next »

[BitmenStudios]

The Storm Guard has been released on Steam.

Watch the Trailer:


Watch the Launch Video:


Lord Commander!

For thousands of years, the Storm Guard has protected the realm of men from what lies beyond our borders. Things have been quiet for what feels like an eternity but now the evil forces are rising again. They are marching south, invading our lands, killing or abducting helpless citizen. Panic is rising among our people and we again rely on you and your stalwart men to protect our lands.

The Storm Guard is a shadow of what it once was. After centuries of peace, castles have been abandoned and the forces reduced to a bare minimum. Our numbers have dwindled and those still serving the order lack proper training and equipment. To make matters worse, our funds are more than limited.

Yet, Lord Commander, you must lead the order back to old strength. Stand strong and protect our lands from the evil forces and try to find out why they are rising again so we can stop them before it is too late.

Hire new heroes and soldiers. Everybody who can hold a sword, fire a bow or cast powerful spells is more than welcome.

Stay in Touch
Bitmen Studios is an Indie developer. We want to make great games but we rely on your support to keep going. Feedback is important and we'd also appreciate if you could spread the word. Please join us on social media to get regular updates. We're also planning to do a closed beta in fall and will need players willing to participate.

Here's how you can stay in touch:

• Sign up to our newsletter.
• Follow us on Twitter.
• Like us on Facebook.

Gameplay
The Storm Guard is a turn-based tactical game in a fantasy setting. Wildings, undead and even greater horrors from the north have crossed the borders and are now invading the realm of men causing death and destruction. You assume the role of the Lord Commander and have to manage this conflict.



The Strategy Layer
On the strategy layer, you must try to maintain a steady economy, keep panic in your lands low and manage the Order’s roster of heroes and soldiers, recruit additional members, learn new skills and get better equipment. You must decide what incidents to deal with and which ones to ignore as well as how to best use the limited resources to improve the current situation.

Assemble a well-rounded group that can deal with different threats.

Missions
During missions, your party will explore the area running into randomly generated events (FTL-style) that require you to make tough decisions. In turn-based combat, you will direct a squad of 3–5 heroes on the tactical combat field. Use good positioning and cleverly combine their abilities to prevail. All heroes have a dozen skills to specialize in and different hero combinations allow different playstyles which provides a wide range of options to explore.

Decide what skills to master and develop your personal playstyle.

Turn-Based Tactical Combat
Combat includes standard mechanics like melee and ranged attacks, spells and attack skills, but also conditions (bleeding, poisoned, blind, crippled, weakened, burning), disablers (knockdown) as well as a wide range of enchantments, buffs, hexes and shouts that offer a lot of choices on both the strategic layer (how to set up my characters?) and the tactical layer (how to best use my character setup?).

In combat your setup will be put to the test. Use good positioning, skills and spells to defeat your foes.

Creatures
The creatures you will be facing belong to three different races (orks, undead, mystic creatures). Overall, there will be more than thirty different monster types, ranging from small animals to huge (and powerful) flying creatures, each with their own set of abilities. Generally, the outcome is less dependent on rolling good numbers but rather on good tactical thinking, a good team and skill setup that provides synergies and can deal with different situations. Still, some encounters are more difficult than others and mistakes are often lethal. Dying is easy, surviving is the hard part.

Different creatures bring different skills to the table. Develop strategies to counter the enemy setup.

Death and Injury
Death is permanent in The Storm Guard. You must learn to deal with losses and take actions to mitigate risk. A wise commander knows what a particular team can accomplish and (even more importantly) what is beyond its abilities. Don’t throw away the lives of your best troops for nothing. Conversely, there are times where you must sacrifice soldiers for the greater goal.

While death is the ultimate end of a hero's life, injuries also have an impact. A hero taking damage in combat will have his constitution temporarily reduced and thus needs to rest. This means that you are advised to develop many characters in parallel to have a sufficient pool to compensate for losses and downtimes.

Difficulty & Fairness
The Storm Guard is deliberately designed to be a difficult game. Bad things happen. Men will die. And when they die, they stay dead. You may run into tight financial situations and your A-Team may get wiped. There are many ways to fail on both, the strategy and the tactical combat layer. However, we tried our utmost to keep the game fair at all times. While you can have a streak of bad luck, it will never be the decisive factor for winning or losing the game.

The Storm Guard is a skill-based game and it is all about making tough decisions. Will you buy better gear for your warrior? Can we afford another team member? Or shall we develop our characters’ skills (and if so, which)? What party composition do we head for? What threats shall (and can) we address with the troops at hand?

While on a quest, you have to decide how much risk you want to take. Last but not least, on the tactical layer, you need to employ tactics how to best defeat the opponents, which very much depends on the enemy team composition and how your strengths compare to theirs.

Ultimately, it’s you, Lord Commander, who decides who lives and who dies.

[Cobralad]

youre got some problems with name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_(video_game)

[BitmenStudios]

Winning battles is important but in order to survive, it is essential that you make the right decisions on the strategy layer. When your troops are not out on a mission, they spend their time in your outpost. It is there where you must decide how to best spend your hard earned gold: will you buy more men? Will you train your existing members? And if so, what skills do you focus on? Will you invest into better equipment? How about getting some potions? Shall we try a different team composition? Shall we grant some much needed rest to our exhausted troops?

Learn more about what options you have in town in our blog post on Bitmen-Studios.com.

[BitmenStudios]

Tactical Combat

An important part in this game will be the tactical combat. We have learned from both, the good and the bad, found in existing turn-based strategy games and came up with an interesting system that gives you a lot of options instead of just clicking on the enemies until they are dead.

• All movement is done in parallel to prevent the player from waiting for each character to take its turn.
• Units cannot miss per-se (unless they are blind) but the target can defend against an attack.
• Attacks from the flanks cannot be defended and thus have a better chance to hit.
• Units can be tied up in melee which means they cannot fire projectiles (e.g. use their bow) and moving out of melee gives the opponent a free attack.
• Skills play an important role, there will be more than 100 skills and each character class will be different.
• Conditions can be used to inflict lasting effects on the enemy. This includes bleeding, poison, blindness, weakness, cripple, etc. This gives you many options (snaring, disabling, damage over time, etc.)
• Shouts can boost your party members.
• Magic is split up into enchantments (on your allies) and hexes (on foes). Good use of magic is very important.
• Potions and other skills can give additional buffs.

Read more about the details of the combat system on our dev blog.

The Ninja scores a critical hit from the flanks.

[BitmenStudios]

We decided to rebrand the game to "The Storm Guard: Darkness is Coming" to avoid confusion.

[BitmenStudios]

I just came up with the start screen of the game. I wanted it to be underlining the game title: it should be dark and stormy with a bit of fog, wind and rain pouring down. Evil forces have awakened in the north and a storm is rising...

[BitmenStudios]

I'm working on a new map called The Stone Platform for the random event having the same name. You get the chance to loot great treasure but risk facing the wrath of the undead since it's a holy place for them.

Here's a screenshot of the stone platform.



Here's another one showing a small cemetery to the south.



And a third view from the hills to the north.

[Deidril]

The kind of game i like ! I'll be following you.

By the way, your link to bitmen-studios in your message trail doesn't work.

[del]

Interesting concept, best of luck!

[BitmenStudios]

The kind of game i like ! I'll be following you.

By the way, your link to bitmen-studios in your message trail doesn't work.

Thanks for following and thanks for the hint with the link. Fixed.  

Interesting concept, best of luck!

Thanks!

[BitmenStudios]

Meet the Warrior

Let me introduce you to the first playable character: the Warrior. He's a tank and as such, depends a lot on equipment. A fully equipped Warrior can take a lot of punishment but it is a considerable investment. Here's a little animated gif showing the Warrior going from basic armor to full plate.



This means the Warrior will be your typical tank. Not only can he wear the best armor, he can also get pretty good at shield blocking which will help him avoid quite a bit of damage.

The Warrior doesn't only help the team by tanking, he also has two other mechanics: shouts and adrenaline.

Shouts
Shouts provide beneficial effects to all allies within earshot. Most of his shouts are defensive in nature.

Adrenaline
Adrenaline is built up by hitting enemies and unlocks special adrenaline-based skills. While the Warrior also can learn standard energy-based skills, his best offensive skills are adrenaline based. This means, the Warrior can only unlock his full offensive potential after a few rounds in melee where he can build up the necessary adrenaline.

Here's a few example skill icons. The blue ones are energy based, the yellow ones adrenaline based.


Please find more detailed info on this character and the skills currently implemented on my blog.

[BitmenStudios]

Meet the Healer

Let us next have a look at the Healer class. The Healer is an essential party member as he provides much needed healing and protection to the team. The healer's spells can largely be classified into healing spells, protection spells and utility spells.

Healing Spells

Healing spells are the most straightforward. They restore a certain amount of lost hit points. They are easy to use, but are not very energy efficient and cannot resurrect fallen party members.

The Healer using Heal on himself

Protection Spells

Protection spells lower or negate damage taken on the protected character and more energy efficient than healing spells. However, you'll have to predict who the enemy will be focusing on. Thus, they are a bit more difficult to use.

The Healer casting a Protection Spell on the Amazon

Utility Spells

Utility spells provide additional utility to the team, like removing annoying or dangerous conditions.

Find out more about the Healer class and detailed infos on his spells on our site.

[BitmenStudios]

Meet the Elven Hunter
The Elven Hunter is a proficient long-bow user. If you want to specialize in ranged combat, then you'll definitely want her in your team. She's very versatile and has a wide range of abilities that can deal with many different situations.



Many characters have direct damage skills that are straightforward to use and the hunter is no exception. Some skills also have different prerequisites, e.g. you need to flank the target or it must be low on health.

In addition to damage skills, the hunter can also learn Utility Skills. These skills won't do as much damage but can be more useful in certain situations. For example, crippling a dangerous creature makes it possible to kite it for a few turns, wearing it down from a distance. Other skills attack energy pools or adrenaline countering characters that rely on these resources. A few spells inflict conditions that do damage over time. Please refer to the corresponding post in my blog for more information on all implemented skills.

Last but not least, she also has access to a few survival skills that help - you guessed it - her survivability.

[BitmenStudios]

Meet the Elven Assassin

When designing the Assassin, I wanted a character that can do a lot of damage in a very short time, that is, if you pull it off. This makes the assassin a perfect fit if you need to spike a single foe to quickly take it out of the fight (e.g. an annoying healer or a "time bomb": a damage dealer that does more damage the longer the fight lasts, e.g. by building up adrenaline).

The assassin is not so effective if she has to switch targets or if she gets countered by knockdowns or defensive actions (blocks, parries, evasions), so it will be important to make sure this does not happen (e.g. by flanking or by hexing the target).



To achieve these design goals, the assassin will build up combos. A combo consists of an attack skill with the lead (right) hand, followed by an attack skill with the off-hand (left), and is finished by a devastating dual attack skill with both hands. The downside is that all combo skills must be done on the same target, so you have to stick to one guy if you want to finish the combo.

Getting knocked down or missing a combo skill (e.g. due to blindness or getting parried, blocked or evaded) will break the combo chain. Also, a strong defensive enchantment on your assassination target can also ruin her effectiveness (unless you find a way to remove it).

You can find more info about the assassin in my blog post.

[BitmenStudios]

The Prison
I'm working on a new map, an underground prison deep down in the dungeons. One of our missions takes place there where you have to free an elven spy that was caught while she was about to find out something important. The Storm Guard will have to send their best men down there to free the elf and secure this important intelligence.



The prison is sure no place you'd want to stay for long. The place is dark and creepy; skeletons chained to the wall and dead soldiers covered in blood. It's no fun being kept as prisoner down there.



The elven spy is no better off. Time to come to the rescue!

[BitmenStudios]

Meet the Witch

The Witch is a rather sophisticated character. While she's technically a mage, she focuses on subtle magic like hexes rather than pyrotechnics. It's easy to underestimate her power as many of her spells have no immediate effect. However, many of the things she can bring to a fight can mean the difference between victory and getting your party wiped.



Most of her spells will turn your foe's actions against him or preventing them from using their most powerful skills. For example, in the above animated gif, the Witch casts Ineptitude on the Warchief. Ineptitude is a hex that causes the next attack to miss, the attacker takes damage and is blinded. Since the Warchief had accumulated enough adrenaline to use one of his deadliest skills that could have easily destroyed our healer, the Witch has basically countered this spike and saved the Healer's life.

The Elven Witch has quite a few unique spells at her disposal that all make for an interesting gameplay with enjoyable tactical decisions. On my blog, you can read more about her skill set.

[BitmenStudios]

The Arcane Library

I'm working on a new map for a mission where you are visiting an arcane library in the dungeons. Undead are doing spell research there and the Storm Guard has to interfere before it goes out of hand.



I don't want to spoil the plot but the player will run into some undead performing powerful magic. Any combat including mages is tricky as they are a pretty powerful support to the AI army.

Here's another shot at the arcane library from a different angle.

[BitmenStudios]

Don't grow too attached to your men, Lord Commander. Many will die.


https://youtu.be/a58ztriSj9k[/

Dying is easy in The Storm Guard. Lord Commander, you better get used to losing a few men, it is inevitable. Just make sure to not send your most veteran members on suicide missions.

To make things more interesting, The Storm Guard features perma-death. You will lose men during the conflict and rookies certainly are expendable. However, since you can make some considerable investments in terms of levels, equipment and skill development into your heroes, you will want to make damn sure your A-team doesn't die.

It's always good to have some defensive skills in your skill set. An all-offensive setup sure can dish out some considerable damage, but is bound to get ganked in return by a nasty encounter.

[BitmenStudios]

The Demon Forge

We're working hard on content now, the most recent scene we added is the demon forge mission. At the end of this quest, you'll arrive at the demon forge and get to meet the demon smith. Not only does it craft the best weapons, it also is a challenging opponent that combines powerful magic with physical strength.



When designing the demon smith, we decided to give it powerful armor piercing abilities (mostly lightning based). While having high armor ratings can save you in many battles, armor will be less effective against its spells.

It will therefore be important to either use some magic on your own or use some other strategy to limit its damage potential.

Other than that, we're in the final stages of our trailer production. It is going to be awesome, so stay tuned!

[BitmenStudios]

The Storm Guard is now on Steam Greentlight. Please support the game by voting Yes.
Here's the link to Steam Greenlight page. If you have Steam installed, you can open it directly following this link to the Steam Client.