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Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

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Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#21
post #9
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your later point: I never played FTL, but a pixel-art turn-based kaiju-killing tactics game was just too awesome to pass up. And it runs perfectly under Wineskin on my Mac :)

Awww, no native macOS version? I was going to buy this but that discourages me a little (getting it running with Wine and Steam sounds like a PITA).

I followed these steps: https://www.reddit.com/r/IntoTheBreach/comments/80nt36/i_hav...

Works perfectly.

Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#24
post #9
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your later point: I never played FTL, but a pixel-art turn-based kaiju-killing tactics game was just too awesome to pass up. And it runs perfectly under Wineskin on my Mac :)

Awww, no native macOS version? I was going to buy this but that discourages me a little (getting it running with Wine and Steam sounds like a PITA).

This is on their road map. Consoles/mobile are where they are still hesitating due to the experience they had with FTL porting.

Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#25

I think there's a big difference between what the headline is implying (some kind of hugely complex, hard-to-create UI), and what the article itself is saying. From what I can gather, the devs wanted to distill the entire game experience into something that is displayable in a simple manner, and as a core driver, this affected nearly every part of the game. I'm also watching Into the Breach with some curiosity; the g…

Amazing soundtrack ? I think it's entirely forgettable, almost as bad as XCOM2 (generic American war movie). To the point I would advocate spending that money on more sound effects.

But my point is that this kind of GUI approach is very much like a board game. In board games you have a few standard types of pieces, like cards, tokens, meeples, and you design a game with them in mind. The more of these objects you have, the more players have to move around and keep track of. More complex mechanics often add more physical objects. So as a general rule, good board game designers design games with as few objects as possible. Because there's no computer to keep track of things for you, unnecessary complexity is more apparent in board games. Best board game designers design exciting mechanics with creative use of small number of elements. Those games, with high "compression ratio", tend to be my favourite. A few examples are Tigris&Euphrates and Lords of Scotland.

Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#26
post #20

Another overrated as hell indie game with bad pixel graphics. Between this and Celeste its getting annoying.

Celeste looks great. Thanks for the recommendation.

It's really an amazing game.

I think OP just can't get past the pixel graphics because he just picked two of the highest acclaimed titles of the year, highly recommend both of them.

Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#27

I think there's a big difference between what the headline is implying (some kind of hugely complex, hard-to-create UI), and what the article itself is saying. From what I can gather, the devs wanted to distill the entire game experience into something that is displayable in a simple manner, and as a core driver, this affected nearly every part of the game. I'm also watching Into the Breach with some curiosity; the g…

it's fun, but imo FTL is my favorite because it seems to have way more replayability. i haven't cracked the harder difficulties of ITB yet -- not that difficulty is an issue -- but the gameplay just seems so very similar from one run to the next, even if it's engaging for the moment.

Try a different mech squad. Blitzkrieg, for example, is vaguely similar to the Rift Walkers in composition but the mechs have much more specialized roles.

Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#28

I think there's a big difference between what the headline is implying (some kind of hugely complex, hard-to-create UI), and what the article itself is saying. From what I can gather, the devs wanted to distill the entire game experience into something that is displayable in a simple manner, and as a core driver, this affected nearly every part of the game. I'm also watching Into the Breach with some curiosity; the g…

> headline is implying (some kind of hugely complex, hard-to-create UI)

Making anything simple is HUGELY complex. It took them years to get what they wanted and it shows. I think complex UI is actually lazy work. Space 4X games have notorious UI. Endless Space 2's interface might be much simpler than others but I guarantee you they put more time into refining their interface.

Being able to explain or create something "simple" is perhaps the hardest part of creating, and is much harder than naming things in programming and that actually is perhaps is the hardest part.

Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#29
post #25

I think there's a big difference between what the headline is implying (some kind of hugely complex, hard-to-create UI), and what the article itself is saying. From what I can gather, the devs wanted to distill the entire game experience into something that is displayable in a simple manner, and as a core driver, this affected nearly every part of the game. I'm also watching Into the Breach with some curiosity; the g…

Amazing soundtrack ? I think it's entirely forgettable, almost as bad as XCOM2 (generic American war movie). To the point I would advocate spending that money on more sound effects. But my point is that this kind of GUI approach is very much like a board game. In board games you have a few standard types of pieces, like cards, tokens, meeples, and you design a game with them in mind. The more of these objects you hav…

> Amazing soundtrack ? I think it's entirely forgettable

Well to me the very point of a good sound track is immersion and is something to not standout. That is why Ben Prunty's FTL Sound Track was so good. The fact that the music builds up after you place your three mechs was brilliant.

Now ambient music might not be your thing but the games music was skillfully made and isn't some generic tomb of sounds. It was music for a turn based generated puzzles.

Now if this was an album for radio sure forgettable would be horrible comment. For this it is almost a compliment. Most games I just mute the music because it just gets in the way.

Just saw this article: https://www.pcgamer.com/how-i-made-into-the-breachs-soundtra...

Re: Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness

#30
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played both FTL and Into the Breach, I would say FTL is still my favorite of the two since it has more rogue-like RNG elements built into it. Also the final boss in FTL was way more fun than in this game

> Also the final boss in FTL was way more fun than in this game Not so fun for me, never managed to beat it after 3-4 tries, on easy difficulty while fully upgraded. I think that part could use a redesign, it's what made me loose interest in the game...although overall I think it's a great game.

Roguelikes aren't to be played only a handful of times. They are suppose to be hard and that is their replay ability. If you could beat FTL in 3 or 4 turns it would have ruined the game.
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