New build

New build new build!

[ New build ]

We're calling it a "bones release candidate" even though it's not technically a release candidate since we know there's a buncha blocking issues, but this should be the last backer-only one before we start selling the early access "bones" builds on itch.io.

Production timeline update

I was aiming to get the "bones" version done by february, but looks like that didn't quite come together. Here's where we currently are with respect to the "bones" version I described in the campaign:

Rests/repairs are still in the UI mockup stage. There's still a few placeholders for the implemented NPCs. The Tutorial is prototyped but still needs a fair amount of work.

This officially puts us a month behind schedule, not including the 3-month extension we gave ourselves for the switchover when we discovered the game wanted to be in 3D.

An update on my own working situation: you may remember I changed the stretch goal for "one year fulltime to try and get to a 100% content port" to instead be "three years 2/3 time" to smooth things out with a bit of income via a part-time webdev job. That's hit a wrinkle: the contracts have dried up and as of jan 1st I'm no longer gainfully employed by others (did you know you can get paid for being laid off??? I've never gotten severance before! o_o).

However, I subsequently was accepted for Oregon's Self-Employment Assistance unemployment program so I can still get an income for most of this year as we work towards finishing the game. I'll need to fill a bit of a gap of a month or two by picking up some Crescent Loom grant work that's become available, so I think these changes are mostly a wash lol; overall I'll still be working on LT this year about 3/4 time.

Here's a sketch the current overall production timeline. With the 3D cataclysm and now running a bit behind, we're aiming to finish the Kickstarter build around March 2026.

We also still have all of the custom portraits/mech tokens/map video calls/homebrew mech rewards to fulfill in 2025.

The thing that's most likely to slip here is the implementation of the two campaigns we promised as stretch goals. I've been telling friends that that's the one place I feel the scope got out of hand during the crowdfunding. It's important to ship with stories because otherwise all we've made is a little toybox for digital robots to smash into each other, but promising *two* campaigns was a way bigger swing than I realized I was making at the time — and the cost of which was not reflected in the stretch goal itself. If that's the worst of the scope creep I think we're still in pretty good shape, but it's good to note.

Narrative Director

And to help us out with managing these two campaigns, Mark and I have brought on a third core team member. Meet Josh Boykin! ::

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Hey, folks! I'm Josh Boykin, and I'm joining the Lancer Tactics team as the Narrative Director!

A little about me: I run Intelligame: a Twitch stream and community where we use "thoughtful play" to make connections between games and the real-world. I've been working in indie games and narrative for over a decade now, with some of my most recent projects being Spirit Swap: Lo-Fi Beats to Match 3 To, REPOSE, and Sorry, We're Closed.  I'm also a former adjunct professor for NYU Game Center!

Olive and I have known each other for a few years now, and when I first heard about Lancer Tactics, I was SUPER excited...and a little too shy to ask if there was a way I could get involved. 😅 But now that the narrative campaigns are more underway, Olive and Mark agreed that there was some space for me to lend my experience. I've been working with our fantastic writers, Dia and Trey, to help bring the campaigns they're writing to life in Lancer Tactics. I'll also be helping with a few things here and there with production, business development, and our storefront too.

I'm seriously incredibly excited for y'all to get to see what we've got coming; it's a great game and a great team making it, and it's an honor to get to help bring it to you. If you want to reach out, you can find me on BlueSky at Wallstormer, and you can find all the Intelligame links here. Hope to chat soon!

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Changelog

ART

•     Connor's been hard at work giving us more than basic minecraft blocks to make maps with with a buncha new setpieces:

•     New meshes for deployables!
•     New terrain textures!

•     Implemented "doodads" in map editor that don't affect terrain and exist on a separate layer from setpieces. Can go either on top of setpieces or on the ground.

I did some work dialing in the rendering pipeline for the game, as well. It's a common among hipster game developers to looks at games with pixel art and comment on whether they're using a "true" pixel grid or not: Shovel Knight is a purist, while Noita commits the sins of rotating its little squares and being inconsistent in their sizing.

Lancer Tactics falls into the latter camp: while I'm locking the camera to zoom levels that don't warp the pixel art, they exist in a non-pixel 3D world and if you zoom in, the pixels of the objects are smaller than the enlarged pixels of the mechs. I experimented with locking them to the same size, but Mark pointed out that had an uncanny valley effect and the 3D objects just looked like bad pixel art.

To help with this I threw in a toon shader (think Wind Waker) to help make the 3D shapes look more pixel-art-y:

We ended up scrapping the consistent pixel sizing but keeping the toon shader: even though the game doesn't fit a purist's definition of pixel art, the hard banding lines for lighting present to the eye as a similar effect as pixel arts' limited palette and make the mix of the two more cohesive overall.

I learned a fair bit about 3D lighting during this process and unlocked the ability to change environmental lighting. Here's a test nighttime scene:

This has created a bug where if there's shadow-casting lighting anywhere on-map, the 2D arts' shadows come out upside down. I cannot for the life of me figure out why or how to fix it, so in-world lighting might end up being shadowless.

•     New weapon attack effects.

•     Updated attack roll animation. Show the total roll's number, along with acc/diff count and the result. Use damage symbols instead of the word "damage".
•     Added a system where we can play one effect at an attacked tile (like a missile landing) and a different effect at any AOE tiles (like an explosion). This replaces the old system where you would fire one missile and many would come down for each tile affected.
•     Robin has started work on sound effects, shifting from their previous work on music. This is a lot harder to include tidbits about in a text/image update 😅 but they're great, I promise.

UI

•     Learned how to move long-running tasks to different threads to not make the game's interface hang. Did so for pathfinding, AI, and the initial content load. I can't overstate how much smoother this makes the user experience.
•     Other UI optimizations to make screens load up faster.
•     More action icons for Barb & Toku.
•     Can "reset outfit" in portrait maker.
•     Add reset button to catalog ring for licenses/talents/CBs.
•     Weapon picker shows SP-unaffordable options, just greyed out.
•     Add "continue" input (defaults to spacebar) that automatically continues past NPC telegraph prompts.
•     Stabilize popcorn text during screen shake.
•     Scale the amount of screen shake by how much damage was done.
•     New "movement area" visual style: white for initial move & gold for boosts with a dotted line showing the original movement range.

•     New load screen animation & tips.

MECHANICS

•     Redid the hard cover calculation method, again. No longer rely on raycasts: it now steps through the voxels in a rough 3D line, and ignores hits on voxels lower than both the attacker and target. Only show cover icons for the most-clear shot instead of every voxel-to-voxel line.
•     Give size 2+ units a threshold for ignoring small changes in elevation when moving, so they can step over stuff smaller than them more easily.
•     Shuffle AI target tiles to help prevent arbitrary focus-fire in the case of ties.

BUGFIXES

•     Hair color now correctly randomizes.
•     Logic bomb AOE is correct. Metafold maze also hits all affected targets.
•     Ordnance weapons can't be fired in engagement.
•     Don't explode pilots on death.
•     Don't confirm ending turn w/ unused actions for pilots.
•     Roller grenade no longer just immediately hits user.
•     Better movement visualization for size 2+ units; adjust fake target move tiles more proactively.
•     Grunts dying to heat doesn't require a rxn to be available
•     Fix several instances of a reaction or triggered attack being able to be used twice on a turn if it re-triggers again before the first one resolves.
•     Exposed singularity movement is mandatory so you can't cancel out and then re-use it.
•     Scanpedia automatically knows grunt HP
•     Attack preview shows "??%" if the evasion is unknown rather than magically knowing the percent chance.
•     Fix Walking Armory shock & jager not working if the original target died.
•     Fix kinetic compensator adding accuracy for every attack.
•     Fix core siphon never removing its initial accuracy.
•     Disdainful blade attack is required to be thrown.
•     Fixed disdainful blade not triggering if you destroy your target
•     When an attack with knockback is controlled by an opponent, they get to pick the knockback as well.
•     Slave systems boost has a flag to have the unit ignore being knocked off-course even though we're spending move.
•     Fix being able to staple a pistol to a rifle and overwatch with the rifle.
•     Don't warn for overwatches when moving an enemy unit (e.g. slave/puppet systems).
•     Fixed up excommunicate/chains localization keys.
•     Fixed portable bunker not granting cover.
•     Add capability to attack the tile you're on if there's also a valid target there (e.g. webjaw snare).
•     Webjaw snare immune to knockback.
•     Moving a unit via a katamari correctly triggers reactions to that unit's involuntary movement; can now grapple mechs onto mines.
•     No longer full-repairs every unit whenever a game is loaded.
•     Systems with no charges left don't magically refill charges on loading a savegame.
•     Fix loading a game breaking unit elevation while standing on another unit with dynamic elevation ie jericho.
•     Fix AI shooting each other if they're in objective zones.
•     Custom Paint Job is no longer guaranteed to trigger.
•     AI avoids moving into terrain that slows them if they don't have and EVA or flight.
•     Fixed AI teleports having unlimited range.

That's all for this month-! Oh yeah and I had a nice NZ vacation for January, it was good to spend time away from touching computers, and their fern and bird game continue to be excellent. But I really did jump straight back into things as soon as I got home lol.