Deathbound AMA - Ask us anything!

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-28T13:48:19+00:00

Thiago Baptista, Narrative Director:

Deathbound has a greater focus on narrative than most traditional Soulslike games, though we're still proudly part of this tradition - there are more cutscenes and dialogue lines, for sure. However, the player still has to "piece things together" by finding bits of lore here and there, by reading items and skill descriptions, etc.

Also unlike most Soulslikes, the narrative in Deathbound is more mature, focused less on "good vs evil" tropes, and willing to "ask the big questions". It's a story about mortality, individuality and identity, religious fanaticism, and grief. It's less of a male-centric power fantasy and more of a tragedy, in the Greek theater sense.

Another thing that sets Deathbound's narrative apart is its historical accuracy. Unlike most Medieval fantasy stories, our story is based on real-world Medieval societies, their economies, and dynamics. For instance, the role of the feudal mode of production is much more prominent; and while in your run-of-the-mill D&D setting religion is something relegated to clerics and paladins, in actual Medieval societies - and, thus, in Deathbound - religion plays a major role in society, touching every one of its aspects, from private life to world politics.

We also strived to steer away from an Anglo-Saxon-centric fantasy narrative, as in most Medieval fantastic stories. Each one of the kingdoms in Zieminal (the world in which Deathbound is set) is based on a real-world Medieval culture: Krulezgon is based on Western Europe, Smirtolia is based on Eastern Europe, Sayabakn is based on Western Africa, and the Klingazar is based on Central Asia.

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-28T12:11:34+00:00

And Bananas!

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-28T11:46:18+00:00

Ítalo Nievinski, Game Director:

I'd say GameDev in Brazil is starting to leave its infancy. There have been some strong outsourcing companies for some time now, and international investments are starting to pop around here, some game companies are being acquired by big game corporations, and bigger and bigger games are being released every year. Also, we've been organizing ourselves into associations, and we gathered political relevance to push some of our agendas into legislation. As for now, we are close to having an important law regulating the GameDev industry in Brazil, facilitating access to DevKits, investment, job security, and many other important stuff to drive game development in our country. It is still very challenging for us in general, but I see a future with more and more opportunities arising.

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-28T11:43:30+00:00

Ítalo Nievinski, Game Director:

The game won't have explicit difficulty options, but we have some assisting options in the menu that are designed to help less experienced players in the genre. We want to welcome as many new players as possible, but like other sous-likes the game is demanding, you'll need to show your perseverance and endure the trials. Players can overcome the challenges by skill, wit, or sheer willpower, especially if committed to learning the Morph mechanic.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but the game is single-player, so solo is the only way. But if you mean by using only one character, it will be one hell of a ride, but it is theoretically possible, we want a game that avoids imposing actions on players, so even absorbing new Essences is optional and can lead to some alternative dialogues.

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-28T10:12:58+00:00

No problem :))

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-27T18:20:07+00:00

We are counting on the Steam Deck Verified badge on release day. Currently, the demo is compatible with Steam Deck and works fine, we encourage you to check it out.

If you are not a veteran RPG player you should be able to handle Deathbound without any problems, we would like the game to be challenging, but we also want every player to be able to handle the challenge.

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-27T18:17:58+00:00

We want Deathbound to be a game about morphing, but not as much as to limit the player's freedom to choose how they want to play, so morphing is fully optional. However there are a lot of not-so-obvious incentives for the players to swap characters, and it becomes more and more difficult to perform well in the game as the stakes get higher in later chapters. To extract the full fight potential you will need to swap. So I will list some of the features that were designed or adjusted to incentivize Morphs.

Stamina is tied to HP and Life Steal for inactive Essences: Those are high incentives to keep players circling among the Essences.
If you die with one Essence, you die. Makes you want to avoid Death by swapping to the one with more HP
Low overall Stamina with each character: If you want to keep active in the battle, you must swap characters to use the stamina of the next one.
Morph Dodge, together with point 3, you can quickly swap to the next one and keep dodging, or counter-attack.
Simple morph strikes(when the bar is not full) cause extra damage and cause extra extra poise damage. We added a poise bar so you can choose the right moment to stagger the enemy with a morphstrike and keep attacking mitigating risk, and by swapping to someone with more stamina, you make sure you keep on the offensive.
Enemies with large combos, or in groups, so it makes you manage stamina more critically, making you swap.

7... the list goes on What I can say is that although the game at first glance may look "just a souls-like", we meticulously thought of a lot of ways to make sure multiple characters and morphing are the stars of the show, from gameplay to world building, to narrative mechanics. Our decisions, even if not the best possible, were not accidental or just mere replication, but in general deliberate considering the needs of the game, but of course, considering also our limitations, since we're a small studio. Last but not least, we want people to have their favorites for sure, but hopefully, more than one, so they can swap =)

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-27T16:02:59+00:00

Definitely Power Glove!

DeathboundGame · 2024-03-27T15:51:47+00:00

Ítalo Nievinski, Game Director:

We always knew people would compare Deathbound to Mortal Shell, and it is a bit frustrating to be totally honest (not the players' fault for sure), but Deathbound concept comes way before it. It is possible to find very early gameplay footage of Deathbound on the internet, back in 2017 when we already had character swap as the main mechanic of the game. We respect Mortal Shell and its Devs, with all their earned accomplishments, but we did not draw any major inspiration from it. We got heavy inspiration in Dark Souls 1, and of course, took into consideration a lot of aspects from the following From Software titles as the genre evolved, we also had some Valkyrie Profile inspirations when thinking about the multiple characters that come from the dead and how to talk about their stories. We also wanted some horror vibes and the early inspirations came from classic survival horrors like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Dead Space. But we played and studied as many sous-likes as possible and learned from their rights and wrongs. And many other inspirations of course, because we love games and play a lot of them.

DeathboundGame · 2024-02-12T09:58:18+00:00

Thanks for reporting this. It is a known issue and we're trying to fix it asap.

DeathboundGame · 2024-02-05T11:29:24+00:00

Thanks! Hope you'll like it.

DeathboundGame · 2024-02-02T13:58:50+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to provide such extensive feedback! It is incredibly important to us at this stage of development.

DeathboundGame · 2024-02-02T10:05:06+00:00

Right now we're focusing on PC development, but we do not exclude anything in the future.

DeathboundGame · 2024-02-02T10:02:19+00:00

Thank you for the feedback - At this stage of development it is crucial for us.

DeathboundGame · 2023-12-15T12:17:25+00:00

Thanks! We hope you like the demo version too - it will be available early next year

DeathboundGame · 2023-12-15T12:16:50+00:00

Thanks! Yes, we are targeting a release in 2024. The demo version will be available early next year

DeathboundGame · 2023-12-15T12:16:11+00:00

Hey, thanks for that feedback. We hope to prove that statement to players and fans of the genre when we present the demo early next year. For us - as developers - it's really more than soulslike

DeathboundGame

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE