Conflict, Combat & Tension
over 4 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.

-----------------------

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 4 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.

Brand New Book of Travels Videos - Only 26 days till Early Access!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Aug 06, 2021 at 03:45:37 AM

Travellers!

We are just over three weeks till launch day and we are EXCITED!
During these last weeks we'll be sharing some short videos where the team talk about the game - we hope you like them! Number one is about cooperative gameplay and features Lead Programmer, Jens Berglind.

Please support us by sharing it on your social channels! We'll be posting two videos each week, so subscribe to our Youtube to get notified and please do leave us your comments! And who knows, maybe we can even drag Jens away from his keyboard to say hello...

That's all for now - look out for our next video on Friday!

Best Wishes, 

Helen & the Dev Team

A Living Language for Braided Shore
over 4 years ago – Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 04:03:48 AM

Dear Travellers,

Communicating with emotes is one of our favourite features of Book of Travels, and we believe it’s going to play a key role in freeing you from your everyday self and really allowing you to get fully immersed in your character and the game world. Such a feeling can only really be understood through experience, and with only five weeks until that’s possible we can’t wait to set you free to do just that! 

In the meantime, here's an outline of how emotes will be part of your character’s development, and a little look at the way that you, the new denizens of the land, will shape its future course.

Lose yourself in a new identity

When Meadow was born, we hadn’t quite expected it to work the strange magic that it did. Meadow was our first TMO and players shared powerful feelings about running for hours with a player-badger or unlocking obelisks with a player-fox. It became clear that emotes were part of the magic and that these moments shared with strangers couldn’t exist with in-game player chat.  With only symbols to communicate with players came together with a shared sense of purpose and play, forging meaning through a system of rudimentary signs. If you’ve ever visited a place where you’ve had to speak a new language you’ll probably be able to relate to this! Without our native tongue we’re freed from our familiar identity and can let other parts of our personality come to the fore. In Book of Travels you’ll be able to make detailed characters and then set them adrift to be someone new - free of the language and mindset of your everyday self.

Creating meaning together

Just as in Meadow, meaning will be made as players work together. All practical bases have been provided for by way of a ‘starter’ set of emotes, so you’ll start your game with a range of emotes that will allow you to communicate enough to get by. How you use these with other players is up to your and their creativity. This is one of the ways in which Book of Travels will be a dynamic experience - players will bring the language of emotes to life as they combine symbols to share feelings, convey intentions, and communicate knowledge and experience.

Evolving the language for you and for Braided Shore

As you journey through the land your collection of emotes will grow as you unlock the symbols and signs that correspond to the various places you visit and the encounters you have. Your growing collection of emotes will add another dimension to your expressive capabilities and we’re very excited to see how players use additions to build on ways to express themselves.

As your character grows through this language, so too will Braided Shore. Behind the scenes, this is one of many ways in which the team will absorb activity, watching the way that emotes are being used, checking for ways in which they help or hinder your fluency, roleplay experience and gameplay, and developing new emotes accordingly. Evolving this language together is one of the many ways that players will influence the world, and we’re very much in a state of anticipation at how early access will be the start of this long and exciting journey!

---------------------

Of course many people will want to find spaces and places to talk to one another in text and speech, and that’s something we’ve heard a lot of requests for. We are very keen for you to do just that and we’re looking forward to watching the game world and the community develop side by side here on Kickstarter, and also on Steam and Discord.

Have you played any games that have a special way to communicate? What do you think about our emotes design? Perhaps you’ve played Meadow and already have thoughts about it? We’d love to hear from you!

Best Wishes,

Helen & the Dev Team xx

A new release date - But it's still so close!
over 4 years ago – Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 05:04:33 AM

Dear Travellers,

We are almost ready, we really nearly are... but we've decided to take three extra weeks before we set out on our journey into Braided Shore.

We’ve been listening to your anticipation (it really is the wind in our sails!) and we know that some of you are so ready to get going that you’ve made launch day plans… we’re so honoured to hear it! We hope this announcement leaves you time to make adjustments for our new launch date of August 30th and here's our commitment to the very hour:

• 7pm CEST (Central European Summer Time)
• 5pm UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)
• 1pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)
• 10 am PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) 

New screenshots

Every detail that we check now and every final touch that’s made will make your adventures more immersive, more compelling, more rewarding. Thank you for bearing with us! Braided Shore will be all the better for these last few weeks’ attention. Below are some new scenes to show you a little bit more about where we'll all be very soon!

Be with us on our final stretch

Be with us as we try to steer ourselves away from this too-trodden path of travel metaphors onto a momentous course to early access… we have beauty and backstage treats to share in abundance, so follow our Youtube to get notified of upcoming video insights, and of course, keep your eyes peeled for a launch day Kickstarter update with all you need to know to start playing!

We can’t wait to get this game out and share it with you!!

Helen & the Dev Team xxx