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General discussionRelease: Alder's Blood(25 posts)(25 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 10, 2020
Witness a grim world, where mankind killed their God and is facing extinction. Alder's Blood is now available DRM-free on GOG.COM. Test your skills in a tactical-strategy with stealth-based combat, RPG elements, and a rich storyline. Become one of The Hunters who dedicate their lives to vanquish the ever-growing Darkness and to protect humanity - at all costs.

Until April 17th you can buy Alder's Blood on GOG.COM with a 25% discount. If you already own Warlocks 2: God Slayers in your library the same discount will rise to 30%.
Posted April 11, 2020
high rated
Okay so some quick and dirty early impressions... (and like I mentioned earlier, a few beers deep ;) )

I like the game so far. It's got a lot of neat little components going on that are all the kind of thing I like in a turn-based (tactical) RPG. Mechanics-wise, the stuff I like:

The combat - it's different, and it's fun. Probably more than half of it is actually AVOIDING combat - early on your first missions will actually dissuade you from attacking willy-nilly and suggest your best means of killing an enemy outright, might be BAD. If you've played (and LOVED, like I have) Invisible Inc it'll make sense. Actually, the tactical maps have a very Invisible Inc vibe - I wasn't expecting this, and it's not a bad thing.

Crafting - again, another part of the game I didn't think would be as important as it seems to be. I can literally craft only like 3 things now, but the game has made it obvious that I'm going to be building a lot of my gear. It walks the balance nicely. I'm a person that HATES refining newt skin into leather into armor pads into... yeah, you get it ;) This game doesn't do that. What it does do is make it clear that you're going to have some cool gear that you better save your mission rewards for.

Camp Screen - another neat thing I didn't expect. If you've played the Expeditions series (I LOVED Conquistador) it's sort of like a pared down version of that - pick a guy or two to guard, pick a guy to craft, pick a guy to salvage (which gets you crafting stuff). I like it - not quite as detailed as Expeditions, but something to think about without having to super micromanage.

Crunchy Bits - I like the amount of stats and how direct they are. I hate stats that are like "add .03% to magic penetration" - what the fuck does that MEAN??? This game has a nice amount of concrete stats that make sense, even down to "Smell" - no really, it's cool, obvious and something with great trade offs. I have yet to see how you influence them as you level up, but at least early the types and number of them are appealing to me.

The atmosphere is great, the UI is pretty damn intuitive (Tab jumps between your guys, right click backs out of selections, etc). Having just played XCOM 2, I was a bit bummed that at times information isn't really right there (cost of a skill, cooldown, etc) or that I had to click through 3 menus to swap out one weapon - not so here - everything is pretty much in your face and easy to do.

So, so far so good - enjoying the game enough that I figured I'd put her on hold for a few minutes and let everyone know I was enjoying it.

Oh, and DEVS if you're paying attention - my biggest gripe so far is NOT BEING ABLE TO NAME SAVES!!! How hard can this be? I have a bunch of saves named "Manual_1" "Manual_2" etc. Damn that bugs me! Let me name my save so I can keep or delete them as I see fit. Other than that I'm a fan!

Time to crack number three and get back in game ;)
Posted April 11, 2020
avatar
Ixamyakxim: Okay so some quick and dirty early impressions... (and like I mentioned earlier, a few beers deep ;) )

I like the game so far. It's got a lot of neat little components going on that are all the kind of thing I like in a turn-based (tactical) RPG. Mechanics-wise, the stuff I like:

The combat - it's different, and it's fun. Probably more than half of it is actually AVOIDING combat - early on your first missions will actually dissuade you from attacking willy-nilly and suggest your best means of killing an enemy outright, might be BAD. If you've played (and LOVED, like I have) Invisible Inc it'll make sense. Actually, the tactical maps have a very Invisible Inc vibe - I wasn't expecting this, and it's not a bad thing.

Crafting - again, another part of the game I didn't think would be as important as it seems to be. I can literally craft only like 3 things now, but the game has made it obvious that I'm going to be building a lot of my gear. It walks the balance nicely. I'm a person that HATES refining newt skin into leather into armor pads into... yeah, you get it ;) This game doesn't do that. What it does do is make it clear that you're going to have some cool gear that you better save your mission rewards for.

Camp Screen - another neat thing I didn't expect. If you've played the Expeditions series (I LOVED Conquistador) it's sort of like a pared down version of that - pick a guy or two to guard, pick a guy to craft, pick a guy to salvage (which gets you crafting stuff). I like it - not quite as detailed as Expeditions, but something to think about without having to super micromanage.

Crunchy Bits - I like the amount of stats and how direct they are. I hate stats that are like "add .03% to magic penetration" - what the fuck does that MEAN??? This game has a nice amount of concrete stats that make sense, even down to "Smell" - no really, it's cool, obvious and something with great trade offs. I have yet to see how you influence them as you level up, but at least early the types and number of them are appealing to me.

The atmosphere is great, the UI is pretty damn intuitive (Tab jumps between your guys, right click backs out of selections, etc). Having just played XCOM 2, I was a bit bummed that at times information isn't really right there (cost of a skill, cooldown, etc) or that I had to click through 3 menus to swap out one weapon - not so here - everything is pretty much in your face and easy to do.

So, so far so good - enjoying the game enough that I figured I'd put her on hold for a few minutes and let everyone know I was enjoying it.

Oh, and DEVS if you're paying attention - my biggest gripe so far is NOT BEING ABLE TO NAME SAVES!!! How hard can this be? I have a bunch of saves named "Manual_1" "Manual_2" etc. Damn that bugs me! Let me name my save so I can keep or delete them as I see fit. Other than that I'm a fan!

Time to crack number three and get back in game ;)
Thank you sir!
You have just made me but this :)
Posted April 11, 2020
I have noticed a few bugs until now:
- One in which I made my Party wait a day and it wouldn't start the new day. Instead it kept showing me that comic strips that the day is over.
- One in which I tried to chose a trait for a new hired hunter after he leveled up, and it wouldn't chose it. After pressing escape and going back to inventory screen i saw that the hunter got a trinket slot for every time i clicked on a trait ...

But I really love this game by now already. I assume the developers will deliver patches asap so we may enjoy this game :)
Posted April 13, 2020
about the requirements : single core ? there is no mention of double, quad/ multicore so i guess its a single core

Minimum system requirements:
Windows 7 / 8 / 10
1.0 GHz

Recommended system requirements:
Windows 7 / 8 / 10
1.6 GHz

Anyway, the game is probably not my kind of game but the extreme low requirements made me wonder if maybe some text was forgotten to add , as it is now the req. are very very low ( i also assume its a unity game and unitygames are usually cpu 'hoggers'

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Post edited April 13, 2020 by gamesfreak64
Posted April 13, 2020
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gamesfreak64: about the requirements : single core ? there is no mention of double, quad/ multicore so i guess its a single core
Are you asking if it REQUIRES a single core? I'm playing on an i5 quadcore and it's fine. I believe the low system requirements - the game looks gorgeous but it's low animation and comic book art. Whoever did the art direction deserves an award - atmosphere is top notch and it just looks amazing while being extremely "low detailed" - like little paper guys on a hand drawn background - tough to describe.

It IS Unity - anecdotally Unity *feels* better nowadays. I can remember playing a few lowres turnbased RPGs that were Unity and they'd spin up my 760 like a helicopter - it was like I was playing the latest AAA game at 4K on a 90 degree day. The last year or so it doesn't even cross my mind. I don't know if a new version was given to devs, or devs are getting better at using it but it just feels cleaner lately.


SO - I found the mechanic to the game that might turn people off. I kinda like it now that I came to terms with it - I'm someone that usually holds onto my guys in turnbased games like they're gold - you better believe I save scum the fuck out of XCOM if I lose my favorite Maj. Grenadier.

Corruption. Your guys have a "corruption" stat. You gain corruption after missions, sometimes when scavenging, I *think* when killing enemies and CERTAINLY when using the "instakill" ability that I mentioned earlier that the game tells you is a "very bad thing."

I *thought* "Okay, I'll rest / send my guys to base / not use them for a bit" and corruption will go down. IT IS PERMANENT. It will continue to rise unchecked. It lowers your stats and will eventually drive your guys insane.

It totally fits the grim and desperate atmosphere of the dark world you live in. It gets better - your one way to deal with corruption is TO MURDER YOUR OWN GUYS AND CANNIBALIZE THEIR XP TO A NEW GUY.

I haven't had to do it yet, but the idea is you literally send these poor bastards out into a dark world, where they are inexorably tainted until they have no more to give. Then you sacrifice them so that a new hunter can begin to level up. You aren't buiding your "favorite" hunter, you aren't making an uber team. You are churning hunters and tossing them away once you've milked them dry. Ouch.

So, there you go ;)
Posted April 13, 2020
avatar
gamesfreak64: about the requirements : single core ? there is no mention of double, quad/ multicore so i guess its a single core
avatar
Ixamyakxim: Are you asking if it REQUIRES a single core? I'm playing on an i5 quadcore and it's fine. I believe the low system requirements - the game looks gorgeous but it's low animation and comic book art. Whoever did the art direction deserves an award - atmosphere is top notch and it just looks amazing while being extremely "low detailed" - like little paper guys on a hand drawn background - tough to describe.

It IS Unity - anecdotally Unity *feels* better nowadays. I can remember playing a few lowres turnbased RPGs that were Unity and they'd spin up my 760 like a helicopter - it was like I was playing the latest AAA game at 4K on a 90 degree day. The last year or so it doesn't even cross my mind. I don't know if a new version was given to devs, or devs are getting better at using it but it just feels cleaner lately.

SO - I found the mechanic to the game that might turn people off. I kinda like it now that I came to terms with it - I'm someone that usually holds onto my guys in turnbased games like they're gold - you better believe I save scum the fuck out of XCOM if I lose my favorite Maj. Grenadier.

Corruption. Your guys have a "corruption" stat. You gain corruption after missions, sometimes when scavenging, I *think* when killing enemies and CERTAINLY when using the "instakill" ability that I mentioned earlier that the game tells you is a "very bad thing."

I *thought* "Okay, I'll rest / send my guys to base / not use them for a bit" and corruption will go down. IT IS PERMANENT. It will continue to rise unchecked. It lowers your stats and will eventually drive your guys insane.

It totally fits the grim and desperate atmosphere of the dark world you live in. It gets better - your one way to deal with corruption is TO MURDER YOUR OWN GUYS AND CANNIBALIZE THEIR XP TO A NEW GUY.

I haven't had to do it yet, but the idea is you literally send these poor bastards out into a dark world, where they are inexorably tainted until they have no more to give. Then you sacrifice them so that a new hunter can begin to level up. You aren't buiding your "favorite" hunter, you aren't making an uber team. You are churning hunters and tossing them away once you've milked them dry. Ouch.

So, there you go ;)
thanks for the quick reply

yes i wondered if it runs on a single core , games that run on a single core run like recommended on my old quad core 2.66 , thats why i asked .


I'm looking for more games that have light requirements, and are games i like aswell... there are many games that would run very well on my old quad : but 90% of the games are not what i want .

Thats why i started to play casual games 10 years ago, because there were only a few new games that i liked , >70% is fpp, shooter, and similar and those are no longer on my list i played the last shooter>25 years ago.
HOG are short and fun, no fpp/3d and low system requirements ( thats why i have every artifex HOG)


Even with a faster/more powerfull pc i would still buy the same games , i have the Shadowhand game , here on GOG, and bought their new game on Steam cause its not on GOG ( if by a miracle i would arrive here i would buy it again like i bought the few HOG that are on GoG now, some of them i have 3 copies of ( GOG,sSteam, and retail ( cdrom)

Anyway i voted on the wishlist for more old games cause we need more old games.
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i_hope_you_rot: Ok . Who gave the game 1 star ?
i dont vote / write reviews so it wasn't me and i also never downvote posts.
Post edited April 13, 2020 by gamesfreak64
Posted April 23, 2020
So I really like this game and I'm going to keep hyping it because I'd like to see it do well ;)

Nice patch released a few days ago (not yet on the direct download but will be soon I'm sure). They addressed my biggest issue with the game - an UNGODLY (pun intended) number of autosaves - now there's a slider so you can adjust them and not have deleting 7 saves be a post-mission task ;)

Also they announced continued support for the game in the form of new enemies, items, weapons, a new enemy class (vampires?), "camp expansion" which sounds cool but not really sure what it will entail (building new structures? new activities while camping?).

I *think* they also tweaked Corruption - it still builds but from what I saw in fora they're removing the "flat" corruption increase for each mission (originally in nearly every mission, at the end every one of your hunters on mission saw an increase in corruption of X, in addition to personal increases for kills, damage sustained, etc). I LIKE the corruption mechanic - it's a fun nuance to manage who goes out on missions, who gets sacrificied when, who do you level up and how. When you work it right, you end up with a nice level 6 - 8 hunter with barely any corruption... because some poor bastard was out there in the world doing your necessary dirty work ;)


So yeah, there you go - looking forward to seeing where this game goes because like I said, really enjoying it.
Posted April 23, 2020
Hm, wasn't entirely convinced by the gameplay in the demo. Grass felt way too much like a ''get out of jail free' card. Also, the smell mechanic needs a bit more explanation. Like, do you have to be downwind on the exact same line as the monster for it to smell you, or does it have a radius?
Posted April 23, 2020
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TentacleMayor: Hm, wasn't entirely convinced by the gameplay in the demo. Grass felt way too much like a ''get out of jail free' card. Also, the smell mechanic needs a bit more explanation. Like, do you have to be downwind on the exact same line as the monster for it to smell you, or does it have a radius?
So grass IS really helpful and between that and throwing pebbles stealth is a pretty good option. Once you engage in combat or an enemy finds you it isn't as helpful for hunters that are found. The challenge comes when you *want* to break stealth and engage - then it's about using the grass to engage the enemies you want without drawing in others - picking them off a few at a time. It really feels like "hunting."

I found the stealth fun and not frustrating. It's always an option and picking moments to start combat (when required) is part of the challenge / fun of the game - really feels like stalking prey. I'm also juggling The Evil Within - the stealth in TEW is much more frustrating - different genres I know but one game is entertaining, the other I know I have to block off time for and be in the mood because I know it's going to be a mental commitment - so take that as you will for the type of gamer you are.


Smell - smell is really cool. It's NOT a radius - it's literally a "vector" coming off your guy based on wind direction. As you move, if that vector hits an enemy, you'll alert it and it'll hunt based on wind direction and where it "smelled" you. As you move, you leave parallel vectors from the direction you came sort of like this

\ \ \

with the last one being the one coming right off your guy. The "old" vectors fade quickly and don't trigger the enemy to charge right in your general direction as much as the "last" vector coming off you does. In this way, the enemy will search an area with lingering smell, but will also bee-line you if you're silly enough to let it smell you directly (or smart in the case of dropping a trap right in its path ;) ).

You can even get guys to wander off by dropping "smell" lines and then breaking in a different direction.

Your guys have a smell stat which is great - I actually avoid hunters with a smell range of 5 - screw that ;) You can get items to reduce your smell; equipping certain weapons INCREASES it (gunpowder stinks!).
Posted January 25, 2022
Been a while since the game was released. Thanks for the impressions. How have people who have played the game more recently found it?. Some of the described mechanics sounds interesting - although having to ditch someone due to corruption to fund a new char seems a bit..hmmm.. Is the old demo representative of the game?. Has their been new content for it ?
Post edited January 25, 2022 by Niggles
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Community
General discussionRelease: Alder's Blood(25 posts)(25 posts)
(25 posts)