Alpha is launching today 🎁
over 7 years ago – Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 01:08:10 AM

Tamers!

The day is finally here. After a huge push over the last weeks, our development team has managed to reach our first deadline (A Kickstarter meeting a deadline? Is this real life?).

Alpha is launching today. We don't have a timeframe yet and we're still working on the last few bits so you'll need to wait a bit more, but it will be here very soon.

How's it gonna work? We're going to be delivering the keys in batches. Batches are designated based on your backer number, so the earlier you supported us, the earlier you're going to be playing the Alpha.

We will send the keys to Batch 1, check if everything is going smoothly and if it is, we will then start with the second batch. We will be adding new batches during the next hours and the idea is to have all of them delivered before the day ends in Spain (CEST timezone) but if we find some problems it's possible the rest of the batches end up being delayed.

Check our official Discord server and our @PlayTemtem Twitter to get the latest news about batches and how everything is going.

Last-minute facts

• When you find any bug, please report them in our Forum. Check the READ FIRST pinned post to get more info about reporting a bug properly.
• Only available Luma right now are: Paharo evo-line, Umishi evo-line, Kaku evo-line, Pigepic and Barnshe.
• Temtem is a challenging game, don't hesitate to use your items if you're in trouble.
  
• There's no tutorials yet on the Alpha. The main menu can be opened with TAB (or LT if using a Gamepad) and you can interact with NPC/Signs with F (or A if using a Gamepad).

Current Alpha status + User forums are here! 📑
over 7 years ago – Fri, Nov 23, 2018 at 01:28:56 AM

Alpha is coming soon, very soon! As we stated in our previous update, our target release date is November 28th but we weren’t 100% confident in delivering on that date. So, what’s the current status?

Our team has been working tirelessly these past weeks and we’ve made a lot of improvements and bug fixes for the Alpha so we’re now in a more optimistic position about the Alpha release.

But, we’re still not 100% confident on delivering on November 28th. There is some more testing and tweaking we need to do over this weekend to ensure the Alpha launches without too many problems.

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So, is the Alpha releasing on 28th? Probably. Should you take a couple of days off at your job to play it? Probably not. We will update you when the day is closer (most likely on Tuesday) so stay tuned to our social networks and our Discord server for the latest updates.

How are you going to receive the Alpha? And some other clarifications

We will deliver the Alpha key through BackerKit. BackerKit will use your registered email and they will send you an email from [email protected] (make sure to add it as a contact so your email provider doesn’t flag it as spam).

The keys will be sent in batches during the release date. This will help us manage the server uptime and scalability. There’s no timeframe right now, we don’t know yet how many batches we will do or when do we start sending them (probably during the morning in Spain but it could take all day to send all the batches).

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You’ll receive a Steam key so you’ll need Steam in order to play it. Alpha keys will only grant access to the Alpha, and they won’t get you access to the final released game. When the game is released on Early Access, the Alpha won’t be accessible anymore.

One last thing. The Alpha is not going to have any kind of embargo or NDA, so you’re going to be able to stream or record videos from the first day. Remember that this is an Alpha, there’s going to be expected bugs and weird behaviors so try to be positive and educate your viewers about it.

Forums

In addition to our social networks and our Discord server, we’re opening now the Forums!

The Forums will be the place to report bugs and suggestions for the Alpha. It’s also a new place to be in touch with the Temtem community and talk about everything related to the game.

https://www.playtemtem.com/forums/

Last chance to win an Alpha key

We’re running a giveaway of three Alpha keys on our Twitter. If you missed our previous opportunities, this will be the last chance before the Alpha arrives!

http://twitter.com/PlayTemtem/status/1065409834206535680

What to expect from the Alpha 🌱 + Release date (kinda)
over 7 years ago – Thu, Nov 01, 2018 at 02:08:40 AM

As you already know, the Temtem Alpha is slated to release in November, but until now we haven’t specified a date, so we want to update you on this matter.

Our Kickstarter campaign was a huge achievement for us. Our entire team felt invigorated by its success, so much that we ended up wanting to expand our vision for Temtem and improve every bit of our initial idea in every way we could. Your immense support allowed us to dream even bigger and improve our initial concept for the game.

In order to accomplish that, we’ve hired new Crema members and have made our team bigger. Over the past few months, we’ve grown and have improved our day-to-day workflow in order to achieve our vision. However, growth is not always linear, so our estimated release dates are probably going to be affected by this change in our expectations for Temtem.

All this considered, we still want to release the Alpha in November, specifically November 28th. But right now we’re not 100% confident in meeting that deadline and we want to make the best possible Alpha we can. We want to make a very polished product with enough content to be entertaining while minimizing all the day-one bugs that we can. Keeping all this in mind, there’s a chance we might end up delaying the release until December if we’re not confident once the November date is approaching.

What to expect in the Alpha

The Alpha is NOT a finished game, and it’s very far away from being one. We want to make this super clear so your expectations before playing the Alpha match what you’re going to see there.

The Alpha is a super early in development version of the game and its main objective is to help make Temtem better in the long run. Involving the community this early will help us tweak our mechanics and polish the online interactions.

Some things you won’t be able to do:

• Catch every Temtem. The Alpha will only have a small set of ~30 Temtem.
  
• Catch every Luma. The Alpha will only feature a few Luma variations to test the system.
  
• Visit every house in Deniz. The Alpha will only have key interiors available.
  
• Study every Technique. The Alpha will only feature a set of ~70 Techniques.
  
• Fight with other players in competitive battles. The Alpha won’t have a ranking system, pick/ban phase or any additional battle options. Also, the Alpha will not be balanced due to the limited Temtem and Techniques available.
  
• Study every Status Condition. The Alpha will only feature some of the Status Conditions that will be present in the final game.
  
• Study every Item and Ability. The Alpha will not feature Held Items or Temtem Abilities.
  
• Trade with other players. The Alpha won’t have any type of trading.
  
• Unleash full Chat potential. The Alpha will only feature basic chat functionalities.
  
• Make friends and play with them. Clubs, Co-op, or even a Friends system won’t be available in the Alpha.
  
• Wear your Taco hat. In-game rewards from the Kickstarter will only be available after the Alpha.
  
• Be amazed by the beautifully crafted Visual and Sound Effects. The Alpha will only have a small set of effects.
  
• Read dialogues in Spanish or French. The Alpha will only be available in English.
  
• Catch and tame #13. May they rest in peace.
  

Some things you will be able to do in the Alpha when it arrives:

• Find awesome bugs and report them so we can fix them.
• Wait in line for server maintenances.
  
• Get attached to your progress until we reset it multiple times.
• Explore the immensity of Deniz.
  
• Pick your starter Temtem.
  
• Create your character with some basic customization.
  
• Get the first key item, the surfboard.
  
• Run alongside other players.
  
• Fight other players in casual battles.
  
• Find, battle and capture an untamed Pigepic.
  
• Fight against NPC tamers.
  
• Beat the game’s first Dojo Leader.
  
• Use basic items like Temcards and Ether.
  
• Play using a Gamepad or Keyboard/Mouse.
  

 Projects we love

The monster taming genre is on fire. We’re very happy to see other developers trying to tackle the same genre, so today we’re talking about Monster Sanctuary.

Monster Sanctuary is a monster-taming RPG with party-based combat and metroidvania-like exploration. New monsters provide additional strategic options in combat and allow you to overcome obstacles to explore new areas and find hidden treasures. The turn-based combat focuses on team synergy and combos, distinguishing Monster Sanctuary from other popular monster collecting games.

How we’re solving the lack of RNG in Temtem battles 🥊
over 7 years ago – Sat, Oct 27, 2018 at 02:37:28 AM

Like we’ve said multiple times, battles are one of the most important features in Temtem. Our vision for battles is to make them 100% based on skill and strategy, removing every trace of RNG that we can.

In this update we’re going to talk about how we’re dealing with that decision, and what features we’re implementing and modifying in order to achieve it. But let’s start with the basics…

What is RNG?

RNG stands for Random Number Generation. RNG is used every time the game has to roll the probability of a certain outcome. Critical hits? RNG. Accuracy? RNG. Evasion? RNG. And a long, long etcetera.

A bit of RNG makes games more fun because you always have that unexpected random factor that could happen at any time. But a lot of RNG can stop a game from being fair and can undermine your skill and strategy in favor of an uncontrollable random choice.

RNG is commonly used to balance attacks. With RNG, you can have one Water-type attack that does 30 damage and has 100% accuracy and another Water-type attack that does 150 damage but has only 30% accuracy. In Temtem, we’re removing this type of balance and we’re introducing three new game mechanics that will help us balance out all our Techniques.

The 7th stat: Stamina

Alongside HP, Speed, Attack, Sp. Attack, Defense, and Sp. Defense, Temtem will feature a new stat: Stamina.

Each Temtem will have a base Stamina value that will increase with each level. Stamina represents how many Techniques the Temtem can handle using during a battle.

Instead of having a limit on how many times a Technique can be used, each Technique will have a Stamina cost. When a Temtem uses a Technique, its Stamina cost will be subtracted from the Temtem’s Stamina bar. If the Stamina bar reaches zero, the Temtem will start hurting itself each time it uses a Technique due to overexertion.

More powerful Techniques will have a higher Stamina cost, so they can only be used a couple of times before you start to hurt yourself. On the flip side, less powerful Techniques will have a lower Stamina cost, so you will be able to use them more frequently.

Each Temtem will recover a bit of Stamina at the end of each turn, and they will gain extra Stamina if they don’t participate in the battle in that turn. Also, Tamers will have the option to order a Temtem to Rest instead of using a Technique, so the Temtem can gain more Stamina that turn.

When the battle ends, all Temtem will recover full Stamina and will be ready for the next battle.

Hold

Stamina helps us balance most of the Techniques, but there are some super powerful Techniques that require an extra step before being used. The Hold mechanic is here to solve those cases.

Techniques with Hold will require a Temtem to be active in battle a certain number of turns before using them. And after they’re used, you’ll need to wait that amount of turns before using them again.

At the end of each turn, the Hold value for each Technique will be increased by one, and when the value reaches the Technique’s Hold requirement, the Technique will be ready to use. You will be able to use the Technique whenever you want, and, once the Hold value is full, it won’t change until the Technique is used.

Synergy

Since battles in Temtem are 2vs2, we’ve decided to introduce a new mechanic that will favor certain team compositions, giving bonuses for some Techniques when you have a Type-specific ally.

When a Temtem uses a Synergy Technique, it will check the typing of its current battle ally. A Technique with Fire Synergy, for example, will check if the allied Temtem has Fire as one of its types.

Since it’s easier to explain with an example, here are a couple:

• Slow Down is a Mental Technique that will reduce the speed of the target Temtem by one stage. If the attacking Temtem’s ally is also Mental, the Technique will sleep the target. Both effects will be chained if the Synergy succeeds, so the target Temtem will have its speed reduced and also will be put to sleep.
• Aqua Stone is a Water Technique with 80 base damage. If the attacker’s ally is Earth-type, the Technique will have a base damage of 104 instead of 80.
  

Status Conditions

As some of you already know, Temtem will have Status Conditions (remember the Paharo sleeping in the Kickstarter trailer?).

Each Temtem will be able to have up to two Status Conditions at the same time. The Status Conditions will occur in a FIFO queue (first in, first out), meaning that each time a new Status Condition is applied, the previous ones will be moved up in the list, and if the Temtem already has two other status conditions, the oldest status condition will be removed.

All Status Conditions in Temtem are non-volatile. This means that Statuses can't be removed by swapping Temtem, and will be kept even when you exit combat.

Each Status Condition will have a turn counter when it is applied. The turn counter will vary by the Technique used, meaning that one Technique could apply Sleep for two turns, and another Technique could apply Sleep for four turns. The turn counter will be reduced at the end of each turn, even when the Temtem is on the bench. The effects of Status Conditions will also be applied if the Temtem is on the bench (i.e. a Temtem will keep losing health if it has been Poisoned).

Currently, we have 14 different Status Conditions planned, from Poisoned to Asleep, and even some positive ones like Invigorated and Regenerating.

Final words

Please, take into consideration that some of these features may not be present in the initial Alpha release. Also, we’ll be tweaking these details a lot in the upcoming months according to your feedback and our data until we reach perfect harmony between the different mechanics.

We hope this update resolves some doubts about the combat in Temtem, and we hope you all enjoy the new systems we’ve put in place.

Projects we love

In our previous update we recommended The Waylanders board game campaign, and today we're recommending their new campaign: The Waylanders RPG.

The Waylanders is a party-based RPG inspired by beloved classics such as Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights 2 or Baldur's Gate. Featuring innovative and tactical combat system, The Waylanders brings to life the legends of the Celtic cultures to life.

BackerKit pre-order store is closing in just a week! ⏳ + New naming contest
over 7 years ago – Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 07:20:54 PM

And another thing...

Since our previous naming contest was a huge success, we've decided to run a new one. On this occasion, we're looking for names for this fish-like evolution line.

This cute couple are both pure Water-type Temtem, very fast, focused on Special Attacks, and, like Kalazu & Kalabyss, they will be very common during your trip through Deniz. Especially while surfing with your surfboard on the Sillaro River and the Aquamarina Caves.

As usual, the naming contest is running on our official Discord server. If you haven't joined yet, do it now and participate in the contest with your proposals:

 Projects we love