Griftlands Early Access Roadmap

[Kevin]

Hey everyone!

We are soon to be entering a new phase of Griftlands' development, so it's time to check-in and lay out a new roadmap.

 

First, a recap:

We launched the Griftlands Alpha in July 2019 after several years of pre-development (and an E3 announcement or two). Since then, we've been growing the game with the help of a very dedicated community on the Klei forums. 

Griftlands launched with one partially completed character, Sal. The updates since then have refined her story, finished it, and added a second character and story to the mix. I think the release posters tell the story best:

What's next in 2020:

April 16, 2020

    The conclusion to Rook's story is released.

May 1, 2020:

    The price of the game is going up from 14.99 to 19.99. This is in preparation for the end of the Alpha, and graduation to Early Access.

June 15, 2020:

    Early Access begins, and the game is available to play on Steam.

Summer 2020:

    The third character is developed on the experimental branch. 

Late 2020: 

    1.0 Release!

You may notice that the dates get a bit less precise as they get farther away. That's by design! Anything without a concrete date represents our best guess as to what will happen. We'll keep you posted as things become more certain.
 

The Third Character:

So who is this mysterious third character? Let me introduce... Smith.

 

Smith is a Kra'deshi, and heir to a vast fortune in his hometown of Pearl-on-the-Foam. He is also a colossal walking disaster. 

Smith has spent his life thus far in a debaucherous haze, rollicking from one bar brawl to the next, counting on his family name to bail him out of any real trouble. A high born connoisseur of the low life, he's about to see what happens when he only has his wits - and his friends - to rely upon.

Smith can build a couple of different styles of negotiation deck:

 

Renown: Smith uses his connections and the prestige associated with his name to prove his point. He gains and spends Renown to cause damage and provide protection.

Argument: Smith rambles and changes the topic to confound his opponent. He uses passive effects triggered by argument creation, along with cards that create and destroy arguments to proc powerful bonus effects.

Likewise, for battle:

 

Moxie: As a Kradeshi, Smith has a natural healing ability. This allows him to sacrifice health to perform risky power moves that do large amounts of damage to bring down his opponents.

Bottle: Smith's alien metabolism lets him drink strange concoctions with powerful side-effects. He uses the empty bottles as a resource, shattering, throwing and swinging them at his opponents.

Smith's story content is still in the early planning phases, but his cards are almost ready for testing. We will be releasing some time-limited testing battle and negotiation experiments soon!

 

Other upcoming features:

Translations: We've been working on translating the game to other languages. Partial support is currently available for several, with Chinese coming soon. Griftlands is a text-heavy game, and we update things quite frequently, so full official translations won't be available until launch.

Mod support: Some brave souls are already trying their hands at creating new cards. We're still in the very early phases of the mod API, but plan on supporting fan translations at the start of EA, and adding more types of content as development continues.

I'd like to extend a huge thank-you to everyone who has joined the discussion, submitted feedback within the game, or even just played the game. Game development can be lonely work, but knowing that there are people out there who appreciate what you are doing makes it all worthwhile! I'm excited to see where this game takes us in the coming year.

- Kevin

 

F.A.Q.

If I purchase the Alpha or Early Access, will I get the full game at launch?
Yes. When you buy Griftlands during Alpha, you will have access to the game through Early-Access and you will get the full game at launch, on both Epic Game Store and Steam.

Is Griftlands a CCG?
No, Griftlands is a single-player rogue-like deck building game with an emergent narrative. You earn cards during play via the jobs you complete, and build out your negotiation and fighting skills. There are no microtransactions. 

How will you be responding to feedback?
We have built an in-game feedback system in the game. Simply press F8 at any time in the game and you can send us your feedback. Of course, there will likely be too much feedback for us to respond to individually.

We will be primarily garnering and responding to feedback on our forums, and will keep everyone up to date with the current status of the game both on the forums and inside the game.

 

[SpicyNiceCream]

5 hours ago, Kevin said:

The price of the game is going up from 14.99 to 19.99. This is in preparation for the end of the Alpha, and graduation to Early Access.

A real dumb question but I'm still gonna ask (also for future quoting's sake), will I had to pay 5$ more if I already bought it prior to the date?

[Kevin]

35 minutes ago, SpicyNiceCream said:

A real dumb question but I'm still gonna ask (also for future quoting's sake), will I had to pay 5$ more if I already bought it prior to the date?

No. That’s  the price for people buying it after the date. 

[minespatch]

SMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITH
FINALLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[boluke23]

HOLY BANANAS AM I EXCITED KLEI & CREW

[TF3]

Forced Adrenaline has the greatest card flavor to ever exist

[Wumpus the 19th]

So were looking at a character who builds up a foundation of mechanics such as bottles and renown to weaponize them later.

Neat concept, definitely fits the kradeshi bar brawler kind of playstyle

[LETSCHAT]

I was honestly worried and bracing for bad news at first.  Shows the times that we're in.

 

I'm glad that the production of the game will continue.  Keep at it guys, you have my full support. 

[Harlekin3105200]

Hi, I have a question :

do you thing after reales, other character will be added ?

[Maniafig]

Looking forward to Rook's story being completed and a new character being added!

The price increase is sensible, really makes me feel smart for buying into the Alpha when I did.

From the cards already in the game, Smith seems like he would be an unstable sleazeball. Good to see that impression was very much accurate, I'm already looking forward to how someone like him is going to manage his way through a story. Something tells me he lacks the sharp wits of Sal and Rook.

[minespatch]

29 minutes ago, Maniafig said:

Something tells me he lacks the sharp wits of Sal and Rook.

Haven't played the game yet but since I assume Sal to be easy mode, I'm pretty sure Smith will be harder but I've been looking forward to his character since the 2018 trailer.

Edited April 10, 2020 by minespatch

[warlepidoptera]

Thank you for the roadmap! I absolutely loove the game already! I'm very hyped for Smith!!!

And thank you for all the updates and the hard work you have been doing even in these weird times. I hope you're all well and taking good care of yourself!

[Wumpus the 19th]

6 hours ago, minespatch said:

Haven't played the game yet but since I assume Sal to be easy mode, I'm pretty sure Smith will be harder but I've been looking forward to his character since the 2018 trailer.

first of all i'm suprised that you, minespatch, haven't played since you have been decently talkative on the griftlands forum.

the way it's shaping up, Sal is the easiest and first-est character, with shorter days and bar brawls to kill people who hate you, as well as more flexible deck types.

Rook is a bit harder, due to his slight luck factor, longer days, and different variety of people to interact with.

the current 41$ dollar question is where is smith slummin' it? Sal's campaign hinted at grout bog before rook's venture. Maybe Smith is in Rentoria, the new place in Rook's story, or maybe deltree, the capital of the admiralty (and havaria, i believe).

[minespatch]

1 hour ago, Wumpus the 19th said:

haven't played since you have been decently talkative on the griftlands forum.

I don't want to install the epic store on my laptop.

[pacovf]

1 hour ago, Wumpus the 19th said:

the current 41$ dollar question is where is smith slummin' it? Sal's campaign hinted at grout bog before rook's venture. Maybe Smith is in Rentoria, the new place in Rook's story, or maybe deltree, the capital of the admiralty (and havaria, i believe).

The compendium suddenly has a few more Heshians in it, so I assume we're going to be dealing with them. The fact that we have a compendium filter for Rentorians when we currently only have one NPC in that category makes me think we will also be dealing with them. That would leave the Jakes and the Bilebrokers as the two "named" factions that haven't been the focus of a character campaign.

[Snortlepig]

Really excited for some new content

[Dexter Khaver]

 

I'm sorry but I don't buy more klei games in advance access, after Hamlet's DLC ...

[Smife]

April 16 - Rook is out

Summer - new character is developed 

So...what happens in between besides upping the price?

[pacovf]

1 hour ago, Smife said:

April 16 - Rook is out

Summer - new character is developed 

So...what happens in between besides upping the price?

They.... develop the new character. “Summer” is when it’s sufficiently developed for them to show us what they have on the experimental branch.

[Smife]

17 minutes ago, pacovf said:

They.... develop the new character. “Summer” is when it’s sufficiently developed for them to show us what they have on the experimental branch.

Oh ok, the way it was phrased made me think that we'll get to play Smith only in summer with nothing new after Rook's release.

[pacovf]

Sorry, my sentence was ambiguous. We will get some small previews of the new character some time between now and summer, I assume on the experimental branch. But the first day or whatever from the third campaign will only be available for testing in summer (so after June). It’s a longer stretch of time for an update than usual because it’s a larger amount of content that needs to be developed. Same thing happened with Rook’s story. I can only assume that coordinating it all when everybody works from home doesn’t help either.

[Smife]

Yes, I meant some new playable content before summer. We'll get previews instead, makes sense. Thanks for making it clear.

[dafoom]

Love this game! Super happy to be on the early bird train!

[sunnywilson09]

So were looking at a character who builds up a foundation of mechanics such as bottles and renown to weaponize them later.

[Ceiyne]

On 4/9/2020 at 5:29 PM, Kevin said:

If I purchase the Alpha or Early Access, will I get the full game at launch?
Yes. When you buy Griftlands during Alpha, you will have access to the game through Early-Access and you will get the full game at launch, on both Epic Game Store and Steam.

I am assuming this means that you'll have a single copy of the full game, on whichever storefront you bought Griftlands from.  However, the way it's worded, it could also mean that if you buy during Alpha you get Griftlands on both storefronts.  Can you please confirm which way this is meant?