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Pathway - All News

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Friday - October 04, 2019
Sunday - May 12, 2019
Monday - April 22, 2019
Saturday - April 13, 2019
Thursday - April 11, 2019
Sunday - April 07, 2019
Saturday - March 16, 2019
Monday - January 07, 2019
Thursday - June 28, 2018
Box Art

Friday - October 04, 2019

Pathway - Update 1.1 Details

by Silver, 21:31
A new update for Pathway is coming October 9th that promises reworked skill trees, new artifacts and more customisable options.
 

Devlog #17 - Adventurers Wanted Coming October 9!

We're excited to announce that the 1.1 update to Pathway titled Adventurers Wanted is coming out October 9!

Whilst we're busy getting everything finalized we want to share some more details about the update. In our previous devlog we already talked about the new abilities, Chinese & Japanese translations and the new content. Today we want to expand on a few more changes that are part of the Adventurers Wanted Update:

Reworked Skill Trees


With the addition of the new abilities we've also reworked the skill trees of all characters. Each character now begins with an additional ability specific to them. Natalya for example begins with the "Bait" ability, whilst Brunhilda starts out with "Sucker Punch". As they level-up they can unlock two more abilities.

We feel these changes really help in making the character roster feel more varied. Each character now has their own combination of up to 3 special abilities which opens up a range of new tactical options. It gets even more interesting when trying them out in various team configurations.

New euippable item: Artifacts


With 1.1 we're introducing a new type of equippable items: Artifacts. They're unique (and very rare) items that can only be found once per profile. Artifacts can be placed in a character's off-hand equipment slot. Some of them yield stat boosts or open up event options whilst others may even unlock new abilities.

It's worth noting that Artifacts can be used by all characters and don't require a skill to use.

More Difficulty Customization Options


We've completely reworked the difficulty customization options in the game. You are now able to adjust the enemy difficulty and the size of combat groups independently.

Whilst larger combat groups do increase the difficulty slightly, it mostly presents the player with a more involved combat experience. So if you enjoy longer and more involved combat sessions crank this setting up. On the other hand if you like easy and quick combat you can lower this setting.

The difficulty slider really pushes the overall power of enemies up. In practice it means you can play the earlier adventures at the difficulty of later adventures and push the later adventures even higher. If you increase the difficulty of the adventure, you are also going to find better loot. Additionally, each difficulty level presents the adventure in a new daytime setting.

We are really excited to get this update into everyone's hands!

Oh and if you live near London come say hi to us at the EGX. We will be showing the new update between 17th and 19th of October at the Chucklefish stand! (More details and tickets here: https://www.egx.net/egx)

Sunday - May 12, 2019

Pathway - Review @ IndianNoob

by Hiddenx, 06:56

IndianNoob has reviewed the tactical RPG Pathway:

Pathway Review (PC) - Indiana Jones, One Turn At A Time

DETAILED REVIEW
Tactical RPGs are so hard to pull off. They do not usually have the power of strong storytelling to fall back on and has to depend solely on well-refined combat mechanics and balancing. Pathway from Robotality tries to mix it up a bit. By providing the player with dynamic, choice-driven gameplay and tactical turn-based combat encounters with the charm of an Indiana Jones flick, Pathway aims to find its cozy spot in the not-so-populated list of well-made strategy RPGs. Well, let’s put that to the test.

[...]

VERDICT
Pathway is a game with a lot of missed opportunities. While the first few hours are really good, the Repetitiveness and shallowness of the gameplay soon set in. Newcomers to tactical RPGs might have a good time with Pathway but veterans of the genre are better off setting their sights on something else for the time being or until it receives a major overhaul.

Score: 6.2

Monday - April 22, 2019

Pathway - Update Cycles

by Hiddenx, 05:52

The strategy RPG Pathway will get updates every Wednesday:

Pathway Devlog #8 - Preview Builds & Update Cycles

Wow, Pathway has been out for only a little over a week!

Up to now we've been in overdrive-mode fixing bugs. Additionally, we've also started introducing a handful of quality of life updates such as the undo button when recycling items as well as improved tooltip comparisons. Updates have been almost daily during this period to make sure critical issues are addressed promptly.

With today's post we want to explain what the next few months are going to look like.

New Update Cycle
From now on, we're switching to a more predictable update cycle: Every Wednesday we will release a new update. However, new features and changes will always first go to our public Preview branch. Once those changes had a bit of time to go through a testing and feedback phase we will then push them to the main branch. So in practice this means changes will generally linger in the preview branch for a week before appearing on the main branch. Sometimes we may decide to keep some things in the incubation stage for a bit longer before they make it to the live branch.

The preview branch will serve as an experimental area, where we can try out some changes and gather feedback from the community before making them available to everyone. So if you want to be a part of shaping the game's future, we'd love to have your help there!

The first preview build will go live next Wednesday. We will post instructions on how you can join the preview testing then.

Here's a little taste of what's coming to the first preview build:

Improved Damage Information
An area we see confusion about frequently is how damage is calculated in Pathway. In the upcoming preview, we're adding an overhauled tooltip when hovering over enemies during an attack action. In the compact view you simply see the effective damage potential. This includes all adjustmens that may occur from things like the weapon's damage type or if your character has a special bonus/penalty against an enemy type. If you press tab, you will get a more detailed breakdown of how exactly the final damage calculation came together. We hope this will help in making some of the game's more complex damage calculations clearer.

Rebalanced Loot Distribution
We're making the beginning adventures more rewarding in terms of loot drops. We want to keep the legendaries for the mid to end game, but we feel like the first two adventures could use a boost of rewarding items.

Reworked Perk Branches in Events
Another feedback we've seen popping up often is that the perk branches in events don't feel weighty enough. We are starting to address this issue by taking a lot of luck out of the perk branches. So far, you'd always have a significantly improved chance at success, but in practice it often felt like you're gambling just as much as when using one of the other standard branches. Starting with this build, perk branches will now give you a success in an otherwise risky situation. There are a few exceptions to this rule still. We think this change will make character perks a lot more rewarding to use and provide a more tangible benefit.

There will be a full changelog with the release of the build on Wednesday that will of course also include a bunch of general bug fixes and improvements!

THANK YOU again for playing our little game and sending us your feedback. We truly do appreciate every constructive comment coming our way - We're constantly reviewing your ideas and and we are looking to address a lot of the concerns in the next little while.

Saturday - April 13, 2019

Pathway - Review in 2 Minutes

by Hiddenx, 19:38

Gameumentary checked out Pathway:

Pathway | Review in 2 Minutes

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Thursday - April 11, 2019

Pathway - Two Reviews

by Hiddenx, 20:46

Henriquejr spotted two reviews for the strategy-RPG Pathway:

Pathway - Release Day

by Silver, 07:24

Pathway releases today on Steam.

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The year is 1936...

In a time of global turmoil, Nazi influence spreads inexorably across Europe and the Middle East. Rumors are abound of secret excavations and mysterious artifacts, not to mention the odd whisperings and tales of gruesome occult rituals...

It's up to you to assemble a team of bold adventurers, and journey through the deserts, explore bunkers, and temples of Northern Africa to discover their hidden treasures and secrets before they fall into the hands of Nazi forces. You and your companions must work together to overcome overwhelming odds - the fate of the world depends on it!

You haven't heard this one before...

Every campaign is generated when it begins, so no two adventures will ever be the same! You never know what's around the next corner - so stay on your toes! Even the most seasoned adventurers can uncover new and exciting discoveries.

Adventures full of mystery

Journey into the unknown and uncover hidden secrets, treasures, characters, and events which have been buried away. There's a wealth of discoveries to be found, and surprises to excite you throughout each adventure!

Learn from your mistakes

In Pathway, defeat isn't necessarily the end of your adventure. Characters will retain their experience after defeat, so players can invest into building a team which will get progressively stronger! There's even rare equipment and advanced skills and abilities to unlock for every adventurer.

Features:

  • DYNAMIC ADVENTURES - Discover 5 different campaigns of varying difficulty, with each and every attempt generating a new web of encounters and unique storyline.
  • TOUGH CHOICES - Every explored location presents you with one of over 400 hand-crafted story events. Search the well? Save the villagers? It's up to you!
  • DECISIVE CONFLICTS - Use cover and positioning in exciting turn-based squad combat. Learn to make the best use of your equipment and your team’s abilities, to vanquish a relentless foe, in ruthless and clever ways!
  • BUILD YOUR TEAM OF ADVENTURERS - Each of Pathway’s 16 unlockable characters has their own skills, weaknesses and quirks, from the almighty melee strength of Brunhilda, to rifle expert daredevil Jackson, and knife-wielding huntress Shani.
  • HIDDEN TREASURES - Unearth riches untold, from common weaponry to rare and unique items with special abilities. Perfect your load-out and cash-in on your high-value treasures for a tidy profit.
  • THRILLING VISUALS - Classic 16-bit pixel art enhanced with unprecedented depth, lighting and shadows using Pixel/Voxel Hybrid Technology.
  • RECOVER & REPLAY - Sometimes failure is the best path to winning. Progressively explore the procedurally generated world, and grow stronger and learn more with each defeat, taking your loot with you even after death.

With soundtrack by the critically-acclaimed composer, Gavin Harrison of Halfway fame!

Playable in English, German and French.
Chinese and Japanese localisations coming soon!

Sunday - April 07, 2019

Pathway - Launch Trailer

by Silver, 00:44

The launch trailer for Pathway which releases on Steam April 11th.

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Pathway is a strategy adventure game from Germany-based developers Robotality, featuring turn-based combat and unique story encounters. Explore temples, tombs and the desert wilderness in a grand pulp adventure! Coming to Windows, Mac & Linux on April 11th!

Saturday - March 16, 2019

Pathway - Gameplay Preview

by Silver, 05:47

The first gameplay preview for Pathway.

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Wishlist Pathway now on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/546430/Pathway/

Pathway is a strategy adventure game from Germany-based developers Robotality, featuring turn-based combat and unique story encounters.

Explore temples, tombs and the desert wilderness in a grand pulp adventure! Coming to Windows, Mac & Linux in 2019!

In this gameplay preview you'll see an insight into the game's second campaign adventure, The Wrath of God. There's 5x campaign adventures in total to discover and complete, each with varying difficulty. 

Your quest is to track down the Nazis, and foil their plans to get hold of the mysterious and eponymous object the Wrath of God.

The video shows off team party building, a small selection of the 400 hand-crafted story events with choice-based unique encounters, the procedural overworld map, inventory management, mysterious (and rather horrifying) bunker discoveries, as well as turn-based strategic maneuvers against the Nazis, the undead and even some supernatural forces at work!

Monday - January 07, 2019

Pathway - Update and Interview

by Silver, 02:39

Pathway has a new update about recent developments.

Pathway Devlog #5 - Introducing Brunhilda & More

Say "Hello" to...
brunhilda
Brunhilda, Queen of the Valkyries (aka Helga Bjarnsdottir)
Vitals: 28 year old female
Nationality: Icelandic

Helga was part of a traveling circus where she used to perform as a female wrestler and strongwoman. Formerly known as 'The Female Volcano' (a reference to her nordic origin), she once rescued Jackson and his crew during one of their adventures, and later decided that "somebody that cute" could use her protection. Since that day, she has stayed at his side to protect him from harm.

Tall and buxom, Helga has a very impressive physical presence, and tends to run berserk in the heat of battle. She has a secret crush on Jackson and is not too subtle with it. Subtlety is not her strength - strength is her strength.

"That's just my stage name. It's Helga for you, sweetheart."

Boots On The Ground
Over the past few months, we've had an opportunity to exhibit Pathway at three different events; specifically, we demonstrated Pathway at Twitch Vancouver (on August 19th), EGX Rezzed (on September 21st) and most recently at Day of the Devs (hosted by Double Fine on November 11th).

booths

Above are images of our booths at EGX Rezzed and Day of the Devs. Also, we have uploaded an excerpt from an interview with Stefan Bachmann - one of the coders on Pathway and a co-founder of Robotality - that was hosted during our exhibit at Twitch Vancouver[twitchvancouver.ca]


These events have been great for both observing the 'new player experience' in Pathway (or for any unreleased title) and for connecting with new fans in general. Also, conventions tend to be filled with other industry professionals and development studios interested in exchanging those oh-so-valuable 'industry trade secrets', and also with some large publishers/distributors who are scouting new games for their platforms.

On RNG...
In Pathway and other turn-based games, Random Number Generation (RNG) is used to determine if you will hit your target when you fire on them, but this has led to some player frustrations in other games. At the end of the above interview video clip, Stefan took an opportunity to discuss how we have addressed those RNG frustrations in Pathway:

"[RNG is] something that a lot of people that play XCOM get frustrated with... where you can stand next to a unit and you have a 99% hit chance, you still miss them, right? Super frustrating!

So we try to address this in a way that I think is quite elegant. Which is, basically, if you are exposed and open on the field, you get a guaranteed shot... You got a straight shot? 100% hitchance - no matter what.

But if you're behind cover, that's where RNG comes in. So, as soon as you go behind cover, you got maybe a 50% hit chance or a 75% hit chance. And I feel like that's a really neat twist on that system... it makes 'flanking' an interesting strategy. The game becomes a lot about 'how do you position your units to make sure you can optimize on that guaranteed hit'..."


That's just a snippet of information from this interview so if you want to know more - and also want to see some of the game (still a work-in-progress though!) - then take a look at the 14 minute video above.

Give us a follow!
That's all for this devlog! Follow us on twitter, Facebook[facebook.com], or here on Steam to stay up-to-date on any news or upcoming events for Pathway!

Thursday - June 28, 2018

Pathway - Design Diaries

by Silver, 11:05

As development on Pathway continues Robotality documents progress with design diaries.

Pathway Devlog #1

Starting today, we want to begin sharing a bit more about the development process of Pathway and what's happening behind the scenes at Robotality.

To get the big question out of the way: We're not quite ready yet to announce when the game is being released, but we're getting very very close to being able to do so. We're still on course to release the game in 2018. We've made amazing progress and are really happy with how the game is taking shape!

In today's devlog we're going to give a quick recap of what's been happening since the announcement of the game.

In case you hadn't seen this, we had the opportunity to chat to PC Gamer about Pathway and shared quite a bit of thoughts around our game design decisions and inspirations behind Pathway: PC Gamer interview

In April we were demoing Pathway for the first time publicly at EGX Rezzed in London. Showing a game in public is always a nerve wrecking experience but thankfully the game was received really well and we've written down pages of notes of feedback. Being holed up in our dev caves it can be super easy to develop a tunnel vision of the game. Getting lots of other people to play the game for the first time is really refreshing and helpful. Thank you to everyone who came and played the game!

Speaking of events, we are showing the game at Overflow #003 on May 30th. Overflow is a local chiptune event in Vancouver, Canada. We're showing the game alongside a few other indie games and of course there's lots of chip inspired music. So if you live near Vancouver this is a great opportunity to play Pathway pre-relase! (You can get tickets here: Overflow #003 Tickets[www.eventbrite.ca]).

And to finish up today's devlog, here's a first look at a new environment we've been working on "The Mines":

Until next time!
[...]

Pathway Devlog #2 - Soundtrack Preview

Come gather around! We have a nice little treat for your ears in this Devlog! We (virtually) sat down with Pathway's brilliant music composer and sound designer Gavin Harrison and asked him a bunch questions about his approach to composing. We're also really excited to share some tracks from the game for the first time!

So ... put on your headphones, click play on this video, grab a coffee and read on:

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How did you end up making music for Games?

The starting point for my interest in composing for games reaches right back to the start of the 90’s. I’d been gaming on a ZX Spectrum for as long as I could remember but it was around this point I was introduced to the world of the demo scene. I loved that all these incredibly talented programmers were creating software purely for fun to see just how far they could push the ZX. Of course alongside this were the musicians providing music that was both technically brilliant from the perspective of squeezing the most from the AY chip (or sometimes the 48k beeper) as well brilliant to actually listen to! One month on the Your Sinclair cover tape was a copy of Soundtracker and I guess I never looked back from there. Not only did I start writing for various demo groups but I also ended up building my own MIDI lead and connecting my Spectrum 128K to my first ‘proper’ synth, a Roland D10.

Thankfully these beginnings stood me in good stead when it came to composing for games later in life. I’d always maintained an interest in music and continued to compose into my early 20’s. After taking a break for a few years (though never quite stopping completely!) I came into contact with the Dutch indie developer OrangePixel. At the time he was in the process of developing ‘Inc’ so I put myself forward to compose the music, with the idea of using Soundtracker on the original ZX Spectrum to create it all.

I’ve been extremely fortunate from this point on to have continued making contacts and finding fantastic projects to work on!

[...]

Information about

Pathway

Developer: Robotality

SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Historical
Genre: Adventure-RPG
Combat: Turn-based
Play-time: 20-40 hours
Voice-acting: None

Regions & platforms
Internet
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· Released: 2019-04-11
· Publisher: Chucklefish Games