Patchwork Battles: Alive and well.

[jlach]

Please note that this is a xpost from the new Patchwork Battles blog: http://www.patchworkbattles.com

It's been a long time since we've talked about Patchwork Battles. The game has been through some pretty big ups and downs in the past 8 months. We've had personnel change, art direction change, engine change, and even some design changes. However, the game is still alive and kicking and is about to get a whole lot more alive as we'll be kicking off our own Kickstarter project sometime between middle and the end of May.

This first post is really to re-familiarize everyone with Patchwork Battles. What is this game, what makes it unique, and why do you care. Please note that this post is not the definitive guide on Patchwork Battles, but is only here to serve bringing everyone up to speed on the general concept of Patchwork Battles and to start the discussion on what the community would like to see incorporated into the game.

What is Patchwork Battles?
Patchwork Battles is an RPG unlike anything you've seen before. It sets out to be one of the most customizable RPGs in the history of RPGs. How it's going to accomplish that will be outlined, at least briefly, below. For the TL;DRs out there, here's what you need to know in a nutshell:

• Moving story of a son's desire to make a father proud. Betrayal. Sibling bonds.
• You build your own party members. Literally. From body parts.
• 8 classes whose parts can be mixed and matched to create a truly unique character.
• You craft your body parts from loot. 3 quality of parts provide different bonuses and penalties.
• You create your own skills and spells. No more will you be told "This is what Skill A does, and this is it." It's up to you.
• Equipment (patch) can be crafted to further enhance your Mimic's parts.
• Unique twist on a time-tested battle system (ATB).
• Unique social experience.
• Endless gameplay after the campaign is complete.

A moving story? How so?
Well, I'm not going to jump into the story here. This is something you're going to have to wait for the release for. Just know that a lot of time and effort has been put into the backstory and lore of Patchwork Battles. I'm trying to flesh out all the details I possibly can. The story will be semi-cliche, which is hard to avoid in RPGs. However, I'm striving to add unique elements to it so it doesn't feel like a YARPGS (Yet another RPG story).

I build my party.. from body parts?
Yeah, you're not crazy. You read that right. In Patchwork Battles you're not told which character is which class, and how that class should act. Instead, you're giving a template of a class but then you are free to completely change it (should you desire). If you want a Tank with some fire power, maybe you'll mix some Knight and Wizard parts. Want a healer who can take a few hits and dish out some melee damage? You can do that to by mixing and matching the Trickster, the Priestess, and the Shadow.

In Patchwork Battles, you're not limited. If you have a Knight arm equipped you can use the Knight skill associated with that arm, even if your other parts are all Wizards. Of course, you do get bonuses for equipping multiple parts of the same Mimic Class, but you are NOT penalized for only using one or two parts of a certain class. I really want you, the player, to feel like you are in complete control over your Mimics (characters).

You might ask: "What about those of us who don't want to go that deep into the game?" Well, that's easy - the game provides all players with Mimic templates they can use. These are ideal combinations that have been found during development and that will suffice for clearing the game with relative ease (on Normal mode, at least). Of course, other Animators (human players) can share their Mimic builds with their friends and strangers alike.

What are the 8 classes?
I won't go into too much detail here, but here are the 8 classes that will be featured in Patchwork Battles at the time of release...

• Knight (Male, Tank)
• Trickster (Female, Tank)
• Shadow (Male, Physical Damage, Melee)
• Slinger (Female, Physical Damage, Ranged)
• Wizard (Male, Magic Damage)
• Sorceress (Female, Magic Damage + Support)
• Bishop (Male, Healer + Support)
• Priestess (Female, Healer)

Spell creation?
Unlike other games, Patchwork Battles does not dictate which skills you have available to you nor does it dictate (well, it does slightly) what those skills do. That's up to you. Once again, I'm not going to go into crazy detail here as I am still finalizing the details but I do want to introduce this topic to everyone.

The spell creation process works something like this: At some level, your Mimic unlocks a "Skill Base" for one of it's parts. The Skill Base is the basics of what that skill does: Base damage, number of targets, mana cost, etc. This is a usable skill in it's own right but not all that interesting. Things get interesting when you start unlocking Skill Crystals. These crystals allow you to imbue your Skill Base with special powers. Here's some of the things you can do with your Skill Crystals. Please note that none of these are finalized and that each one also carries a penalty with it.

• Increase the number of enemies the skill can target.
• Increase the damage the skill does.
• Decrease the skill cooldown or mana cost.
• Add a special effect to the skill
• Life Steal
• Damage over Time
• Self heal

The number of crystals you can put in a Skill Base is determined by the Part's level, the Skill level, the Mimic's level as a whole.

Battle system, ATB, unique?
I know, an ATB battle system doesn't sound all that unique. For those who do not know, ATB stands for Active Time Battle and was used heavily in some of the middle Final Fantasy Games (FF7, 8, 9, etc). You can read more about it on the Final Fantasy wiki: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/B...ve_Time_Battle

Where Patchwork Battle strays is with the addition of Reactions. Reactions are exactly as they sound; a reaction to some action. Instead of the enemy missing your Mimic based on some arbitrary number (accuracy), the enemy will always hit.. unless you can react in time and dodge his attack. This also means your Mimics can't miss... unless the enemy can dodge his/her attack.

You're not restricted to reacting to enemies actions though. You can also react to your parties actions too. Let's say your Mimic, which has a few Shadow parts equipped, wants to sneak in to deal some big damage but doesn't want to be spotted (i.e: generate high threat). Instead of just going at the enemy, you might wait for your tank to attack and then react to his attack and follow him in, attacking at the same time as he does.

Reactions are a way to bring player skill and reflexes into your standard fair turn based battle system.

Unique social features?
Once again, I'm not quite ready to talk about these in much detail. Here are some of the ideas that I've been throwing around:

• Epic monsters with crazy amounts of HP. These randomly attack players who are playing. Each player can only do so much damage to the monster before it runs away. It's up to ALL players to defeat this monster.
• Created a unique skill? Share with other players. If it's never been created before, give it a name and it will forever be known as that name. Of course, you will have to chose from a predefined list of names as freeform would end badly
• Feel like your Mimic, as a whole (parts, skills, etc) is pretty cool and unique? Create a blueprint from it and share with other players.

And there you have it, Patchwork Battles in a nutshell.

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As mentioned, Patchwork Battles will be kicking off its own Kickstarter campaign in about a month. We can expect this blog to be fairly quite between now and then, as I'll be focusing heavily on the Kickstarter and (obviously) writing more code. As we draw closer to the kick-off, and after, you can expect to see more and more content being posted here.

Thanks for reading!!

Oh yeah, almost forgot, here's a sneak peek at the new art direction. I'm showing only the sketches, saving the good stuff for the Kickstarter

[jlach]

Here's a couple more sketches for everyone

[jlach]

How about one more, just because I'm impatient and can't wait to start showing of all the new and awesome progress Patchwork Battles has made!!

[Zeldaniac]

This. Looks. AWESOME. I'll be sticking around to hear more about this one!

[jlach]

Originally Posted by Zeldaniac

This. Looks. AWESOME. I'll be sticking around to hear more about this one!

Glad to hear you like what you've seen/read so far

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'd really like to start having some questions asked and/or get some feedback ahead of the Kickstarter.

Thanks for the interest!

[jlach]

I've just updated the Patchwork Battles blog, talking a bit about my thoughts for the Kickstarter rewards. Take a read and give feedback, I could use it!! Thanks!

http://codegrit.com/2013/04/15/lets-...arter-rewards/

And, another sketch because I like showing off art :P

[jlach]

I've re-published the official Patchwork Battles facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/PatchworkBattles

[jlach]

Here's a first look at one of the environment concepts for Patchwork Battles. This is the "Animation Training Grounds", one of the first environments you visit

[Zeldaniac]

Why isn't this thread getting more love? I can't be the only one that's seen this great concept.

Also, that environment is deliciously gorgeous. New PC wallpaper.

[kenken11]

Glad this is still alive, was amaze by the beautiful drawing. Hope to see more updates soon! Thanks for the hardwork