Unlocked: play music together + dreams!
about 5 years ago – Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 11:20:22 PM

Dearest Musical Travellers,

Today we reached our $150,00 target and can now commit to making the feature that allows you to play music together, thank you! We can't wait to get together with you in Braided Shore and play beautiful music... Ah! And let's not forget that now we are 4,000 we are also going to make dreaming a part of your journey too! 

Since we can’t get jamming for a little while yet, we’ll have to let words do the magic for us. Here’s what the Illustrated Lore Compendium of Braided Shore tells us about music. 

Thank you again for getting us this far, we're SO excited about the energy gathering around this campaign! If you’re new to us and/or the campaign, check out our other updates and be sure to say hello in the comments section or on Discord. 

We’ll be in touch again with more on gameplay and if you missed our update yesterday and you'd like to know more about the surprise new Map Book (with 60 pages of illustrations!) Check the link just below. As for our island challenge, we still have less than thirty spots left to fill before we hit 100... so send us your ideas! Here's the index to all you need to know...

Update #5: All about knotspells
Update #8: Go’Bad, draisine travel and healing tea
Update #9: Design an island for the game
Update #10: Sefra lore
Update #11: Gameplay lowdown
Update #12: Mementos and artwork revealed
Update #13: 5 new stretch goals: dreams, a minigame, memories, accessories and pets

And, as usual, every share and retweet gets us closer to those stretch goals (Pets, everyone! PETS!) so if you haven't already, or you're feeling share-happy, use the buttons below to spread the word. Thank you - you're time and attention is very valuable to us, we appreciate it hugely.

Best Wishes, 

Helen and the team at Might & Delight 

A Surprise Celebratory Gift - The Braided Shore Book of Maps
about 5 years ago – Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 11:51:06 PM

Dear Backers,

Today we want to celebrate that we now have over 500 Settlers, so we're adding a new book, The Maps of Braided Shore, to the rewards bundle for all backers who have pledged the Settler tier and above. 

The Maps of Braided Shore is a digital side product and will be a future DLC to the game. It's comprised of 60 pages of illustrated maps of the world's individual areas, the region and the larger world beyond Braided Shore, and can be enjoyed as an art book or as a tool for players who prefer a little less lostness in their wandering. Owning this book will also unlock additional in-game content (to be announced). 

This huge book of maps will now replace all maps in the Settler reward bundle! And along with the illustrated lore compendium, the soundtrack and the sketchbook, it'll also unlock in-game rewards which we'll be able to reveal later on in the development process.

We hope you like it! 

Best Wishes,

Helen and the Team at Might & Delight

5 x New Stretch Goals!
about 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 12, 2019 at 01:45:18 AM

Hello Dear Backers!

Today we are well over 3,500 backers and on our way to unlocking the music feature – what a great way to start the week. Check out Travellers’ Meadow too... those Night Flowers are so vivid and alive in the dark. 

Your ideas turned to stretch goals...

This weekend we've been cooking up some exciting ideas for stretch goals – we can’t wait to share them, because the ingredients are all yours! In the first half of this campaign you've contributed so many great ideas... so many just jumped out as being a really great fit for Book of Travels, so we decided to us them as stretch goals! Here’s what we've decided to add if we hit target:

We hope you like them as much as we do! Let's take a look at them in more detail...

Dreams that affect your character (4,000 backers)
With the current plan, your character sleeps when you log off. Sparked by a thoughtful idea submitted by Benjamin, we decided to create a set of dreams that will affect your character when you log in! Some might give visions, others may boost or disturb you for a short while. Who knows what dreams we can come up with. Suggestions are, as always, very much welcome!

Pin-Pouch-Pebble minigame (4,500 backers)
This is a really neat idea from Erik Russell who suggested a Braided Shore version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. We loved the idea so much that we want to make it a permanent skill instead of a rare knotspell. With this stretch goal reached, we’ll create a permanent minigame based on the eternal classic Rock Paper Scissors!

String of memories (5,000 backers)
An absolutely delightful idea presented by backers Liv and Aolu. They both suggest a way to give an item or a memory to players you’ve met and shared memories with. It’s so in sync with our line of thinking that it would be a crime not to try to realise it! Since the game doesn’t feature a friends list or other guild-like features, this would be such a lovely way to enhance the beauty (and the sorrow) of past meetings.

PLUS two more stretch goals to make a bigger and better game...

We’ve also listened to your feedback to make two large, feature heavy stretch goals that will have a substantial impact on the game. We think you’re going to like these! And if you’re an animal lover, don't go away!

175,000 USD – Accessories for characters
The equipment that your character can use is gathered in a separate inventory screen that we haven’t yet shown. The different types of equipment you can carry are: Head, Cloak, Backpack, Body, Arm, Feet, Main-hand, Off-hand, Necklace, Belt, Ring. If we reach this stretch goal, we can implement a new equipment slot, Accessory, along with creating lots of matching items to go in the game. Our thought is that the slot should mainly be used for roleplaying purposes such as pipes, glasses, etc. But there’s no rule saying it can’t hold items used or worn differently. We want your ideas for items and will handpick as many as we can to put in the game!

200,000 USD – Pets Pets Pets
The companion animals that we’ve planned for the game (the ones seen in the game play footage are examples) are currently tied to each playable Form. This means the Sleeper always has a dog, the Gladdener a cat and so on. At present, the amount of available pets is low – a choice we took based on the substantial production time it would involve to add more. With this stretch goal reached, we’ll completely redo this design, opening up the possibility to find and collect many different companion animals on your travels. We’ll add a plethora of pets – both real and fictional – and implement them. Each animal companion will be tied to an item that you equip, for example a falconer’s glove brings you the falcon, a sparkly coin, the magpie. This design means that having a companion will take space you could use for other things, so many players might choose not to keep pets – this is a balance we’re keen on keeping, both to avoid pets taking over and also to keep them rare and special. As always, let loose in the comments, tell us what you think and what type of companion-and-item pairings you’d like to see!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read all about our plans – we can't wait to hear what you have to say about them! More on this and other campaign news soon! 

And if you want to share the campaign or check out other game news in our updates, just scroll down!

Best Wishes, 

Helen and the team at Might and Delight

Update #5 All about knotspells
Update #8 Go’Bad, draisine travel and healing tea
Update #9 Design an island for Book of Travels
Update #10 Sefra lore
Update #11 Game play lowdown

Artwork and Memento Rewards – Here's how they look!
about 5 years ago – Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 12:17:32 AM

Artwork and memento rewards... a mini video

It's day 15 of our campaign! We’re half way through and there's a lot to celebrate... we've passed a fantastic 100 thousand landmark (now in GPB as well as USD) and collected a whole load of your amazing ideas and super useful feedback. Today we want to show you exactly what you'll get if you pledged for the Bandit and Voice rewards. Here are 2D Artists Marcus and Charlotte with some close-ups...

We hope you like the mementos and artwork! Next week, by popular request, we'll be sending an update throwing light on the role of combat in Book of Travels. We'll also be taking another page from the Illustrated Lore Compendium of Braided Shore, this time on our topical theme, music... 

Will we break through the $150,000 target to make the Play Music Together feature?

In the meantime, if you're new to us and you'd like to check out our other updates, you'll find info on lore, game play, our campaign unlocks so far and much more...

Update #5: All about knotspells
Update #8: Go’Bad, draisine travel and healing tea
Update #9: Design an island for Book of Travels
Update #10: Sefra lore
Update #11: Game play lowdown

Thank you, dear backers, for your attention! Please continue to reach out about all things Braided Shore!

Best Wishes, 

Helen and the team at Might & Delight 

Draisine unlocked! + Gameplay from our Lead Games Designer
about 5 years ago – Fri, Nov 08, 2019 at 02:00:48 AM

Dear Backers,

Thanks for getting us to draisine travel - it's going to be amazing to jump on a cart and push along the tracks together! And we got there pretty quickly too! We're so pleased with the energy behind the campaign and the game, it's just awesome, thank you!

A fair few of you have been asking about the game play in Book of Travels - here's Andreas Wangler to shine some light on its unique design.

 Events and NPCs in Book of Travels 

Every NPC you encounter in Book of Travels is part of what we call an “Event”. I can set detailed properties for every event we create. Does the event reveal a small narrative or form a part of a greater story arc, or is it part of a specific level for game play reasons, such as a merchant or a vehicle?

I also fill the world with a lot of smaller events which you might experience as trivial encounters that occur often in the everyday life of Braided shore; A farmer walking the field or a child running down the street. Things that make the world come alive.

We can pull levers and change the values that define where events exist in the game, and also - maybe more importantly - how often they occur and when. Do they always occur at a specific point in the world or are they more random? If we want a happening to be talked about for a long time amongst Travellers in the game we can make an event really spectacular and set it up so that it only occurs during very specific circumstances.

A certain amount of these events will be part of the main story arc that’s buried beneath the world of Braided Shore, while others will combine to form a linked group of events which zoom in on a smaller narrative within the world, for example, the disappearance of a farmer’s family on the outskirts of Kasa. The events system also allows us to determine whether there needs to be a group of Travellers at a certain place in the world for an event to exist and be fulfilled, as is the case for our Endeavours. (For more on Endeavours, read the main page under 'Collaborate to delve deeper' /helen)

I can also decide what the event should contain in terms of characters, beings, props, vehicles or specific things important for a certain goal to be reached. For example, maybe a group of sheep are running in panic due to a farmhouse fire while the farmer is outside crying for help while you calm her down.

More detailed tools enable us to select characterising features such as the exact clothes NPCs wear, what sounds they make, how they walk, their anatomy, what they carry, and what gossip they give you, amongst other things. NPCs in the vicinity of the farmer’s family mentioned above might give you valuable information about what actually happened. Interacting with an NPC should be something for the curious -  you never know what the outcome will be. Maybe one NPC reacts to the fact that you’re holding a certain type of knot and suddenly asks if you want to trade it. Other NPCs might actually give you items of some kind, because you happened to pass by while using a certain skill.

All these seemingly endless variables will make each encounter in the world feel unique and special to YOU.

When it comes to merchants we have exact control over the items they trade and whether a specific item should be of higher worth in the north compared to the south. The list of commodities is huge and our trading economy is going to be really interesting to see come to life. To spice things up the system allows us to decide whether the seemingly lawful General Merchant in Kasa might hold underhand goods for trade… at night time when the Wardens are not around, of course!

The NPCs use what in AI language is called “Behaviour Trees”. We use behaviour trees to define the exact behaviour of each character. These are like tree branches that extend multiple times according to conditions. Ultimately these lead to an action for the NPC which depends on a whole set of prerequisites.The NPCs in Braided Shore adhere to different behaviours depending on the weather, time of day and even what day it is. They also react to their surroundings. Let’s say the aforementioned farmer is working her field and a wolf passes by, the farmer will probably then react and panic and might even leave the level for a time.

 The future 

The event system described makes it possible for us to continue adding content to this game even after release with ease. If players and the community work out certain mysteries, we can add, subtract or multiply story components with ease, much like a dungeon master in pen-and-paper role-playing games. The reason for this Kickstarter is that we want YOU to be able to be a part of this. So please keep on doing what you already have started...

Make this a journey we share and create together for a long time to come! Enjoy! 

/Andreas, Senior Games Designer

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We'll be in touch very soon with an update about the role that combat plays in the game, and of course with more news on your island ideas (keep them coming!) and stretch goals.

Thanks for all of your caring and sharing!

Best Wishes,

Helen and the team at Might & Delight