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[RaconteurNick]

Welcome, and uhh... it's about to get weird! Thanks for joining us on our journey developing Traiteur.

What the hell is this?!

Traiteur is a top-down shooter set in an ASCII world where the vertical and horizontal emoticons are going to war. It has exploration elements of old-school Zelda games, combat similar to modern top-down shooters like Hotline Miami, and the strange narrative quirks of movies like The Princess Bride - really!

Wait, this thing has a STORY?

It does! The game is actually narrative-heavy, and is driven primarily by its story. We're throwing you into a world where people are trying to go about their lives while a huge conflict breaks out. You'll meet colorful (literally and metaphorically) characters, explore a detailed ASCII world, and hopefully stop a huge war from destroying the land.



What's with the funny name?

Traiteur is a Cajun French term for a faith healer, though our game doesn't specifically concern that. We've written up a great dev blog post about it on our website

Where do you get all of that sweet, sweet ASCII art?

We have a dedicated ASCII artist. Yes, you read that correctly, it is indeed a thing!



When can I board this express train to Weirdland?

We're releasing Traiteur later this year on Steam. Our Steam page is HERE! Please wishlist us and ask us any questions either in those forums, or in this thread! We'll be updating this devlog frequently with more specific details about the game, and also have a dedicated weekly dev blog series on our website which you can follow HERE.

Can I see how it plays?

NO! Okay, sure. Have some ASCII COMBAT!



Where can I learn more?

To find out more about Traiteur or Raconteur, you can hit up the links below.

Steam Page |  Website | Facebook | Twitter

Can't wait to have you all join us on this strange journey! My first question for you: What's your first impression from seeing all of this? Let me know!

[RaconteurNick]

For Screenshot Saturday, here's a gif showing how we visualize your health -- you go from a very happy smiley face to a very sad one!

[RaconteurNick]

ASCII spritesheet for the Forest level!

[Crabby]

That health visualization is fantastic. Takes advantage of the style you're going for, which is great!

[RaconteurNick]

That health visualization is fantastic. Takes advantage of the style you're going for, which is great!

Thank you so much! That's definitely a really fun part, how we can do things like that. We had this cluttered HUD and then one day we were like... wait a second...

[RaconteurNick]

Update: we're making lots of progress on the game and are running a huge playtest currently! Getting lots of great feedback.

Our Steam page is now live too! If you wishlist us, we'll send you a cute gif 

Finally, here's a screenshot of how it's coming along!

[Excy]

Interesting, it's weird that the um .. font size? or pixel ratio of the player to the environment is so much larger though. I'd rather just have an actual character than just a face. But that's just me.

[RaconteurNick]

Interesting, it's weird that the um .. font size? or pixel ratio of the player to the environment is so much larger though. I'd rather just have an actual character than just a face. But that's just me.

Ooh, that's interesting to hear! We played around with having a formal ASCII character, but the idea was always a bunch of smiley faces shooting each other in a detailed world so we ended up staying with the face - and here we are!

[RaconteurNick]

Week 18 of our dev blog outlines our plans -- we're also going to update this thread more! Stay tuned!

http://raconteurgames.com/traiteur-dev-blog-18-our-plan/

[Pixel Noise]

This sounds hilarious but sounds a bit goofy at first - but actually looks pretty interesting! Really cool idea - I really like it.

[RaconteurNick]

This sounds hilarious but sounds a bit goofy at first - but actually looks pretty interesting! Really cool idea - I really like it.

Thanks!! It's really silly. The humor reminds me of The Princess Bride, with a bit of fourth wall breaking, combined with absolute absurdity in a fast-paced gameplay environment.

It's weird. Appreciate you taking the time to check it out! A cool thing we're excited about is going to be a thing on our website that'll let you build your player emoticon before the game comes out. You can pick a "faction" (vertical or horizontal), character coloration, maybe expression, etc. Gonna be fun!