Lathe and Roguard in Action
about 3 years ago
– Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 05:19:29 PM
Happy Sunday, everyone! This month, we wanted to heat up this cold front by showcasing Lathe and Roguard in action. As you enjoy the sneak peek below, please keep in mind that each glimpse depicts a test area used when testing a move. They do not captivate the final look of the game. Details are also subject to change prior to release. But fear not, a future update will showcase the true, final look of the game in action very soon. So, what are you waiting for? Get a move on and explore Lathe and Roguard in motion!
Roguard's Moves
Punches - Being a ginormous Stoneling, Roguard primarily uses his massive fists to smash his way through Deadwood. Players will be able to coincide timely movements with Roguard's hits in order to amplify impact. Timing and direction will also influence each swing you take, as both will factor into whether your swing lands as a punch or a backhand hit.
Clap - Roguard releases a powerful shockwave from his hands when he performs a mighty clap. Close-range Deadwood will be outright destroyed by the sheer force of this shockwave. Those that manage to survive will find themselves pushed backward, giving Roguard room to follow up with another move.
Lathe's Weapons
Peashooter - The peashooter is a weapon of Lathe's own making. Though a single shot from this crafty contraption may not be as powerful as other weapons that Lathe contrives along the way, it is reliable and requires no special ammo! The handy-dandy peashooter is always available when an enemy enters Lathe's field of view. As Lathe travels throughout Knottington, he will also encounter opportunities to customize how his peashooter performs. Want to learn more about the peashooter? Peas be patient ;) More details will be shared soon!
Saw Mauler - A swarm of enemies is heading RIGHT FOR YOU!!!... O_O ...You need a saw, or a saw mauler to be more precise. This specialty weapon slices through Deadwood like butter! But be mindful, because specialty weapons require special ammo, and you need to find that ammo first. Similar to the peashooter, you'll come across opportunities to customize this weapon along the way, allowing you to adapt it to your own play style.
Coordination
To survive the hordes of Deadwood that will continuously cross your path, you'll need to figure out how to call upon these moves and weapons (along with many others) and utilize every resource harmoniously. Unleash your creativity by implementing these skills to create your own combos and fighting styles. While coordination will be key, it will also be unique to you. So embrace the journey, find your stride and kick some wooden hinds!
Thank you all for joining us for this update. We're tremendously excited to keep sharing more next month!
Happy Valentine's Day!
about 3 years ago
– Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 12:40:00 AM
Happy Valentine's Day from all of us at Steamroller Studios!
Interview with Lathe and Roguard's Lead Writer, Chris Porter
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 12:37:58 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
FAQ
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Dec 23, 2020 at 06:33:58 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
A Big Update!
almost 4 years ago
– Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 12:33:47 AM
Hello everyone!
It’s been a really long time since you’ve heard from us, and for that, we sincerely apologize. We also recognize this is not the first time we’ve slipped on communication. Or the first time we have apologized for it. We thought maybe the best course of action would be to just focus on making the game until we had some concrete info to share. And while we aren’t quite ready to make the big announcement we are planning later this year, we’d love to take this opportunity to give you a quick update on where things are at, where we’ve been, and of course where we’re going.
First and foremost we want to say that we are absolutely still working on “Lathe and Roguard” (Or “Deadwood” which we still call it in-house) We love Deadwood, we all left our jobs to make this game. The money we received from you (our amazing backers) was integral to “Kickstarting” the game’s development. However, the money did eventually run out after about 7 months of tight budgeting, and so we had to find a way to finance the game through the rest of its development. We started taking on freelance work to fund our passion project. This is simply the nature of a growing studio trying to find stability for our employees. Expansion is important for longevity, but these are completely different teams. The teams making animation is a completely different team with different skill sets than the team making Deadwood. It’s hard to explain how the infrastructure of what we are building works but we promise you that Deadwood holds a special place in our hearts and that the game is getting made and WILL get done.
We’ve talked about a lot of this before, so this may not be news to some of you, but we feel it’s important to share just how dedicated we are to getting this game done. To date, we’ve put almost 2 million dollars of our own money into it. And the only reason we’ve been able to do that is because of the work we’ve taken on and how we’ve grown our studio. We often joke about how we had to build an animation studio just so we could make the game we wanted. Deadwood started out with 6 people and we now have around 20 talented artists and programmers working on the game.
Over these last 5 years, we’ve had more than our fair share of struggles with Deadwood. And while this isn’t entirely uncommon in game development, it was something we’ve had to work through. It is after all our first game and there was a steep learning curve for us. At the end of last year, we made a big push to get the game as polished as we could and we shared our progress here. Unfortunately even after that, we still just weren’t feeling like the game was as fun as it should be. The game had gotten too big and too complex. We did the math on it and realized the game we were making would come out to about 80 hours of playtime, which without a much bigger budget (or even more development time), just wasn’t going to be possible.
So we made the tough decision to scale the game down and rebuild much of it from the ground up. Rather than to continue working on a game that could still take several more years to finish. We stripped it down to it’s most pure form and found something that we’ve all been having a blast playing. We can’t wait to show you this more fun and focused version of Lathe and Roguard and plan to do so soon. As far as a release date goes, we plan on announcing one later this year, but we can say with confidence it will be out next year, no matter what.
We understand that it has been one heck of a ride these last 5 years and things have changed quite a bit over that time. We will continue to honor any request for a refund from anyone who feels it’s time to move on. We don’t want to see any backers go, but we absolutely understand if you’d like to.
We hope that this helps bring some clarity to why we’ve been silent for so long. We are planning on ramping up our communications again just as soon as we’re ready to share our progress and plans. Until then, please know we are working hard on making an awesome game and appreciate your ongoing support and patience.
-The Steamroller Team
