Hi friends!
Gamescom is over and I’m back at my desk, trying to sort through the aftermath but I still wanted to take the time for a quick update for you all.
Giveaway - Last Chance
Real quick before we talk about the game I want to shout out the little giveaway I’ve been running! It ends tomorrow so this might be your last chance:
Tomorrow (September 9th) I will draw three winners from among all newsletter subscribers. Each winner will get to pick one of the following Sharkbomb Studios games as their prize!
Nowhere Prophet - A digital key for the dustpunk deckbuilding video game.
Ex Novo - A printed copy of the city-drawing map-making game.
Goblin Errands - A printed copy of the no-prep zany tabletop role-playing game.
The Mending Circle - A printed copy of the witchy hopepunk tabletop role-playing game.
So, what are you waiting for? Subscribe now!
Crownbreakers @ gamescom
I had the great opportunity to show Crownbreakers at gamescom as part of the Indie Arena Booth. Managing the booth for five days of gaming was quite a lot of work, but there were so many lovely players coming by that I felt constantly energized.
The overwhelming majority of players that sat down to play really enjoyed the game, even some that generally don’t like turn-based games ended up praising the snappy action feeling of the game! And some folks came back multiple times to try and beat the boss!
While the voices from players were consistently positive, I’m always looking at the game with an eye towards improving it. While there were no big issues or problems, I wrote down almost 100 different small ideas how I could improve the game. None of these are big changes, but in aggregate they will help make the critical first 15 minutes of the game a much smoother experience.
Introducing: Kieran
In the last update I talked about the progress on the playable characters. We’ve now got every planned champion in the game, with their own cards, synergies, stickers and relics. You’ve already met Ten Winds in the demo, so I wanted to take a second to shed some light on another outlaw of your crew: Kieran.
Kierean’s the first Champion that will join Ten Winds on her quest for Vengeance. A former member of the Kuwagha Syndicate, he’s once pledged his soul to them and so he has little left to lose. As a gun witch he’s fast, dangerous but also self-destructive. Key synergies in his set are:
Hex & Reap: Add the Hex debuff to enemies and the reap (pun intended) the benefits with the right cards
Doom: Add cursed cards to your deck for powerful effects, and then turn this disadvantage into power
Rush: Play your cards in the right order to benefit from the momentum you have built up!
Key Art Update
And as a final little goodie you might have noticed already: Salene and I put a lot of energy into working on a new key art piece for Crownbreakers. While I love the badass pose of Ten Winds, we wanted something that feels more energetic and is a better match for the vibe of the game.
Here are two rounds of sketches:
We played around a bunch with adding some minions that get beat up but it always felt like it crowded the scene too much, so we ended up focusing on two of our Champions.
So here it is, the final piece! It now graces the Steam page and Crownbreakers website!
And that's it for today’s update. I took last week slowly to recover from gamescom but this week I’m getting back into it at full speed. There’s all those gamescom ideas and notes to implement and try out.
Apart from that Mauro (the game designer from Into the Grid who’s helping out at the moment) and I will be shifting our focus from the characters over to the other side of the equation: The districts, enemies, and bosses! Can't wait to tell you more about those soon!
In the meantime, I’m curious: What kind of tyrant would you most like to punch.
💚 Martin