Articles - Legion Hearts

April Playtest

The V0.11 update is live! Head on over to the play page to download the prototype and join the first public playtest for Legion Hearts - a tactical autochess RPG for PC and Nintendo Switch.

If this is the first time you're hearing about the game, click here to see what it's all about. And if you've been following our progress over past few months, read on to see everything that's changed!

New Things

• ADDED TUTORIAL CAMPAIGN
  We added a new tutorial campaign featuring three simple battles to get new players familiarized with the base mechanics of the game.

• ADDED COMBAT SEEDS
  Each battle now has a unique seed. Doesn’t do much now, but this will enable saving, loading and sharing battles in the future.

• ADDED NEW UI
  The first iteration of the new UI is here to match all the gameplay changes we've worked on in the last couple of updates.

• ADDED MISSING TOOLTIPS
  Campaign tooltips and rewards, as well as the units in the roster screen now carry tooltips.

• ADDED CHARACTER UNLOCKS
  You can now unlock characters to add and remove from your play deck.

• ADDED APP ICON
  The game executable now uses the Legion Hearts icon. Hurray!

Changes

• TEST CAMPAIGN DIFFICULTY INCREASED
  The 5 campaign battles have been rebalanced as a consequence and should now prove to be slightly more challenging to overcome.

• RETRIES ARE LIMITED
  Battle retries in the campaign are now limited to more accurately reflect the intended game difficulty.

• STREAMLINED CHARACTER ABILITIES
  We reduced the amount of abilities per character to 1. Most characters retained their gameplay identity, but there have been some changes to make sure each class has some representation.

• ADDED MERGE CAP
  All characters can now inherit between 1 and 3 characters depending on their merge capacity. The doomstack Kali strategy was a little bit too overpowered!

• MERGES ARE LIMITED
  Character merges after battle are now limited to better reward being conservative with your units.

• NERFED PERKS
  The heal and attack perks are now half as strong to better compete with the other perks.

Fixes

• FIXED HUNG TURN PROCESSING
  Fixed an issue where certain abilities would prevent the turn queue from processing, effectively freezing the battle.

• FIXED CARD DRAW
  Fixed an issue where the card draw would incorrectly reference the deploy limit, resulting in a lower amount of cards being drawn at the start of battle.

• FIXED VALKYRIE DEATH TRIGGER
  Fixed an issue where the battle retry screen would not appear if the Valkyrie character died against a counter status effect on her own turn.

• FIXED DEPLOY COST CONSUMPTION
  Fixed an issue where deploying a unit would not deduct its energy cost from the energy pool.

• FIXED END OF CAMPAIGN LOADING
  Fixed an issue where clicking on the exit node in the campaign would result in an indefinite loading screen.

• FIXED SUPPORT ABILITY TARGETING
  Fixed an issue where supports with the targeting parameters “Next Ally” would not acquire a new target if their original target was no longer valid.

• FIXED RELOCATING DURING PAUSE
  Fixed an issue where units could be relocated mid-battle after clicking the pause button.

• FIXED ENEMY DEPLOYMENT
  Fixed an issue where units could be deployed on the enemy grid, resulting in unit icon being permanently left on the screen.

• FIXED STUCK UNITS
  Fixed an issue where units carried over from the previous battle could not be relocated on the grid before deploying a new unit.

• FIXED TARGET PARAMETER LABEL
  Fixed an issue where the target parameters for Next Ally, Own Row, Enemy Row and Enemy Lane displayed incorrect names.

• FIXED INCORRECT CHARACTER TOOLTIPS
  Fixed an issue where the tooltips for health and power were swapped on character cards.

• FIXED EMPTY TURN QUEUE
  Fixed an issue where the turn queue would be empty after retrying a battle until it was manually opened again.

• FIXED BLOCKED HEXES
  Fixed an issue where hexes that a newly deployed unit died on would become blocked when trying to deploy the same unit again after retrying a battle.

• FIXED TURN QUEUE TOGGLE
  Fixed an issue where the turn queue would display characters in hand instead after retrying a battle.

• FIXED UNIT ABILITY USAGE
  Fixed an issue where a unit would not use its ability if the target unit died before the ability trigger.

• FIXED BATTLE MEMORY
  Fixed an issue where the previous formation would not be loaded properly when retrying a battle.

• FIXED CARD DRAW ON RETRY
  Fixed an issue where new cards would be drawn when retrying or reentering a battle in the campaign instead of loading the same conditions.

• FIXED DEATH COUNTER
  Fixed an issue where the fallen units counter would not increment correctly.

• FIXED UNITS REMAINING IN DECK COUNTER
  Fixed an issue where the deployed units would also count towards the remaining drawable units in the deck.

• FIXED MERGE SLOT CALCULATION
  Merging fallen units that have already merged with another unit now require the respective amount of free merge slots on the destination unit.

• FIXED STUCK UNITS (AGAIN)
  Fixed an issue where deploying a unit that was already selected in the deploy tab would cause it to become stuck on the grid.

• FIXED GHOST TARGET HIGHLIGHTS
  Fixed an issue where clicking on empty hexes in the merge screen where an enemy unit was deployed would show a ghost target highlight.

• FIXED HEAL ON RETRY
  Fixed an issue where units would be fully healed when retrying battles.

• FIXED STAT INCREASE CALCULATION
  Fixed an issue where certain stat increasing effects would not include power gained from perks when applied.

• FIXED EFFECT APPLICATION
  Fixed an issue where certain abilities would not apply their status effects to all targets of an AoE attack.

Walkthrough

If you're struggling with a campaign battle, check out this walkthrough video for some tips and tricks regarding synergies and formations.

Remember: Legion Hearts is all about making the best use of the units you have at any give time, so feel free to experiment until you find a strategy that works for you. Have fun!

Feedback

And that's the news! We're looking forward to have you play the test build and read your feedback - we're very early in development and this is the best time to make changes to the game.

Also, a word of thanks for reading along until now - this is a big milestone for us and we're really excited to reach it. Until next time!

In Mythology

In Norse mythology, a Valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who guide the souls of chosen soldiers to either Valhalla or Fólkvangr after their death.

These Einherjar would then feast alongside the gods and prepare for Ragnarök, a great prophesied battle that will decide the fate of the world.

In The Story

Legion Hearts has you play as Kali, a time-traveling Valkyrie trying to undo the events of Ragnarök. In the process, you must regain your lost powers as you move forward in this alternate timeline.

To do this, you’ll have to awaken a new Valkyrie each time period you visit, and they will become the heroine of that story chapter. Ilia is one of those characters, who you will encounter in Weisshaupt.

In Battle

In battle, Valkyries act as leaders of your formations – think of them like the queen and king pieces from chess merged into one entity. A Valkyrie must always be present in a battle formation, and if they fall, you will instantly lose the battle and associated run.

They tend to be very powerful characters on their own, and their movesets and classes will dictate what types of units will complement them best. Just make sure to keep them alive!

Deckbuilding

You will be able to create a deck for each awakened Valkyrie, consisting of units you recruited in that time period. Leveling a Valkyrie will increase various deck stats and enable you to tackle more difficult campaigns.

Once you’ve reached Legendary status with a given deck, you will be able to add its characters to your Master deck – Kali’s special deck that does not carry any region restrictions. This deck will be used in the final story chapter, as well as in the online and roguelite modes of the game.

Playtest

Curious to see how this all actually plays? Then we've got some good news for you: The next public playtest for Legion Hearts is slated for April 2022 - which is just around the corner.

If you want to participate, sign up to our newsletter using the link below to get an access code and download the build once it's live. Have fun!

The 0.9 update is here, and that means there's just one more patch to go until the public test. Sign up here to take part!

New Things

• ADDED BASIC ATTACKS
  All units now either have an attack or heal stat and will perform a basic attack or basic heal on their turn.

• ADDED ABILITY COST
  Abilities now cost energy to activate, which must be done manually. Units with an activated ability will use it on their turn while still performing a basic attack or basic heal.

• ADDED UNIT ABSORB
  Fallen units can now be merged into deployed units after a battle to pass down base stats, abilities and perks.

• ADDED PERK SYSTEM
  Perks provide passive bonuses that will stay with a unit for the entirety of a campaign, and you can select one after each battle.

• ADDED CAMPAIGN REWARDS
  You can now earn experience, permanent perks and new characters by completing campaigns.

• ADDED DECK PROGRESSION
  You can now level up your deck to increase your deploy limit, starting energy and deck character cap. Experience is gained by completing campaigns.

• ADDED CHARACTER UNLOCK
  You can now permanently unlock characters to add to your deck. Duplicates can be used to upgrade an existing copy.

• ADDED DEPLOY COSTS
  All units now carry a resource cost to deploy and you are given a resource pool. This new resource system will replace the current unit charge system, hopefully making it easier to learn while giving us greater flexibility when it comes to the power level of units.

Changes

• REMOVED 4 UNIT STATS FROM PLAY
  DEF, RES, CCH and CRP have been hidden from the units stats. They will still be used to resolve abilities under the hood, but the emphasis is now placed on Power and Health. Our goal is for you to be able to see at a glance whether or not you can kill an enemy unit or survive a hit, which just wasn’t possible with the current system.

• REMOVED ACTION SPEED STAT
  All units now act on every turn. While this stat enabled some interesting exceptions such as Nelson, it added little value compared to how much it increased the learning curve by.

• REDUCED DEFAULT STAT VALUES
  All flat stat values have been decreased by around 90%, most notably Power and Health. Units now behave similarly as they would in card games, making smaller increases much more impactful.

• REDUCED CHARACTER ABILITIES TO 1
  All characters now have a single, unique ability, down from 2-3. We hope that this change, coupled with the streamlining of stats, will make it much easier to learn a character’s moveset.

• REMOVED EQUIPMENT SLOTS
  We removed the current iteration of the equipment system as it played to meaningful part in the battle system. We expect to reintroduce it further down the road once the core mechanics are in a better place.

• REMOVED UNIT CHARGES
  All units can now be deployed an unlimited number of times as long as you can pay the deployment cost. Units can be discarded to slightly increase your maximum resource pool.

• CHANGED BATTLE INTRO SCREEN
  The battle intro screen now reveals less information about the next battle, as the information dump frequently confused new players.

Fixes

• FIXED DUPLICATE UI ELEMENTS
  Fixed an issue where rapidly selecting and deselecting a movable UI element would leave them stuck in place and occasionally spawn a duplicate of itself.

This small update brings some fixes to our prototype build while we collect feedback from you to put into our next update. Give it a spin if you haven't already!

New Things

• ADDED MISSING BATTLE UI FEATURES
  We implemented tooltips for the most critical UI elements such as stats, attack speed and target. Additionally, you can now fast forward battles and exit to the previous screen at any point.

• ADDED BASIC MAIN MENU
  Turns out we needed one! This basic menu allows you to load into campaigns or random battles and has a dedicated exit game button, and also shows you the current game version.

• ADDED RANDOM BATTLES
  You can now play random battles from the main menu. You can reroll the combat scenario by pressing R or pressing the dedicated reroll button. We mostly use this for debugging, we thought we’d make it available for everyone.

Changes

• GUNNER ABILITY
  The gunner unit received a second skill called Easy Target, doubling his critical chance if the target unit is undamaged.

• STREAMLINED BACKGROUNDS
  Background illustrations should now be loaded in the correct contexts and can now be manually set for better control.

• MAX NERF
  Max received a slight nerf to his DoT damage. He is still able to one-shot most enemy units, but now requires the full critical power multiplier from Sneak Attack.

Fixes

• FIXED LANE TARGETING
  Units in the middle lane now properly prioritize units on the enemy top/bottom lane if there are no units in the adjacent lane.

• FIXED BATTLE RETRY BUTTON
  You can now properly retry battles in the campaign without having to return to the map view first.

• FIXED VALKYRIE BARRIER EFFECT
  Our prototype boss no longer loses her barrier on turn 2.

• FIXED BATTLE REWARDS BUTTON TEXT
  The battle reward continue button now properly informs you to discard exhausted units. Affected units are now marked in red, which should make them easier to spot.

• FIXED ASPECT RATIO ISSUES*
  Fullscreen mode now forces letterboxing to create a 16:9 aspect ratio as the game UI currently breaks if played in other formats. This is a temporary solution we’ll get rid of as soon as we have proper UI scaling.

• FIXED ABILITY DESCRIPTIONS
  Fixed several effect descriptions. This will be an ongoing process over multiple patches, so please bear with us!

What is Legion Hearts?

Legion Hearts is a tactical RPG blending turn-based autochess battles with rogue-lite deckbuilding. Resurrect and customize hundreds of fallen heroes from every epoch of history to build your very own army deck and test your battle strategy in the story-driven single-player campaign or take the fight online.

Loosely based on Norse mythology, you play as a rogue Valkyrie and must travel to eight unique worlds to assemble your forces and overthrow the tyrannical gods. Will you stand the test of time?

How to Play

To play, sign up to our newsletter and enter the password on the Play page to download the test build. There's no need to install anything - simply open the Legion Hearts executable from the extracted folder. It's PC only at the moment – we'll start to include Mac and Mobile versions later this year.

We know it's a bit of a hoop to get through, but this is pre-alpha software - we want to make sure you know what you're getting into before downloading the prototype! Once we have more polished builds, we'll start to make them more easily accessible. Now, here's what's in the demo:

Test Campaign

This build contains our very first campaign to test out all the new systems. Here, you'll have to fight a series of battles while trying to build up a strong team to defeat the final boss. Can you make it all the way to the end?

You'll start the campaign with only a small amount of units. But at the end of each battle, you will be able select an additional unit from your deck to add to your hand.

Make sure to check out your deck before you start to see what units you can draw and possible synergies you could build. Sometimes, conserving a unit for later might be the best choice!

Random Battles

You can also try your hand at random battles to get familiar with the mechanic and all the new units we added in this build.

As the name suggests, the setup is entirely random and might not provide the most balanced encounters! But you can always reroll combat by pressing R.

Manual

The game currently lacks any sort of tutorial, so consider checking out our gameplay preview to get a rough idea of what it's about if this is your first time seeing the game.

We also put together a small tutorial PDF here explaining the most important UI bits. But if you're stuck, feel free to jump into our Reddit or Discord to see what other players did.

Feedback

And that's the news! If you have any feedback you'd like to share even at this early stage or report a bug, consider joining the community! We're always happy to see someone new.

Also, a word of thanks for reading along until now - this is a big milestone for us and we're really excited to reach it. Until next time!