The Iron Oath Update #53 – Dungeon Exploration

Last week, we had an opportunity to watch a fresh trailer for Curious Panda Games’ tactical RPG The Iron Oath. And now that we can also sample the game during Steam’s Summer Festival, you may want to check out this recent Kickstarter update that describes its overhauled dungeon exploration system. Here are the text parts:

Moving on then, it’s time for a deep dive into our new Exploration Mode!

About a year ago we decided to make some changes to the way you navigate dungeons in the game. The old method saw your party physically walking through the environments, and while this was kind of cool to see at first, we ultimately decided on a simpler tile hopping style, kind of like a board game. There’s a few reasons why we made this change:

• With the increased battlefield size(going from 5~ tiles high to 10~), exploring and interacting with objects became more time consuming and tedious
• The new mode allows for more creative storytelling and more varied events as we’re not restricted by needing graphical assets for everything, and can instead describe the situation to the player (which is more in-line with the spirit of D&D)
• More strategic considerations with various actions available to you, and each one costing you ‘Time’ (more on this below)
• Streamlines exploration so you can get to events and combat (which remains unchanged) more quickly.

Exploration

To navigate within a dungeon, you simply click on an adjacent tile to move your party. Moving will cost you Time, which can have consequences down the road (we’ll get to that below). From your current position, you are able to see the existence of any adjacent tiles, but you are not able to discern whether or not they contain any events. Moving blindly can sometimes pose risks such as triggering a trap, or giving an enemy the chance to ambush you. These risks can be mitigated by spending additional time to Scout ahead to reveal any events that may exist.

Time & Modifiers

Nearly everything you do within a dungeon will cost you Time. This includes moving, scouting, interacting with events, and every round that passes during combat. There are a number of time thresholds depending on the size of the dungeon, and hitting one of these thresholds will trigger a Time Modifier. A Time Modifier is usually a negative effect, though sometimes something beneficial may occur. There are over 30 modifiers that can be applied, some examples include:

• Enemies calling in reinforcements, increasing the number of enemies in future combat encounters
• Increased chance of being ambushed by enemies who are now well aware of your presence
• Your party can become hungry and request that you camp. Ignoring these requests can put a strain on your relationship and trigger Loyalty loss
• Your party can become careless and misplace supplies, causing you to lose a few provisions (such as bandages and potions. Gear and other important items are exempt from this, so newly found armor will be safe!)
• Your party can gain a “second wind”, restoring some of their ability stamina.

Time is an important strategic consideration, and spending too much time in a dungeon can make things increasingly difficult on you. Once you max out the time meter, your party will become disgruntled, weary and insistent on wrapping up the mission. You can still continue beyond this point, but eventually their Spirit and Loyalty to the company will begin to wane. With all of this to consider, it’s important to be efficient on your missions and ensure you don’t waste too much time backtracking, or becoming complacent in combat by letting too many rounds pass.

Camping

While Time Modifiers can make things more difficult on you, Camping is one way to combat their effects. You can choose to camp on any empty tile, though some locations will be safer than others. Like other actions, Camping costs time, but that time can be spent on various bonuses that can be applied to your party going forward. We don’t want to get too far into the topic of camping right now as it’s fairly involved and we’d like to dedicate a future update towards it.

Exploration Events

On any given tile in a dungeon, there are a number of events that can potentially spawn on it. Interacting with most events will cost you time, though you will often have multiple choices of varying costs and risks. It is up to you to assess the situation and make the best strategic decision! Examples of events are:

• Combat: Obviously this will be the most common! If you scout an enemy location, you can spend time to set up on ambush on them
• Secrets: Secrets can be anything from hidden rooms with unique text scenarios, hidden caches of treasure, short puzzles or other findings that can lead to an entirely new mission to tackle at a later date. Without enough Perception however, you may not notice their existence.
• Lootables: Various sources of loot such as satchels, chests and corpses. These may sometimes be locked and require a Dexterity check in order to successfully open. Of course, you can brute force your way in with strength, but it may damage the contents. There are risks as well: disturbing the dead may not be the smartest idea, and that shiny chest may just be bait planted by some would-be ambushers hiding in the shadows.
• Traps & Hazards: These events can sometimes cause damage to the party, depending on which actions you choose and whether or not you scouted it ahead of time. Perception plays a role in this, and a high enough perception will give you notice and a chance to disarm the trap(with enough dexterity) at the cost of time.
• Other Scripted Events: There are a number of other scenarios that can occur that may not necessarily be tied to the current mission you are on. This can range from finding a traveling merchant, encountering an adventurer who offers to tag along, a bounty hunter coming after one of your members, or finding a lost child. It will be up to you to decide what to do, but your party will have their own opinions on what is right.
• Blocked and Locked Passages: Some paths between tiles can be locked by doors, or blocked for other reasons such as a cave-in or a magical barrier. In order to proceed you will need to spend time to deal with the issue.

That about covers everything regarding exploration, minus the specifics of camping which we’ll discuss in a future update! We had a pretty positive reception to these changes at PAX, so hopefully you like them and understand why we feel they’re an improvement. Either way, you’ll be able to check it out in the demo today! One quick thing to note about the the demo’s intro dungeon is that it’s fairly short and more linear due to it being a PAX build (needed to get people through it in 30m or less). On the average mission you can expect to find more more alternative routes!

As always, if you haven’t yet please take a moment to wishlist the game on Steam and join our official Discord server. We’ll see you next time!