The Pathway to Playable

It’s been a little under a month since I decided to change directions with Tyrants Must Fall, and I’m happy to report that things are moving along at a rapid pace.

With this shift in design, I am just about ready to have the first “big” chunk ready to get into the hands of a (hopefully) large pool of playtesters.

I’ve got an entirely new tutorial built out, streamlined quite a bit to both focus on the new core gameplay of the battles, but also because my old tutorial was way, way too wordy.

Along with that, I’ve started the process of swapping out placeholder graphics for - while not final yet - new art that’s really helping the overall visuals of the game come together.

There's also been a lot of UI overhaul, again trying to focus on getting critical information in front of the player in a readable way while not overwhelming them with noise.

All in all, it’s been exciting and reenergizing to see the game go from something that felt like it was never going to come together to something I’m very near putting into people’s hands.

So, today, I want to dive a bit more into how the game has changed and what this new structure looks like.

So You Were Chosen To Be A Hero

As I mentioned last time, the game now centers around our hero Jairm - the Stone of Destiny has declared he is the Chosen Hero who will lead his forces to overthrow the Tyrant King and free the people of the land.

So gone is the strategic map and the local encounter map, and the game now centers around a more traditional node structure for each realm of the kingdom Jairm must overcome.

Along his path, Jairm will encounter battles of varying difficulty, as well as Towns to help bolster and heal his forces, and nodes with random events and treasures.

The core of each run centers around Jairm’s forces. While he always starts over with the same handful of loyal (but basic) troops, as he fights battles and gains both glory and gold, he’ll have the opportunity to recruit newer, stronger units as well as upgrade his existing, experienced soldiers. Avoid too many battles and Jairm’s glory won’t increase, limiting who will be available to follow him. Fight too many battles and you risk putting your troops at undue risk.

While individual soldiers may fall in battle, as long as they have an opportunity to rest for a battle (or be healed in a town) they can return to fight again with no risk. Deploy a wounded unit, however, and they will be lost forever if they fall in battle again.

Battles still center around deploying your troops to begin, and then dealing with the chaos as random reinforcements arrive each round on both sides. So making sure you keep a healthy army with a variety of troops to counter whatever the enemy may throw at you is key. Exactly the kind of thing a great leader would do.

Only problem is, Jairm isn’t much of a leader.

Fortunately, the Stone of Destiny is willing to bend the rules a bit to make sure its declaration comes true (the Stone is never wrong), so Jairm gets to keep trying over and over and over again until he gets it right.

What's a Time Loop Between Friends?

Should Jairm fail (and he will), he gets to try again from the beginning. While he may find himself back to square one with the same army he started with, his experience will grow along the way. As he grows closer to becoming the true Hero of Destiny he’s supposed to be, he’ll have the opportunity to unlock new powers and abilities to help him face steeper and steeper challenges. Being able to lead more troops, bringing in more reinforcements, and even leader powers that can turn the tide of battle - the player will have the ability to choose how Jairm progresses, building out their hero just the way they want.

It’s my hope that the variety of possible armies the player could build over the course of a run, combined with long-term meta growth of Jairm, will lead to plenty of opportunity for fun and experimentation (and some surprises along the way!).

Below is a video of some newer gameplay, showing the basic run structure as well as some of the new draft art and updated UI.

Next time, I’ll dive into the various units and leaders, and how the upgrade and recruitment system is coming together!

P.S. You can always join the conversation at our Porch Weather Games discord!