New system, Battlejack, development updates.

[wolfpunk]

Yaknow - something like that might be a good marketing tool as well...

Chuck agrees. Look for a Lite version to become available on PDF.

I am heading to Seattle this week for a final round of playtesting. Barring any major bugs we find with the large scale matches, it should be ready to send for editing and layout. I hear the artwork is almost completed. So I suspect we should have a release date sometime in November.

 

[wolfpunk]

So the trip to Seattle for playtesting was a huge success. Thanks to all of the playtesters who showed up to play in at least one of the thirteen matches we played last weekend. Thanks to the Canterbury for happily putting up with us gaming in their dayroom for the whole day.

It is very exciting when you have complete strangers come in, see you playing, come check it out, ask what it is and if they can play, and leave you their name and email address so that they can get more info on how to buy it.

It is even more exciting when the first thing the playtesters said when they finished their first match was, "I want to play again!"

We did find some aspects of the game that were sort of clunky. Weapons no longer reload, Player Abilities are now granted a number of uses per life but you can gain additional uses by calling out another player and beating them in a duel.

We created a huge Research and Development System that lets you create any armor, equipment, or weapon you want. In addition, you can add effects and features for a price.

We decided smaller arena, no more than 7 zones by 7 zones in size are the most fun, with 5 x 5 arenas being crazy fun.

We also found that as much fun as it is to force your opponent to hit when they are showing a face card, playing straight up didn't hinder your ability to still win a match, sometimes it really just is all about how you play the cards you are dealt.

So I have some writing to do, but I am feeling fantastic about the game so far, and am confident I will have it ready to go for another round of playtesting here in the next week or so.

 

[wolfpunk]

Ok, lots of changes, here is the list of developments for the game.

Player abilities and soldier stratagems changed to uses per life. So three points, three uses. Everyone kept forgetting the Recharge phase.

Added effect and feature slots to gear, changed prices to reflect upgradeability. Added rules for building specific gear into the Battlejack RPG section.

Removed turrets from the gear section. Add turrets and their related abilities to the zone feature section.

Added player abilities, tactics and stratagems that affect mercenaries, included that in the mercenary area of the zone feature section.

Changed zone features to only trigger once and to be more gear: 1 badges that you can pick up to grant you a bonus of some sort.

Added several soldier stratagems and solder tactics related to the buying, selling, and upgrading of gear.

Added the ability for a player to make a skill check against the dealer to regain 1 use of 1 soldier stratagem.

Added the ability for a player to make a skill check against an opponent to regain 1 use of 1 player ability.

Added the ability for a player to make a skill check against an opponent to gain a 1 pull advantage against another player either on attack or defense until the end of the player's next action.

Clarified the use and timing of player abilities. Basically, if it is your turn, you can declare you are using 1 player ability, then 1 other person can declare they are using 1 player ability in response to that, if they do, then you get to respond with 1 additional use of a player ability.

Some player abilities now specifically mention that they negate another player ability.

Broke down armor features, weapon features, equipment features and weapon effects so that you know exactly what upgrades you can put on what. Got rid of prototype, if you want to prototype use the rules for building your own weapon.

Added the prototype weapons that did exist into the main section of weapons priced correctly.

Added a couple of more melee weapons and changed grenades and the demolition charge to be melee weapons. Added the one use feature which basically means use it once then lose it, but the gear cost 30% less to buy.

changed the sample arenas to be more of the 5 x 5 variety with one 7 x 7 and one 9 x 9 map

Removed race vehicles, added in a section that just says, take a portion of your stake and turn it into a vehicle stake, based upon how much life the vehicle has remaining it grants a bonus to your move action, nice and simple.

Added the Reserve Pile, which is where your two extra lives worth of chips reside. So you never tap your Winnings during a match now, whatever you have left in your stake and reserve gets added to winnings at the end of the match.

Added efficiency which is calculated then multiplied against your winnings to create your world rank. Moving up to higher tiers of play requires a minimum efficiency over a number of matches. This discourages players from buying huge gear in which they get a lot of kills but also get a lot of deaths

Revised the concept soldiers to have spent about 120 of their initial 150 gear, we find this to be about the typical amount players spend when they start.

Weapons no longer need to reload (speeds up gameplay), some equipment still does.

Clarified rules for the Capture the Flag matches.

Revised Achievements to be easier to unlock and track.

Added examples everywhere.

Started working on flavor text.

 

[wolfpunk]

We playtested a 2 vs 2 Capture the Flag match this weekend. Had a blast, two of us built our soldier's seperately of each other and played on a team, the other two built their soldiers together to see what sort of synergies they could work out.

In the end, the match was a draw with the win going to my team because of overall chips won during the match.

I would have to say capture the flag is the most tactical version of the game because the dynamic of the game is not to just simply wipe out the other team, although, we did do a pretty good job of it.

We had great fun with the zone features, some highlights being, my team discovered a turret in the very first zone outside of our base, so that was a nice little defensive bonus to our team. One of the soldiers on the other team uncovered a trap zone that ended up doing enough damage to kill him. One of the soldiers on my team picked up a rocket launcher from one of the zones and that changed the way she played the rest of the game. All in all, the zone features added to the game play in a lot of great ways.

 

[wolfpunk]

We playtested a 2 vs 2 Capture the Flag match this weekend. Had a blast, two of us built our soldier's seperately of each other and played on a team, the other two built their soldiers together to see what sort of synergies they could work out.

In the end, the match was a draw with the win going to my team because of overall chips won during the match.

I would have to say capture the flag is the most tactical version of the game because the dynamic of the game is not to just simply wipe out the other team, although, we did do a pretty good job of it.

We had great fun with the zone features, some highlights being, my team discovered a turret in the very first zone outside of our base, so that was a nice little defensive bonus to our team. One of the soldiers on the other team uncovered a trap zone that ended up doing enough damage to kill him. One of the soldiers on my team picked up a rocket launcher from one of the zones and that changed the way she played the rest of the game. All in all, the zone features added to the game play in a lot of great ways.

 

[wolfpunk]

So the Battlejack RPG is a GM +1 player up to a GM +5 players ruleset. The rules are designed for GMs to create their own 2d side scrolling metroidvania style maps that they run the soldiers through. It captures what I think are the great elements of classic games like Metroid, Castlevania, Zelda, and Megaman.

Some of the differences from the main rules are:

Soldiers get additional chips in their Stake and additional Gear slots.

The arena may contain a resurrection room which allows the party to in essence save their game. If they get wiped out, they just restart and start over. Eliminates the frustration of the TPK.

The players can create truly custom armor, equipment and weapons.

The GM can create custom monsters and custom treasure.

Combat is still non-tacitcal, with monsters and players positioning on a 3 Row grid to determine whether they are at melee or missile range.

Killing pawns (minions if you will) gives you the ability to make a Save at the end of the round, in essence recovering that little bit of health that metroidvania games are known for.

Items like keys, maps, and raw materials (used for building gear) are much more abundant. Exploring the map and finding secret areas will allow you to find upgrades for you armor and weapons.

Mini-boss and Boss monsters have significantly larger Stakes but will have a weakness that can be exploited typical of the megaman games.


The soldier's home base has a party strongbox that can hold 200 gear slots worth of additional items.

The magic system has 8 different energy types and 6 different targeting methods, spells have between 2 and 6 different ways they can be used and you can mix and max energy types with targeting methods.

So that is a quick highlight of the RPG version of the rules. I think the ability for two players to be able to play a game without having to change the rules to balance the game will make it a great choice for a gaming group if players go missing from the game session.

 

[wolfpunk]

Quick question loyal readers, how many of you are actively following this thread even if you don't really have any comments on it?

Could you post just an "Interested" or something.

I am just wondering, I seem to be getting a good number of views, but not really any thoughts from people, and very few people following battlejack on twitter.

I am not sure if I should keep posting updates, or just let it die?

Thanks

 

[wolfpunk]

Sent the "lite" version of the Battlejack rules to Vigilance Press today. It includes 47 of 78 pages of the rules. An excellent preview!

 

[wolfpunk]

Team Race Matches are now more like a Roller Derby match. One Jammer who scores the points, and everyone else splitting offensive and defensive duties. It was the easiest way to score a match.

 

[wolfpunk]

Ok, I know it has been a month without an update so here it is.

There have been no major changes to the rules in nearly a month. However a major overhaul of the system rules has occured.

Based upon further feedback and playtesting. Capture the Flag is the hands down favorite version of the game to play. So with that in mind, I have decided to revise the core rules to just cover Capture the Flag rules.

A couple of benefits, no more confusion in regards to which rules apply to which variation of the game. A lot of players thought the additional rules for gambling on a match were cool, but they probably wouldn't ever use them. I have to admit, while I geek out on a lot of this stuff, not everyone else does.

Streamlined the leveling process and removed the Efficiency concept. While it is reminiscent of online first person shooters, it really was sort of a pain in the but to track via pen and paper.

Everyone is familiar with the Capture the Flag concept, so it is easier to get going.

Multiple ways to win a match mean that just because your soldier dies a couple of times doesn't necessarily mean you are for sure going to lose.

Team dynamics work better, the larger the team the more unique roles that can be filled.

Some other changes, created hand out cards for the zone features, this includes, badges, flags, power-ups and gear.

The Flag can now be used as a lancer which means you can attack with it.

Added a Mount to the gear section and several Mount related tactics.

Removed mercenaries, but left in turrets.

I am thinking if the interest in the game ends up being good. I can release the eliminate rules, tournament rules, race rules, the RPG campaign rules, the weapon compendium, the monster manual, and the magic system as cheap add on PDFs.

I am still looking at designed stickers to represent all of the achievement badges you can unlock during game play. I think it will be cool to have stickers that you can slap on your soldier stat sheet to reflect all of the badges you have unlocked.

I am excited about all of the positive feedback I have gotten from our playtesters and reviewers.

We are planning on running demonstrations of Battlejack at this years NeonCon.

As always comments are welcome and feel free to follow us on Twitter.