Thanks for the tactical pause video, that should make it easier to control all 4 characters as needed.
glad you like it. one question: would you like to be able to influence the length of the tactical pause (for campaign maps solely)? check out our blog: the dwarf skills can be looked at here: Races/Classes and the new character assortment screen:
Smuttlegiaco said "one question: would you like to be able to influence the length of the tactical pause (for campaign maps solely)?" I think if the tactical pause is adjustable in the options (for the single player) it would be another good feature to have.
Yes it would be nice to be able to influene the length of the tactical pause, it could really help out if the player is having trouble. It looks like you guys are putting a lot of heart and soul into this game.
@ojtitus: yes, we love our game and we're confident that people will feel this. our focus is beyond the basic game structure: we filled the game with little things, like (I hope) funny descriptions of the items, the messages on the grave-stones, the story and other things like that that we hope will intensify the experience of playing the game tenfold. Altland is a living world with tons of possibilities for future games or scenarios. as to the tactical pause: you will be able to adjust the length of the tac.pause for the campaign game (although I'm not sure wether you will be able to do this in normal mode, because of the achievments you can get. It would be kind of unfair to players choosing to play with shorter pause length) as for now, there are three difficulty grades: Normal - all achievments can be unlocked Easy - not all achievments are available Very Easy - not all achievments are available but perhaps we can integrate tac.pause-connected achievments, we will see... Update: the dwarfs skills By the way, if you like, please like us on facebook!
hey fellas! check out the companions blog for the latest news on the mage skills! also note the first pre preview on Arcadelife. More coming soon. we integrated a tactical pause option, either 20 or 60 seconds. at the moment we are finishing maps and fine tune lots of stuff. oh man, after 9+ month of development we finally see the release coming near. Deep in the caverns of the volcano Eaneum!
@matthew.e:great! hope you'll have as much fun playing the game as we have making it (at least most of the time ) @tyra: we have plans to port the game to mac and iphone. the iphone version will be different, cause managing four characters on a small screen is rather difficult. we'll see what comes to our smuttleminds. schöne grüße aus der sonnigen pfalz! @marcus70: everything is relative. most of the people testing the game on normal tell me i'm crazy making it hard like this. i can assure you that normal difficulty will be quite challenging. once you play the game and you find it too easy for you in normal mode, drop me a line and perhaps we integrate a hardcore version for you and all the other masochists out there. it also depends on the loot you find. no one game played will be like the last one. most of the drops are heavily influenced by chance. as are the numbers of most enemy spawns. and then there are the three classes for each race to choose from. the class chosen influences your play-style and the difficuly also. playing with the bull minotaur (tank) is easier (in most situations) than playing with the gladiator minotaur (more damage, but requires more control), for example. i have my own idea which of the classes are easier to handle and have the stronger skills than others, but that really depends on how YOU play the game. we wanted a high replayability value for Companions and i think this goal has been accomplished. there are lots and lots of possibilities of how to play the game. remember to give us feedback and tell us your wishes. every question or suggestion will be answered.
Danke schön! That´s really cool to hear! It reminds me of the PSP title "Dungeons & Dragons" and something like that would be ... oh I don´t know ...wooooaww! I am waiting and keep on looking ^___^
just had a look at D&D tactics for the psp. looks very nice. in a sense it's like companions. we started out with a turn-based game in mind and it drifted more and more towards real-time. but it plays like a mixture of the two genres, hard to describe and better done by reviewers than me.
This is looking good so far! Does a player make a character and stick with that one character, or choose from the four at the beginning of each game, not really having a permanent character? And thanks for your contributions to the forums!
looks pretty neat, though part of me would prefer this to be truly turn-based. I hope the extended tactical pause comes close enough, I'll be keeping an eye on this game
I am of the same mind on this as well. I like the idea behind Companions and it definitely looks like a buy for me, but I would love to see a game in the vein of Dungeons & Dragons Tactics done on the iPad/iPhone. I want my own character, my own class, different and various spells and abilities for each class, and I want above al a tactical feeling game. This looks good mind you and again for me it seems like a purchase, but as a tabletop and PnP gamer I long for a deep tactics styled game!
@Joeavery: you actually play four characters: elf, minotaur, dwarf and human. and each of these races has three classes to choose from. you pick your classes at the beginning of the game and then stick with them. i dare say that the tactical component is distinct in companions. what makes me say this? - the dwarf can build traps and tower structures - in most cases you have enough time to build a solid defense before you pull enemies in (not always though, there are also ambushs and stuff) - we added "mini-games". a timer starts and you prepare your defenses against an enemy onlaught - the timing of the use of the skills is naturally important - the orientation of your ranged attackers is VERY important - the different classes give you plenty of different tactical possibilities - other stuff that currently won't come to my mind the tactical pause has two options: 20 seconds - all achievments may be unlocked 60 seconds - well, a few achievments can not be unlocked example: you activate the tac.pause for 40 seconds, give orders, then you deactivate it. after another 40 seconds the tac.pause is fully refilled again. you can always activate it, even when it's not fully replenished. i am an old(?) boardgamer, mostly into heavy wargaming stuff (but also "light" wargaming or simulations), and some of it will show up in companions for sure. nuff said, back to level-design. thx for your feedback!
How long is the approx. play-through time and can you carry over your characters from one play through to the next. It would be cool to be able to use veteran characters and new characters to make a mixed team, this could also offer a good way to max out characters and develope new ones.
