A new inspired SRPG developed by Indie dev Sinister Design is now available on PC via Steam in Early Access, and it’s called Together in Battle. The dev behind Telepath Tactics is now offering a new tactical RPG experience that is better than its previous work in every single way. I had the pleasure of trying it, and here you can find an overview of the game and my Gameplay First Look.
Together in Battle is a thrilling procedural strategy RPG and team management game that features deep turn-based tactical battles and a unique emergent relationship-building system. Set in the island kingdom of Dese, players must recruit and manage a diverse cast of characters, each with their own distinct traits, personal histories, beliefs, hobbies, and secrets.
The game’s deterministic core ensures that combat is always engaging, with opportunities to utilize strategic elements such as backstabbing, elevation, knockbacks, and destructible environments. With over 72 distinct character classes, 155 skills, and a campaign creation suite that allows players to build their own SRPG campaigns, Together in Battle offers endless hours of gameplay and replayability.
Below an overview of the game via Steam and my Gameplay First Look.
ABOUT TOGETHER IN BATTLE
Together in Battle is a procedural strategy RPG and team management game with vibrant characters and emergent relationship-building. Uncover a sinister conspiracy; fight deep turn-based tactical battles; deal with random events; watch your characters grow together.
Premise
You’ve arrived in the island kingdom of Dese with a secret mission to enter the gladiatorial games and find loyal fighters. Hunted by an imperial praetor, you must maintain a low profile even as you find yourself drawn into intrigues that will decide the fate of Dese itself.
Recruit and manage charming characters. Stay stocked on food, make payroll, and keep your characters practicing. But beware: they have feelings! Let their friends fall in battle, and they may become depressed. Let morale fall too low, and you’ll risk resentment and desertion. Keep them happy, however, and they will grow close to one another, form fond memories, give nicknames–even share their special combat skills! With skill and patience, you will emerge victorious…together in battle.
Deep procedurally generated characters
Every character you recruit has distinct traits, personal histories, beliefs, hobbies, and secrets. These differences matter: a jokester will do funny impressions to boost morale; a hunter will boost your stocks with wild game; a baker will use food to produce cookies and cakes you can eat or sell; a gambler will go to town and try to win money for you. Dancers are nimble; sailors are good swimmers. Some characters are prone to depression; some, to self-doubt. Some self-soothe with long walks or prayer; others undertake long-term projects like growing vegetables, forging weapons, or writing novels. Learn what makes each character tick as they grow and form powerful bonds of friendship!
Top-shelf combat
With a deterministic core that never wastes your time, Together in Battle’s turn-based tactical combat nonetheless features incredible depth:
- Backstabbing: strike from behind to avoid counterattacks and score a huge damage bonus!
- Elevation: claim the high ground to boost your effectiveness and hinder the enemy’s!
- Knockbacks galore: shove and throw enemies into water, lava, and chasms; off of cliffs; or into each other!
- Destructible environments: bust down doors, blow up walls, hack through bushes, chop through barricades! If you can see it, you can smash it.
- Create new structures on the battlefield: build your own bridges and barricades; freeze water to form ice bridges; set traps for enemies to wander into; place explosives to detonate at an opportune moment.
- Defensive terrain: take up position in tall grass to gain a defense boost–or hack it down to deny that same advantage to the enemy.
- Extreme turn flexibility: move a character, move a second character, then return to finish the first character’s turn. An unlimited undo stack lets you redo it all if you don’t like where everyone ended up!
- Clever AI: face enemies that use the terrain to their advantage, take advantage of weak positioning, cut through barriers, and compete with you for item pickups.
Tons of content!
You won’t see everything Together in Battle has to offer in a single playthrough–every game offers a new experience. TiB includes:
- 6 playable species;
- 24 base classes with branching promotions for a total of 72 distinct character classes;
- more than 155 skills;
- dozens of random events and side quests;
- a near-limitless variety of unique, procedurally generated characters;
- hundreds of thousands of possible procedurally generated weapons and pieces of armor, including unique and personal weapons;
- a trainer you can use to shore up your characters’ stats, or even multi-class them!
A campaign creation suite
Together in Battle also comes with a campaign creation suite to let you build your own full-fledged SRPG campaigns!
- Build characters in the character creator!
- Sculpt battlefields and place armies in the map editor!
- Compose cut scenes in the cut scene editor!
- Write branching dialogue trees for both battles and cut scenes using the dialogue editor!
- Create new skills for your characters to use in the skill editor!
- Craft new items and equipment for players to loot in the item editor!
- Need ideas? Let the game roll up full-fledged characters and battles for you to edit (or simply use as-is)!
- Construct your own scripts, then assign them to items and skills for whatever custom effects you can dream up!
- Mod support for custom music, sound effects, character classes, AI profiles, and more!
