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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

#31

Post by aidenn0 »

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.

For me I had a different problem. On the Easy difficulty I made it to the boss the 2nd time I played, and almost every playthrough after and I won about 90% of the time. However on "normal" difficulty it was several dozen playthroughs before I could get to the boss, and I was so under-upgraded that I had basically zero chance.

I think I have 1 win to my name on normal difficulty (not counting the crystal ship, which is clearly overpowered). I find the only way I can reliably do well on normal difficulty is to take a lot of early risks and then just restart if I don't get lucky.

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

#32

Post by b0rsuk »

baldfat wrote: post #29
b0rsuk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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 would play on a concert. But it serves a perfect background, too.

Then I understood there's more to a great game soundtrack than very memorable tunes. XCOM2 soundtrack is optimized for short term, for trailers even. Red Alert 1, Tiberian Sun soundtracks are optimized for long term, to be loopable.

I need to get in touch with newer games, but I have very fond memories of Master of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic 1-4, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper1,2; Little Big Adventure. Those were definitely special and music was a big part of it.

From newer games I appreciate Rimworld. It may be inspired by country and Firefly, but it's something I'm happy to play on a loop.

Incidentally ambient music artists are some of my favorites. I love programming while listening to the British band Fluke (on youtube) or even Orbital. Even ayahuasca shamanic songs.

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

#33

Post by jandrese »

aidenn0 wrote: post #31
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.

For me I had a different problem. On the Easy difficulty I made it to the boss the 2nd time I played, and almost every playthrough after and I won about 90% of the time. However on "normal" difficulty it was several dozen playthroughs before I could get to the boss, and I was so under-upgraded that I had basically zero chance. I think I have 1 win to my name on normal difficulty (not counting the crystal ship, which…

I used to think the game was a little too RNG dependent but then I hear about people online who can beat the game 100 times in a row on hard mode and I realize I just suck at it.

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

#34

Post by jandrese »

masklinn wrote: post #15
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…

> I wonder if it will be as big a success as FTL, and if so, whether it will be on its own merit, or the mass following they have due to FTL. It's a very different game than FTL so while I'd expect previous FTL owners to check it out I wouldn't necessarily expect all of them to be interested (I was, and I really like ITB though I'm quite terrible at tactical games) (then again I'm also bad at roguelikes).

ITB feels more like a puzzle game to me than a traditional tactics game.

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

#35

Post by jandrese »

apozem wrote: post #16
anc84 wrote: post #11

Anyone know if a Linux port is on the horizon?

If you don't want to wait, people have gotten it working with Wine. I installed it on my Mac the other day. https://www.reddit.com/r/IntoTheBreach/comments/80nt36/i_hav...

I want to buy the Linux version just to make sure my sale is counted as a Linux sale.

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

#36

Post by gh02t »

BOBOTWINSTON wrote: post #24
dom96 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm really hoping for mobile, Into the Breach would work really well on mobile due to its bite sized battles and clean UI.

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

#37

Post by gh02t »

_cbsz wrote: post #27
cryoshon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Random or custom squads also add a lot of diversity, though I do agree that Into the Breach doesn't have quite as much replayability as FTL with its greater element of randomness in encounters. I love Into the Breach and have played it a ton, but my biggest criticism is that the campaign itself doesn't provide enough variety; the individual missions vary from game to game but they are still a bit samey and there aren't any that stand out. I'm hoping there will be an expansion some day to mix things up a bit, either with some new mechanics or just giving us more islands and mission types.

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

#39

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

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.

I remember taking like 30-40 runs before I even beat FTL on normal mode. That's what makes roguelike games fun, that winning depends both on skill and luck, and every iteration of losing on final boss gives you insight on how to beat it.

Into the breach kind of lacked roguelike RNG to the extent that every run more or less felt the same, so I ended up unlocking everything I wanted to after 3 days of playing. You also had infinite amounts of time to decide on actions in intoTheBreach, so there was no sense of urgency and it ended up becoming super easy to beat.

Beating it on 1 try was a little disappointing for me. I had higher hopes for intoTheBreach

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