Artwork and Memento Rewards – Here's how they look!
over 6 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
over 6 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

Who are Sefra? + Your beautiful islands...
over 6 years ago – Wed, Nov 06, 2019 at 12:21:34 AM

3,000 backers!

As I write we are heading up and away from 3,000! That's so very cool, and if you shared us, then thank you thank you thank you... every share helps so much! And we're not too far from getting the draisine unlocked so we can take our small group about by railroad! But let's get focussed - this update is full of delicious Braided Shore world building and we think you're gonna love it. First up - your islands.

Your island stories...

...have made us really really happy this week, thank you! They all reflect the character of Braided Shore and also bring something extra, something that digs deep into story and emotion. We have music, relaxing water features, hidden secrets and stories, floating castles and lost love... We've made a little gallery of some of them here, and sorry for those whose work doesn't appear – we're still collecting your work from the four corners of the internet. And yes, we are about one third of our way to our target of 100 islands, so if you know anyone who might like to have a go at designing an island that could actually end up in the game, use the buttons at the end of the email to get them started!  

Sefra and Voices - spirit lore from Braided Shore

Now for some new lore from the compendium. Some of you have picked up on the existence of Sefra in the Braided Shore section of the main Kickstarter page. Here's some more about them and their relationship with the people of Braided Shore. You'll encounter Sefra at some point when you play Book of Travels, and if you look carefully, you might see one on the cover image for the game...

We’ll be in touch later in the week with an update giving you an insight into the game play in Book of Travels. Until then, do keep talking to us and sharing the campaign. We really appreciate everything you do and aim to correspond with as many of you as we can to help make this the best campaign it can be! 

Oh, and look below - buttons! Use them to share if you like - just over $5000 to get draisine travel!

Best Wishes, 

Helen and the team at Might & Delight

Thank you for adding Go'Bad + Design an island for the game
over 6 years ago – Tue, Nov 05, 2019 at 01:45:47 AM

We are two and a half thousand! 

Thank you comes as a fine cup of Cotery Tea... And a video from our Senior Game Designer.

Thank you all - now all backers will travel with Cotery Tea, that means you'll be able to heal quicker according to how many other players are nearby. It's about being that little bit stronger together... and more beautiful! Check out the 2.5 thousand plus field of Night Flowers below! But first, a $100,000 thank you...

What's more, together we made it to $100,000 dollars and that means it's time to get your Go skills prepared for some seriously chilled in-game Go'Bad... We've been hanging out in all the usual places and heard how you pledged up and shared the campaign to get us this far - THANK YOU! See how the Night Flowers have spread across the water...

Will you make us an island?

We were so super happy with all the gorgeous knotspell ideas, we thought it would be really cool to see what happens if we asked you to design some of the game world... So for this stretch goal we'll add a new island to the game if we receive 100 posted and tagged island designs - and it will be an island chosen from one of your designs.

Here's how...

To take part, sketch an island and write a little backstory, take a photo of it and/or upload it to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. Tag us @MightandDelight and #BookofTravels and throw in a link to the campaign if you can (it all helps!). As soon as we get to 100 we'll commit to building an island using the winner's design. We'll let you know when the submissions close - entries after 100 will all be in the mix! And be sure to make your profile public if you'd like us to see it.

Stretch goals so far...

 ...Are looking pretty great! We know that a lot of you would love to unlock the music feature (us too!) - let's cross fingers and hope we get there... And of course every retweet and share really helps us get that bit closer. Here's where we are at:

Pretty good for only just over a week! Thanks again for all that you have done so far. We're having such a great time reading your comments and hearing your thoughts about the game. Have a great weekend, and get designing!

Best Wishes,

Helen and the team at Might & Delight

Your invitation to join us on Discord
over 6 years ago – Mon, Nov 04, 2019 at 07:43:54 PM

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