Massive Chalice Gets Official Release Date

[Steven Bogos]

Massive Chalice Gets Official Release Date

Massive Chalice will be leaving Early Access for a full v1.0 release on June 1.

Kickstarter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/massive%20chalice?os=massive+chalice]. Now, after two years, Massive Chalice is ready to leave Early Access with version 1.0 for Xbox One and PC.

"We're super happy to announce that Massive Chalice will be officially leaving early access and launching on June 1st, with the Xbox One version appearing around then too!" said Double Fine staffer Spaff in an official forum post. [http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/17089/]

"After many months of designing, building, reading through our early access feedback, and playing the game for hours on end, we're finally in lockdown. That means the team is in the final stages now; working purely on bug fixing, performance, and polishing things up, in between sending builds off to Microsoft for certification."

As well as all the bug fixes and polish v1.0 will have, it will also include a bunch of balance changes, controller support, and the special backer-only Relics.

"the team has spent a considerable amount of time rebalancing the game to be more fun, fair, challenging, or punishing, depending on how you look at it. Thanks to everyone who helped us with this fine tuning, we got some invaluable feedback from you guys," said Spaff.

So there you go. People were a bit worried when Double Fine took on not just one [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/broken%20age?os=broken+age], but two Kickstarter projects, but now it seems poised to deliver on both games.

Source: Double Fine [http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/17089/]

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[Adultratedhydra]

I Eagerly await the next kickstarter to fund "Massive chalice part 2"

OT: Heres hoping it delivers what it promises and doesnt come down with a case of the molynuex's.

 

[happy_turtle]

Ahhh good, hopefully they've actually finished the game as opposed to Spacebase DF9. I no longer see Double Fine as an indie darling, too many screw ups and broken promises.

 

[pearcinator]

Tim Schafer is a great developer and writer but he can't manage a budget. I think someone needs to really explain to him how to spend money wisely.

 

[synobal]

I look forward to seeing this game leave early access May 2016.

 

[chimeracreator]

It's actually a pretty solid game. They've had it at a nearly completed state for the past few months with only one major bug. All they have to do is fix the bug where if you use knockback on an advanced twitcher the twitcher is granted immortality and it should be fine.

 

[Aerosteam]

They have a lot of competition on June 1. Hatred is also released then.

 

[L. Declis]

Ahhh good, hopefully they've actually finished the game as opposed to Spacebase DF9. I no longer see Double Fine as an indie darling, too many screw ups and broken promises.

Don't worry; they finished this one by cutting out a lot of the more interesting ideas, creating a bland base of a game (saved only by good voice actors) and then shoving it out saying "That'll fucking do".

Massive Chalice is a poor-mans X-Com, with a bigger budget, less beauty, less fun, less engaging, less balanced, less to do. It's longer, sure, but it's just means it's spread out more, like a fat person over the entire bed.

 

[whatever55]

Ahhh good, hopefully they've actually finished the game as opposed to Spacebase DF9. I no longer see Double Fine as an indie darling, too many screw ups and broken promises.

Don't worry; they finished this one by cutting out a lot of the more interesting ideas, creating a bland base of a game (saved only by good voice actors) and then shoving it out saying "That'll fucking do".

Massive Chalice is a poor-mans X-Com, with a bigger budget, less beauty, less fun, less engaging, less balanced, less to do. It's longer, sure, but it's just means it's spread out more, like a fat person over the entire bed.

may i ask where you got that info?
anyway wasn't it first pitched as a rouge legacy type game and not a strategy rpg? or am i misremembering? either way i think calling double fine a golden boy of anything is hilarious right now.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Ahhh good, hopefully they've actually finished the game as opposed to Spacebase DF9. I no longer see Double Fine as an indie darling, too many screw ups and broken promises.

Don't worry; they finished this one by cutting out a lot of the more interesting ideas, creating a bland base of a game (saved only by good voice actors) and then shoving it out saying "That'll fucking do".

Massive Chalice is a poor-mans X-Com, with a bigger budget, less beauty, less fun, less engaging, less balanced, less to do. It's longer, sure, but it's just means it's spread out more, like a fat person over the entire bed.

may i ask where you got that info?
anyway wasn't it first pitched as a rouge legacy type game and not a strategy rpg? or am i misremembering? either way i think calling double fine a golden boy of anything is hilarious right now.

It's a mix of a bunch of different things. The core gameplay is a lot like XCOM. The main difference is that the game takes place over 300 years, so you have to intelligently manage your heroes to have good heirs and mixes of classes, since you'll have to go through about 10 generations of heroes to reach the ending.

To give an idea, the kickstarter pitch itself stated this: "Massive Chalice is tactical fantasy on an epic timeline. You play an immortal king defending his realm from a demonic invasion that has been prophesized to last hundreds of years. You control heroes in tactical combat as you would in XCOM or Final Fantasy Tactics, as well as the guidance of the kingdom across generations. Since this war will outlast your strongest warriors, you have to nurture heroic bloodlines and strategize for several generations of combat. Your choices matter: do you keep your best hero out on the battlefield to fight the demons of today, or do you retire him to sire children, passing on his experience to the next generation? Heroes age over the course of the epic timeline, and eventually they die. But it's not the end of the world. We're designing the game with permadeath in mind. When heroes die, they leave behind a relic [ASIDE from Sight Unseen: they don't always leave a relic, only the ones that did particularly well in life] which can be equipped by members of the same bloodline, making them even more powerful than their ancestors. Unite the bloodlines with strategy, defend the realm with tactics, reforge the massive chalice, and win victory for your kingdom for generations to come."

I played it for about 20 hours when it first hit early access last year and I quite enjoyed it, and they delivered on all of the major points from the pitch above in a way that I found challenging and satisfying. The game sorely lacked balance, and a few of the advanced features weren't complete yet ( higher difficulties, Iron Man mode, and hybrid classes mainly) but it's had many updates since I last played it, and will probably be better when it launches. I will likely play it some more when it officially launches, so if you want me to let you know how it is then, send me a PM. I can't speak for everyone else though, and a lot of people seem to not like it ( not sure if that's genuine dislike for the game or cynicism and anger over Double Fine's recent behaviour though...). Wait for some reviews and let's plays to come out to see if it looks like something you're interested in.

Full Disclosure: I backed this game for $50 and Broken Age for $130, but I'm now pretty pissed off at Tim Schafer over his bullshit.

 

[Virtual Boy]

Tim Schafer is a great developer and writer but he can't manage a budget. I think someone needs to really explain to him how to spend money wisely.

Never forget that Bobby Kotick was right.

 

[Gennadios]

The public beta let's plays didn't really impressed me, gameplay seemed a tad simplistic, even though there were tons of stats and perks for individual characters. That and I don't have much good will for chafer, doubt I'll be picking this one up.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'll admit, I'm kind of curious about this game. However, I'm also disappointed in Schafer and DF over Broken Age(not because it was a bad game, which it isn't) because it took DF a year and a half to....do something. I'm not really sure what about part 2 of broken age required a year and a half of extra development time, because they used all the same voice actors, same backgrounds, same characters(plus 1). So maybe it took that long for the robot rewiring puzzle...I guess.

Anyway, Massive Chalice seems interesting, but right now I'm waiting for reviews. If it gets great reviews, I'll pick it up. Otherwise, I'll pass. DF isn't dead to me(yet), but I no longer love them like I used to and Broken Age was the last game they made that I'll pick up before it's done.