What’s the difference? Story writing verse Hellenica writing.

Salutations! So I’m Siobhan Gallagher(posting from Victor's account), co-writer and editor for Hellenica. This was my first time writing for a game; normally, I write short stories for online and print magazines. And yeah, there are quite a few differences in technique and style, as well as challenges.

For a branching story, you will meet the same characters in different locations at different times, which means some characters will need multiple introductions, and those introductions will vary depending on whether you talked with that character a lot, a little bit, or not at all. As you can imagine, this is a lot of extra writing for just one set of dialogue. For example, you can meet Brasidas as a forlorn-looking Spartan in Rhodes, or trying to buy a train ticket with iron bars in the Acropolis, or as a turtle on the Isle of Circe.

Meeting Brasidas in the Acropolis

Meeting Brasidas at the Isle of Circe

Since there's a plethora of paths leading into a scene, story-related issues crop up. On the one hand, we wanted every choice to have meaningful impact, where the player traveled would effect the layout of the story. On the other hand, the player may miss vital plots points, which would make the entire story less coherent.  One solution to this is to have rumors. It's easy to have a town gossip kick off a conversation about an event outside the player’s path, which informs the characters and can even influence future choices.

You could liken it to building a structure with blocks, where everything has to fit together (or it falls over), but some blocks are interchangeable. Whereas a linear story is more like working with clay, there’s more flexibility in how you might shape it, but still requires discipline--or you wind up with a lousy pot.

If you like science fiction and fantasy stories full of adventure, weirdness, fun or dark (or both!), check out my bibliography--some of these publications are free to read online.

"Lessons in Blade and Barrier" (found in the link above)

Hellenica Party Intros: Brasidas, the Exiled Spartan Part 2

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you've got a fun weekend planned. I, of course, will be playing Hellenica, as usual. ;)

Today we're wrapping up Brasidas' party intro with two of his unlockable skills: Iron Vanguard and Tribute to Ares! Go ahead and catch up on Part 1 if you haven't already. Really, I'll wait.

First up, Iron Vanguard. Brasidas is able to channel his extensive Spartan training and create a makeshift vanguard all on his own. When used, four Iron Spartans will spawn in the spaces adjacent to Brasidas until the end of the enemy turn.

Iron Vanguard is perfect for blocking off a chokepoint or walling in an ally on the brink of death. And, since it's Hellenica, you can push and toss any of the Iron Spartans around the level for some great bounce damage.

Next is Tribute to Ares. Brasidas is unique in that he can unlock a number of passive abilities to aid both himself and his allies. Tribute summons down a totem on each recently defeated enemy's space at the end of the player's turn. These totems will persist for the remainder of the fight and grant an attack bonus to any ally that moves onto that space.

This is great for longer fights that are centered in a particular area, as the bonus damage can really add up over the course of a fight.

Whew! That's three party members down. Next I'll be introducing Scylax, the Wandering Magian, so check back Monday.

Also, please check out our Steam page to wishlist Hellenica and visit our Twitter and share our announcements with your friends. Thanks!

Hellenica Party Intros: Brasidas, the Exiled Spartan

Just twelve days until Hellenica's launch, which means we're prepping our togas and olive wreaths for the celebration. Help support our launch by wishlisting us on our Steam page and retweeting our updates on Twitter!

It's wednesday, which means it's time for the next party member introduction. Meet Brasidas, an exiled Spartan on a quest to prove his innocence and redeem his honor.

Brasidas is a veteran Spartan warrior, which means he knows how to handle himself on the battlefield. Accustomed to fighting alongside his armored brethren, he excels in a tight vanguard of his allies.

Brasidas has a unique passive skill called Protector that allows him to split any damage received by an adjacent ally. Since Brasidas has the Heavy defense type, his share of the damage will also be reduced by half.

This is a great way to keep squishy allies in the fight when they are threatened, but be wary of area of effect attacks that might be used against you!

His basic attack is a spear jab, which differs from other melee attacks in that it can strike diagonally or pierce up to two spaces in a straight line.

His final starting skill is called Shield Bash. This hybrid offensive and defensive skill deals moderate damage and pushes the target one space. It also applies a one-turn debuff that reduces the target's damage by half.

Like all repositioning skills in Hellenica, if Shield Bash is used on an ally, no damage or debuff will be applied. This means it's safe to use on your allies strategically without any penalties.

Friday I'll show off some of Brasidas' unlockable skills so check back then! (Part 2 is up!) And remember to check us out on Steam and Twitter!

Monday Update #7 - Pixel art and camping

Hey everyone, I think we're probably overdue for a sign of life. We're still pushing towards launch, and I've got some fun new art to show for it.

We're closing in on being art complete in the combat department. Here's an example of some new spell effects Valery put together for an unannounced enemy:

We're also starting to pixelize some of the characters that are only involved in story moments. You can see a few here, as well as some familiar faces.

The latest thing I've been working on is designing the title screen and intro process. The plan is to give the player a quiet moment with her party as they camp for an evening during their quest. The scene will also be a reflection of your current location and make-up of your party as you browse your save files.

Each party member is going to have a custom animation as they rest around the campfire. Here's the first pass at Brasidas preparing his latest victim:

'Til next time!

Valery has joined your party!

Sorry folks, this last week has seen a whirlwind of activity on our end, both with Hellenica developments and life events. We didn't forget you all, though!

Today I want to announce one fantastic result of this activity, and that is our partnering with a new combat artist! For the longest time, we've been unable to show the gameplay of Hellenica because of our placeholder artwork. I'm already in the process of integrating new art, so soon we can start showing you all more of what we're working on.

So who is the artist? Valery Kim is a pixel artist that found us through the TIGSource forums. She has a unique style and a solid background working on other games in our genre. Here's some of her work:

You can check out her live blog here for more.

Now, for a little Hellenica teaser, here's the test submission that made us choose Valery in the first place:

There's much more to come, stay tuned!

Hellenica Characters: Brasidas

"You could have me outnumbered twenty to one and I would still have the advantage."

Spoken like a true Spartan!

This week we're revealing Brasidas, an elite Spartan soldier who embodies his city-state's ideals of bravery, honor, pragmatism, martial prowess, and rigid adherence to authority. He also happens to be the butt of most of Diona's jokes. No one ever said being Spartan was easy!

We wanted Brasidas to come off as a fairly typical Spartan warrior, at least until you get to know him better. Also, while much of the world of Hellenica has been transformed by the ongoing steam-powered revolution, Sparta's mostly stuck to its traditions. To that end, we set out to design "The Spartan Warrior", with some welcome touches from YDY to fit it into our aesthetic. Here's the first stab at it:

Well, I certainly wouldn't want to start a fight with him.

Brasidas is one of our strong male leads, and this initial attempt satisfied that need pretty well for us. There were just a couple things we had to fix up:
 - That iconic horsehair crest atop his helmet was actually reserved for officers or generals. Brasidas is just your average soldier, so that had to go.
 - While Brasidas has seen his fair share of battles, we didn't want his armor to look too shoddy. The cracks and wear in his legguards needed to be reined in.
 - We thought his legs could stand (ha) to be a big more muscular.

Looking good. We wanted to go after the iconic Spartan red for his cape, and for his armor, we stuck to the metals we know they had back then: iron, brass, and copper. Here's the first rough color:

I can't tell you how nice it is to work with artists that can get this close on the first try! Actually, it's my blog post, so I guess I can. (It's really nice.)

Our only qualm here was that the armor looked a bit more golden than we had wanted. As I mentioned before, we complete our portraits in batches, which gave us the ability to look at all of our Spartan characters and standardize their armor across the board. Awesome!

Here's Brasidas with his new set donned:

As always, once we're happy with how things are looking, the guys at YDY do a final pass for lighting and atmospherics. Here's the final image we'll be using in-game:

We're really happy with how Brasidas turned out. He adds some nice diversity to our cast, so I'm jazzed that he's finally making his appearance in the game.

'Til next time!