After 3 years of development before and almost 3 years during Early Access, Gladiator Guild Manager hit Full Release today!
First off, I need to let you know that 1.0 will have a new save game due to all the changes in the system. However, you can access the beta branch: “Early Access v 0.942” if you’re in the middle of the game and want to finish that one. Also, Tournament Steam Leaderboard is reset, giving you a nice clear chance to rise up in the rankings.
Update 1.0
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So last year we almost released the game but decided to take a few more months to add and polish a few things before we call it 1.0. This, of course, took 10 months instead, but that’s fine because we took the time to add many requested features which made the game a whole lot better.
If we learned anything from these 6 years of development, it is to listen to our audience. You all gave us so much awesome feedback and ideas that helped us shape the game into what it is. So, huge, huge thanks to the awesome community that formed around the game!
Full Release Trailer:
These are the features that have been added in the latest 1.0 update:
Trait System Rework
This was the most requested feature as well as the most reported issue. Gladiators would get random Traits in the shop, and you’d have to refresh it a lot to find good ones. Even then, it was not uncommon to spend thousands of gold on shop refresh and not find the ideal combination of Traits on the gladiator. So, we decided to make a system that will let you teach Traits to the gladiators using Mana Crystals and the new resource Trait Blueprints. Gladiators still get Traits in the shop, and they even have better allocation now, so gladiators only get Traits useful for them. But you can also teach them new ones and even upgrade Traits up to level 3. Gladiators unlock a new tier of Traits every 6 levels, and new Traits appear as you finish championships. After some recent feedback from Beta players, we even allowed teaching lower-tier Traits on higher-tier slots. So you can use tier 3 slots and teach gladiator tier 1 or 2 Traits if you choose to. This makes room for a lot more strategy and planning as you build your team. Maybe you want a team of melee fighters, so the Extrovert Trait works well as it gives bonuses for nearby friendly gladiators. Or you have a good tank with taunt, so you can give your ranged units the Mighty Chicken Trait that gives them big bonuses, but they run in fear when the enemy approaches them. And many other combinations that we’re sure you guys will find and we never thought of.
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30+ New Traits
We have added a group of new Traits. Many of them have more advanced functionalities than the usual Traits we had till now. For example, there’s a Trait that heals allies around gladiators each time a gladiator blocks an attack. A Trait that gives the Taunt ability, making tanky gladiators without Taunt more useful, and many more.
We also reworked many of the existing Traits to have different functionalities that make them more useful. For example, Introvert used to give bonuses only when there were not many gladiators in the battle, but that is not useful in late game when every fight is with many gladiators. So now it gives a bonus if there are no friendly units around this gladiator, making this Trait useful for teams with only a few ranged backline units.
Items and Upgrading Them
We had an issue with Universal Items (items that have no level, but some functionality that scales with gladiator level). They have 3 rarity levels, so if you see a basic (green) version in the shop, you pretty much just ignore it and wait for at least a rare (blue) or ideally epic (purple) version. That did not feel very good as seeing basic ones in the shop was just an annoyance. Now, only base (green) items appear in the shop, and you can upgrade them by investing in Workshop guild building and using new material Crafting Tools as well as other resources.
We also reworked a bunch of items to make them more useful.
Now, with this feature as well as the new Trait system, you can truly strategize and plan how to build a powerful and synergetic team.
We also edited some of the core code that is now allowing for items, Traits, and abilities to work with each other in ways they didn’t before. For example, you can teach a gladiator a Taunt Trait and then give them an item that sets units on fire when using an Area of Effect ability. So, since Taunt is an Area of Effect ability, now when Taunt from Trait occurs, it will also set enemies on fire.
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Guild
We reworked the look of the guild and added a few new buildings:
- Trait Crucible - Lets you upgrade gladiator Traits to higher levels
- Workshop - Lets you upgrade Universal Items
- Altar of Respec - Let’s you respec the main 6 stats of gladiators
You’ll need to buy and upgrade those buildings to get these functionalities, so you need to decide where to allocate resources for your strategy and team needs.
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Timeline Control
In options, you can now enable the Auto Pause-Play Timeline feature. It will automatically pause when important events happen, like: Quest appeared, Ring of Death is ready, Shop Discounts. It is fully customizable so you can set up if you want the panel of the specific event to open, which events it should pause for, and if you want the timeline to continue playing after the panel is closed.
This was requested by some people, so we made it. But in all honesty, we like playing without it. To us, it feels like the game is telling us in each moment exactly what to do. Maybe it’s personal preference. But the option is there and can be adjusted exactly the way that works best for you.
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We also added general options to set the speed of the timeline as well as the default speed of the battle.
Reputation and Quests
Finishing quests for any of the factions affects their reputation. Before this update, the reputation would only affect how many resources you gain for completing quests for that faction. But now, reaching a new high with a faction also brings you rewards. They will give you items and even units with high-quality Traits. Reaching a new low will make them try to sabotage you and rob your guild. But that’s not a big problem for a gladiator guild as you can always chase down their thieves and take back the resources they stole, resulting in losing even more reputation with them. So now there is a more conscious decision in accepting or refusing quests as many quests will increase reputation with one but decrease with another faction.
Another small improvement is that if you now refuse a quest, another one will appear in just two days, making it easier to ignore quests that do not serve your reputation goals.
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Options
We moved all resolution, screen, and graphic options to the game, with the addition of frame rate options that we didn’t have before.
UI Rework
We went through all the UI panels and polished them up to make sure it all looks nice, pleasant, and clean. One of the biggest UI changes aside from the Guild is the Gladiator Info Panel. There are 4 Trait slots at the bottom. Buffs are still on the right side of the panel. This is where things that affect them during battle show up, or some basic buffs like “Boss” or “Undead”.
We also added new sound effects to the UI experience.
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Improvements and Bug Fixes
We solved many of the issues, like gladiators getting pushed out of the arena, getting frozen in place after some system bugs, and much more common or less common issues that the game had.
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Now, we were pretty greedy when it came to adding features to 1.0. We tried to squeeze the maximum amount of things and improvements in it. Even when we finished the main features, we noticed more things that we wanted to change or add. But the clock was ticking and there was less and less time till the release schedule. So, with many last-moment changes came a few issues as well. Luckily, our amazing community of beta testers found and helped us squish them. But if you do happen to run into any small issues that nobody else ran into yet, please report them and we’ll make sure it’s solved immediately.
So those are the main changes that came with the 1.0 update, together with tons of small improvements, fixes, and changes.
Early Access Progress
When we launched the Early Access almost 3 years ago, the game had 6 championship arenas and side quests that came with them. Since then, we added 6 more arenas, tons of units, and a dozen bosses. Side quests for each of them. Main quest chains for each of the 3 factions and unique endings for playing with any of them. Tons of regular, consumable, and universal items. Several batches of new Traits. A whole new mode of playing the game: Tournament Mode. And much more. Overall, about 60-70% of the content that the game has now was all added and polished during Early Access, and we have to thank you all for that! For support during Early Access so we could even take more time to add this content. And for all the amazing feedback and ideas, many of which ended up in the game and made it way better than it would have been if we just followed our original plan to finish the main content.
A little story about the game
Back in 2018, Danijel and I (Darko) were hanging out at a local game dev conference where we started talking about making a small game together. I had this idea of a gladiator manager game for a very long time, but it never formed completely. Back in high school, about 15 years ago, I had an old Motorola phone with a turn-based gladiator game on it. It was a super simple game, but I loved the fantasy of it.
We talked about different ideas for games that we could make, and once I brought this one up, it immediately clicked as something that we’d both love to make. So we said, let’s take like 6 months and make this little gladiator game and see how it turns out. Almost 6 years later, here we are at the Full Release of the little gladiator game that was inspired more than 15 years ago.
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(In December 2019, at the Game Up conference, Gladiator Guild Manager won first prize in the game competition, and we received an invitation to showcase it at Casual Connect London. Though you know how 2020 went, so there was no Casual Connect that year.)
Credits
Since then, of course, we have had the great luck of finding people who made this idea into reality.
A publisher, Rafal Kokosza from GrabTheGames, who believed in the game early on.
A Kickstarter campaign allowed us to put some more time into the game before the EA.
Amazing and talented artist, Goran Pesic, who made all the art.
Animator, Budiharja Kusuma, who tirelessly animated everything, including 90+ units in the game.
Voice actors: Jordan Harrelson, Jordan Haro, and Sarah Ruth.
Music composers: Matthew Cohen, Brendon Bekker, and Pedja Mokan.
And many more who helped and contributed to creating this game.
We'd love to have you in our Discord Community and hear your thoughts on the 1.0 version.
Again,
HUGE, HUGE thanks to you and everybody who helped us make this game happen and finally reach the 1.0!
-Entertainment Forge Team
