The Turn Based Lovers interviewed Curious Panda Games about their game The Iron Oath:

10 TURN INTERVIEW WITH THE IRON OATH DEVELOPERS

THE IRON OATH IS A TURN-BASED TACTICAL RPG WHERE THE FATE OF YOUR MERCENARY COMPANY RESTS ON YOUR DECISIONS. CUSTOMIZE YOUR ROSTER, BUILD YOUR RENOWN, AND DISCOVER THE SECRETS THAT AWAIT IN THE MEDIEVAL FANTASY REALM OF CAELUM.

In the ever-evolving landscape of indie gaming, few titles have sparked as much intrigue and admiration as The Iron Oath, a turn-based tactical RPG that immerses players in the rich, medieval fantasy realm of Caelum. Today, we’re thrilled to sit down again with Curious Panda Games, the masterminds behind this dark fantasy world, where the fate of a mercenary company lies in the balance of player decisions. From the sprawling time scales to the intricate character backstories, The Iron Oath offers a unique blend of strategy, storytelling, and survival in a world teeming with danger and opportunity.

As we celebrate the game’s much-anticipated 1.0 launch, we delve into the creative process, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped The Iron Oath into one of 2023’s standout tactical RPGs. Join us as we explore the journey of its creation, the nuances of its gameplay, and the vision that drives its creators.

Howdy! I just want to say thanks for doing the interview and congrats on the big 1.0 launch!

Thank you! It’s been pretty hectic since our launch, but we’re happy to take some time to answer a few questions!

First Turn
In most RPG’s, the time scales work in the span of days to traverse their worlds, but your game can take months to complete quests and dungeons, as well as the campaign can last hundreds of years. What drove you to work with such a large scale of time, and what difficulties did you run into?

We were initially inspired by the time scale of games like Crusader Kings, and we liked the idea of playing with multiple generations of characters and seeing the world evolve over time through wars and successions. In practice, this was very hard to pull off, and finding a balance where time moved fast enough but players still got to spend enough time with their characters before they retired proved too difficult to achieve.

In the end, we ended up scaling back on the time progression by quite a bit. When we launched into Early Access, we also realized that a lot of players were resistant to the idea of their characters aging and retiring, so it’s something that we’ve put less emphasis on and chose to focus our efforts elsewhere. They still age and retire eventually, but there’s enough of a buffer there where the main storyline can be completed before that happens. We think it was the right choice, as the initial time scale was also problematic from a storytelling point of view.

Second Turn
How do you balance when you find one class is overpowered? Is it a matter of debuffing them, buffing other classes, or altering the world in a way to make the class more viable?

A little of everything. There have been a few abilities that have needed to be buffed, nerfed, or reworked, but in general the classes each have their use and we feel they are quite balanced. Most enemy types have damage resistances and vulnerabilities, which allows each class a chance to shine depending on what you’re up against. So even if one class is perceived as slightly weaker than the rest, they will still be useful in dealing with certain enemies and situations. Overall, we’re not too concerned with achieving a perfect balance since it’s a single-player game (especially if it’s a nerf to something that many players are enjoying), but we’re always listening to feedback and will step in when tweaks are needed.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

The tactical RPG The Iron Oath will leave Early Access today:

The Iron Oath

Introduction

The Iron Oath is a turn-based tactical RPG that is set in a dark fantasy world. Recruit, manage, and embark on missions with a roster of adventurers, testing the limits of their mortality. Every decision made carries weight and can have a minor or major influence on your characters and the world that surrounds them. As you and your guild progress, the world changes dynamically, enabling new storylines to discover and resulting in a unique experience for every playthrough.

Features

Tactical turn-based Combat: Deadly foes, traps and destructible objects means one misstep could be your party's undoing. Proper planning and execution is vital to your success.
A Large and Dynamic Overworld: 9 regions with over 50 hubs to visit. Cities can be overtaken, destroyed and rebuilt; while various factions can emerge, rise and fall. A playthrough can potentially last hundreds of years, resulting in many changes to the initial world state.
In-depth Guild Management: Control your guild's finances, resources, alliances and roster. Your characters will age, retire and frequently die in combat and you will need to recruit and train their replacements.
Character Development: Every recruitable character has their own personal backstory, incorporating events that have taken place during your playthrough. Their motives, alignment and traits all stem from this, but each of the three is subject to change as their career progresses.
Dynamic Dialogue: Characters will converse over a variety of subjects such as the current state of the world or relevant past experiences, along with offering their input on any decisions you face.
Decisions Matter: Your choices bear consequences and they can affect your characters, your guild and the many factions that exist throughout the world.
Detailed Pixel Art: Meticulously hand-crafted pixel art characters, animations and environments help set the mood for your journey.

The tactical RPG The Iron Oath will be released on November 2:

Release Date Announcement & Expeditions Update

Hello mercenaries! We're thrilled to announce that The Iron Oath is leaving Early Access and will be releasing on November 2nd, 2023.

We're excited for returning players to check out all the changes and additions we've made over the last year and a half, and to welcome in new players who have been waiting for the game's full release. The 1.0 release brings a conclusion to the main campaign, but that doesn't mean we're done with the game. There are still more stories to tell in the world of Caelum, and we're looking forward to continuing the journey with you!

We'd like to give a big shoutout to our Early Access community. Your feedback and support has been awesome and we can't thank you enough for helping shape the game into what it is today.

Price increase & last chance sale!

To celebrate the announcement, The Iron Oath is now 10% off until October 11th. This will be the last chance to get the game at a discount, as the price will be increasing to $25 (USD) when we fully release on November 2nd.

[...]

Thanks Kordanor!

Henriquejr spotted the test branch 0.7.007a for The Iron Oath:

Public Test Branch (0.7.007a)

Hello mercenaries,

The Tales by the Fire update is now available on the public test branch!

To opt in: Go to your Steam Library, right click The Iron Oath and select Properties. From there, go to the Betas tab and select "Public test branch" from the drop down menu.

You can use your current save on the test branch, but you will need to first copy over the file. Navigate to: "C:\Users\Your Name\AppData\LocalLow\Curious Panda Games\The Iron Oath", and copy your save file from the "saves" folder into the "testBranch_saves" folder. When loading an old save from within a dungeon, you will be kicked out of the dungeon (but not penalized with fatigue or anything).

With that said, we do recommend testing on a fresh campaign for now, as there are still some things we need to clean up (such as balancing the frequency of the various dungeon events).

There are still some remaining bugs that we're working on, but in the meantime it is playable and ready for testing, so we'd appreciate as many eyes on it as we can get! We have been fairly thorough, so hopefully there aren't too many bugs that we haven't discovered. We expect it to remain on public test for at least a week, but it'll depend on how many new bug reports we receive.

Here are the changes and additions with this update:

• New Class, the Balladeer: The 8th class in the game fills the role of a pure support character, buffing allies and debuffing enemies
• Job System: Characters can now be assigned jobs within the company. Each job has its own unique bonuses that assist the party during dungeon exploration.
• Dungeon Exploration: We've made some pretty significant changes to dungeon exploration, and each dungeon's layout is now fully visible. Tiles that have events are marked as such, but the identity of the events (aside from boss locations) are not revealed until you move to or scout the tile. We made this change to allow the player to make more informed decisions when navigating a dungeon, instead of blindly moving along a generally linear path as it was previously.
• New and Reworked Dungeon Events: We've introduced a number of new event types such as Shrines, which allow you to sacrifice something to receive a blessing. We've also reworked many of our old events to better synergize with the new job system, and most events can now be revisited if you did not complete it the first time (so you can choose to hold off on interacting with a Shrine, and still come back to it later if you wanted to)
• Dungeon Time Meter: The time threshold for new dungeon modifiers has been significantly increased to 48 (on the default difficulty). Moving to an unexplored tile costs 2 Time, while backtracking costs 1.
  Dungeon Modifiers: All dungeons now start with 1 Positive and 1 Negative Modifier which is displayed in the party select screen. It's important to pick classes and jobs which best suit the modifiers at play! With that change and the aforementioned changes to Time, players will now accrue less dungeon modifiers via the passage of time (max of 2), but the ones that are applied will be more potent. We've removed many of the old trivial modifiers, added a few new ones, and tweaked a few existing ones.
• Specialized City Offerings: Cities are now more specialized in what they offer to the player. Certain gear and classes will be more common in specific cities (eg. Valkyries and Icebinders are commonly found in the Northern Hold, but you'll still be able to occasionally find them elsewhere too)
• Character Trait Quantity: We've reduced the starting number of traits each character has. They now spawn with 2 combat/physical traits and 1 personality trait. The previous number of traits was too high, making it too hard to keep track of while also making characters feel less unique since there was a high chance they shared traits with your other characters. In the future, characters will be able to "grow" and acquire more traits as you play the game through dungeon events and company moments.
• New and Modified Difficulty Levels: We've added two more difficulty levels and adjusted the default difficulty of Battle-Hardened to be slightly easier. If you played on and enjoyed one of the three previous difficulty levels, you'll want to move up 1 level from where you were (eg. If you played Adventurer, you should now play Soldier, if you played Battle-Hardened, you should now play Warlord). The difficulty levels are now: Adventurer, Soldier, Battle-Hardened, Warlord, Emperor.
• Morale effects on combat: Your characters' Morale now affects them in combat, making it more important to manage properly. If a character has 75+ Morale, the duration of negative conditions applied to them will be reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 1 Round). If characters have 25 Morale or less, there is a chance (it's a dice roll which takes into account their current Morale) on their turn that they will delay their turn until the end of the round. Once their turn comes up again, if their Morale is still below 25, another roll will determine whether they skip their turn entirely for that round.

[...]

Henriquejr spotted patch 0.6.013 for The Iron Oath:

Patch Notes 0.6.013

Hey all, we've just pushed a patch to fix up some remaining bugs, mostly centered around abilities. Barring any other issues that come up this week, this will likely be the last patch until our 'Tales by the Fire' update coming in June. We're excited to get to work on that and give dungeon crawling some much needed attention :)

Additions and Changes

• (Stormcaller) Changed Arc Lightning's Stasis Field upgrade to apply Sleep on targets (previously Rooted and Slowed)
• (Stormcaller) Wind Surge's Headwind upgrade now removes buffs from enemies adjacent to the target ally and Slows them for 1 Round (previously it inflicted a whole array of stat debuffs on a selected enemy, but we felt it didn't synergize well enough with the ability's base function)
• The Stormcaller can now target himself with Rainfall
• The Icebinder can now target himself with Arctic Armor
• Guardian's Radiance passive now requires 5 stacks to proc (up from 4) and now cleanses her own conditions too
• Due to the above change, Judgment's Vengeance upgrade now increases damage by 15% per stack of Radiance, down from 25%
• Reworked the Icebinder's Frost Burst ability and upgrades. We felt it was too niche, complicated, and required too much set up. By default it now targets a single Frozen enemy, removing the condition and dealing damage to them. We've also increased the damage multiplier of it to compensate for the changes.
• You can now control the push direction of the Pyrolancer's Return To Cinder ability (same functionality as deploying Ice wall)
• Added new portrait highlights when targeting enemies and allies in combat so it's easier to see who you're targeting
• Removed the progress pips for the Morale, Defense, and Movement stats since they cannot be ranked up

[...]

Henriquejr spotted a major update for The Iron Oath:

Major Update: Friends and Foes is out now!

Hello mercenaries!

The Friends and Foes update is now live! We've received a lot of valuable feedback and bug reports during the last few weeks, and we want to give a big thanks to everyone who helped us playtest the update on the test branch. We also appreciate everyone being patient and supportive as we worked to get this update complete over the last several months. It was a big undertaking for just the two of us, and the amount of testing and tuning needed was comparable to when we were preparing to launch the game last year.

While there is still a bit of refinement to be done, we're happy with how it turned out, and we feel all the changes accomplished what we set out do: giving players a better sense of progression and choice with their characters, and making combat more engaging and less repetitive with new enemies and mechanics.

Before diving into all the changes, we want to address the feedback we've received on the update's difficulty. Players will be happy to hear that we've raised up Accuracy to be more in line with how it was prior to this update. While we do want players to have to work a bit make their Basic Attacks land (with Flanks, Staggers, Stuns), we realize that missing half the time by default isn't fun either.

With regards to overall difficulty, Battle-Hardened is now a bit easier than it was when the update first went onto the test branch. It may still be a bit too difficult right now for new players (or players who haven't played in a while), but we don't want to make any drastic changes right now since it would affect the other difficulty settings. For now, we've added the ability to switch your difficulty setting at any time in the pause menu, and we'll also be adding some new difficulty settings (and tuning existing ones as needed) in a future update.

Finally, we want to say a quick word on the state of dungeon exploration. Due to all the changes, dungeons are currently a bit barren right now. Our goal for the next major update is improving the whole dungeon experience by tweaking some mechanics, adding more event types, and also rewarding the player with better loot.

With all that out of the way, let's move onto the changes made with the release of Friends and Foes :)

Friends and Foes: Summary of Changes

[...]

The updated roadmap for The Iron Oath:

Updated Roadmap, 'Friends and Foes' Status Update

Hey everyone,

Firstly, we'd like to apologize for the lack of official communication during the last month. We were hoping to release Friends and Foes in January, but unfortunately this update has continued to take longer than planned. While it is content complete, there is a lot of testing, tweaking, and bug fixing still to be done to ensure that it lives up to our standard. The build will be available on the public test server 2~ weeks from now, but we expect that it's going to need to stay there for a few more weeks so we can gather your feedback on balance, and fix any bugs that you may find. Because of this, we're officially delaying the update until March.

We know many of you have been anticipating the update and will be frustrated by the news. We are sorry for the delays, but we do believe it will be worth the wait in the end. In hindsight, this update could have been broken up into 2 or 3 smaller ones, and we'll take this as a learning experience and apply it to future updates.

On that note, we've updated our Early Access Roadmap to reflect the changes to Friends and Foes, and the updates that will follow it.

Thanks for your support and understanding.

-Curious Panda Games
MORE ABOUT THIS GAME

Thanks Heriquejr!

The devs of The Iron Oath announced a new update:

Autumn Sale & Update Preview

Hey everyone! It's been a bit since our last update, so we wanted to give you a preview of what's coming to The Iron Oath in our next major update titled Friends and Foes. We can't give an exact date just yet, but you can expect to see it soon as we're just entering the polish and testing phase. We're also happy to announce that The Iron Oath is currently 10% off during the Steam Autumn Sale from November 22 - 29! Now let's dive in to the upcoming changes:

New Ability Upgrades

With the Friends and Foes update, all ability upgrades will be unlocked, giving you full freedom to customize each of your characters with their most powerful upgrades. We've also gone through each ability, making changes to their base functions and/or tweaking their upgrade trees (more unique effects, fewer +Charge upgrades).

Attributes and Leveling Overhaul

We've reworked our attribute system, scrapping the concept of 'Primary Attributes' such as Physique and Finesse. The attributes available are now: Health, Morale, Power, Mending, Defense, Evasion, Accuracy, Critical Chance, Speed, Movement.

Most of these you'll be familiar with. The biggest change here is that we've split up Power into two attributes. Power will now determine your damage output, while Mending determines your healing (and shielding) output. With both damage and healing previously being handled by one stat, it meant your characters could excel in both areas without compromise, which from a balance perspective wasn't ideal!

Leveling up has also been redone. There wasn't a whole lot of room for progression with the previous system, and the points you did earn didn't move the needle much on any one stat (aside from maybe Health!). Going forward, you'll be granted a handful of points (varying by level) to spend toward ranking up an attribute. By default it costs 6 points to rank up and increase a stat, but characters can also excel in some stats (determined upon their creation), making it only cost 5 points to rank it up. Overall, ranking up an attribute will have a much larger impact on your character then it currently does, and the relative strength of a high level character will be much more noticeable compared to a fresh recruit.

We've also changed up the leveling table, getting rid of the soft cap at level 10 where you stopped gaining attribute points. The soft cap is now 20, with the hard cap being 40. After level 20, you will still earn attribute points, just not as much as the previous levels. The XP requirements for levels have also been adjusted with these changes in mind.

The way attributes are assigned to a character upon their creation has been reworked. Each attribute now has a min and max value it can be assigned, depending on the class. For example, a Pyrolancer's starting Health can vary between 375-450, while a Huntress' defaults between 275-350. With this change, along with characters excelling in certain stats, we're hoping each character will feel more unique, opening up more build possibilities for you to explore.

Finally, we've removed the stat modifiers that were tied to a character's age. While we liked the idea of your characters having a "peak", in practice it was a little confusing and it also worked against the feeling of progression once they got to an older age.

[...]

Thanks Henriquejr!

Magnetic Mag checked out the tactical RPG The Iron Oath:

The Iron Oath Game Review: A Fantasy Mercenary-Company RPG Set In An Open World

We had a chance to check out Curious Panda Game's latest turn-based tactical RPG, The Iron Oath, and wrote down our thoughts so you can decide if this game is right for you.

My 20 hours I’ve clocked in The Iron Oath thus far have been a very refreshing early access experience. 

I’ve had only minor bug encounters and no gameplay hiccups while working my way through the tutorial of The Iron Oath, a new turn-based tactical RPG that hit Steam in early access back in April (2022). 
First Impressions Of The Iron Oath

I was only reminded that I was playing an early access game when I entered dialogue with a character who had a picture of a silhouette as a stand in for an NPC picture or when I encountered a glass ceiling while leveling up members of my company.

Certain branches of the skill tree are “locked in this early access build,” which I would assume is due to balancing work that still needs to be done. Other than that, you can expect to be met with a cohesive early access experience.

If I had to describe The Iron Oath I would probably say it's a little bit like Battle Brothers and The Darkest Dungeon had a baby that really loves D&D. 

[...]

Final Thoughts Of The Iron Oath

The Iron Oath is already an impressively realized tactical RPG. 

There was obviously a lot of thought that went into worldbuilding, lore, and the main quest line. The phenomenal music score alone was enough to keep me coming back to this world. Once the skill trees get fully unlocked and as the devs do a little more work polishing the UI, balancing, and adding some quality of life improvements I think it could be something special. 

The devs clearly have a focused vision and pay attention to the details which makes it feel fresh even though it’s not spearheading any new ground as a genre. If you’ve made it this far, I’d assume you already know if this is the kind of game for you. If it is, I recommend picking it up on steam to help support Curious Panda Games in their endeavor. 

The next big update for The Iron Oath is called Fire and Ice:

Fire and Ice Update Details

Hello mercenaries!

It's been just over a month since our release! Now that we've gotten the majority of bugfixes and QoL changes out of the way, we're currently working on our first major update called Fire and Ice, which will be available in June. We'll have an exact date for you as we get a little closer, but for now we wanted to share some extra details on what will be included in that update (and some more details beyond that).

New Class: Icebinder

Our 7th class, the Icebinder, is a frost mage that specializes in crowd control. He has a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies.

• Arctic Armor: Apply a Damage Shield on an ally for 2 Rounds which also grants Frost Resistance and Immunity to Freeze.
• Cold Feet: Place an ice trap on a vacant cell. Targets that step on it take damage and are Rooted in place for 1 Round. If the condition is not cleansed, they will become Frozen on their next turn for 2 Rounds.
• Frostburst: Target an ice wall or frozen unit and channel for 5 turns, shattering the ice and damaging all adjacent targets.
• Frozen Tomb: Target self, ally or enemy and Freeze them for 2 Rounds, cleansing negative conditions. Targets are Immune to damage, but the ice can be destroyed.
• Ice Wall: Summon a destructible wall of ice on any cell that partially blocks line of sight. If the cell is occupied, the target is pushed away. Lasts until destroyed.
• Impaling Ice: Target up to 2 cells within range and damage the occupants, Slowing them for 1 Round, and applying Ice Terrain.

We'll be adding at least three more classes during Early Access that will expand the roster to 10. The ones currently planned are the Balladeer (healer), Executioner (tank), and Mystic (ranged support).

[...]

Thanks henriquejr!

RPGFan checked out The Iron Oath:

The Iron Oath Early Access Impressions

Artwork of character silhouettes from The Iron Oath.

If you’ve ever fancied being the leader of your very own mercenary group, then perhaps The Iron Oath is already on your radar. Having recently entered Early Access on Steam, developer Curious Panda Games’ second release is already off to a great start; while some of our readers may have been burned in the past by Early Access games that never reached full release, The Iron Oath’s team are proactive with both updates and communication. If you have ambitions of dungeon-delving alongside your personal band of merry mercs, read on for our impressions of the game in its current state.

Conceptually, The Iron Oath obviously draws inspiration from other games but very much has its own identity through its visuals and world-building. For example, you’ll feel right at home with its mercenary management and dungeon exploration if you’ve played Darkest Dungeon, yet the execution of its influences is original. The Iron Oath utilises many different systems that operate in tandem, and all of them need to be closely monitored by the player to maximise the chance of success.

[...]

Overall, my experience with The Iron Oath was very enjoyable. I’m glad I initially replayed the tutorial level. While I’m familiar with similar games in the genre, The Iron Oath wants to stand apart from them and establish its own gameplay flow. It’s a very polished Early Access game, and that extends to every facet of its development. There’s even an in-game feedback function, allowing players to report any issues on the fly. The developers have already pushed out four updates at time of writing: two smaller updates and two “regular” updates. The patch notes reflect the enthusiasm driving the game to its completion, with changes including bugfixes, balance adjustments, client optimisations, and more. 

The tactical RPG The Iron Oath got another patch:

Patch Notes 0.5.144

Hello mercenaries!

We've just pushed out a new update with a good mix of fixes and changes. Be sure to update your game! Repairing gear didn't make it into this update, but we have implemented it on our end - it just needs a bit more testing before we push it live with next week's patch.

Patch Notes for 0.5.144

Fixes

• Enemies can no longer use melee attacks while out of range of their target
• Lightning attacks will no longer critically strike wet targets (they only receive +50% damage)
• The Dreadknight's Pull of the Void ability now has a tooltip describing its effects (adjacent targets are Rooted)
• When zooming in on characters at the edge of the map, the camera will no longer glitch out trying to center them
• The Pyromania buff now expires properly
• Skeleton bone piles can no longer be feared
• The correct playtime is now displayed on files that have over 60 hours
• Fixed a rare crash that occurred when a House Skirmisher began combat on a certain tile in the marsh environment
• Duplicate quests will no longer spawn at the same time in cities
• If a character somehow gets onto an invalid hex at the start or end of their turn, they will be teleported to the nearest valid hex
• Certain quests were completing when entering the wrong city - this should hopefully be resolved now

Additions & Changes

• The turn order is now visible during the deployment phase
• You can now hold Tab to display all hexes on the field during deployment and combat
• Ultra wide support has been added
• Retina display support added for Mac
• You can now see the blue 'pips' that represent ability charges while camping, and also in the level up screen
• The Pyrolancer's Fuelled by Fire passive ability now has a status icon to indicate how much of a buff they are receiving
• Changed the goal for the Eradicate Voidspawn quest so it triggers a mission complete after beating the boss, instead of needing to clear every battle in the dungeon
• Completing a quest objective now adds 240 days to its expiration time, giving you plenty of time to return to your employer
• Added an option to disable screen shake effects
• The bottom edge of some combat areas are now treated like a wall, allowing you to push targets into it and trigger bonus damage
• You can now change your company's name in the history section of the management menu
• The price of resources (Wood, Iron, etc) have been changed across the board and are now more valuable
• Added a new Cloth resource, exported by the city of Athirton
• Adjusted the durability and cost of most gear in preparation for the upcoming repair mechanic

Balance

• Increased the Defense (+3) and Evasion (+2) stats of the Tower Shield
• Increased the fire terrain duration from the Pyrolancer's Wildfire ability to 8 turns (from 5)
• The Wildfire upgrades for duration now increase it by 2 (from 1)
• Changed the weighting of the 'Disorganized' time modifier so it can no longer trigger early on in a dungeon

Henriquejr spotted a big patch for The Iron Oath:

Patch Notes 0.5.141

Hello mercenaries! Today's patch is a pretty big one with many bug fixes, balance changes, and QoL features (like skipping the prologue!). Be sure to update your client.

Going forward, our plan is to patch as needed on Fridays. Next week we'll be focusing on three commonly requested things: repairing gear, comparing items in the market to equipped gear, and the ability to see when your merc's salary payments are due (so you can plan accordingly). Here are the patch notes for this week:

Patch Notes for 0.5.141

[...]

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Yesterday we did a live interview with the Escapist for their 'Design Delve' segment where we discussed the game's inspirations, design choices, and different aspects of its development. We had a lot of fun doing it and you can check it out below:

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James Grimaldi checked out the tactical mercenary RPG The Iron Oath:

The Iron Oath: Lets play and review a new turn-based tactical mercenary game

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Redglyph spotted the launch trailer and roadmap for The Iron Oath:

Roadmap and Trailer

Hello mercenaries!

We are thrilled to announce that The Iron Oath is now available in Early Access!

The harsh lands of Caelum await you and your company. We're so excited for you all to enter the world we've spent so many years crafting. But this is just the beginning, and there is much more to come.

Roadmap

We're planning our first major update to arrive this Spring. Check our roadmap below to see what else is on the horizon. We'll also be taking a deep dive later this week into each update, giving you a better idea of what to expect from them.

[...]

We want to thank you for being such an incredibly supportive community over the years. We've come a long way since our Kickstarter campaign, and we appreciate every single one of you who joined along the way. You've given us so much valuable feedback that has already helped shape the game for the better. We look forward to continuing that relationship as we progress through Early Access.

After you've spent some time in the world of Caelum, we would appreciate you leaving a Steam review and sharing your thoughts on the game. Your feedback is important to us!

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Mortismal Gaming checked out the tactical RPG The Iron Oath:

Check Out: The Iron Oath

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The Turn Based Lovers checked out The Iron Oath. The Turn-Based Tactics RPG will be released as Early Access tomorrow:

The Iron Oath | PC Single-Player Turn-Based Tactics RPG | Gameplay First Look

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Let's take a look at The Iron Oath by Curious Panda Games. A PC Single-Player Turn-Based Tactics RPG where we manage a band of mercenaries inside a dark fantasy world. Available on the 19th April on Steam in Early Access.

Humble Games has made a gameplay overview video for The Iron Oath.

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In this Gameplay Overview of The Iron Oath you'll get a sense of building a mercenary company, managing reputation and expenses, and exploring the dynamic and ever-growing world of Caelum! Command, endure, and prosper in The Iron Oath, a turn-based tactical RPG where the fate of your mercenary company rests on your decisions. Lead your band as they age, retire, and die. Build your outfit’s renown across decades in the ever-changing medieval fantasy realm of Caelum.

The Iron Oath will be released as Early Access on April 19:

The Iron Oath - Early Access Release Date Trailer: Survive and Prosper | Humble Games

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Thanks Henriquejr!

Henriquejr spotted a developer Q&A for The Iron Oath:

Developer Q&A!

An hour long Q&A session in the broadcast chatroom

Hey everyone! Firstly, a quick thank you for all your support so far during Next Fest! We've gathered a lot of good feedback and appreciate you all sharing your experience with the demo.

For the next hour and a bit, we'll be answering as many questions as we can in the broadcast's chatroom. Feel free to ask us (almost) anything!

In that spirit, we also invite you to join our Discord server where we've just passed 1000 members. We're always available to answer questions in there as well!

-> Discord-link

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SplatterCatGaming checked out the sandbox RPG The Iron Oath:

The Iron Oath - Open World Sandbox Mercenary RPG

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The Iron Oath Gameplay with Splat! Let's Play The Iron Oath and check out a game where you'll lead a company of mercenaries through hell or high water to earn a paycheck.

RPG Site reported that The Iron Oath was having a new demo and a new trailer.

Turn-based tactical RPG The Iron Oath gets a demo during Steam Next Fest; new teaser trailer

ublisher Humble Games and developer Curious Panda Games have released a new trailer for The Iron Oath, set to release in 2022 for PC (Steam, Humble).

The trailer commemorates the launch of a demo for the turn-based tactical RPG during this week's Steam Next Fest, running from February 21 to February 28.

The Iron Oath was originally announced in 2020, before pandemic and other development hurdles pushed back the game's expected launch window at the time. It began as a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2017, raising $94,524 for the project.

The video can be found below, alongside an updated description of the game and screenshots, via Humble.

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Curious Panda Games posted a development update on combat, portraits and class skins.

New Year Update!

A quick update on the development status of the game, and a few new things to share!

Happy New Year to everyone! We hope you all had a safe and happy Holiday. With 2021 behind us, we wanted to give you a quick update on the development status of the game. You may have already seen us share this information elsewhere, but for those who who haven't seen it: the game is close to being ready, and we are currently targeting a Q1 2022 release. We have one more demo planned which will be available in late February during the Steam Next Fest. For those who have played the previously available demo, this new one has quite a few changes, and will run the average player about 45-60 minutes. Needless to say, we're very excited about the next few months, and we can't wait for you all to see what we've been working on!

Gameplay Video

In that spirit, we wanted to share a 5minute montage of combat gameplay from our recent playtests. Some enemies and abilities still need a bit of balancing, but we feel the combat is in an enjoyable state at the moment. Hope you like it!

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The tractical RPG The Iron Oath got some new environments:

New Environments

Hey everyone! We've been hard at work these past two months: finalizing quest content, polishing and bug fixing, and creating and implementing some new environments.  We're still working long hours at the moment, so this month's update will be brief, but we did want to share a sneak peek at 4 new environments we've added to the game:

• Crypt
• Dunes
• Marsh
• Fort

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We hope you like the look of them! We've tried to make sure that each environment in the game has at least 1 unique hazard or quirk to it to help keep combat fresh. We've also added a few new generic hazards that are shared across multiple environments (such as falling stone from a ceiling). We might go into detail on the different hazard types in a future update if there's interest in that. Either way, you'll be able to see a few of them in the next demo we put out. 

The Future

We've previously mentioned in a few places that our current release target is Q1 2022. This remains the case, though we're not ready to give a firm date quite yet. Before we release, we are planning on putting out 1 more public demo during the Steam Next Fest in February '22. We were considering participating in the one that started yesterday, but since we're only allowed to choose 1 more, we opted for February as it lines up better with our intended release window.

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to wishlist the game on Steam and join our Discord community if you haven't already done so. See you next time :)

The July Update for The Iron Oath shows some UI improvements.

Hey everybody, we hope you're all having a wonderful summer! We've been working a lot on our finalized UI for a variety of things recently and we wanted to share some of that progress with you this month, starting with the main menu. In the below video you'll see the save/load menu as well as the flow for creating a new campaign.

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When creating a new campaign you'll have plenty of options, allowing you to make your experience easier or harder. The game is balanced around the "Normal" default settings but if you really want to test your skills, the options are there for you to do so.

We've also finalized the overworld HUD, adding an element that shows your location/traveling status(in the top right corner), and also also allows you to: 

• Pause/Resume traveling to your destination
• Cancel traveling to your destination
• Wait in the Overworld (for X days)
• Toggle Borders (Show Counties, Show Kingdoms, or Disable)

We also added in a quick little animation to show the passage of days whenever you wait in the overworld or select a choice that causes extra days to pass. 

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We recently finalized our UI for selecting which abilities you want a character to use in combat, as well as the window for upgrading each one.  Each character can only equip 4 abilities at a time (each class has 6 to choose from, assuming they are a high enough level), and they can only be changed from the overworld.

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Above you can see the upgrade tree for the Pyrolancer's Infernal Pillar ability.  It's not possible to fully max out every tree (you're limited to 6 upgrade choices for each ability), so between your ability choices, and the upgrades for each, there is a lot opportunities to customize and make distinct builds that play very differently between characters of the same class. Each upgrade tree has 2 main branches. The upper path is generally more focused on support/utility upgrades, where as the bottom branch is generally more focused on increasing damage output.

Thanks Farflame!

The Iron Oath got some combat improvements:

Combat Improvements

A list of recent combat improvements and quality of life changes we've made to the game

Hey everyone! As mentioned in our last update, we recently made a bunch of combat improvements and QoL changes that we're excited to share with you today. We're also in the process of adding some new combat environments such as the Tundra that you can see in the video below:

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Thanks rjshae!

A new update for The Iron Oath talks about development so far.

Hey everyone, we hope you are all doin well! As we are reaching the last few months of the year, we wanted to give you an update on the game's current status and release date.  2020 has been a strange and challenging year for everyone, so it's probably not much of a shock to hear that it's impacted the game's development. 

We went into this year with the hopes of releasing in late 2020 or early 2021. Development was going well and and we took the game to PAX East at the end of February. We had a great show, met a lot of existing and new fans and received tons of positive feedback, so we were feeling pretty good on our way back home. 

Of course it was around this time that the lockdowns began and development slowed down. Chris has 3 young kids, so when schools shut down he had to begin dividing his time between programming and helping to homeschool his kids. More recently his wife got a new job in Ohio, so figuring out their move from Florida further detracted from his ability to work as much. Progress had still been made during this time, but just not at the rate we had expected or hoped in order to release this year.  

For now, things are about as "normal" as they will be for the foreseeable future and we've settled back into a steady rhythm. His kids are doing virtual schooling at home so he still has to devote some time to looking after them during the day. All things considered, we're doing our best under the circumstances we're in now, and we've begun looking for a few additional programmers to help speed things up. 

Concerning the release date, it is still TBD. We don't want to rush out an incomplete product, so all we can say for now is that the game will be out when it's ready. As for some good news, the game is now what we consider "Alpha", meaning all the game's features are in place and all that remains is adding more polish and content. So we're excited about that at least, and it brings us one step closer to the closed Beta! We will also be putting out another updated demo on Steam in the future like we did a few months ago. So if you missed the previous event and don't have access to the Beta, you'll still have a chance to check out the game prior to release. As always, we'll continue to keep you apprised of our progress, and we hope you all can understand our need for some extra time to complete the game properly. 

On the art side we've continued to make good progress with our animator Rafael producing some awesome work with our designs. Here's a look at a design timelapse and final animation result of two recently completed enemy characters:

Outlaw Scout

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The Escapist previewed The Iron Oath demo and noted the use of timed elements.

During exploration, time works against your party, offering debuffs and perks based upon how long you take to finish any given scenario. For example, as I was escorting refugees out of the mountains, my party became restless, meaning that upon entering combat, one of my characters would begin the encounter sleeping. This randomization invites further playthroughs and piqued my curiosity for what other status effects may exist in the full game.

The demo for The Iron Oath gives players the chance to complete a mission and see the overworld of the game, and that’s it for now. Curious Panda Games describes the game’s core features as including consequential decisions, contracts that take place over centuries, and an in-depth management system. Unfortunately, none of these elements are present within the demo. It does, however, clearly communicate the tone and base gameplay effectively to make you eager for more.

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Thanks Farflame!

The Iron Oath has a new gameplay interview video done during The Summer of Gaming event.

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We chat with the developers of The Iron Oath and take a look at gameplay of its turn-based tactics core, which is backed up by detailed fantasy mercenary company management.

Disclosure: Humble Bundle (which is owned by Ziff Davis, the parent company of IGN) is either the publisher or financier of this game and may receive a commission or fee in connection with sales. Humble Bundle and IGN operate completely independently, and no special consideration is given to Humble Bundle-published or financed games for coverage.

IGN chats with The Iron Oath game devs Nik Mueller and Chris Wingard about what makes The Iron Oath tactical RPG so unique. From its unique hero design, to its pixel art graphics, to its complex turn-based battle system, this interview with The Iron Oath devs is full of little game tidbits viewers might not have picked up in The Iron Oath game trailer.

For more on The Iron Oath be sure to check out IGN.

The March update for The Iron Oath announces a partnership with Humble Bundle.

Hey everyone! We hope you're all doing well and staying safe during these uncertain times. We have a couple things on the menu for this month's update, and first up is a very special announcement that we can finally reveal: our partnership with Humble Bundle!

We've had to keep it under wraps for a while, but we've been working with them as our our publisher for a little over a year now and it's been a great relationship thus far. It's certainly made development easier and less stressful, and they've been super supportive every step of the way. 

I know some of you may be a bit wary of us getting a publisher, but we can assure you that the game's design has not and will not be compromised in any way due to this, and ultimately we still have 100% creative control. We'll also have more news to announce as the result of our partnership down the line!

To go along with this announcement, Humble has just launched a new video series for showcasing their upcoming games catalog called the Humble Brag. You can check it out here: (We're at the end! Be sure to drop them a like and subscribe too)

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PAX East Recap

At the end of February we attended PAX East with a new build of The Iron Oath. This was our first time attending a PAX event in any capacity, and we were pretty overwhelmed by the size of it! We participated in DreamHack Austin back in 2018 with an early build of the game, which helped give us some booth experience, but PAX East is an entirely different animal and was quite a lot of work for just the two of us. That being said, we managed just fine aside from some sore feet ;)

Over the course of 4 full days we ended up handing out about 800-900 postcards, and our 3-station booth was fully occupied 95% of the time (probably had around 200 players). It was very encouraging for us to see so many enjoy the game, and be genuinely excited and interested in talking to us about the design and features it has to offer. We'd also like to give a special shout-out to the handful of Kickstarter backers who stopped by to say hi and check out the game; It was great to meet you all!

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The October update for The Iron Oath talks about the new direction for combat environments.

Time for a belated October update! The last month has been a hectic time for us as we were crunching to meet certain deadlines, and thus didn't have the time to put together a proper update. Not going to share just yet what the crunch-time was for...we'll see in a month or two how things pan out and hopefully we'll have some good news to share :)

In this month's update we wanted to talk about our new direction for combat environments, and illustrating the point with a brand new tileset that we've created and implemented this past month. In the environments you've seen so far, a typical combat area has rarely been much larger than 5-6 rows high, as shown below:

 While the narrower corridors allowed for more streamlined exploration, they made combat encounters a bit too cramped, and didn't allow us much room to place terrain obstacles and hazards without suffocating the playfield. This resulted in combat areas not having much variety to them, which is not ideal!

With this new tileset we've greatly increased the size of the playfield(up to 10 rows high at points). The base tiles are completely empty aside from the ground and back wall, as seen below:

 With this much space, we now have a lot of room to work with for creating many different and tactically interesting layouts, populated by the terrain and hazards that are attached to this tileset. This includes a variety of rock formations, holes, falling rock obstacles, dangerous spikes and more. Here's some of the terrain objects for this tile, still need to complete a few more:

 Each "layout" will be hand made, as we think it's preferable to randomly generating them. We're not quite sure how far we'll go with the quantity, but we'll be shooting for at least 100 unique terrain layouts per environment. Here's a look at one section's layout in-game:

For the existing tilesets, we'll be going back and revising them a bit as well in order to add more space. Though in some cases, certain environments will be less open than others when it makes sense. 

Another thing we wanted to show off was the in-dungeon dialogue system which has received some work lately with additions such as portraits, text fade-in and auto scrolling. Of course you can skip through this all by left-clicking as well if you're a quick reader or just want to breeze through it! We're still not 100% done with it, but we're pretty happy with the current state for now.  The example below is from the opening mission/introduction to the game :)

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And a small bonus gif of something that occurred while I was recording some footage. I didn't think this action through very well :( lol

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Hey everyone! Another thirty days have passed by and we're back to show you some of our work from the month of September. We don't have too much to share this time around, as the majority of our workload from this past month is a bit of a secret and not something we're ready to reveal quite yet ;) You'll have to wait a few more months for that but it's something we think is pretty cool and hopefully you will all feel the same!

Earlier in the month, Chris spent his time implementing new enemies and creating sound effects to go with it. You can see a small sample of this below:

...and a few gifs from other abilities!

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Next month's update will have a bit more to showcase. The dialogue windows (including player responses/choices) have received some love this past month but there's still a little bit more cleaning up we'd like to do before we show it off.  We've also begun work on prototyping and implementing some new environments, so we'll be looking to share some of that next month as well (might even make it a subject for a dev video!). It's our intent to make combat environments more varied and less straight forward (with more obstacles and hazards that are unique to each environment, requiring careful attention!), so we hope you'll like the direction we're taking with that. 

See you next month, and as always, if you haven't already done so, please add us to your wishlist us on Steam as it helps to boost visibility and awareness! Thanks as always for taking the time to read :)

The May update for The Iron Oath shows off the new UI.

May Update

Hey everyone! This past month we've been working on designing and implementing the finalized UI/HUD for the game and it's coming along nicely. Most everything we had in place has been entirely revamped with a new style, though we've kept the same positioning for the majority of elements. You can see a comparison below:

Previous combat UI: 

Updated combat UI:

 

Here's a breakdown of all the changes:

Party

The allied party UI has changed in style to make use of character portraits in the future (the current blown up sprite portraits are just placeholder until then). We've gone with a Baldur's Gate style health fill to represent the damage taken for each character (the more red, the closer they are to death!), and two simplified bars to show the values for the Focus and Spirit pools respectively. The rotating particles represent whose turn it currently is, while the alternate frame border shows which character you're currently hovering/targeting. 

The enemy party UI has changed similarly, though it is smaller in scale so we can fit large groups of enemies onto the screen. Like before, targeting an enemy will display some info on their defense, and your chance of hitting them with the selected ability.

Target Information

The details of your current target remains mostly the same, but will now show the level of the target and some additional info on their status, such as whether they are channeling an ability and when they'll be done, or when their next turn is. (not all of this is implemented yet, the below is just a mock). 

Turn Order

The turn order has received some of the bigger changes, and is now more informative and interactive. When you select a target, they will also be now highlighted in the turn order so the player can more clearly tell them apart from similar enemies, in addition to seeing at a glance how close that target's next turn is. 

We've added a divider to separate combat rounds, and an indicator to show how many characters are left to act in the round behind what is currently visible(this will only show if there is not enough room to display everyone). Additionally we've color coded friends from foes (blue and red), added health bars to the turn order, and also icons to indicate whether it is a new turn for that character (a star), or whether they are finishing a channeled ability(a clock).  

Hotbar & Ability Tooltips

We've removed the health globe from the hotbar(we felt it was redundant), encompassed everything in a new fancy frame and re-positioned it back to the center of the screen. Red and blue markers beneath each ability now indicate whether that ability is classified as Offensive(red) or Supportive(blue). The white border indicates which ability you are hovering, while the flashing animation indicates that the ability is currently selected and ready to target someone. 

Our ability tooltips have also been updated to be more concise and offer important information at a glance. Beneath the name and ability type, Focus Cost, Ability Range and Cast Time are represented with unique icons. To the right, a quick animation shows viable usages for the selected ability. Beneath the main description displays any augments the ability has from that character's ability skill tree.

We hope you like the new look and features! We'll have more UI screens to be shared in the next couple updates. 

We'd like to leave you with a new full track by our composer, Alex Roe. This one is specifically an exploration track for the region of Godsvale. He's composed well over an hours worth of music thus far and we're excited to share this one with you(and more in the future!). Be sure to check out his youtube channel if you'd like to hear more of his work from The Iron Oath and other past projects! 

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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The February update for The Iron Oath.

February Update

Posted by Curious Panda (Creator)

Hello backers! This past month we've done a lot of work on various features surrounding guild management, and designing the UI that goes with each.  We're still using placeholder graphics for the UI elements so unfortunately we can't share what these screens look like quite yet, but we'll be finalizing some of them in the upcoming months. 

The functionality for managing your Guild Council is now implemented. You can hire people for these roles by visiting towns, meeting potential candidates during missions or by assigning a retired character into one of the roles if they are capable of it. The jobs of the 3 councillors have undergone some small changes from when we last talked about it during our Kickstarter campaign. Each position has some passive benefits and tasks they can perform, with success and speed depending on their skill level.

• The Battlemaster can trains troops by teaching positive traits, or help your soldiers get rid of unwanted ones. Recruiting a Battlemaster provides increased Experience gains for your roster, a larger selection of potential recruits in hubs, and insight into which traits a potential recruit has. 
• The Emissary is your liaison between you and the different factions within Caelum. They can help you boost your reputation with a specific House, Faction, or the citizens within a city. Recruiting an Emissary provides you with more lucrative contract rewards, and gains the attention of the noble class, allowing you to accept contracts from a ruling House. 
• The Spymaster comes in handy for uncovering plots by your enemies, or for tearing down the relationship between any two Houses and potentially inciting open war. Recruiting a Spymaster allows you to discern when a quest giver or potential recruit is trying to deceive you, and unlocks the ability to follow up on various rumors that they hear of through their underground networks. 

We've also been working on the report that your adviser will present to you at the end of each month. This report details your current financial situation and contains a complete breakdown of your income and expenses, which can be beneficial for future planning. The report also contains suggestions from your Guild Council if there are any pressing matters they want to bring to your attention. For example, if you are short on certain types of troops, have too many injured personnel, or if they have a suggestion on which House you should gain favor with, they will mention it to you in the report. 

We've also been updating our ability tool-tips to be more informative and streamlined. Our first pass on them had extra flavor text and details that made the important information difficult to quickly discern. We'll have more details on that in next months update!

In the art department we're continuing to finish designs and animations for the various enemies, here is a recently completed animation-set for the House Commander, once again done by @rafaelborven

Animation by @rafaelborven

A new update for The Iron Oath demonstrates how character backstories are generated and shows off some enemy designs.

Hey everyone! We're back with our January update and we have a number of things to share with you. Chris has recently been working on the implementation of backstories and how they shape your characters. Here's some insight into the process:

Character backstories are dynamically created by selecting a number of events that build off one another, shaping how that character came to be. These events take into account the world history and what has transpired so far in your play-through. We do this by first determining how old a character is, and then during each major milestone event in their life(their birth, childhood etc), we can look back at what was happening in the world during that time, and select events that are appropriate to build out their backstory. For example, a character born during the events of a war might have a part of their backstory detailing how their parents were killed by invaders during said war. 

In order to create a character an "Origin" is selected. An "Origin" is the broad overview of where they grew up. This determines if they were born in a small village, a large city, or out in the wild, etc. Next, we select a "Family" event. This is what kind of family were they raised by. Were they raised by farmers, did their parents own a shop, were they bandits, did they even have parents? Only certain "Family" events can be selected based on the "Origin" for the character. So if the newly created character has an origin of growing up in the wild, it won't be possible for their "Family" event to be one of a noble family who lived in the capital. After the "Family" event we select a "Childhood" event and then a "Young Adult" event. These events also build off the previously selected ones. There might be a childhood event that says their parents were murdered by bandits while working on their farm. This event would obviously only be chosen if the "Family" event dictated that their family were farmers.

The goal is to build out a dynamic backstory that makes the characters feel more realized, with a sense of belonging to the game’s world. Additionally these backstories are not just fluff, and most events will play into that character's loyalty quest. If their parents were murdered by a well known group of bandits, they may approach you once you have earned their trust, and request your assistance in bringing their parent’s killers to justice. Additionally, these events will generally play into which character class they ended up becoming, and what traits they possess.

Here is an example backstory generated for a new character:

"Braeda Wheatfield was born in the heart of Langster in the year 1181. She was raised by a couple of farmers who led a mostly quiet life and kept to themselves. One day, soldiers from House Haevir attacked her home and slaughtered her parents. Braeda managed to escape but never forgot the faces of the men who crossed her. She vowed to get revenge if it was the last thing she ever did. Alone and distraught, Braeda managed to eke by an existence by stealing food and supplies. This life in the shadows helped hone her budding talents, teaching her to move and attack without being seen."

• Id : Unique Id than can be referenced later in other events that need it as a prerequisite.
•  Category: What type of event is it. "Origin", "Family", "Childhood", "YoungAdult", "Adult"
•  StoryPrereq: This event is only possible if one of the events listed here is a part of their backstory.
•  OtherPrereq: These are other determining factors for if an event can be used. This one has "DuringWar" so it could be be selected if there was a war in their region during the years around their childhood.
•  Text: This is the written description for the player with details about the event. They are written to splice together so the different event categories flow well into each other. Everything inside of brackets are keywords we parse and replace with the appropriate text needed. So [firstName] is replaced with that character's first name where appropriate.
•  ProbabilityWeight : This can be used to determine how rare certain events are.
•  DaysUntilRepeatable: How often can this event be used as a part of a backstory. It can also be set to -1 meaning it could be unique and only come up once.
•  LoyaltyQuest: Does this event have a loyalty quest tied to it? This is where that is set.
•  Traits: Does this event add a trait to this character. If during their childhood they had a frightening encounter with the undead, a “Fear of the Undead” trait can potentially be added to that character. Personality traits are also chosen this way, for example if a family friend murdered their parents we could add a trait that makes them distrusting of others. This would affect their relationship with other characters (their Affinity), and their relationship to you and the company(their Loyalty).

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The January update for The Iron Oath.

Happy New Year!

Posted by Curious Panda (Creator)

Happy New Year to everyone, and we hope you all enjoyed the Holidays :) We're a few days late here with our December wrap-up so we apologize for that, but here it is nevertheless!

This past month Chris has been working on various mechanics that take place during dungeon crawls. First up is our overhauled knockout state for your characters which we've dubbed as the 'Bleedout' mechanic. 

Previously as a placeholder, your characters would get knocked down and their health would go into the negative until a certain threshold was hit, upon which time they would die. Healing them back into the positive would get them back into the action. Now when your character is knocked down in combat, they enter the Bleedout state where they dip into a reserve health pool, which is represented by a series of blocks on their health bar. They receive one for every point of Constitution they have, and this pool is persistent throughout the entire dungeon, carrying over from battle to battle. This means that if a character is knocked down and their reserves are reduced to 6 blocks prior to being revived, the next time they get knocked down their reserve pool would still be at 6 bars instead of the maximum. 

On their turn, a character in the Bleedout state will lose 1 block of reserve health. Attacks committed by enemies will also deplete it further. Healing the downed character at any point will restore them and bring them back into the fight (at the health value they were healed for).

The dynamic dialogue feature has also received some love, adding in various triggers for characters to communicate, such as when they sustain an injury, experience a character's death, or land a critical hit. 

The logic for coming across and interacting with shrines is also being worked on, with various Gods that can grant your party buffs(or debuffs) depending on their nature and how you interacted with the shrine (such as what items you offered, how you answered their query or whether or not you complete a task they charge you with). We'll have more to show for this feature at a later date!

On the art side of things, we've recently hired a talented artist to oversee the final version of the Overworld map which is coming along nicely. Here's a sneak peek of its current state; we're looking forward to sharing the full version with you later on :)

Overworld map by Brullov: twitter.com/brullov_art

I've continued to work on enemy designs, some of which will be passed off for animation as we continue to expand our team. Here's two more recent ones: a House Commander and a Coven Familiar. 

Thanks for reading and for all of your support during the past year. We wish you all a terrific 2019, and we'll be back later this month with our January update :)

The September update for The Iron Oath announces the release date has been pushed back.

September Update: Concerning the release date and more

Hello backers! We have a number of things to share with you today, along with some good news and bad news, the latter of which we’ll address first as it’s most relevant to you.  

We’ve come to realize over the last few months that our initial timeline was too ambitious for the game’s scope, and even though we’ve made good progress overall, the game will unfortunately not see a release in 2019. This also means that the closed beta which we had initially planned for next month will be pushed back to a later date. We have an idea of the new release window, but an exact date won’t come for some time as we have many new factors to consider. We do sincerely apologize to all of you who have supported us and were looking forward to the beta/launch. We hope you can understand our position of wanting to deliver The Iron Oath in a state that we are proud of, without compromise to its various aspects of gameplay. We’d also like to reassure you that this is not a financial decision and the project is not in any danger; we’ll both continue to work full-time on the game until its completion.  

So what’s the good news? We have a lot of exciting announcements in store, but we can’t quite spill the beans on them yet. In short, we’re firmly in a position that will allow us to complete the game to its full extent and deliver it to a wider audience. We believe we’ve taken the best course of action to ensure the game’s success and we hope the coming announcements will soften the blow of the delay. I know the above is all very vague, but please bear with us :)  

In lieu of the beta next month, we’ll be making our current expo build available starting next weekend to our beta tier backers so we can collect their feedback. We'll post a separate update for that once it's ready for download. We’re also planning to make another pre-beta build available some time in the first half of 2019. For the rest of our backers, we'd like to share with you a gameplay video taken from the build:

[Video]

Last month Chris took the build to the Orlando IX convention where hundreds of people had a chance to sit down and try out the game. Overall it was a little busier than our experience at DreamHack, and the game was once again well received which is always a good sign! Here’s some pictures from the event: 

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A new update for The Iron Oath talks about some of the improvements that have been made.

June Update

Hey guys we're back with our June update! We've spent some time lately getting a build polished enough to show at trade shows and a few weeks ago we went to DreamHack Austin to show off The Iron Oath to the public!

This was our first major expo and it was an overall awesome experience. Most importantly for us, the game was very well received by those who played it, and we gathered some useful feedback as well. It was great meeting other developers, and we even had a few backers stop by which was nice to see!

All in all, we were able to show the game off to a few hundred people over the 3-day event. Even though manning the booth for 8 hours a day was a lot of work, it was worth it to see everyone’s reactions and reaffirm that we are on the right path.

After DreamHack we've spent some time implementing a few of the most common requests we heard, like outlining targets in combat, clicking to move during the exploration phase, warning players if they are about to hit a friendly unit with AoE damage, and the ability to undo your movement in combat (as long as you don't incur an attack of opportunity from moving or trigger other hazards).

  The Stormcaller flashes red to warn the player an ally is in the line of fire

I also recently updated our cut scenes to have more intricate animations and interactions with fewer lines of scripting. The following gif was created with just 6 lines in a script which plays the animations and spawns the skeletons into the scene.

The Outlaw leader sacrifices an ally to form a pact with the undead in this quest

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The February update for The Iron Oath talks about how their dungeon layouts are created.

February Update

Hey everyone, we're back with another monthly update and today we're going to talk about how our dungeon layouts are created. We originally had been using a system that created layouts dynamically when entering a dungeon, but we've recently decided to go with a more hand-crafted approach so we have a little more control over everything. Here's an example of what creating a layout looks like from our end.(note this isn't an actual layout that will be used, it was more of a "stress-test" to make sure everything functioned properly despite some awkward placement!)

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We're continuing to work towards our next demo phase and are getting fairly close. We also have a couple new additions to combat that we will touch on in the next update. Hope you all have a great weekend and we thank you for your continued support! :)

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The latest update for The Iron Oath.

January update

Happy New Year to everyone! As mentioned in our last update, Chris took the game to Otronicon a few weekends ago. His report and some pictures of the event are below. We're currently working towards a larger build aimed for March, and we'll share some video of it once complete. I mentioned last month that we were going to show how our dungeon layouts are generated from our various environment tiles. I do have a couple more tiles I would like to tackle before then so I'm going to save that for the February update. All in all, things are starting to come together and it's pretty exciting for us :)

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Hey everyone, Chris here. Earlier this month I took a short demo to the local Otronicon convention to showcase some of the game's combat to attendees. The audience there skewed a little younger than our core demographic but we met some awesome people and got some great feedback. My favorite from the weekend was a kid, who was probably around 10, telling me how much he liked it because it reminded him of Mario + Rabbids. I guess that game is a pretty good jumping off point for kids to start down the path of tactics games haha. 

On another note, I've been hard at work continuing off from last month where I built out our quest system and now I've incorporated all our dialogue into using Yarn as well. Yarn is a great tool that will help us create tons of quests and dialogue very quickly. I'm looking forward to showing off more around that down the line. Aside from that I've been working on the world map and how quests/events are handled in towns and while traveling on the road. Also fixed several bugs that I'd seen during the course of people playing the game at Otronicon. As we gear up to our next major milestone you'll probably see us start posting more on social media and in discord with updates, gifs, and screenshots which should continue through the release of the Beta towards the end of this year.

The latest update for The Iron Lore explains animation changes and other stuff.

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Hey, Chris here. I have been tackling a lot of small tasks since the Kickstarter, focusing on polishing things that got left to the wayside in the wake of getting the Kickstarter up and running. Much of that dealing with the flow of combat and bugs. The biggest task I delved into was the start of implementing the logic that governs how the world plays out as time advances forward. I prototyped how the different Houses in game will have children, choose heirs, vie for the throne, manage their resources, etc. There is still much work left to do on that front but it is coming along nicely.

As Nik mentioned, the focus now is getting a build ready (primarily combat focused) for Otronicon in January. Otronicon isn't really a purely gaming focused event but it's a local show I wanted to participate in along with the rest of the indie game scene in Orlando, FL. We have a couple phases of builds we're working towards with each one getting us closer to our beta build that will be sent to backers late next year.

Some other tasks I worked on included:

• implementing keys for locked doors/chests
• updated internal tools for creating dynamic events and dialogue
• updated character abilities to be more inline with their designs
• tweaking general pace of combat (an ongoing process)
• worked on equipping gear and looting from chests
• added consumable items (e.g. health potions)
• implemented stores to purchase items from various vendors
• skinned/implemented some pre-mission UI screen
• various bug fixing

The latest on The Iron Oath shares some details about its world and lore.

Lore and World Details (+Survey Reminder)

Hey everyone. Today we're going to reveal a bit more information about the world and its lore from the perspective of what an average citizen would know. We'll be keeping the full lore and history under lock and key for now, but throughout the game you'll be able to piece together the full story through exploration, discoveries, conversations and the completion of the main storyline.

The World

The game takes place on a landmass known as ‘Caelum' to its inhabitants. Caelum is surrounded by vast oceans that remain uncharted, fueling debate among citizens over the existence of other lands. Caelum itself is comprised of 9 regions:

• Lithus: A small and sunny coastal region
• Godsvale: A lush region full of large valleys, rivers and forests.
• The Redlands: A vast desert region with most inhabitants residing on its coasts
• Midland: A temperate region, once home to the capital of the Kingdom of Caelum
• The Steppe: A region of grass-filled plains that can experience harsh winters
• Winter's Reign: A frigid region surrounded by the sea and a vast mountain range
• Highland Reach: A mountainous region that is home to one the largest port cities in Caelum
• Dragate: A small region that is largely uninhabitable due to its rocky mountain formations
• Daybreak Isles: A small tropical island known for its sunny and warm weather

The regions of Caelum were once united under one Kingdom and a lineage of rulers that remained unbroken for centuries. However, a plague swept through Caelum and put an end to the line and the lives of many other citizens. Following this event, a power struggle ensued with each Major House vying for power and staking their claim for the vacant throne. The ‘War of Dissolution' lasted for decades, with regional and civil wars alike all ending with a tentative peace between the major powers of Caelum, and the formation of many independent Kingdoms.

Notable Factions

The Blighted: The Blighted are a savage faction that were once human. Men and women who are afflicted by the dragon's blight slowly lose their minds and turn into aggressive abominations. It takes years for those affected to become fully Blighted, and there exists a moral dilemma among Caelum's citizens on how to deal with them. Blighted can be found in all corners of the world, roaming above ground or in the darkest depths of the land. You will encounter many Blighted, both fully-turned and some who yet retain a fragment of their minds and sanity.

The Vanguard Order: The Vanguard are an ancient order that was formed under the first King of Caelum and tasked with defending the realm from humanity's greatest threats. Once considered a prestigious order, they have somewhat fallen out of favor with the general public, mainly due to their employ of those afflicted with the Blight, and their failure to effectively protect humanity against the dragon.

The Overseers: The Overseers were formed shortly after magic was born into the world and were initially tasked with hunting down rogue mages who practiced forbidden arts. After the arrival of the dragon they also became responsible for tracking and killing the Blighted who had fled from the public. Due to the Vanguard's employ of Blighted, the Overseers also share in the dislike for their order, and they often end up hunting Blighted who run from their duty within the Vanguard.

Basic Lore

Caelum's history is split up into four ages, the First Age, the Age of Gods, the Age of Man and the Age of Heroes. The average citizen knows very little or nothing at all of the first two ages, and most stories that do exist are nothing more than myth and speculation. It is said that humanity was left to its own devices in the First Age until the Gods descended to the mortal realm to shepherd their development, thus beginning the Age of Gods.

Nobody knows how long The Age of Gods lasted, but few remnants of its time can still be found in the form of ruined cities and structures, including various shrines to the Gods that were once worshipped. A great host of invaders brought an end to the Age of Gods, bringing humanity to near-extinction and reducing its cities to dust. Humanity endured however and the Age of Man began, while both the invaders and Gods seemed to vanish from all accounts. Humanity's shattered civilization was rebuilt under a single Kingdom which flourished for centuries, enjoying peace and prosperity until the ‘War of Dissolution' began.

Years later saw the emergence of the dragon, a great being of death and disease that some proclaimed as a new God, sent to punish humanity for its sins. The dragon's curse saw men and women slowly transform into abominations, who became known as the Blighted. Humanity observed the effects of the Blight and those who showed signs were outcast from society in the best of cases(though some tolerant cities built prisons to hold them), but most were burned alive as the people began to fear the Blight and those who bore it. This fear and distrust extended to the Vanguard, who had allowed the Blighted to join their ranks and spend their final days in service of the realm.

Every few decades, the dragon would emerge from the Void and wreak havoc within the mortal realm. This become an accepted fate among the citizens of Caelum and they could see no way to escape it. Though the dragon's stay was always brief, the host of demons and spirits it left in its wake would pour into the surrounding areas and require the Vanguard and other heroes to take up arms in defense. This began the Age of Heroes, and these men and women became renowned for their deeds. Some citizens proclaimed that the heroes were immune to both death and the Blight, and others began to believe it true. Eventually however, these heroes that guarded the mortal realm for so long would fade into memory and myth. A few rumored sightings would spring up over the years, which never amounted to anything more than hearsay. Presently, many believe that the Age of Heroes has drawn to an end, but others still retain hope that they'll one day return.

The Void

The Void is an endless and dark realm of existence where the souls of the dead linger for eternity. It is home to many foul creatures, demons, spirits, and most notably the dragon. The Void is the source of all dark and blood magic within the world, and those who practice such arts are relentlessly pursued by the Overseers. The Void has a large role to play in the game and a variety of missions and storylines will frequently take you there.

A new update about The Iron Oath explains how the overworld simulation affects houses, events, encounters and missions.

Overworld Simulation: Houses, Events, Encounters and Missions

Hey folks! Today we're going to dig into the overworld simulation aspect, touching on how ruling houses operate, events, encounters, and missions.

Each region within the game's world is comprised of a Royal House and a few Major Houses. Royal Houses rule over the entire region in which they are situated. They hold ownership of the region's capital city and sometimes other cities as well. The Major Houses are Vassals of the Royal House. If the Royal House ever gets involved in a war or other situation where assistance is required, the vassals are obliged to answer their King or Queen's call. Major Houses can also rule and own multiple cities, and it's even possible for them to have a greater wealth and military strength than that of their liege.

Each ruling House has their own set of goals and principles(or ethos). Their ethos can differ slightly from generation to generation, but extreme changes in a short time period are unlikely(like going from peaceful to warmongering over a span of a few years). Each city also its own ethos, which at the beginning will be quite similar to that of others within the region(since they generally are the same race, have the same practices etc). A city's ethos is less subject to change over time, but it will slowly be influenced by the ethos of its ruler. Each city has some stats that are tracked that help drive the logic of its ruling House:

Wealth: Used to buy resources, hire mercenaries and fund their army Military Strength: Having a strong military means they are less likely to shy away from conflict Resources: Are they able to feed citizens? Do they need to trade for wood or stone? Each region has some predetermined resource nodes, but new ones will also appear during the course of the game. Population Happiness: How happy are the citizens with their ruler

The other stat tracked would be each rulers standing with one another and other factions of the world. Those with a high standing would be allies, those with low would be enemies. Generally, a vassal will be in good standing with their Liege, but it's possible for it to drop low enough that they may choose to rebel against him or her.

The ethos and stats will all determine how a ruler reacts to different situations and world events that occur. Events occur all the time in the game and help make each playthrough unique. A single event can vary in complexity and impact on the world. They can be either triggered upon certain criteria being met, or completely random. Some examples of random events are:

• Plagues
• Droughts
• Floods
• New resource nodes
• Blighted attacks
• Void breaches(the release of spirits & demons into the world).

Some conditional events would be:

A bandit raid on a city, with the condition being that the city has a low military presence. A city's military numbers could be lowered for various reasons, such as conflict or simply a lack of funds.
Revolt of a city, if citizen happiness remains low for a long period of time, the citizens may trigger a revolt and regime change.
A vassal may rebel against his King or Queen if their ethos' greatly differ and their relationship weakens. Other factors that are taken into account would be the ruler's ambition and military strength that he or she commands.

Both types of events would have a type of mission or encounter generated alongside each, and you could come across them providing you're in the right region(for an encounter) or hub(for a mission). Depending on the mission or encounter, you'll have the chance to influence the world in varying degrees, either by completing it or by choosing not to.

Let's say come spring time in a region, there's an event that triggers, stating that the wolf population in the region is getting out of hand this year. This would generate a few missions and possible encounters specific to that event. While traveling in the region you may get an encounter that describes a group of travelers fending off a pack of wolves. You can choose to assist them or ignore their plight, either choice would affect your reputation and could have an impact on your game either immediately or down the line(especially if it is eventually revealed that the travelers were noteworthy citizens).

A variety of quests would be generated from this event as well. A city may issue a bounty on wolf heads, a hunter may have tried to tackle the problem himself and has gone missing, or you can undertake a mission to drive the wolves out of their nearby den. Without your assistance, the problem may escalate, and could even require a city to divert some of their military force to resolve the situation.

One of the biggest ways to influence the world would be to assassinate a ruler(these types of missions would obviously be incredibly difficult). An ally of yours may send you a letter, asking for your help in his plot to kill his liege who he has grown to dislike. A few choices present themselves to you right away:

• You can refuse his request and he may drop his plot, or attempt it anyway
• You can reveal his scheme. Likely earning yourself a reward from the liege, but also sentencing your ally to death and potentially having all of his House's holdings revoked.
• You can accept the mission and attempt to complete it.

If you accept and manage to complete the mission, the liege will be replaced by their heir. If they are without an heir, the most well-liked Major House of that region will ascend to the throne. However if there is any amount of dislike between the Houses, a war for the throne is likely to occur.

This type of outcome would also spawn some more missions for you, and you could choose a side and help them win the crown by completing various tasks: capturing a watchtower, disrupting enemy supply lines, or fending off some invaders from within a structure. As of now, you won't be able to fully partake in a large scale battle(though it's something we'd like to do eventually, but probably not until after release), your assistance would instead come through the completion of various small scale skirmishes that assist the war-effort of your ally.

That about covers each aspect, hopefully you like the direction and ideas we have for the game's world. Our next content update will talk a bit more about the world itself: some lore, regions, factions, and some information on the void and its inhabitants. As mentioned last time, we're planning to send out the surveys this Saturday, however we need the Kickstarter funds to come through first so we can make our payment to BackerKit. Hopefully it comes through today or tomorrow, if not the survey will likely be delayed until next week.