Bevontule - Kickstarter launched

@MTG_Derek;,

I didn't see any bustling cities, towns with dozens of NPCs, etc. I didn't see many merchant windows, alchemy shops, or really anything that looked like a full-fledged RPG. I looked at every screenshot on the kickstarter page. Your game looks like a combat simulator with a few questgivers; at least at first blush. I definitely won't mind being proven wrong with vids of the party walking and talking in a living breathing world. I did see a scene with perhaps two people outside of the party in one screenshot. I'd strongly suggest you showing such scenes in fact.

Maybe your fist update could be about non-combat/town activities. That would help folks to see what else you have to offer outside of skills, stats, and combat.

My opinion is just mine though and there are a bunch of people who live for long drawn out combats one right after the other. I just outgrew that in the 90's :D

Thanks again, crpgnut. And by no means was I trying to imply that I disagreed with you--just that some of those aspects are present in the video and therefore, the demo. But I do see your point--we really wanted to drive home the fact that the foundational mechanics are solid. It's not hard for someone to put together a town and have some NPCs walking around in it--sadly, that might have performed better for us optically, but we wanted to show that we have the mechanics implemented.

That's a good point, and I hope there is some more of those aspects in the finished game.

That said, if I were setting out to make an indie RPG, I'd start in the same way - put some effort into the worldbuilding, and focus on the combat mechanics. I think that if you get those right, it becomes much easier to start slotting the rest of the content into place.

This is exactly our mantra as well. We've spent a lot of time fleshing out our content creation pipeline, which allows us to quickly iterate on new quests, NPCs, enemies and many more aspects. The analogy of building a house, while a little corny, does hold up here: have to have a solid foundation first and foremost and I see too many devs fall into the trap of building out the floors before they can be properly supported. Then again, to the average player, a fancy house is fancy regardless--as long as you don't have to live in it just yet… if that makes sense.

Backed as well. Although from the looks of it they're gonna have a rough time making the goal. They're almost at $10k out of $50k. It'll be a rough road to the end, but maybe they can pull it off a la Copper Dreams, just barely squeaking by.

Hopefully their updates get people excited throughout the campaign.

We've got a few tricks up our sleeves just yet. The campaign is only a few days in, remember, and we have some heavier press releases going out today, several updates, some cool stretch goals, and even a competition or two to announce! The best thing that can be done for us, at the moment, is simply spreading the word as far and wide as possible. :)
 
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Taking a pass. Tried the demo a little. The combat didn't thrill me, nor did the console interface. Maybe I just missed the keyboard hotkeys, but they weren't labeled. The combat actions could sorely use hotkeys, but the whole thing felt too JRPG to me. I realize it was likely a tutorial area, but it also felt like walking down grassy corridors....and I didn't like my whole party being represented by one guy while traversing the map. I did like the big fonts, though, Mercy.

Pass.
 
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@MTG_Derek;,

I didn't see any bustling cities, towns with dozens of NPCs, etc….
Yep, that would possibly persuade me as well.
Then again I doubt that a game of this scope can be made with this budget.

@MTG_Derek; , perhaps you can tell us a bit about external funding in the next update?
 
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I backed it, but that game title is atrocious. The whole time I've been saying "Bevintool" in my head.

WTF is "Bayvontully"?
 
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I don't mean to white-knight the game, though I'm clearly well-disposed to what I've seen, but I don't mind a rather random title. I much prefer it to "Dungeon of the Dragon Sword", which really isn't too much of an exaggeration of the state of many Kickstarters.
 
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You mean like "The Fall of the Dungeon Guadians"? ^^
Defintely makes it on my list of the most horrible game names.

That said, "Bevontule" neither sounds very good, nor is it memorable in any way.
 
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It seems forgettable and also hard to properly pronounce. Which is the worst thing it can be. At least if it's an awful name people will talk about it some way or another.

I wish them luck, but jeez.
 
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In that sense, though, is it really any worse than, say, Avernum?
 
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It could be called Divine Divinity. Worst title ever!

I haven't played the newest demos but the combat seemed fairly decent way back when. It took me some time to get used to all the circles. It was a little slow for my tastes though.

I get bored fast if combat lasts very long. I like to explore, shop, loot, craft a little and combat comes along as just something to tie the other activities together. I can play a combat heavy game only if it is also very loot heavy, craft heavy and explore heavy. Otherwise I just uninstall and try to get my money back if I can.

If combat is the rock of the game, I try to skip it unless there is a ton of toppings :D
 
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Taking a pass. Tried the demo a little. The combat didn't thrill me, nor did the console interface. Maybe I just missed the keyboard hotkeys, but they weren't labeled. The combat actions could sorely use hotkeys, but the whole thing felt too JRPG to me. I realize it was likely a tutorial area, but it also felt like walking down grassy corridors….and I didn't like my whole party being represented by one guy while traversing the map. I did like the big fonts, though, Mercy.

Pass.

Appreciate the feedback. We definitely want to add hotkeys to the battle options, which is a trivial thing to implement--just ran out of time, but we might patch our current demo. I'm not sure I would agree with your assessment that the area is comprised of grassy corridors--do you think, in some way, having a minimap present contributes to that feeling? Regardless, glad you took the time to play it :)

Yep, that would possibly persuade me as well.
Then again I doubt that a game of this scope can be made with this budget.

@MTG_Derek; , perhaps you can tell us a bit about external funding in the next update?

You would be correct, to some extent. While we've made a lot with a little thus far, the amount of funding required to create a whole breathing, living 'city' a la Skyrim or the like, would be pretty difficult. That being said, we do have several town areas, but our first and foremost concern was to create the largest vertical 'slice' possible within our time and budget constraints. Personally (although I'm a bit biased) I would say that the demo contains quite a bit of content for what it is: a pre-alpha demo. Sure, there isn't a bustling town, but there are plenty of side quests, NPCs, and there's plenty of overall 'life' in the world. I admit that our initial demos did not express that well, but I think we've improved upon it in general.

As for an update that mentions external funding, that's definitely something worth looking into. Several publishers have reached out to us thus far and it's certainly something we've mulled over--and would need to further mull over as the campaign unfolds.

I backed it, but that game title is atrocious. The whole time I've been saying "Bevintool" in my head.

WTF is "Bayvontully"?

You mean like "The Fall of the Dungeon Guadians"? ^^
Defintely makes it on my list of the most horrible game names.

That said, "Bevontule" neither sounds very good, nor is it memorable in any way.

Matter of taste, I suppose, but I might just be a slightly bit biased (if you can believe that!) On one hand, there's literally no chance that you'll find something else with a title similar to this--save for maybe my old pokerstars.com accounts if you search hard enough… That's also why we added the subtitle "Altar of Roots", to provide something a bit more memorable.
 
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Divine Divinity must win the prize for just plain ungrammatical English (or really any language) ever to grace a significant game.
 
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It seems forgettable and also hard to properly pronounce. Which is the worst thing it can be. At least if it's an awful name people will talk about it some way or another.

I wish them luck, but jeez.

To be fair, does it really matter so much how it's pronounced so long as they don't say like "Final Fantasy XV: DLC #8" or something? I'd almost argue that it will mostly show up in text anyhow, and the subtitle was added to address this problem, while still being highly relevant to the plot/world--and not just a random string.

It could be called Divine Divinity. Worst title ever!

I haven't played the newest demos but the combat seemed fairly decent way back when. It took me some time to get used to all the circles. It was a little slow for my tastes though.

I get bored fast if combat lasts very long. I like to explore, shop, loot, craft a little and combat comes along as just something to tie the other activities together. I can play a combat heavy game only if it is also very loot heavy, craft heavy and explore heavy. Otherwise I just uninstall and try to get my money back if I can.

If combat is the rock of the game, I try to skip it unless there is a ton of toppings :D

I wanted to call it "Legend of Legends: The Legend II", but the team wouldn't let me. :(

You'll be happy to know that the combat has been significantly sped up--that being said, if you're into turn-based RPGs, there has to be some acknowledgment that it isn't going to be the fastest paced game in the world. We've tried to create an experience where combat is something you can seek out or avoid depending on your preferences. If you want to grind a lot, sure, you can, and there is certainly a lot of variance in how long battles can take, given the types of combatants you choose to engage. But we've tried to make each battle worthwhile--so, if you want to hit level 2 in one or two fights, you can do that by seeking out the right enemies. If you want to loot a little bit more or not have to think too much about tactics, you can space out your encounters.

And I'm sure you realize this, but I did want to mention again that the demo you played was released in mid-2016, so it would be a bit alarming if the game hadn't advanced in some significant way since then :D
 
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Yeah, but an absolute gem of a game. My 2nd favorite Larian game next to DKS. I just love DKS.
 
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In that sense, though, is it really any worse than, say, Avernum?

These things are clearly subjective but I find names like Amalur, Avernum, Avadon, Thedas etc roll off the tongue easily in a way that Bevontule just doesn't. Having said that, I don't see the name as a particular problem for the game though either. I recently enjoyed "the heroes of monkey tavern" which is a far worse name!

Edit: ahh what the hell, I've backed it. The combat looks interesting and I like that the Dev is engaging with the forum.
 
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To be fair, does it really matter so much how it's pronounced so long as they don't say like "Final Fantasy XV: DLC #8" or something? I'd almost argue that it will mostly show up in text anyhow, and the subtitle was added to address this problem, while still being highly relevant to the plot/world--and not just a random string.

Does it matter to me? No. Does it matter to getting the word out? Ehhh...

But hey, make your KS goal and none of that matters right? Good luck!
 
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Does it matter to me? No. Does it matter to getting the word out? Ehhh…

But hey, make your KS goal and none of that matters right? Good luck!

Hey, if we make our KS goal, I'm going straight to Disney World!
 
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These things are clearly subjective but I find names like Amalur, Avernum, Avadon, Thedas etc roll off the tongue easily in a way that Bevontule just doesn't. Having said that, I don't see the name as a particular problem for the game though either. I recently enjoyed "the heroes of monkey tavern" which is a far worse name!

Edit: ahh what the hell, I've backed it. The combat looks interesting and I like that the Dev is engaging with the forum.

Thanks a bunch for the support! I like posting here--you guys seem all right in my book. (I don't have a book but you guys still seem all right)

PS: Not gonna lie, "the heroes of monkey tavern", as a title, sounds pretty legit
 
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