Balrum was released 7 years ago today and in celebration there is a new patch and the game is 75% off on Steam.

Balrum is 7 years old! We are celebrating with a new patch and a 75% discount!

The new patch contains the following improvements:

The game now uses the latest libraries to ensure the best compatibility with modern systems.

• Added sound effects to various game elements. Like opening a cauldron or picking up certain items that had no sound effect previously.
• Added a new map marker to the Darkwood map. (needs new playthrough)
• Follow us on Twitter!

Have a nice day!

Balcony Team

Forgottenlor has played a few games for which he did not want to write a review, at least not for all of them. So in a poll we did last month, our visitors decided that most of them would be looking forward to a review of Balrum.

The story of Balrum isn't bad. It's a sort of classic fantasy story where the character's mysterious origins are revealed, where an ancient evil awakens, and where in the end only the character can make things right. The writing also isn't too bad. Most of the background story is revealed in text discussions with npcs or in the various notes you find throughout the world. Unfortunately there is nothing particularly interesting going on here either. The characters you meet in Balrum are for the most part as flat as cardboard. Since you can't interact with them much, and the few side quest are pretty uninteresting, that's not really so important. Indeed the story's main goal appears to be to sending you from one corner of a map to another, so you can explore first the Dark Forest and then the world of Balrum as a whole. Though you spend hours wandering around, you really only interact with the story and its characters for a small portion of the game. Players who are looking for a story oriented game or clever or interesting quests probably should avoid Balrum. That's simply not the kind of the game it is.

Last week version 1.2 of Balrum was made available. If the lack of achievements in this game was holding you back in playing it, then you will be happy to learn that there are now 42 of them on Steam. However for those that are less interested in that, there are some other new features as well.

Some of the more noteworthy new features:
-Achievements! (There are a total of 42 achievements to acquire.)

-Added comparative tooltips for equipments.

-You are now able to delete custom made recipes.

-Grandmaster difficulty! We added an even more challenging difficulty mode to Balrum for those who seek an even greater challenge.

-By pressing Shift + F2 you can disable/enable the interface.

-Reworked a part of the GUI. (panel focus and responsiveness improvements)

Other small additions:
-ALT + click now puts materials inside crafting tables intelligently.
-Autosaves won't happen when the player is below 10% health.
-Cheat death now gives back more health.
-Fields no longer get diseased if they are properly tended too.
-Enabled numpad walk commands.
-Tutorial popup when your pet dies or gets automatically dismissed.
-Reduce Gore option is available in the options panel.
-Game saves now show the chosen difficulty.

Dark Savant spotted this Balrum review from the CRPG Revisting blog:

[...]

I had very fun with this game and felt hooked from the beginning. I love the slow progress, the open world and the tough opponents. When you succeed you really feel enjoyment. The game is easy to play. The world is unexplored and black and it is easy to sink several hours into it at once. It reminds me a little about Eschalon and/or the Avadon games but this game is unique in its own. I am looking forward to a sequel but would like them balance the classes more, allowing for better items to be sold and improving the story a bit.

Section

	Rating
Gameworld & Story	3
Economy	3
NPC & Interactions	2
Monsters, tactics & combat system	3
Magic system	2
Character generation & development	3
Map design	4
Manual	3
Graphics, Sound and Interface	3
Summary CRPG value	26
Gameplay	4

CRPG Revisited chronicles an adventure through Balrum from start to finish.  Warning: article snippet posted here contains mild spoilers.

The individual behind the CRPG Revisited blog has taken Balcony Team's old-school, open world RPG Balrum through its paces, having cranked out a series of articles since early March that take us through the game's introduction to its end boss finale. The articles start with an intro, then move on to the first ten hours, somewhere in the middle, entering the mage guild, and the final battle. Rather than spoil anything from the end, I'll quote from an earlier point:

For the first time in the game I had to progress and not just avoid tougher obstacles as is common in this open world RPG. The tower was filled with ghosts. Fortunately I had found a necklace which deflects some of their chilling effects and I got my hunter skill level raised to two which meant I could get rid of my wolf pet. I trapped a bear instead and he is tougher but slower. Together we slowly explored the tower.

After the first level there was no turning back. It wasn´t possible to use the trapdoor to get out. I had to move forward. I was a little nervous about that but hoped everything would go well. Level two was a huge labyrinth which led me to many dead ends but with the help of the automap, patience and lots of food (remember you consume food, drinks and stamina (rest) allt the time). In the end I met my first "boss", a skeleton king.

What followed was the most interesting battle in this game so far. He was much stronger than me but by hurling fireballs at him whicle my bear clawed at him and tried to slow him down and by always retreating out of melee combat, I was able to slowly drain his energies. Pretty fast my mana dropped to zero and I had to run away to keep my distance and get myself time to drink mana potions. My pet bear also died pretty early. I then used my stun/freeze spell on him everytime I needed to drink more health and mana potions and run away to keep my distance. Sometimes the Skeleton king hurled fireballs at me or tried to stun me instead of moving forward. Those moments where critical but I always managed to get out even though my pool of potions was about to be depleted. At one time I had trapped my self into a dead end and saw the face of death emerging at me. The skeleton king was now weak but so was I. I finally mustered my last mana strength and used a teleportation potion on myself and by that I got on the other side of the king and could keep running away. Finally he died. It had cost me dozens of expensive potions but it was all worth it. Not regarding XP but by a few good items and by progressing.

Craig Stern(IndieRPGs) checked out Balrum:

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In this episode, Craig checks out Balrum, a new wRPG from Balcony Softworks. For other great indie wRPGs, check out IndieRPGs.com!

Thanks Couch!

One Angry Gamer has reviewed the open world RPG Balrum:

Balrum Review: A Massive Isometric Open World RPG

Not-so Turn-based Combat
I purposefully went into playing this game without doing any previous research, I didn’t want anyone else to warp my first impression about the game before playing it for myself — I know, this may seem backwards for a review, but sometimes you get a negative idea in your head and you go into it looking for flaws.

So I jumped right in to learn how to play. When I first started the game I died within about ten minutes. I quickly realized this wasn’t going to be like most other RPG games that hold your hand, and it didn’t disappoint as I continued on. There is no real tutorial in this game and it REALLY doesn’t hold your hand, but in a way, everything is rather clear with what you have to do or where you have to go. There is logic involved in Balrum’s world, so if you just take a few seconds to think your actions through, you can normally figure out how to play on your own.

[...]

The fact that this game is loaded with so much content is what makes it amazing. You can explore, build, craft, tame, fight, and survive without ever following the main story, so that is what intrigues me the most about playing Balrum.

If a player wants to do so, they could play as if Balrum was a Minecraft style survival game, and there would be nothing wrong with that or stopping you from doing so. Furthermore, there are a few quests with multiple choice answers, so you can choose to follow a darker path to mix up gameplay and choices.

Balrum is quite unique and a blast to play. I quickly found myself getting addicted to playing it and exploring everything Darkwood had to offer. Anyone that grew up playing classic Fallout and Diablo would probably eat this game up. In my opinion I think it is well worth the asking price of $14.99 USD. If you like old-school fantasy RPG games (with a heavy focus on Roleplay), tactical combat, large open worlds, adventure, and the freedom to play based on your own playing style and preference, then I highly recommend you check this game out. The initial learning curve might catch you off guard, but if you can stick through it then I think most players would really enjoy this game.

In a new update for Balrum we are provided with more suggestions and updates for the game.

Suggested by the community:
-ALT + left click on items in your Inventory when chests or other containers are open now instantly puts the item into the container.
-When removing objects at your safeplace you get some materials back.
-When enemies with the Reflect buff on them walk into traps the damage is no longer reflected to the player.
-Player placed down traps now don't damage the player.
-Slightly more health/mana is awarded when a potion/food crafting results in a critical craft.

Balrum has seen a few updates since its release and they now have reached version 1.08. In a recent Kickstarter update they also list the suggestions they have received from players and that are in this patch.

Suggested by the community:
-Pet swap (when out of combat you now swap places when walking to the tile where your pet currently is)
-Now we allow special characters when you create your map notes.
-Repairable equipped items appear on the top of the list in the repair panel. (with a different color)
-At your safeplace berry bushes now regrow. (only at your safeplace)
-Now there is a “dual class” warning panel when you dual class.
-Class skill tooltips now tell you about dual classing.
-When dual classed, teachers now tell you why they cannot teach you.
-You are now able to easily swap rings.
-While walking and simultaneously pressing 'M' the map panel won't immediately open the new note panel (if the cursor is inside the map panel).
-You are now able to rename your pet in the pet panel.
-You are now able to pick up multiple items from a stack when pressing the middle mouse button instead of one item.
-Major health/mana potion recipes are now learnable from teachers.
-Your pet is a little less twitchy.
-When you die the menu is now in a different place so involuntary clicks won't be a bother from now on.
-Tab switches now pulsate so they are easier to notice.
-Pet AI commands in the pet menu now have a tooltip with explanation.
-To lower the involuntary chopping of trees and mining during combat there is a text next to the cursor telling you your click will either chop down a tree or start mining.
-When defeating a certain boss the teleporter that teleports you outside now has an effect so you can notice it easier.
-When trying to open your map in the desert a floating text now tells you that there is no map for the desert.
-The fullscreen button in the options panel now informs you that you should check the automatically selected fullscreen resolution for correctness (multiple monitors with different resolutions).

Eye has collected some Balrum reviews:

GamingOnLinux:

[...] Some final thoughts
If you like great 2D art, getting lost in a game world with an interesting story then Balrum could be what you need in your life. It’s a game I have been constantly surprised by, and I can’t wait to play more and find out what the heck is going on.

Also, remember to save your game, lots. Dying can be quite frustrating.

Brainy and Nerdy:

[...] The depth of this game is truly impressive, we have barely scratched the surface because there are also things like random events, rumors, a wound system and the guilds that give this Balrum a lot of replay value and at the price of 13,49 Euros it is quite a steal so you should definitely check it out!

Zero Friction:

[...] Balrum is a game that also has me wanting to produce guides for. There are a lot of mechanics and little things that can be learned. A wiki exists to aid players, but it currently seems spotty. I was slightly confused by how to gain skills when the tooltip on crafting stations told me I needed a trainer. I learned I can do some questing for the village folk and open up the ability to learn new skills, buy new furniture and recipes from the villagers. They become the trainers.

Moving and combat are blended in a hybrid, turn-based environment. I can freely walk around and do activities until I come into aggro-range of an enemy. Strict turn-based movement kicks in when fighting and all actions can be viewed in an action-dialog window.

I feel I’m far from getting to build entire houses, setup livestock fences and my own farms yet, but look forward to it. I can’t wait to build and decorate my own humble abode. Balrum feels like a terrific attempt at combining real isometric cRPG gameplay with open-world living.

Wisdom spotted this little weekend update for Balrum:

Small update before the weekend. (1.021)

Hello there guys!

We are back with another small update.

It is amazing to see people enjoying the game. As you know Balrum is our first game and for our small team your kind words are heartwarming. Thank you all for your support!

Fixes:

• A few of you were experiencing problems with input when switching to fullscreen. We implemented a workaround. This needs testing because we cannot reproduce it on any of our systems.
• Spells that require a dagger, shield or axe now properly indicate this.
• In building mode when you hover over the required materials a tooltip will now tell you information about the given material.
• Pigs and cows now eat apples, pears and walnuts.
• The Random Teleport Potion might teleport you to an undesirable place. This is now fixed.
• One of the puzzles in the game that is lighting based was causing a small graphical anomaly. This is now fixed.
• Typos

Changes:

• A few learnable abilities have been moved to new NPC-s. (mostly after the middle of the game)

For translators. These files have changed:

• dialogs/gui/floating.xml
• dialogs/gui/objects.xml
• dialogs/tradedialogs.xml
• dialogs/cardew/cardewsring.xml
• dialogs/helperdialogs/howtofarm.xml

Have a nice weekend.

Yours,
Balcony Team

Balrum has been patched to include the following fixes:

-The guard at Kyler's village won't open the gates.
-The mana usage of the Forget Crime scroll has been reduced.
-The whistle sound won't get stuck in a loop any more.
-Fixed a CTD when trying to repair critical craft items at a repairer.
-Fixed a CTD when a custom item that was a critical craft reached 0 durability after long usage.
-Fixed a bug that was causing a crash after the first boot of the game on certain systems.
-Implemented a workaround to fix a crash on OSX systems that was happening only on the first boot of the game.

To translators: (thank you for your work)
-After we are done with everything regarding the release we will start contacting you.
-We made changes to the “objects.xml” file.
-The game already supports numerous language ASCII character sets but if you have problems with your language characters please contact us.

Balrum has now been released on Steam.

Released!
1 MARCH - BALCONY TEAM
Hello everyone! Finally! Finally! Balrum is ready!

First of all, thank you for being patient and understanding.

Second of all, thank you to everyone over at Kickstarter for making Balrum a possibility. You guys were so kind and supportive we could not believe it.

We will support Balrum for years to come and enhance it as much as we can. 1.0 is just the beginning :)

We hope that you will enjoy your time spent in the world of Balrum!

Thank you everyone!

Balrum devs: "Everything looking good for a late February release date"

The final days!

Hello there everyone! We hope you are all well.

We have been really busy with Balrum and the game is finally in a good shape. We really needed the extra time. The whole game is finally balanced to our liking and we even could add a few extra features.

At the moment everything is looking good for a late February release.

There were a few major problems that we finally sorted out. The biggest problem was the support of really high refresh rate monitors. Balrum had trouble with 144Hz monitors but thanks to a thorough rewrite of our subsystems Balrum is running smoother than ever. As we were rewriting a lot of things related to the speed of the engine we took the opportunity to make moving around even smoother. You will see the difference!

Thanks Couch!

It looks like Balrum has hit another snag, according to Balcony Team's latest post on Steam.  Thanks, Francis!

The gods of Balrum won't allow us to release the game just yet. We are sincerely sorry everyone but we simply need time to further polish the game for you. Things got over our heads. We hope you will stay with us for the additional time we need.

Here is an update on what happened:
The first half of the game is pretty much very well balanced and bug free. The second half is complete but we are having serious balancing issues. For the past few months or so we totally overworked ourselves and in the end this was the cause of everything. What does this have to do with Balrum? Not much. But we wanted to let you know. These days were really hard but please understand that we are doing this not only for Balrum but for you too. We won't ship a half baked product.

We will keep you guys updated.

Thank you for understanding.

More information.

Balrum will be released on December 16:

Two days delay!

Hello there everyone!
We have to delay the release date by two days. Sorry for the inconvenience but we need the extra time for further testing.

The new release date is 16 December, 2015.

Again, sorry for the small delay. We are working tirelessly to bring you Balrum!

The open world RPG tactical combat Balrum will be released on December 14:

The last year for us was a huge challenge. We never posted about the problems and struggles we had during development because those have nothing to do with Balrum. We have been working pretty much non-stop even on the weekends for ten months now. It is great to see the game near complete. Balrum ended up being a huge game!

You can expect a massive update to the Kickstarter version of the game at the same day when Balrum will be available on Steam. The update will have almost as many changes like the previous mega updates. Content wise you will finally be able to play all five chapters! During the beta you were only able to play chapter one. Some of the big new features are:

Character Creation
Intro
Difficulty Settings (on the hardest mode monsters will be smarter not just tougher)
Tutorial text pop ups
Simple executables with a bundled JRE on all platforms

All of your suggestions have been added to the game (the ones that were reasonable and compatible with the game, pretty much 99% of them). Some of the more extreme ones turned out to be great additions!

The whole game has been redesigned and rewritten completely over a dozen times. Balrum is our first project and we quickly learned that if something is not working or requires a lot of “hacking” to get somewhat working, that means that a part of the engine needs to be rewritten.

We think that its only fair if we tell you what could not fit in the game. The only thing that we could not get into the game are portraits. There are almost 200 NPCs in the game that would have needed portraits.

Most of you sent us your designs regarding NPC/Monster design. Those of you who have not can still send them and they will be included in a patch. (Kickstarter goodies will be included in the final version)

Without your help none of this would have happened. We are truly grateful for your support and you can count on our continued support for Balrum in the future!

We uploaded a new trailer that showcases a few brand new parts of the world. If you are interested you can check it out!

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Version 0.90_252 for Balrum is available now and brings bug fixes and new features.

We added a few features suggested by the community.
Here are a few of them:

• Line of Sight Indicator in combat (optional)
• Small moveable Rested/Thirst/Hunger indicator (optional)
• Transparent MiniMap (optional)
• The survival skill received attention. Now you are able to tend to your wounds at your tent. A higher survival skill level will allow you to restore more health. The “Tend Wounds” function requires a splint
• We added the final teleportation system to the beta. When you examine a teleportation obelisk you will be able to replicate that obelisk at your safe place. This will make your safe place a teleportation node. Also the cooldown of the safe place trinket has been greatly reduced. (If you already discovered the 4 teleport nodes in Darkwood simply touch them again and you will learn how to build it at your safe place.)
• Now there are three quick slot bars at your disposal.
• Daggers now have a proper sprite.

The Kickstarter page for Balrum has been updated with news about some fixes and new features in the game.

We added a feature that we were against for a good amount of time. Auto walk to destination. As Balrum is a hybrid turn based game auto walking in combat could get you killed really fast. So during combat there is no auto walking. Also if anything odd happens while auto walking the walking event should stop making sure there won't be problems. You can try out this new feature with a simple right click to the desired destination. We still don't quite love the feature but we have to admit that it is really comfortable to play this way. Full control with WASD or the mouse still gives a better experience because you can examine everything on the screen at your own pace. With auto walk you might miss something so be cautious when using this new feature.

In Kickstarter update #51 the Balcony team talks about their biggest update for Balrum yet:

The biggest update yet!

Hello everyone!

As we are getting closer to release we are back with a giant update for Balrum!

Backer content is being added to the game and if some of your creations are not entirely compatible with the game you will receive an email.

The entire game has been rebalanced and redesigned. There is almost nothing that hasn't been altered. From basic mechanics to bigger features like the new renderer everything is new. Even the maps have received a huge amount of changes. When you start up the game you might feel that it is familiar but when you play for a few minutes you will definitely feel that you are playing a very different Balrum. We truly hope that you will be pleasantly surprised. Almost every suggestion from the community has been added to the game!

This is the game we had in mind when we started our Kickstarter campaign. As you know Balrum is our first game. So most likely there will be a few bugs lurking around but this time we can finally show you a game that we are proud of. The previous versions were merely a shadow of what Balrum is now.

Thank you very much for your bug reports! All critical bugs have been fixed including a few nasty bugs that prevented you from running the game.

The new version is 0.90_205. You can find it at the usual place. We will send out the download information messages again to ensure all of you get the new version.

Now we would like to talk about some of the bigger changes:

[... lots of interesting stuff...]

Balrum has been greenlit by the Steam-community - Congratulations!

Balrum has been Greenlit!

28 July - Balcony Team

Thank you everyone for voting for us! Balrum has been Greenlit!
Again, thank you for helping us with your votes! :)

Have a great day folks!

Balcony Team, the developers of Balrum, have started the process to be greenlighted on Steam.

Balrum is an old-school, hybrid turn-based, open world, RPG. Balrum features a living fantasy world with deep tactical combat and dozens of side quests next to an epic main quest. In addition to traditional RPG features Balrum has deep crafting which allows the player to craft their own custom items. Balrum also features farming your own crops, building your home, and survival mechanics complemented by the game's main features. In Balrum you control a single character, but your character will have a faithful animal companion as a pet. Your pet is fully controllable and adds greatly to the complexity of the combat. 

Features:

• Real-Time world with Turn-Based Combat 
• A huge Open World to explore with dozens of Dungeons 
• Your Choices define your Class 
• Dozens of Side Quests and an epic Main Quest 
• Building 
• Farming 
• An animal Pet as your loyal companion 
• Deep Crafting Systems (Alchemy, Cooking, Weapon Crafting, Armor Crafting, Item Combining)
• Day/Night Cycle with Weather System 
• Survival Mechanics

This update for Balrum is about the new features and changes that have been implemented, such as the renderer, input, GUI, building, logs and more.

New Renderer
We have written a completely new renderer that uses modern OpenGL. The old renderer is still in the game and will be in the final game to preserve compatibility with really old video cards. The new renderer allows us to use smooth zooming and gamma correction. Lighting is a bit smoother too thanks to the new tech. You don't have to do anything to enable this new feature. The game will determine if your system is capable to handle the required OpenGL. (if you are having problems with the new renderer you can revert back to the legacy renderer using the config file option: modernOpenGL n="false" This was a really big challenge, but we felt that this is an absolutely needed feature. The new zoom is much better than the legacy zoom. With the new renderer we rewritten the display creation system. This system has better compatibility with Linux systems and tries to find alternative methods to start up the game if something goes wrong.

This is the new rendere in action:

The Balcony Team have finally posted a new update for Balrum this week, and they share news about the game engine getting another upgrade. Here is the information.

Greetings dear backers!

We have another engine update for you before we release the content/balance update. Version 0.89_14.

The new version contains dozens of fixes and lots of cosmetic and small gameplay changes. Sadly saves are not compatible.

You can find the updated version at the usual place!

Things are looking good!

At the moment our graphics team is working on tropical art for the game.
We originally thought that we won’t be able to have special “not truly needed” graphics in the game but it looks like we will be able to put in a lot more art! (people sitting at the inn table, children npcs, fat npcs, birds flying around, etc)
We made sure that Balrum has interesting and deep history and if you choose to read everything you find in the game you will be able to discover three thousand years of history.

In the beta there are three music tracks that play in the game (there is four but only three actually start to play). We hope that we will have at least 10 tracks at release.

We still don’t have an official release date, but we are aiming for a summer release! Back to the content update for us!

Version 0.89 of Balrum has been made available, which fixes quite a lot of smaller things and because of those many changes, the save games aren't compatible either. Some of the changes:

-Increased world simulation size (NPCs will be more active with their daily lives)
-New NPC behaviors (for example: the town guards will turn on torches around the villages at sunset)
-Your pet is now smarter and he/she will be more precise while performing your commands
-Added a “Select” button to the pet bar
-Added a reset button to the blacksmithing panel so you can easily restart experimenting
-Added sliders to the GUI making navigating lists way more comfortable
-Added a large number of GUI goodness (fading panels, nicer effects, more precise control)
-When a friendly NPC is in your way (standing in a door for example) you can push him/her so you don't have to wait for them to get out of the way
-More zoom options
-Added a “stackable” property to item tooltips if needed
-Added a faster combat animations toggle button to the options panel
-Added ability to simply press “enter” when the usage is obvious
-The spellbook now reorganizes itself when a savegame is loaded filling the holes that might have been present do to “one cast” spells
-Now you are able to destroy your tent
-New targetless AOE spell effects for certain mobs (be careful where you are standing agains a skeleton warlock)
-While in combat if you point your cursor at your pet you will now see its health and mana
-Added new “gameplay” tab to the options panel 
-Good/Bad deeds are now logged
-Traders now refresh their inventory every other day
-More sleeping NPCs (finally female NPCs go to sleep too)
-Pet agro now grants a small amount of agro towards the player (when the pet was the only combatant, upon dying the enemy did not go after the player)
-Wind now affects berry bushes too
-Not every animal attacks you on sight any more (there are peaceful monsters out there)
-Numerous small map changes
-Added spells with random cooldown times
-Faster startup times
-New internal datatypes for large data
-Lower memory usage
-Overall performance improvements

Version 0.88 of Balrum has been released and with this version all reported problem reports are apparently fixed.

-Finally the 2x zoom option does not make the mouse super fast.
-There is an “always walk” feature for your convenience. (default key for it is X)
-In the options panel you will find a new toggle button for increasing the size of the cursor.
-Right click menus now have a close button.
-When it's raining you can catch some rain. (camping button)
-Entering the escape menu now pauses the game.
-We disabled the minimum resolution checking when resizing the window. (Linux users reported strange behavior)
-There was a rare bug with looping sounds. Now the sound system should properly stop every looping sound effect.

If you copy your saves folder please delete your old config file! Savegames are compatible with this release.

The Balcony Team have been very quiet in the past few months about the development of Balrum. That just changed as they just released a new kickstarter update.

It is way past the release date. Sadly we have to announce that we need more time. We need at least a few extra months. We don't want to release an unfinished product. Balrum has to be polished!

There is good news too! Balrum is getting much bigger and we are adding extra features along the way. The remaining chapters are coming along nicely and we have a big update for you right now.

We would like to ask you guys something. What do you think about an open beta for all backers? The beta version has been out now for a long time. We are way past the release date so we think that we should at least give the beta to those who bought the game but had no beta access.

The beta does not include backer specific and backer created content. The content created by you will be in the final product.

The new beta is available now at the usual place!

It has been a while since Balcony Team posted any new information for Balrum. Though they did post a new kickstarter update about the games progress this week.

The upcoming update!

Hello everyone!

We are making steady progress! The remaining bugs are fixed and the content update is on it's way!

Here is what you can expect from the next beta update:

• Every skill is redesigned and now the skills have more meaning. Every skill has a detailed tooltip explaining the skill.
• The unfinished quests are now finished: (spoiler ahead!!) For example: The sick troll quest is now completable by curing the troll (various ways) or by killing it.
• Building your home has been heavily altered. Now instead of being able to build a house in specific places, the story will reveal a safe place for you where you will be able to build your own home early on in the game. A build button has been added to the main bar.
• Hundreds of new sound effects are in the game.
• Lore bits are finally in the world! This means that you can find old letters and documents that the long forgotten inhabitants of Darkwood wrote. We think that reading these texts will help you understand the history of the woods and Balrum.
• All crafting systems have been redesigned. As we mentioned in our first beta update the crafting systems were really primitive. Now we feel that we have well working and more comfortable crafting systems for you!
• Now there are recipes/schematics hidden in chests and other places in the world that you can learn from.
• Translation support is finally complete! All text in the game is now accessible via simple xml files.
• New AI behaviors are implemented. For example: a mainly ranged enemy will try to use it's ranged abilities more often than it's close combat ones.
• There are already many mini games/puzzles/secrets in dungeons. Now there are a few of them above ground too. Some of these puzzles are only completable if you read the lore bits and find the information you need to solve them.
• Special weapon and armor properties. Quite a few weapons now have special on hit effects and give the player various attributes. There are armor sets in the game now. These sets will give the player extra attributes and effects if a certain amount of the set pieces are equipped.
• Information! There are small helper tooltips where there should be one. These will help you understand how certain mechanics work in the game.
• Item tooltips now tell you more about the item. For example the tooltip of a potato will inform you about how nutritious it is.
• Combinable items are now more useful! There is a new combine button on the main bar. This button will bring up the item combine interface. You will be able to create items that do not require a special crafting facility. For example: fire arrows, torches..etc
• The character panel is redesigned and the quests menu finally has been updated too.

In the upcoming weeks we will send everyone who pledged more than the base game an email regarding their rewards. Some of you have already sent us ideas and descriptions about what you would like your npc,monster or special item..etc, to be like. If you haven't changed your mind you don't have to reply to the new email.

We are working hard on the next update. We hope that we won't need more than a few weeks to release the update!

As always, have a great day and thank you for your continuing support!

The Balrum Kickstarter page has been updated with information on the latest version of the beta, which solves quite a few bugs.

First and foremost, thank you for everyone who sent us bug reports! We have been working on fixing these bugs and rethinking some elements of the game based on your feedback on the forums. It is time to release a new version of the beta. This version is mainly a bugfix version. There are a few content related updates but our main focus was to make the engine as bug free as possible. In the coming weeks we will fix the remaining few issues and any new bugs that we find. After that we will focus on content. Based on your feedback we know that we have to rethink and redesign pretty much all crafting systems and skills. So the upcoming update for the beta will be a major content update. You can download the updated game form the usual link.

It's great to see that there are people who are helping others on the forum. Also, there are people who spent a lot of their time helping us in identifying/reproducing bugs. For this we are sincerely grateful.

The link above will give you detailed information on what has been solved.

Since I haven't seen any new updates on  the Balrum Kickstartrer page I went ahead, and checked the games forums. It seems the Beta got a new update last month.

 Balrum v0.0.85_beta_002

"We updated the beta to version 002. If the window title says 002 than you have the newest version. If it displays Balrum_v0.0.85_beta instead of Balrum v0.0.85_beta_002 than you have an old version so please re-download the game. This is an important update so please make sure you have the 002 version." ~Balcony Team

Any bugs anyone finds need to be e-mailed to Balcony Team at: info@balconyteam.com or at: balcony.softworks@gmail.com. Which they prefer I do not know they just say to e-mail them with bug reports and explain how to replicate the bug if you can.

"There are a few areas that are considered really early prototype versions: -weapon crafting -armor crafting -bow abilities All crafting systems need more work and will be much more complex in the future! Also not all features are in the game (character creation).

We are planning to release a couple of updates for the beta version. With your kind help we hope to fix a few nasty bugs hiding in Darkwood so please if you find a bug and your time allows, send us an email describing the bug and how to reproduce it. Also if you find a fatal error (an error that will cause the game to crash) please send us the debug info by pressing the “Send debug.txt” button in the launcher." ~Balcony Team

The developers of Balrum have been quiet for the past few months. After searching for any new information I found a new video preview of the Beta from Cup Code Gamers.

The Balcony Team shares news in the latest post-funding update the promised Beta of Balrum is now available. Remember it's only for those that bought Beta access.

Beta!

First of all, we are sorry for the extra delay! One thing we learned is that it might seem like there are no problems at all.. but sneaky problems always lurk in the shadows! Oh, and another thing is that we need to be more careful from now-on with deadlines.

All of you who are eligible to participate in the beta already received a key that will allow you to play the beta. For everyone else we put together a video showcasing the new content.

There are a few areas that are considered really early prototype versions: -weapon crafting -armor crafting -bow abilities. All crafting systems need more work and will be much more complex in the future! Also not all features are in the game (character creation).

We are planning to release a couple of updates for the beta version. With your kind help we hope to fix a few nasty bugs hiding in Darkwood so please if you find a bug and your time allows, send us an email describing the bug and how to reproduce it. Also if you find a fatal error (an error that will cause the game to crash) please send us the debug info by pressing the “Send debug.txt” button in the launcher.

The Balcony Team has a new post-funding update for Balum with news of a delay.

Beta Delay

We have got some bad news, and some good news.

The beta is delayed until february. The delay is totally on us. We underestimated the work needed. Thankfully it's nothing too dramatic. We need a few extra weeks to finalise everything for you guys.

On the other side we have a lot of things to share this time around.

• The main quest’s dialogs for chapter one are all done. We hired a british writer who is proofreading for us. :)
• Our composer just finished working on the music for chapter one and all we can say is that it is much better than what we expected. Don’t get us wrong, our expectations were high but our composer exceeded them. Thanks Matt for your hard work! Check out Balrum’s main theme. (Just click for the music here - If the music does not start to play please refresh the page!)
• All chapter one monster types are finished. There are 20 monsters in the game already! All of them use various spells/abilities against each other and of course against the player. :) We won’t show you all of them, but here is one new.

The Balcony Team has a new post-funding update for Balum with a new video showing off the secret of the crystal golems.

The secret of the golems.

As promised, here is an ingame video of the cave that we showed you last time. Our hero finds out, and quickly forgets the secret of the crystal golems. :) 
As you can hear, sound effects are being added to the game. We are really excited about the new environmental sounds in the caves. It is great to finally hear the game not only see it!

Balcony Team has a new post-funding update for Balum showing off a new screenshot of a new environment.

A New Environment!

Hello, everyone!

It's time for an update!

We are working on the chapter 1 dungeons and caves. Designing the caves is really refreshing, because we just finished with the grasslands (640000 tiles of landscape) and it is nice to work on a different kind of environment. :)
Now we only show you 1 screenshot, but you can expect a video of this cave in the near future! ;)

(Click here to see it in full resolution)

The Balcony Team has posted a new post-funding update for Balrum with some new
Dungeon Art.

Dungeons

Hello, everyone!

In this update you can see how dungeons will look like in the game! There will be at least another type of cave/dungeon wall tileset, so don't worry this is not the only design : (Click here for the image)

Thanks to our great graphics team things are going really smoothly! Also, we just received the first demo track of Balrum's main music theme and it is amazing! :)

Balrum has a new post-funding update with a video about new monsters you will face in the game.

Hi there everyone!

Here is a small video update for you featuring a few new monsters!
Hope you like them! :)

Everything is going well, so the beta is on track!
As always, have a great day!

Balrum has a new post-funding update with information about the games music, graphics, monster design, npc design, and add-ons.

Hello there!

Things are looking really good! The engine is really close to the feature freeze state, this means it is near complete!

Our graphics team will start to work in the coming days on the extra art that chapter one needs. We can't tell you a lot, but there are 8 new monsters that will be in chapter one and they are not your regular fantasy type monsters! Also, the caves in Balrum will look really good! ;)

We contacted a lot of musicians! This means that Balrum will have an amazing soundtrack in the near future! (if you are a musician and you contacted us in the past, but you have not received an email regarding the music of Balrum, please contact us) 

Dear Backers, we sent out emails to those of you who bought some of the addons! If you bought addons, but somehow you have not recieved the email, please contact us! 

We also sent out the design a monster, and design your NPC” emails! All of you have received the email, but if something went wrong please contact us!

Balrum has a new post-funding update that deals with ambient lighting, doors, water, new renderer, and the games save system.

We changed the way our renderer works mainly because when using the 2x zoom option there were a few errors that we needed to eliminate, but at the same time we also added ambient lighting. Ambient lighting will help us in creating the atmosphere of certain areas like swamps, dungeons..etc.

If you looked carefully enough at our pre-alpha videos you might noticed that doors were problematic. They were hard to select and they sometimes were rendered incorrectly. We fixed the doors and rewrote the „selection” algorithm so that everything can be selected with ease.  

The savegame option was disabled in the pre-alpha demo but now it is working. The main thing that we really want with our save system is it to be patch friendly. This means that if we release a patch we want to make sure that you don't need to restart the game because we broke the system with the fixes included in the patch.

Also lakes and rivers are important. We have not shown you guys how our water effect looks because it will change and we are still not satisfied with it, but here it is so you can have an idea on how it will look.

The Balcony Team has posted a new post-funding update for Balrum. Topics include pets, the crime system, translation support, the resizeable GUI, and the new FOW.

Hello everyone! We promised to keep you informed and here we are! We took a few days off but development resumed on this Monday.

We finished the crime system. In our pre-aplha „demo” the system was disabled because it was buggy and unfinished, but now it works flawlessly. So no more stealing without consequences! ;)

We promised that you guys will be able to translate the game and the system for that is complete! You simply need to edit a xml file and your translation will appear in-game!  

The Balcony Team has posted a short post-funding update to announce that a PayPal option is now avaiable. It's perfect for those that still want to back the project, or couldn't use kickstater.

The PayPal page is finally up and working!

Just click here!

If we reach a stretch goal with the kickstarter sum + PayPal we will announce it! 

There are a few extra options that you can select like here on kickstarter. These extra options will be available for 30 days. After the 30 day period you will be only be able to purchase Balrum with no extras. Also after the 30 day period PayPal purchases won't count to unlock stretch goals. 

 Thank you for yours support guys! Let's hope that we can unlock a few stretch goals! :)

Well a miracle did happen as Balrum earned over $13,000 in one day to get funded. Here is the new update from The Balcony Team to thank everyone.

We are funded! Balrum will be as big as we wanted it to be, we don't have to scale back! :) Thank you for supporting us! A lot of you pledged an enormous amount to help us get funded!

Exciting things will happen with Balrum in the coming months and we will keep you informed here on kickstarter and at our webpage! It was a hard Kickstarter but we made it! We are so touched by the great feedback that we recieved from you guys! We will setup a PayPal option so that people can still support us! Check out our website or click on the PayPal logo on our Kickstarter page! (It will be up and running in a few days)

WOW this is amazing!!

Thank you again to all of you who made Balrum possible!
You made our dream possible!

Balrum is entering the last 20 hours and still needs $10,000 to get funded. At this point things dont look to good but we have a new update. So keep spreading the word and a miracle might happen.

Hi there you guys! The last day is here! Less than 24 hours to go! We still need a bit but we can make it! Please help us spread the word, tell everyone you know, post on forums, send emails and do whatever you can. :)

Thank you very much!

Balrum is entering the the last 40 hours and has another update for us. It's looking grim at this point but there is still time.

Hi there you guys! :) So much passion around the project! We are at the 48 hours mark! We still have a way to go, but we can do it! :)

Let's talk about the gift first :)

If you backed our project you will receive the expansion of Balrum for free!! The expansion will mainly focus on the islands of Balrum. So yes, if you helped us out here on Kickstarter you will get the expansion for free! We are super excited about this :), one word: voodoo, ok two words: voodoo, underworld. And.. you will be able to download 2 high resolution wallpapers. One Balrum wallpaper and one wallpaper about the expansion! And again, we deeply thank you for your support folks! Thank you!

Special Dungeon:

All of our backers will receive a special key that will unlock a special dungeon that can be found in the underground city. The underground city is where people escaped from the fiery wrath of the old gods ages ago. This is a special dungeon, you can only leave by the exit not the entrance. It will be a challenging dungeon with lots of surprises and secrets! Non backers will also be able to access this dungeon but they need to find the key and finding it will be a long process.

Balrum has a new kickstarter update about new addons you can add to your pledge.

Kickstarter only Add-Ons! What are add-ons? They're nice extras that you can add to your existing reward level, regardless of the reward you claimed. If you want an add-on, just increase your pledge without changing your existing reward. You can buy multiple addons. At the end of the campaign you'll receive an official email asking which add-on you wanted.

If you have a 200$ or more reward you will recieve all addons (if you want)!

DRM free digital soundtrack $8 : Get a digital copy of the music of Balrum.  
Extra copy of Balrum $10 : Now that you backed us you can get yourself, or for your friend, another copy of the game for less! 
Create a Magical Item $15 : Create your item that we will place in the world! Specify the item type, write it's lore, it's stats, describe it's icon! We will make an icon for it based on your description! 
Special animal tamer $20 : There are a few really exotic animals in the world of Balrum. You will be able to tame these animals. Players without this addon will be able to tame all the animals except these special ones. (these special animals are mainly cosmetically different but they will have a little extra in them from a gameplay standpoint) 
Ring of light! $20 : You will recieve a ring right when you start the game. This ring emits a constant light that is not flickering and if you have it you don't need to use torches. You can specify the color of the light!
Bulk, get them all $60 : Get every Add-On for a special price!

The Balcony Team has released another update for Balrum with a new gameplay video.

Hi there folks! Here is 16 minutes of pure random gameplay from the kickstarter pre-alpha version. It's not much but we are getting there! :) (we simply could not cut out a few things because our machines are so slow...arrg)

As always, thank you for your support and have a nice day!

The Balcony team is back with another update for Balrum with more screenshots, and talking about Steam. The project is nearing it's final days and needs help so keep spreading the word.

Hello there!

We are working hard on four of the "Dark Woods" maps of the game. Check out a few new screenshots: balconyteam.com/screenshots/

We will try to get Balrum on Steam! If we get funded we will start a Greenlight campaign.

Balrum has had another quick update this time dealing the content density of the game.

Here you can see how we identify areas with low content. If an area is low on content we fill it up taking the surrounding areas into account. This little map shows you the vegetation/buildings and frendly/hostile NPCs. (this is only 1 map, we are planing to have at least 30 large mainland maps and dozens of dungeons)

The Balcony Team has released another update for Balrum showcasing the games Lighting.

A big thank you for our supporters and welcome new backers! :)

In the video you can see how dynamic lighting works in action. There is a huge test light under the cursor, it pops from one tile to another without smooth fading but as you saw in previous videos, other (non test) lights have smooth fading (for example the light that the player emits has smooth fading).

This dynamic lighting works brilliantly on our "test" machine the HP Mini 2140, so you will be able to enjoy these effects on low end systems!

The Balcony Team is back with another update for Balrum. This time the update shows the game editor you can use to make mods.

Here you can see how our not so human friendly editor looks like. We would love to polish and release our tools so you guys could create your own adventures, but we can't promise mod support right now! If we do well, we see no problem with working an extra few months on our tools so we could release them. (after the game's release ofc)

Thank you for you support!

The Balcony team has another update for Balrum. This time the topics include how you role play, and announcing they have joined  Kicking It Forward.

Balrum is an RPG, but what is your role in the game? Who are you?

You are a 20 year old farmer boy who lives with his grandfather. During your years you learned how to be a decent carpenter, how to take care of your grandfather's farm and how to be a somewhat acceptable hunter. So in chapter one you will be playing the role of a young boy. People will ask you to help them build houses or repair structures, help in hunting and help with other people's farms.

You have a strong connection with your grandfather because he is the only family you know. Your parents died before your people entered the Dark Woods. You often ask about your parents but your grandfather always tells you that it's better if you don't know about them. Everyone in the Dark Woods like you, but somehow they seem distant. After chapter one you will know much more about yourself and you will have a purpose to leave the Dark Woods and explore the entire world of Balrum, from here on your actions will define the role that you play.

Kicking It Forward:

We are proud to announce that we joined the Kicking It Forward Community!
We are pledging to put at least 5% of our profits back into the Kickstarter Community.

The Balcony team has released two more updates for Balrum. The topics talk about the games AI,writer, pets, voodoo, and new tiers.

AI:

Our AI system is affected by light and sound. This means that your footsteps might be heard, so if you want to be sneaky you should wear footwear that does not make a lot of noise! (of course you might want to create noise on purpose..to distract NPCs..noisemaker arrow..)

Also if you craft a weapon or create a camp..etc these activities make a lot of noise so be prepared to get unexpected visitors! :)
As mentioned before, light plays a big role in our game. If you are in a spot that is well lit , you will be easier to spot at night! (don't forget that you can disable torches on the wall with your water arrows!)

As you know by now we are creating a living world! (check out our X update) And a living world needs rules:

If someone sees you stealing the guards will be alerted, or not if the person who saw you thinks that he can take you by himself!
If you sleep in a bed that is not yours don't be surprised if you will get thrown out of that bed.

Don't even try to steal from a farm that is not your own, people will know that you are a thief and might not talk to you. (if you get caught of course)
If you start a fight and there was no apparent reason to your violence, the guards will come for you!

There are other reason why you can get in trouble like if you practice magic at a place where it is prohibited or if you run around waving your weapon in a high security area.

It's not cheap to erease your criminal past!

There are options to save yourself, use the "forget" spell or simply get rid of the person who saw you. Although these options are only going to help you if the guards have not been alerted yet!

You will see patrolling guards and even monsters and this is where sneaking will be a really helpful skill.

Writer:

After we get funded we will hire a writer who will help us create high quality texts for the game.

The Balcony Team has released another quick update for Balrum. The update explains what the system requirements will be, and they even show us a new video. The project sofar has only earned $10,416 of $50,000 with 20 days left.

When we started development our main goal with the engine was flexibility and performance. Since Balrum is a 2D game we wanted to make sure that we support even really old hardware! In the video below you can see Balrum running on a 2009 netbook, the HP Mini 2140.

This little machine helped us greatly in development since if you write bad code you will instantly see those pesky microseconds go up using this netbook. :) On a decent machine you see no performance problems even when you write really bad code since PCs nowadays are super fast! This netbook doesn't even break a sweat, so the „real” minimum system requirements are even lower than the following:

CPU: single core Intel Atom N270 / 1.6 GHz
RAM: 1GB
GPU: Mobile Intel 945GSE Express

If you have a desktop PC that is 7 years old Balrum will most likely run perfectly! You can see that the system requirements for Balrum are low.

Experience George's shaky cam vision! :D

The Balcony Team has released a few more updates for Balrum. They released a new video showing how the day-night cycle works, the games weather system, and more screenshots.

Balrum has a 24 hour day-night cycle system as well as a dynamic weather system. Some in-game events are closely related to the time of day and weather.

For example, some monsters will only show themselves at night, and you will see small pools of rain after a storm. There are magical items that you can only craft at a specific time

And lets not forget the screenshots.

We are approaching 20%! You guys are amazing! :) Here are a few screenshots! And check out our gallery at our website!

The Balcony team is hard at work releasing more updates for it's kickstarter Balrum. Keep spreading the word as the game could use more funding.

Your home can be really important in Balrum. If you have a home people can visit you and even leave a quest or a note. If you sleep in your own bed you will gain various buffs for sleeping well. We give you total freedom in building your home. The only restriction is where you can build. This is not a real restriction because you will be able to build at hundreds of locations. You can build your farm right next to your home. Cooking, alchemy, creating weapons/armor and other skills will require special objects like crafting tables. You can build these „tables” right in your home.

The Balcony Team has posted another update for Balrum, and this time it's to talk about maps. As of right now the kickstarter is on track with $7,784 with 24 days left. So keep spreading the news and ask other sites without spamming to post about the game.

Balcony Team have posted a new kickstarter update showing us how your farm will work.

We are going to use Ida-s farm to show you how farming works at the moment in the game. As with pretty much everything, what you see is in alpha state. There will be magical plants that require a special environment, special fertilizer, and even special light!

Balrum has a new update with a video showing us how to create potions, and announcing  the project has been 10% funded.

We just reached 10% of our goal!

Thank you so much for your support!

Now you will be able to see how big a difference potions and crafting in general can make in our game. Of course the stat balance is in alpha state so we might change a few things, and the plants that we use to create our potion in the video are not so easy to find!

Again we use our developer powers to show you this feature of the game! :)
Drinking a potion that gives your character a boost in a certain stat that lasts for X turns will appear as a buff.

There are plants that can worsen the stats of your creation and there are plants that can greatly increase it's power. Also some of the plants in the world are good for increasing the buff duration of your potion.

You will be able to boost almost all your stats through crafting.

The Balcony Team has posted a few updates for it's kickstarter game Balrum. So lets get started as we missed a few updates.

The first update is called, "About us and Balrum".

Since we are an unknown developer team we felt that we need to talk about ourselves a little bit. After that we will talk about Balrum too so hang on! :)

We are two greenhorn game developers who want to create an RPG that is not your typical RPG game and cannot be categorised so easily. Did I mention greenhorn? Yes, you need to start somewhere. :) We started to work on Balrum about two years ago. We created a custom engine because we wanted total control over our game and also we wanted to learn how things work inside a PC. The result is and engine that has low system requirements and is flexible enough for us to implement things pretty fast.

Next we have a new video.

Time for a little video update! 

In this video we use our dev powers to create interesting situations in the world! :) Spawning spiders and wolves!

Up next they talk about modding and new rewards.

NEW REWARD. EARLY BIRD! Digital downloadable copy of Balrum: DRM-free for PC, Mac, and Linux. (you get the game for all platforms) Get the game for a special early bird price!

NEW REWARD. EARLY BIRD! (All previous rewards) and you get everything listed in the LORE reward, but for a special early bird price!

NEW REWARD. LORE: (All previous rewards) and your name will be inscribed on one of the worlds objects. This object might be a painting, book, statue, armor, weapon, letter, recipe, stone tablet or something alike.

Modding: We cannot guarantee that we will have modding tools at launch, but modding is something that we really would like to support! The editor that we wrote for the game is somewhat human friendly now, but it is certainly not ready for the masses. :) This means that after we release Balrum there is a good chance that we will be able to work on getting the editor in shape!

Translation: We support translators, they will be able to translate the games text. It will be simple to start translating because only xml files need to be altered.

The developers of Balrum have sent news that their kickstarter is now live. The Balcony Team is asking for $50,000 to finish and polish the game. Give the game a look I don't think you will be disappointed.

Balrum has a new update on changes to the game thanks to community input. In case anyone forgot Balrum was announced last month, but the developers pushed back the kickstarter to improve the game.