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Wartile, the Viking themed miniatures combat game from Playwood Project, received a hefty load of new content in an update today. It add...

Wartile - Major Content Update Wartile - Major Content Update

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!

Playwood Project



Wartile, the Viking themed miniatures combat game from Playwood Project, received a hefty load of new content in an update today. It adds a new character class, new maps, a new game mode, new items, and a lot more. 

If you want to read my initial rundown of the game you can find that HERE.

If you want to see the game in motion, and watch me lose rather horribly, not once but twice, this video is for you:



Official Wartile Website: http://www.wartile.com/


Finally, below is the complete list of changes and additions:

Overview
New Battle Board & new game mode: Trial of Tyr
New Battle Board: Thor’s Wrath
New Figurine Class: The Archer
2D Art Overhaul
Progression Overhaul
Pickup Items
And much much more.

Progression Overhaul
As we get closer to final release and get more content, we’re slowly starting to be able to organize our progression to our final vision. This means that the map progression has been changed slightly from our last patch.
The Rescue now unlocks after Heidrun Clan
Trial of Tyr (new map) now unlocks after Heidrun Clan
The Monastery now unlocks after The Rescue
Thor's Wrath (new map) now unlocks after The Monastery
The Archer (new class) now unlocks after Heidrun Clan
The Brute now unlocks after The Rescue
Difficulty has been rebalanced accordingly
Progression of experience and loot and gold cost of figurines has been rebalanced accordingly
Pickup Items

In our last patch, we added that characters could carry a Torch; expanding on this mechanic, we have now added items on battle boards that can be picked up. Pickup items will, after being picked up, appear on a character as an ability card that can be used to provide an effect, such as healing or throwing a bomb.

This mechanic will continue to be implemented and improved on in future content and likely added retroactively to existing battle boards.

Trial of Tyr
Added the new Battle Board “Trial of Tyr” adding a new game mode; Skirmish, that involves fighting against waves of enemies and surviving for as long as possible, with randomized events and enemy compositions creating a new and varying challenge.

Trial of Tyr like other maps can be completed like normal, but is also an infinite mode that allows you to test how many waves you can withstand.
New game mechanic: Wave defense
Events that change playing conditions
New Battle Board layout
Thor’s Wrath
Thor’s Wrath features battling your way through not only groups of enemies, but passing through a hazardous thunderstorm that is likely to cause some issues if you are not careful.

Thor’s Wrath features a vast network of caves with partying Vikings, where the element of surprise and tactical use of abilities will certainly be required, unless you choose to brave the dangerous thunderstorm.

New Figurine Class: The Archer
The first female character has been added to the game; The Archer. The archer is strong long range unit, that is particularly weak in close range. The Archer is higher skill cap unit that requires a lot of movement and micromanagement.
The archer class is now unlockable
The archer is a long range unit that requires active input to attack
Archer has the following abilities
Starting ability, Volley: Fires multiple shots in quick succession
Second ability, Rain of Arrows: Lets down a Rain of Arrows in an area dealing AoE damage to nearby units
Third ability, Flaming Arrow: Fires a flaming arrow at a target that ignites the tile dealing massive damage.

2D Art Overhaul
We’re in the process of a full overhaul of all 2D graphics on cards and UI. This is a longer process and this update will contain the first batch of these primarily focusing on Player and Figurine ability cards, quests and Menu UI.

Art in the entire game will follow this new style that will be introduced until the game releases.

Other Updates
Added Quest Tracking
Quests will now be tracked at the right side of the screen after looking at objective cards. This will now distinguish primary from secondary objective as well as adding support for tracking objectives will multiple sub-tasks.
UI element added to the right side of the screen for tracking objectives

Group Moving
Group moving has been introduced as a feature in this patch. Holding down the Shift key while moving a unit, will automatically cause your other nearby units to move with the unit. This has been introduced to reduce the effect of traversal on larger maps.
Group move is done by holding down “Shift” when moving your units

Lost Norse Additional Objective: Poisonous Toads
A new objective has been added to Lost Norse.
Collect toads and earn a new player ability

Battle Notifications
We have added a new Notification system that gives an indication of what effect buffs have and when units receive high grounds and flanking bonuses.
Battle notification appears when a unit enters a flanking position
Battle notification appears when a unit receives high ground defense bonus
Battle notifications appears when a units gains stat debuffs or buffs.

Item tooltips
In an attempt to further clarify the effect of items, we have added tooltips that will improve the feedback of the item’s effects.
Added tooltips to items explaining stats and special effects

AI Improvements
We’re improving a lot of things about the AI systems. Players will notice the following effects:
AI now properly moves through objects on the ground (such as Hel’s Helmet)
AI now reacts better to archers firing at them
AI now reacts to dangerous tiles

Other Changes/Bugfixes
Stat card (lower left corner) should now properly scale and move with different resolutions
Bear Trap is now permanently visible to the player using the card. Opposing players will see the trap setup, after which it will become invisible.
Slight changes to card system behind the scenes. Cards will move cleaner and have less blinking/artifacts as well being ordered differently
Fixed a bug causing friendly invites for multiplayer to not always function
Fixed a bug causing units killed with abilities and ability cards to sometimes not award experience
Units killed by neutral damage sources will no longer award battle points to the player
Minor combat changes (pending an upcoming larger change); Combat now functions slightly differently behind the scene and crits are now visible.
Fixed a bug causing debris to interfere with figurine movement
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused music to stop playing after pressing
Escape to open the menu.
Fixed various missing animations for the Brute figurine class.
Slow time now functions more smoothly. Slow time now properly interacts with other systems, such as no longer slowing down time while showing event card. Slow time will also no longer slow UI elements (such as unit ability cards).
Added hints to the menu to help new players understand more advanced concepts beyond the the scope of the tutorial.
We now save and list your high score on a battle board. This, however, does not work retroactively and will require you to replay maps to display.
Brute “Kick to the Groin” has been re-flavored to “Headbutt”
The godly card “Movement Speed” has been renamed to “Speed of Sleipnir”

Wartile, developed by Playwood Project and recently released into Early Access on Steam, is a game not quite like anything I have...

Wartile Preview Wartile Preview

For your Wargamer, Toy soldier collector, MiniFig collector, military history nut. Reviews, interviews, Model Making, AARs and books!

Playwood Project




Wartile, developed by Playwood Project and recently released into Early Access on Steam, is a game not quite like anything I have played before. The fresh take on tactical RPG combat has you moving detailed figurines of various Viking warriors around a static, yet beautiful diorama battlefield. The deliberate effect is to give the feel of playing a board game, with all the advantages of being a digital game. 


Combat takes place in real time, but each figure can only be moved once every three seconds or so. Standard attacks are made automatically once an enemy is in range, while special abilities can be activated by dragging the relevant card from the player's "hand" onto the target. This design creates a sort of controlled frenzy, where the player only needs to take a couple of simple actions every few seconds, but must be constantly thinking ahead. Positioning of units makes all the difference, with relative height, flanking attacks, and leveraging the terrain in your favor all factoring in to making sure your fighters prevail.


Each fighter under your control belongs to a particular class. There are damage dealers, shield bearing tanks, spearmen who can attack from two spaces away, and more to come. Putting each figure in the appropriate place is critical to keeping them alive, as you are often outnumbered. A tactic I exploited early on was holding a narrow pass with my shielded warriors, while my spearman attacked freely from range. Whenever there is room you will want to keep your men moving, getting behind enemies to get a flanking bonus to each attack. Enemy figures will keep moving as well, adding tension to the melee. 


As mentioned before, you have a hand of cards, independent of the individual characters' abilities, that let you activate special powers at any time. This deck of cards can be customized before starting a scenario, and is then dealt out randomly, two in hand at a time. Using these abilities depletes a limited supply of points, which must be recharged over the course of the battle. Early cards include healing, boosts to damage, and a trap which can placed on the map. As you complete scenarios, more cards are unlocked and can be mixed into your deck. Playing these cards at the right time, and only when needed, is another factor the player must keep in mind as a battle unfolds. 


Between scenarios the player can spend gold to purchase new figures and other things, as well as customize the figures he has. Armor and weapons can be equipped, as well as small bonuses to stats that can be swapped around as you like. Like any RPG, the further you get into the campaign, the more variety of options you have for customizing each character. You can make your figures into glass cannons, tanks, or balanced fighters. As characters level up you can add more stat bonuses, and they can be reset at any time, so you are free to try new strategies as you go.


It is certainly worth mentioning again how lovely this game looks. While the environments lack any animation, this actually works wonderfully. The whole thing has a very hand crafted feel to it, channeling those detailed battlefield dioramas you see in museums. I especially liked the crashing waves frozen in time and other cool details spread across each stage.

One thing I hope to see changed is freeing up the camera a bit more. There may have been an option I was missing, but I constantly found myself wishing I could tilt the camera more, so that I could take in beautiful landscapes from more angles.



The game also has a multiplayer mode, which I haven't tried yet, but expect will certainly force you to adopt more imaginative tactics. While the AI will give you a good challenge, it won't throw too many curveballs your way in its current state. Most of the surprises come in the form of sudden events which add new enemy figures to the board, usually in prime position to outflank your warriors.


Despite being in early access, I did not encounter any bugs or glitches during my first few hours of playing Wartile. I was happy to see that, despite the impressive visuals, the game runs perfectly smooth and loads almost instantly on my machine. There are a lot of positive things happening here, and I look forward to seeing more content added to the game over time. It's always good to see someone take a new approach to game design and aesthetic. This could have been a bog standard turn-based combat game, but instead it steps out, through visual design and game mechanics, into uncharted territory and that makes it a welcome breath of fresh air.


Official Site: http://www.wartile.com/
Available Now on Steam Early Access

- Joe Beard
hpssims.com