There Will Be Ink is a tactical action game for 1-8 players. Play solo or with friends in battles between stick figure armies drawn on a paper notepad, just like you used to draw in class instead of paying attention!
TWBI is a difficult game, where charging forward into the fray will rarely win a battle. Tactical thinking is essential. Assessing the battlefield, taking cover as needed, keeping an eye on troops positions: all of these are essential for winning the day. Or, if that sounds like a chore, switch to “arcade mode” and run & gun at will!
Features:
Hey there, amigos!
I’ve got a big new There Will Be Ink update out now on Steam & Itch. The first “Act” of the main campaign is now available. The enemy this time around is made up of an alternate set of units with their own art, weapons, sound, etc. There’s a new tutorial mission available, and, since the game has changed a lot both mechanically and visually since the old Beta 1 trailer, I recorded a quick “tour” of the game. Watch it below and bask in the awkwardness of my narration!
Many other features and content have been added, changed, rebalanced, and fixed. Some highlights include new abilities, sounds, stats, badges, terrain, new unit states like “Prisoner” and “Bleeding Out”, and even a boss fight! I’ll jump into a some of the new features in detail, but check out the changelog down below for a full list. I’m also narrowing down a release date, which I’ll cover in the “Road Map” section below.
The new campaign contains a story that sees the player up against a new enemy known as the “Alt Write”. The true nature of the enemy isn’t revealed until after the first act, so for that one player out there playing TWBI for the story, you will just have to be patient! The first mission throws you right into the action. It eases off a bit after that but then ramps up again pretty quickly. I set out to make this campaign a little easier than the Beta campaign, to be a little more gentle on new players, buuut I couldn’t help but veer back towards the true spirit of the game, which is to be difficult but fair, a game that takes practice to master. I suppose it will be up to the player to judge the new campaign’s difficulty, so if anyone has any feedback, I’d be happy to hear your thoughts. I’ve also been laying out some mission-specific game mechanics in the new campaign. One such feature is the new “prisoner” unit state, which can be toggled for units in the map editor as well. A prisoner will sit in place, tied up, until an ally rescues them. Another mission sees an endless stream of enemy paratroopers landing in the area. Without spoiling the details, there is also a boss fight at the end of Act I.
The new unit set is essentially an analog to the base unit set. The new units and all weapons have their own art, sounds, and stats, and the new Alt HQ & Barracks have their own art as well. I drew them with my left hand, which turned out to be a very uncomfortable process. I guess I am not ambidextrous. While pretty similar to the base set, the new units offer a bit of variety and, perhaps more importantly, lay a foundation for adding additional sets in the future (sci-fi set? Fantasy set? cat set?). In addition to being able to fight against the Alt set in the new campaign, the new units and buildings are also available in the Map Editor and in Quick Battle.
The aptly titled “Grabby Mode” allows the player to relinquish control of a unit to observe the battle and control a giant hand that can be used to select, or “grab”, and take control of another (friendly, non-incapacitated (“capacitated”?)) unit anywhere on the battlefield. Since someone playing with keyboard & mouse can already take control of units by middle-clicking them, Grabby Mode is mostly relevant to players using a gamepad, where previously the only way control a specific unit was to use the d-pad to jump to the next nearest unit on either side. Three cheers for Grabby Mode!
Units who die from wounds will now enter a “bleeding out” state, where there is a short period of time (10 seconds, plus 2 seconds per rank level) where the unit can still be saved if a medic heals them in time. Units dying by “conventional” means also have a 10% chance per rank level of going into a bleed out state. This new mechanic makes medics a little more valuable while also giving ranked units a slight chance of living a little longer.
Units of rank 2 and up will now roll when moving to cover or in order to avoid incoming rockets. Units of rank 3 and up will do the same (and a little better) while also running when approaching their target or doing an ammo run. The new “Advanced Training” and “Expert Training” start all units off at level 2 and 3 respectively. These abilities cost a lot of points. I wouldn’t expect Expert Training to be put to use during the first playthrough of a campaign but perhaps on subsequent playthroughs. That being said, the campaign isn’t finished yet, and I’m aiming for 24 missions, so who’s to say! Units who level up on their own during battle will also take advantage of these new behaviours. Check out the video above at about the 7:38 mark to see Expert Training in effect.
The Barracks page now has two sheets of campaign stats and now includes campaign-wide stats for Comrades Destroyed, Longest Streak, Longest Kill Streak, Time in Battle, Deaths Avenged, Grenade Kills, Mine Kills, Damage Repaired, and Mines Defused, in addition to those that were already present. The two Streak stats are now tracked each mission and a notification is given at the end of a mission if a new record is set. “Time in Battle” is also a brand new stat that tracks the total time spend in battle. This stat wasn’t previously tracked, so it will start at 0 for all campaigns whether in progress or not. Also added are a few new badges relating to boss fights and friendly fire.
I’m finally starting to feel confident that I’ve shaped There Will Be Ink into a finished game. I don’t intend to add any new major features before version 1.0 of the game (though there will certainly be more to come after that). I was considering a June release, but with the pressure of big summer sales around the corner and given that the game still needs a good bit of polish, I’m looking to spend a few extra months on finishing the main campaign and improving the aspects of the game already in place. For instance, I’d like to review each unit in the game and make sure it is fun and worthwhile to play as that unit (I’m looking at you, Engineer!). The Campaign Editor is still a little rough as well, and while I’ve tidied up the Map Editor and added some shiny “stickers” in place of the bland labels of yore, I’d like to fancify that up some more too. That being said, there will be some additional mission-specific mechanics that will appear in upcoming campaign missions. I won’t go so far as saying there will be tanks, but There Will Be Tanks! Wait, I should clarify that. There will eventually be tanks, probably. Since the game’s inception I wanted tank (they were an integral part of the doodles of yore), but I dismissed them pretty early on as being out of scope and being too much work to implement, especially to draw at the amount of angles that would be needed to fit in (given the hand-drawn graphics of the game). One thing working on this game has taught me, however, is that I ain’t afraid of no work! I will probably tackle that beast post 1.0, but in the meantime I already have some simpler vehicles in the works for other missions.
But alas, I digress. What this all comes down to is that I’m aiming for a tentative September 2020 release. It may be sooner; it may be later. Nobody knows! In the meantime, thanks for reading and thanks for playing. As usual, I’m happy to receive any and all feedback you might have. Cheerio!
New Features & Content
Changes & Enhancements
Bug Fixes
Don’t yet have a copy of the game? Check out the Summit Fever Twitter account for a giveaway around the time of this posting. As usual, the game can also be found on itch and Steam.
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Just came back after forgetting about IndieDB and oh boy this really has come a long way. Sad to see that it's become paid -- but I do understand that we need to live. I'd be more than happy to buy it, actually -- and if you're still active here would you rather me buy it now and give proper feedback?
Hey! Sorry for the very late reply (I really wish IndieDB gave notifications for this sort of thing). Version 1.0 of the game is not far off, and at that point I will likely drop an updated demo version here. There was a sale recently on itch and Steam, if you were able to catch the game there. Any level of feedback is helpful :)
Oop.., That early April Spring Sale?
Regardless, sounds good! Though tbh, Steam's generous refund policy does already kind of count as a demo. :P
What version will this be leaving Steam Early Access?
It was a custom sale from March 25th to 30th. Probably I should have run it a little longer though. I know, I'll put it on sale again!
Itch.io
There we go, 25% off until Friday, and it includes a Steam key.
You're quite right about Steam's refund policy being like demo access, heh. I'll likely still drop a demo here on IndieDB for anyone who doesn't use Steam or itch.
I'm not sure I understand your question about which version will be leaving Steam Early Access. It will be what I consider the finished game, though I plan to keep updating after that.
Cheers!
Thanks, then.
Anyway, I've already made up my mind. I'd love to help support this venture. I'll be doing it on Steam, though -- sale or no sale. Courtesy of the messy world of economics, buying it in my currency is somehow half a USD cheaper. xD
EDIT: Could we have modding support in the future? I'd love to make custom units.
Thanks so much! If you get a chance (in due time) to leave a Steam review it would be very helpful and much appreciated.
As it happens, your purchase makes my 100th sale on Steam. I feel like you should win an award or something ;D
I've thought about opening up access to unit/weapon attributes and graphics, yes. It would require a bit of redesign and is behind some other priorities right now, but it may happen down the road. For now there are the Map and Campaign Editors, and I'm working on a set of alternative units (analogs to the base set, but with different weapon stats/art/sound) for a new campaign to be released with version 1.0. Also down the road I'd like to add some more varied unit sets (eg. a fantasy set, a sci-fi set, etc).
Now that you say it, I'd like to have a time machine that lets me travel into the future... And, you're welcome for the purchase.
By the way, you may wish to optimize fire a bit... If I turn up the tree value to maximum in a Quick Battle and then start spraying fire all over it quickly becomes pretty laggy.
Also, tooltips for the unit icons when you hover over them in the Quick Battle setup, please?
EDIT: Also, where can I report bugs to you? I keep getting a crash whenever I load in a beta campaign mission. Apparently you forgot to set some friendlyInWay variable before reading it... Oddly, it only applies to Arcade mode...
Thanks for the feedback! The lag issue with trees burning is fixed (or greatly optimized) for the next build. I keep delaying that update's release as I make more optimizations and other changes, but watch for it early next week. I'll try to fit in tooltips for unit icons in as well, good call.
Bug reports are best sent to hi@summitfevergames.com. Alternately I'm quick to respond to anything posted to Steam comments. I'm also making it a point again to check here regularly, as I don't seem to get any notification when new comments are posted.
EDIT: I was able to replicate and resolve the Arcade mode crash bug. It turned out to be related to paratroopers trying to avoid friendly fire (which is disabled in Arcade mode). The fix will be part of the next update. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!
Stuck on level 2... am i just bad or am i missing something? very frustrating when you're stuck
Would like to see it play like "totally accurate battle simulator" where you decide how many /what type of characters / where to place, and rewards for using less resources.
Hello there! Thank you for the feedback. It is indeed a pretty challenging game. I've since added tips that show up on the main screen (for the next build) to help players out. Hiding behind cover can be very helpful, and so can running and rolling. For instance, for level 2, one strategy is to charge forward and taking cover behind a boulder, then fall back as needed. That being said, I may reduce the number of enemy troops on the second mission. You can also level up your unit's abilities from the 'Barracks' page. Even when you lose a battle, you get points for any units defeated.
I like your idea about choosing what type of units. I've thought of implementing something along those lines at the start of a mission and may yet do so. There are also barracks beyond level 2 that spawn new units.
Thanks again for the feedback, and I hope that helps!
Oh yeah! I get it now. I agree about being able to recruit units with some sort of currency you earn at the end of a scenario, as well as keeping the infinite spawning barracks. I disagree about where to place, though. I think they should just be clumped together in some spawn zone, since such a change would make this more of a battle simulator than a tactical action game. You know what this makes me think of?
Stealth missions. The AI, if set, will only attack those in say, a certain range. This makes for some interesting stealth scenarios and makes the player focus less resources on units. Making the AI also call for help might be useful, too. I don't think this could be that hard to implement in, perhaps version 0.9.0 or something. I'll let you work at your own pace but will definitely pick up any more updates that come our way :D
It seems like you've got the attack script quite polished already, too. I think your code is somewhere along the lines of "go in range of enemy and shoot" and "if enemy is close enough use grenades". I think you could use the "go to" part to make the AI follow the player as well if set, instead of being omniscient sometimes.
Stealth missions are a great idea. I've been having similar thoughts as I plan out AI behaviour states and the possibilities those might provide. I'm excited to get to work on the new campaign, once I get there, and for what sorts of levels players might make, if I can get anyone playing, hah.
That is pretty well the AI behaviour, yeah, along with taking cover when fired at (or just when attacking, for ranked troops), resupplying, etc. Units will follow their current target, but they refresh their target fairly often as well, which makes them easily distracted I suppose. The new AI states should make it easy to have sentries, and I'm hoping for some level of calling for help as well (eg for nearby units to notice if their comrades are under attack).