Telepath Tactics single player campaign

[CraigStern]

Due to popular demand, the game is now set to feature a single player campaign!

To that end, I've added in a dialog system to the game: characters can now talk during battle. Here's a video showing off the first battle of the campaign, complete with dialog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2V9jrBvbGY

[SmartyPants]

"Ok. What the Hell? Why Not?"

[CraigStern]

Things are going pretty smoothly on the campaign thus far. The first level now has a complete tutorial showing you how to move, attack and end your turn, plus those bits of character development already shown in the video.

I've also added in a second scene that sets up the first quest and introduces you to the rest of the characters you'll be controlling at the outset of the game (the campaign is going to feature some dialog-only scenes to develop the characters and advance the plot).

I'll post another video in a day or two showing off the state of the campaign. In the meantime, feel free to comment!

[SmartyPants]

Do you already have a story and setting in-mind?

[ArtDrake]

The single-player campaign looks great thus far! I think TT would have been fine without it, but that campaign is what really made me resolve to get the game when I could.

[CraigStern]

Do you already have a story and setting in-mind?

The setting is an island in the Dundar archipelago; I have certain major aspects of the story in mind, but most are still nascent at this point.

[SmartyPants]

The setting is an island in the Dundar archipelago

Didn't Anya have a book on Dundar?

[CraigStern]

Indeed she did! Good memory.

[ArtDrake]

Imperial Dundar, post-Imperial, or sometime else entirely?

[CraigStern]

Here is the current draft of the game's introduction--I'll let you work the situation out for yourself.

The Dundar Archipelago: an enormous cluster of islands spread across thousands of square miles of ocean.

In the earliest times, each island was largely isolated, its inhabitants—if there were any—left to develop a unique culture untouched by its neighbors.

Eight hundred years ago, Ser Gilliam Dundar changed that. Making use of new sailing and navigation technologies, he led a massive army on a whirlwind conquest of the archipelago, absorbing island after island into a sprawling empire that would endure for centuries.

With no unifying culture to bind them, Emperor Dundar and his successors required a deft hand to keep tensions among the islands under control. But even a canny and watchful emperor cannot always staunch the ambitions of ruthless men...

[SmartyPants]

So Dundar is isolated from major land masses (such as Cera Bella)?

The setting is an island in the Dundar archipelago

Didn't Anya have a book on Dundar?

Anya once said ""Now what should I pack?...Do you think I'll have any room for my Histories of the Dundar Emperors?" "

[CraigStern]

It's analogous to island nations in the real world, in that the ocean largely limited contact with the mainland for many centuries, right up until the development of advanced, oceangoing ships.

[bugfartboy]

Is the campaign mode going to be linear? Because that'd make me feel better for killing my sister, if there were no other way.

[ArtDrake]

Is there going to be some measure of differentiation in the enemy units' abilities to make them less... deadly? Because I know you're a fan of semi-perma-death, so if the battles aren't made lopsided in some way (like the enemies having inferior speed, weaponry, armour, abilities, skills), the single-player campaign would be significantly harder to pull off without death on the team than any of your previous games. Of course, I wouldn't mind that -- pulling a lossless victory despite an even match using only superior tactics is challenging and fun -- but I'm just wondering if that's the route you'll take.

[Ertxiem]

I'm excited about the single player campaign.

Regarding the need for unit differentiation, I disagree. Take a look at the Battle for Wesnoth. The units are balanced for all the players, yet it's possible to win if your strategy is good, in particular, if you locally can have a superior number of units.

Of course that using healing units will also drive you further into victory, but I often feel that healing makes things way too easy on our side. So, in my opinion, healing or even reviving units should be done after a battle is finished. That would be a nice thing to have mainly when we are attached to those units somehow, like if there is a background story or if we can train them. (Suggestion: perhaps in TT revived units will not be able to be trained after that battle.)