Finding Friends in a Tiny Multiplayer
over 2 years ago – Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 11:56:57 PM

Dear Traveller,

If you’ve been following our various ramblings you’ll no doubt have heard us using the initialism TMORPG for Tiny Multiplayer Online and today we’re going to try to answer some of the many questions that we’ve heard and address some of your practical concerns about playing together. Let’s dive right in…

How many people will there be in my game?

Currently we can’t give even a rough estimate just yet, and this is because the team will spend much of Early Access reading the play data in order to adjust numbers to make a good balance of player meetings and solo experience. Game Designer Beta Alves says “We’ll be watching how often groups form and balance and tweak accordingly. We’ll be avoiding a situation in which you’ll always be in groups - we want the joy of company to come with the contrast of some solitude so you can appreciate how it feels to travel alone and with others.”

To tell us what your experience of meeting frequency is and to keep your views heard, be sure to drop them into the relevant chat in our Steam forum (to be populated!) once you start playing in just 13 days - eek!

Can we play with friends?

“Even though they appreciate the incognito elements of the game, players want to connect with their friends” says Beta, and that’s been something that we’ve heard often from backers and community. In response, the team has been working on ways to make sure that you can find one another.

 Setting Out Together

To set out together, start by joining the same server, and then once you’ve created your character, you’ll be asked how your journey begins - choose the same options as your friends and you’ll spawn together.

Finding one another when already on the road

If you’re travelling together and log out together you’ll be together when you log back in, resuming your adventure in the same place - together. But if you want to meet with someone who’s setting out at a different time (or time zone!) an ancient temple on an island makes an ideal landmark and meeting point. It’s known as the Khelim Temple, and if you need a quick way to get there, there’s a particular knot spell that will come in handy. Don’t worry, it’s not hard to acquire, but to do so you’ll need to unravel a little - so listen as you travel!

Of course another very special place to rendez-vous is Travellers’ Meadow in the north west of Braided Shore (thanks to YOU for that one!). You can of course get there on foot, or for Kickstarter backers, use the Travellers’ Portal - and take any non-backer companions with you.

Communication

When you do find one another you’ll be able to communicate using emotes, your own collection of pictograms that will evolve through growth and usage as you travel the world and gain knowledge of its land and culture. 

We’ve been listening to your thoughts and ideas about how you’d like to leave traces of your travels or exchange thoughts or memories in the game. As part of our Kickstarter we promised to implement “Sharing memories”, a way to remember your meetings through passed on items or memories.

Finding each other beyond the game

If the chance encounters that you have lead to meetings out-of-game that would be lovely, and Steam and Discord will be the main places to find one another. We also hope to have some other ways for you to share stories in the future, but at the moment such formulations are far too raw to reveal… 

For now we are just very much looking forward to hearing all about your travels - together or alone, we hope they are many and magical!

Best Wishes

Helen & the Dev Team xx

For Secret Cultists and above only: Beta Starts Today
over 2 years ago – Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 05:08:01 AM

Dear Secret Cultists,

We’re excited to confirm that you are now able to play Book of Travels as part of our final closed private beta. However, after some studio testing at the weekend we need to make you aware that the game is not in the state we had hoped it would be in – please read on to see how that affects your part in testing.

Choosing when to join in

While we still need to conduct a beta, we need to be clear to you about what to expect – there will be bugs and glitches, the depth is still not quite there! We know that some of you like to wait until games are through any tricky patches before setting out on your adventures.  If you are one such player, please sit tight just a little longer – we will let you know when the game is through this final stage and in all-round solid pre-Early Access shape. 

Please don’t share yet

For those of you who would like to help us bring the project to that stage, please go ahead and activate your key providing that you agree NOT TO SHARE screenshots, reviews, or any details of your experience beyond our private channels (namely Discord Book of Travels Beta Channel).  We cannot stress how much it means to us that you keep this test stage private – this game has been nearly five years in the making, the manner and mood of its public debut matter greatly to us. 

Please note that our position on sharing as stated here is contra to previous communications, so please help us by:

• Disregarding those share permissions
• Refraining from sharing in any form until otherwise stated
• Helping us to keep the test closed by communicating our new position to any other Secret Cultists you happen to know!

Accessing the beta

For details on accessing the game and on our privacy requirements, please check update #71 (Secret Cultists and above only). In summary here’s what you need to know:

​​Your Steam Key

• If you have already played – to get playing, you can simply follow the same procedure as last year, so if you’ve activated your key on Steam, you only need to update and start the game!
• If you haven’t played before – you’ll find the Book of Travels Beta Steam key on BackerKit. Just log in using the same email as you used in Kickstarter (and complete the survey if you haven't yet done that) and click the ”Get Your Digital Downloads” button. (If you lost your survey link, you can recover it here) If you haven’t used Steam before, you can download it here, and here is Steam’s guide on how to activate your key.

If you haven’t used Steam before, you can download it here: https://store.steampowered.com/about Here is Steam’s guide on how to activate your key.

Special Secret Cultists perks

To activate the special Secret Cultists perks you need to activate your account code within the Book of Travels login screen (not in Steam).

What is an account code?

An account code is how we keep track of whether you are a Backer, an Early Bird, and/or a Secret Cultist. When you have created your Book of Travels account, you can enter your account code(s) in this menu. You enter the code and press submit.

When your account is registered with your Account Code, you will have access to the special items and skills associated with your backer status on the characters you create (like the Travellers’ Knapsack and other Secret Cultist perks. The Early Bird account code will be distributed later).

Feedback

Feedback is via our Trello board which you can find via an in-game button. Please feel free but never obliged to feedback any issues or opinions there. See update #71 for more instructions. The usual Discord channels (like #Bug-discussion and #Suggestions) are also now open to chat with other testers.

We appreciate your help, companionship and very much your discretion in these final days!

Best Wishes,

Helen & the Dev Team

IMPORTANT - Please check you mailing address, we're posting rewards this month
over 2 years ago – Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 12:27:27 AM

Dear Backers,

Our list shows that you pledged for a Book of Travels bandit memento and/or hand drawn portrait. We are very close to getting these finalised and wrapped up for posting... but we need to be sure that your address is the same one registered on your account, so please check! You don't want to miss out on these unique souvenirs! 

If your address might have changed please update it ASAP on Backerkit or Kickstarter.

If you need to recover your Backerkit account https://www.tmorpg.com/backerkit-recovery

Best Wishes,

Helen & the Dev Team

Conflict, Combat & Tension
over 2 years ago – Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 05:35:14 AM

Dear Traveller,

Combat in Book of Travels has been something of a (ahem) divisive issue, with many wanting a damn good brawl while others would rather avoid confrontation altogether. There will indeed be avoidance tactics at your disposal - more on those later! For those in the former camp, here’s a bit about the kind of conflict you can expect.

Pit your wits against bandits and beings

As you might imagine, there’s no PVP combat in Book of Travels, instead you’ll face off against characters, creatures and mysterious beings, most of which you’ll find in the Wilds. Towns or villages are somewhat safer, where the main threat comes in the shape of bandits offering a duel, but off the beaten track packs of wolves or bandit gangs may present you with a heavy duty challenge. Supernatural adversaries may appear too, so stay watchful or you may just find yourself up against the might of a Maisu or the chaos of a Kettem. Fighting for survival is one thing, but acquiring exceptional items or bounty hunting may also find you baring arms.

Preparation, tension and targets

Should you find yourself in a combat situation, the first thing you’ll need to do is prepare. This is a combat system designed around preparation, initiative and timing and there are three essential stages that build up to the decisive moment. Before you begin of course, you’ll first need to survey your surroundings for a worthy opponent. Putting your hand on your sword will cast a red circle about you, alerting you to anyone (or anything) within challengeable radius. You’ll also be able to see their Force and Ward numbers, which will help you decide if you want to take them on.

Having selected a worthy opponent, you’ll need to make sure that you’re ready for action: equip your gear, cast any knots or drink any teas that you think are fit for the occasion (such as the Warding Arc - a knot that protects you from one hit, or Lilit's Cinnabar Brew - a tea that increases your force). This is also a course of action that you’ll need to take as a preventative measure should you see a threat close by, so [b]even if you’re not looking for a fight, it’s a good idea to keep some spells close to hand. Some opponents are aggressive and will put their hands on their swords or enter combat preparation stances (for creatures such as wolves or Kettem) if you get too close!

Once the initiative has been taken it’s all about the timing! The longer you wait to strike your opponent, the more accurate your blow will be - so while your chance of hitting your target increases you will remain vulnerable to assault. Every second that passes between you and your opponent will be loaded with the tension of not knowing who will strike first... Dare you risk receiving a blow or will you deal your own, less accurate strike? The choice is yours! The stakes get higher still once you’re hit, which will leave you dizzied and knocked off balance and with your chance to hit back diminished - a very strong blow can significantly reduce your chance of landing a return strike.

Should you take a hit during battle, your Ward becomes depleted by the total count of the Force owned by the attacker. But once it's all over and should you survive, your Ward will return to its full value.

Fight, flight or flee?

We’ve often been asked, can you evade conflict altogether? Certainly! Just as in life there are ways to stay out of trouble! If you’re a more peaceful player and you detect a threat from afar (red name tags are an indicator) you can choose to skirt around it, and if that doesn’t work, then you’ll be able to evade it by equipping skills such as  a Smoke Cylinder - a fast acting ability that grants temporary invisibility. This way you can choose to quietly pass trouble by, or hide, or become invisible. And if you’re feeling cheeky and in need of supplies, you might be able to nip in and steal from a bandit without any conflict at all by using teleportation!

Oops, I changed my mind - get me out of here!

And what if you want to decline? Or if, once that circle is drawn an enemy takes initiative, you don’t want to fight? You can simply walk away.  If it’s bandits you face, then in this case your worst fate is usually robbery, and unless you refuse to hand over what’s demanded you won't face an attack. Your final get-out option after initiative is taken is to flee - fleeing won’t have any permanently adverse impact on your character, but it will mean that you’ll wake up somewhere completely new and for a while you’ll be slow and demoralised.

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We hope this sheds a little light on this much anticipated topic, and we’ll get some answers to your questions so please do leave them below! In the meantime you can find out more about dangers in Braided Shore in our new video short with Artist Lotta tomorrow (follow our Youtube to get notified), or hear a game dev perspective on designing combat for a serene game from Lead Programmer Jens at his Nordic Games talk right here.

Just 20 days to go! Thank you for being with us! 

Best Wishes, 

Helen & the Dev Team xx

Help Us with Our Final Checks! A final closed beta starts soon.
over 2 years ago – Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 11:21:15 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.