterattacks.

Although, a patch just came out and you can now see the attacks/counterattacks by right-clicking chars or NPCs. I guess more things will be fixed as they come up.

Basically, if you liked Blackguards you will like this.
 
Joined
Feb 21, 2015
Messages
2,164
Location
BW, Germany
I liked blackguard quite a bit but this one hasn't grab me. I'll play a little more but so far I'm leaning towards it doesn't fit myself.
-
Also I really wouldn't compare the two. Blackguard has a real (though simple) story with a real (though limited) map. This seems to just be a series of fights with a bit of text for each fight.
-
but it is deeper than that - blackguard had a real 'build' with options as you leveled. I don't see that here - or not yet.

Basically, if you liked Blackguards you will like this.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
7,758
Location
usa - no longer boston
Back
Top Bottom