" It's been a long road, gettin' from there to here"
-Russell Watson - Faith Of The Heart - Star Trek Enterprise
First, we want to apologize for the delay in posting a new dev log. We have been incredibly busy building the game, addressing bugs, integrating the new AI, beta testing, and continuing to refine the Battle of Trenton scenario to ensure a smoother and more enjoyable play-through.
With that said, we are excited to share that The Glorious Cause has joined Steam Next Fest, which is now live, with our first new public demo since the 0.3.0 release back in January.
This new demo represents a major step forward for the game. It features our new 2.5D engine, many visual refinements, improved battle presentation, new sound effects, and a stronger foundation for the future of the project. The goal of this demo is not only to show a newer version of The Glorious Cause, but also to give players a better sense of where the game is heading as we continue building toward larger, more historical, and more dynamic battles.
One of the biggest areas of work has been performance optimization. Over the last several weeks, the team investigated major VRAM usage issues, especially with artillery animations and large sprite assets. Through compression changes and asset optimization, we were able to greatly reduce the game’s memory footprint, making the game more practical for players on a wider range of systems. We are still continuing this work, but the progress so far has been extremely encouraging.
We have also been improving the historical look and feel of the Battle of Trenton. The map has received updates to better represent the town layout, buildings, roads, and battlefield environment. We have consulted numerous books, online resources, maps, and historical references, including Battle Maps of the American Revolution from the American Battlefield Trust.
Since Trenton is such an important moment in the American Revolution, we want the scenario to feel more authentic, more realistic, and more immersive for players.
Some of the books and resources we consulted include:
Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
A Battlefield Atlas of The American Revolution by Craig L. Symonds:
A Guide to the Battles of The American Revolution by Theodore P. Savas and J. David Dameron
And of course The American Battlefield Trust's Battle Maps of The American Revolution
We also drew from a wide range of historical websites and organizations, including Gilder Lehrman, Mount Vernon, Britannica, Continental Line, American History Central, Emerging Revolutionary War, California SAR, Marine Corps University, Maryland 400, PBS 1777, Teaching American History, National Veterans Memorial and Museum, the State of New Jersey, Founders Online / Washington Papers, Ten Crucial Days, the Museum of the American Revolution, Ellarslie, American Battlefield Trust, the National Museum of the United States Army, Trenton Historical Society, the American Revolution Institute, Revolutionary War Staten Island, Journal of the American Revolution / All Things Liberty, AmericanRevolution.org, and many others.
& many others. Thank you to everyone who has developed and maintained these resources. The work you have done is incredible and has been extremely helpful to our research.
There have also been several gameplay and user interface refinements. We have worked on improving combat log readability, adding the weapon used by each unit during combat, refining the overall GUI presentation, adding Division Leaders, improving movement feedback, and adding clearer player messages.
We implemented a responsive fire option from the company level all the way up to the army commander. Since every volley now reduces the ammunition carried by units, players can choose whether responsive fire is enabled at the company, regiment, brigade, division, or army level. We also implemented changes to the charges and melee system so combat feels more representative of the casualties involved in battle.
We also added an “AI Turn...” indicator after pressing End Turn, which then switches back once control returns to the player. We added the ability for Leaders to rally units and get them back into the fight. We continued refining how units behave while moving, retreating, routing, or coming under threat. We also fixed numerous bugs, ranging from Colonel Rall repeatedly moving into enemy line of fire to him standing still and doing nothing during battle.
A significant amount of new logic has also been added across multiple systems, including how movement point penalties affect Infantry, Light Infantry, Militia, Riflemen, Grenadiers, Dragoons, Cavalry, Artillery, Division Leaders, and Army Leaders. We have also been working on how terrain, and winter conditions affect movement and unit behavior.
Victory conditions have also been adjusted compared to the last demo. If you are playing as the Americans and are able to rout all Hessian troops, you win the scenario.
We have also altered the logic behind desertion and stragglers. These systems will be explained in greater detail in either the retail 0.4.0 release or 0.4.5 release. Here is a look at what it will look like:
That said, we want to be transparent about one of the current roadblocks. We are still working through some issues integrating the new AI systems into the demo. This has affected parts of the new demo, including the ability to add the new units we intended to feature in the demo. The team has been working on merging and testing the new AI logic, including artillery behavior, army scouting, commander movement bugs, and unit decision making. Our hope is to have these issues fixed by the end of the week, so please stay tuned for that update.
Once the AI issues are resolved, we expect the demo to better show off several of the new additions we have been working toward, including accurate artillery behavior, inclusion of riflemen, Jägers, dismounted British Dragoons into The Trenton Scenario, better unit decision-making, and a stronger overall battlefield experience.
Looking beyond this demo, we are also planning future improvements such as farther line of sight, better defensive AI, additional artillery refinements, multiplayer and hot seat support, and continued work on the larger strategic layer of the game. These systems will take time, but each update is bringing us closer to the full vision of The Glorious Cause.
Sophia has done an incredible and nearly super-human job of making one of the best Main Menu graphical designs I have ever seen. Upon seeing it my first words were Wow.
Lets take you through the iterations:
Our first iteration:
Our second iteration:
Then Sophia gave some amazing feedback on the font and overall look. She refined the design and came up with this:
Absolutely striking, isn’t it? Thank you Sophia for your incredible talent.
We also developed a new trailer for The Glorious Cause, which includes some new concept images we plan to implement into the game over the coming months.
Here is the trailer: Steam NextFest Introduction Video
You can also check out the Strategic Map concept images below:
Overall look is subject to change.
You can play the new demo here ->
Players will also notice a change to the old system where the clock pushed you to reach Trenton in time to catch the Hessians sleeping and capture them, as happened in the traditional telling of the battle. However, based on newer findings and feedback, we were informed that the Hessians may have been aware that the Americans were on their way. This led to some internal debate about which version of the scenario we should follow.
In the end, we decided to give players both options.
You will be able to march on Trenton with the enemy already waiting for you, or march on Trenton with the Hessians asleep and attempt to catch and capture them with little to no losses. The current demo only has the first option enabled, but we plan to add the sleeping Hessian option tomorrow or Wednesday.
Thank you to everyone who has played the demo, wishlist-ed the game, reported bugs, or shared feedback. Steam Next Fest is a major milestone for us, and your support helps us continue improving the game.
More updates, including updates to the new demo, are coming soon.