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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

#41

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

danielbarla wrote: post #8
mihaifm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The genius of it is that the best players in the world can get a 30 run win streak, so it's mostly about having a good strategy and playing well. On the other hand, you pretty much will need to know exactly how to beat the final boss, or spend several runs figuring it out... So you are right, it's not noob friendly. On the other hand, it's one of the most sublimely balanced roguelikes.

Figuring out how to beat the final boss and beating it for the first time was very fun.

First few runs I got confused on the final boss map, ended up going to rebel controlled territory, escaping into final boss with a extremely unprepared / damaged ship.

I ended up having to unlock several more powerful ships and beat it via the starter Mantis ship (no weapons starting off + 2 mantises). On my first successful run, I had a double charge II laser, a lvl3 defense II drone, and a 4 man warp pad, so the final boss ended up being pretty easy with solid focus fire damage, boarding, and defense.

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

#42

Post by andywood »

baldfat wrote: post #28
danielbarla wrote: post #3

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…

I made a game that has this design principle. The UI is all point-click and a few icons. But it presents things like: what you can do to the object in front of you, with the item in your hand. What you can do with items you have on hand. What you could do if you had an item that you know about. Hints about what you could do if you knew something you don't know yet. This is all distilled to a single icon with decorations, but computing it all correctly is quite involved.

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

#43

Post by baldfat »

b0rsuk wrote: post #32
baldfat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 musi…

I understand your point, but it's hardly the best example of a soundtrack that doesn't get in the way. Red Alert(1) from 1996 got a "soundtrack of the year" award. Initially I was puzzled by that. It has a few great tracks, but not amazing. Until you play the soundtrack in a loop. The tracks are very atmospheric and totally unobtrusive. Another soundtrack by Frank Klepacki - Tiberian Sun - is also not something you w…

Do you like the FTL music? To me that is great but Risk of Rain is my favorite game music ever. It was brilliant while playing and it was awesome just to listen to.

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

#44

Post by woolvalley »

mihaifm wrote: post #7
swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #5

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.

It's been a few years, but my winning strategy was using the square ship which I think had a self repair function or similar and disabling the boss ship as much as possible through fires, teleporting people to disable specific guns and using ion weapons. So not going for a full direct firepower method.

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

#45

Post by Marazan »

JauntTrooper wrote: post #19

I’ve really been enjoying ‘Into the Breach.’ I wonder how much of the interface choices were driven by portability to iPad and especially mobile. FTL (which is superb) is too complicated visually to port to a phone. It works well on an iPad, but having played on both the iPad and desktop I can see that they needed to make UI tweaks for the iPad to make it work. This new game is an 8x8 grid though, so it’s easier to i…

It begs to be a mobile game.

It's ability to be played, satisfactorily, in tiny bite size chunks - of maybe only a few minutes at a time - demands it makes its way to mobile.

I want it on my phone for my commute.

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

#46

Post by funkaster »

dom96 wrote: post #9
girvo wrote: 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).

It works just fine under wine on Linux. Should be as easy to run on Mac.

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

#47

Post by RandComment »

MSM wrote: post #26
strictnein wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> he just picked two of the highest acclaimed titles of the year

Shame on you. To totally ignore his actual point because you don't understand the basic premise. The "acclaims" you cited are nonsensical in the context of other titles. It's like when Winger was considered a good hair band in the early 90s. It's not that they were good, but that no others of any note had appeared in awhile.

Into the Breach isn't innovative in any way and this is an article trying to inject some sense of "magic dust" being added instead of it being a recycled idea with pixelated graphics from a well-known developer.

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

#48

Post by jack9 »

MSM wrote: post #26
strictnein wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the same way you just picked two you liked and decided to call them amazing, despite being pixel rehashes. Rude.

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

#49

Post by Sinidir »

danielbarla wrote: post #8
mihaifm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The genius of it is that the best players in the world can get a 30 run win streak, so it's mostly about having a good strategy and playing well. On the other hand, you pretty much will need to know exactly how to beat the final boss, or spend several runs figuring it out... So you are right, it's not noob friendly. On the other hand, it's one of the most sublimely balanced roguelikes.

Stealth and Transporters. Made it kind of a boring game after figuring that this was the dominant combo to beat the boss.

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

#50

Post by b0rsuk »

baldfat wrote: post #43
b0rsuk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point, but it's hardly the best example of a soundtrack that doesn't get in the way. Red Alert(1) from 1996 got a "soundtrack of the year" award. Initially I was puzzled by that. It has a few great tracks, but not amazing. Until you play the soundtrack in a loop. The tracks are very atmospheric and totally unobtrusive. Another soundtrack by Frank Klepacki - Tiberian Sun - is also not something you w…

Do you like the FTL music? To me that is great but Risk of Rain is my favorite game music ever. It was brilliant while playing and it was awesome just to listen to.

I will have to listen through it on youtube. It seems to have that light, vangelis-y feel. If you like that kind of music and retro graphics, check out Knytt Stories. Very nice music, free download, and the Design Tour video should convince you it's worth your time. The author even played the acoustic guitar for the soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpnGL3ggGFk

I just realized something else about Into The Breach music. It could be put into many, many other games, and wouldn't feel out place. I mean swap it with Age of Wonders III, Hyper Light Drifter, Baldur's Gate, Nuclear Throne, Catacomb Kids, Rimworld, EVE Online, Homeworld, a Total War game, Samorost, Machinarium, The Witcher, Far Cry, Grim Dawn, Dark Souls, Cave Story, Bioshock, System Shock, Dishonored... I can't imagine it in Starcraft, a racing game or Day of the Tentacle, but otherwise it's the kind of music people say goes well with anything.

I really think the music is weakest part of the game. Pixel art is very good, design/game mechanics are excellent, interface deserves the praise. It's a very good game but I think they're just good at PR (self-promotion), like the guy from Ultima Ratio Regnum. He's good at procedural generation and wrote a few scientific papers (and RPS articles), but he doesn't seem to have ever released a game. URR will probably end the ultimate vapourwave. Game design and screensaver design are two different things.

Certainly self-promotion is a very beneficial skill to have and I can learn a lot from these guys.

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