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Tears of Avia - A Closer Look

by Emma Yorke (Aubrielle), 2016-01-20

 

 

THE NUMBERS WERE trickling in, but the campaign wasn't getting the kind of attention that the team was hoping for.  Andy Livy and his team watched their screens with nerve-racking anxiety; they were making an amazing game, a perfected JRPG with new, modern skill systems...the only problem was that not enough people knew about it.  They'd met half their goal with almost no publicity...if only they could get the word out.  Then, in the final hours of the Kickstarter campaign, Larian Studios gave Tears of Avia a shoutout on Divinity: Original Sin's Kickstarter page.

Their numbers spiked.

"We made more progress in those four hours than any other day on the entire campaign," Andy says.

But in the end, Tears of Avia didn't make the Kickstarter goal.

Andy was undaunted.  Tears of Avia was a dream with real purpose: to deliver a strong tactical RPG with a cozy Japanese RPG flavor.  Andy knew with full conviction that no game anywhere could deliver this particular kind of experience, and that the world was ready for Tears of Avia.

Tears of Avia is a turn-based tactical RPG currently in development by indie studio CooCooSqueaky.  The game centers on the player's own unique skill builds and the interplay between characters; only through clever builds, strong tactics, and good character relationships can the player hope to succeed.

Livy and his team want to create a dynamic skill build system where your success - or failure - is entirely in your hands.

I reached out to Andrew Livy, the project lead behind Tears of Avia, and he took a little while out of his busy day to answer some questions about the game.

Aubrielle: "Can you tell us a little about Tears of Avia?"

Andy: "Tears of Avia is a turn based tactical RPG based in the world of Estera.  The main story focuses on Dulantine, a mage who in years gone by saved the world by casting a spell that froze a demonic invasion but the love of his life, Avia, was caught up in the spell accidentally.

We plan for up to 16 playable characters in the game; each have their own minor story arcs and have different disposition to one another. Because of this, the story you experience will be different depending on which characters you play with. Some get along really well, but others might dislike or even be fearful of some other party members."

Relationships between characters will play a significant role.

The game's characters are at its center, and have taken up the bulk of its design time.

Aubrielle: "I was sorry to see that the Kickstarter didn't go like you hoped, but I was overjoyed to see that you swore not to give up on this project.  How is development going for you?  Where are you - currently - in developing the game?"

Andy: "At the time of our kickstarter campaign we simply had a single level playable. Since then we've been working on the very early game (if you're a member of my patreon page, you can see monthly updates to this effect). The first two levels are nearly complete with more to come.

In fact, making levels is not the time consuming aspect. Constructing all the dialogue possibilities is the main time sink for us, and there's a lot, even right from the start. That's a difficult thing for us to show without giving away major spoilers, though."


And of course, I was curious where the inspiration came from.

"We drew inspiration from quite a few different games," Andy says. "Disgaea for its turn based gameplay, guild wars for the incredible skill build crafting system as well as the Baldurs Gate series of games for dynamic story telling."


That started to make me wonder about combat.

Aubrielle: "Can you tell us about the game's combat system?  Did you select a turn-based approach, or have you gone with a more action-y, real-time setup?

Andy: "We have chosen a turn based approach to combat. The pace of the game is slow and considered, which is difficult to get across in video/screenshots but makes for a more rewarding experience, in my opinion. I have always enjoyed games where you formulate a plan to take out a really difficult area and it all comes together because of your tactical planning, careful
build composition, and strategic placement."

And the skills are where the game gets really fun and dynamic.  Livy's team is aiming to create a system where your build means everything.  So far, there's five classes - warrior, mage, ranger, priest, and brawler, and these classes can be customized and micromanaged with ToA's skill building system.  From the Kickstarter page:

"There's a huge variety of skills in Tears of Avia; these can be loosely grouped into four types of abilities, although we blur the lines quite considerably.  

Direct Damage Skill - Every class has a large horizon of creative choices, waving goodbye to dull linear combat. Rangers, for example, can pick different shooting styles, specialize in taming beasts or becoming master trappers.

Condition Skills - Further extending the damage that you can deal, some characters can specialise in dealing negative conditions, causing your enemies damage over multiple turns or simply preventing them from escaping.

Heal Skills - Abilities that range from restoring health after damage has been taken, through to mitigating the effect of negative conditions; there are many creative ways you can keep your party well protected.

Support Skills - Every class has the capability to provide support to the rest of the party. Such abilities change the face of the game by offering you the ability to craft and shape the way other skills function as well as providing you an array of tactical options.

All classes have unique skills, which if wisely chosen can have great synergy with one another. These can have limitless possibilities in the way they chain and react off of other skills.

We also want to encourage experimentation with different play styles. For instance, the ranger could be straight up slinging arrows. But you could also play with a trapping build, which is slower and requires more patience but has far more pay-off in terms of the damage you’ll inflict. 

Builds take all sorts of branching possibilities. Spinning the thought of the trap master further, you could choose a warrior to join your team to protect the rather volatile rangers while they set up deadly snares. Or, you could decide to support with your mage, who enhances the rangers abilities, adding freezing and burning to the traps when triggered."

You're also not limited by linear weapon selection.  A warrior can use a sword if you prefer a more traditional setup, but they could also pick up a chalice and heal, turning them into a paladin with the use of a single item.

A character's equipped weapon determines what sort of role they play.

All of this sounds fun, but I wanted to talk more about the game's artistic flair and visuals.  Andy happily obliged.

Aubrielle: Where did you get the inspiration for the game's beautiful art?  Can you tell us a little about that?

Andy:
"The art in our game is a mixture of styles actually, but we are shooting for a hand-crafted painterly look. Pinax, our character illustrator has been pushing forward much of the character design as well as helping establish the world that you play in. Vasburg does much of our user interface as well as some concept work and has a much more painterly style to it, all of the skill icons in the game (of which there are many) are hand painted, the originals are large enough to print out and frame; each have their own story."

That led easily into my next question.  I really wanted to know what Tears of Avia was, at its core.

Aubrielle: What would you like to accomplish with Tears of Avia?

Andy: "Difficult question! Many anime style tactical games are quite light-hearted, even slapstick, in terms of story progression. Avia has a much more serious tone, as you progress through the game you start unravelling people's past and not all of it is happy days. We want to present a story
that isn't all black and white, good and bad but rather something that challenges you in terms of the direction you move in with the story and the decisions that you make.

We also note that there's not many J-RPG style games that make teamwork and build craft a major focus. Many games simply have a basic holy trinity and a handful of skills that you'll use time and time again, or worse; if it's a really grindy game such as Disgaea you end up front-loading a single character with all the skills and disregard the rest of the party altogether.

In those such instances, the game focus becomes grinding to over-level characters so they can more or less one-shot anything. We really hope to avoid that and will be working on skills where you make critical decisions for your party. None of the skills we've announced so far are final; I wrote a backend system for the game that allows me to alter how a skill functions almost like playing with putty. This means that much of our time will later be spent on play testing and tweaking skills until they feel
right, even if it means radically changing them.

It's important that we did it this way, as we have a lot of skills in the game and there's no way we'll get it right first time, many things will need tweaks and changes until we get it right."

An early mockup of the skill-building system.

This game seems like it hits all the right notes.  A colorful anime feel with turn-based combat and an innovative new skill build system.  But why did it fail?  Really, it all comes down to the fact that not a lot of people knew about the game until it was too late.

"I'm a firm believer the kickstarter failed simply because it didn't have enough attention," Andy says. "Here I am, some guy on the Internet who out of nowhere puts up a kickstarter without the backing of some large group like Square-Enix or anything. I made half my goal through a 'trough' (a period of low funding activity on crowdfunding campaigns) and two spikes from larger, more established groups. Battle chasers gave us a shout out and Larian Studios (of Divinity fame) also gave us a shout out in the last four hours of the campaign (where we made more progress in those four hours than any other day on the entire campaign). This shows to me that it's not the game that was disliked, but on the contrary, people leapt upon it once they knew what it was. I just think many people just didn't even know we existed."


The project wasn't just some Kickstarter from nowhere.  The project had a full range of assets already in place, including a fairly sophisticated prototype of the battle system and the skill build system.  But there's always naysayers.  I asked Andy what he had to say to the cynics that smeared the game even before they saw it and said that another Kickstarter wasn't worth anyone's time.

Aubrielle: There are probably a lot of jaded people reading this, going, "Another Kickstarter game, and it didn't make its goal.  (insert more mean things here)  Why should I care?"  Why *should* they care?  What can you - and Tears of Avia - offer them?

Andy: "I've come to the conclusion that game simply needs time. Time to develop, grow and mature. When we have enough content, we can share it with youtubers and twitch gamers so more people can get talking about it.

I'm still here, we're greenlit on steam and I'm still making this game. So if people think one unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign is the death of the game, they'll be wrong. Others have done worse and moved on to finish some fantastic games, so why shouldn't I?"

Then, if Tears of Avia isn't meant to die some obscure death and end up in the fabled Scrap Heap of Failed Ideas, then that means that it will be remembered for something once it's finished.

Aubrielle: How would you like Tears of Avia to be remembered?

Andy: "I don't want to make a run-of-the-mill grid based pawn shuffler. I want players to really stick their teeth into their builds, discuss and debate all the different ways they can overcome some of the more difficult challenges and achieve victory through their own intelligent party composition."

Aubrielle: Is there anything else you'd like to share with our readers?

Andy: "You can drop by my patreon https://www.patreon.com/coocoosqueaky here. This is where I drop my most frequent updates, since I feel backers should get the first scoop of info on the game.

You can also follow us on Twitter @TearsOfAvia and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TearsOfAvia."

So there it is.  An ambitious turn-based JRPG, a novel battle system, and a team dedicated to seeing it through.  All it needs is time.  And when Tears of Avia emerges, it will amaze.

Aubrielle: Thank you so much!

Andy: "Thank you."

 

Here's a twenty-three minute look at the Tears of Avia prototype, as shown at EGX.  It already looks phenomenal.

Box Art

Information about

Tears of Avia

Developer: CooCooSqueaky

SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: Tactical RPG
Combat: Turn-based
Play-time: Unknown
Voice-acting: Unknown

Regions & platforms
Rest of the World
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· Released: 2020-10-15
· Publisher: CooCooSqueaky

More information