Hello everyone! Finally! Finally! Balrum is ready!
First of all, thank you for being patient and understanding.
Second of all, thank you to everyone over at Kickstarter for making Balrum a possibility. You guys were so kind and supportive we could not believe it.
We will support Balrum for years to come and enhance it as much as we can. 1.0 is just the beginning 
We hope that you will enjoy your time spent in the world of Balrum!
Thank you everyone!
Read MoreHello there everyone!
We hope you are all well.
We have been really busy with Balrum and the game is finally in a good shape. We really needed the extra time. The whole game is finally balanced to our liking and we even could add a few extra features.
At the moment everything is looking good for a late February release.
There were a few major problems that we finally sorted out. The biggest problem was the support of really high refresh rate monitors. Balrum had trouble with 144Hz monitors but thanks to a thorough rewrite of our subsystems Balrum is running smoother than ever. As we were rewriting a lot of things related to the speed of the engine we took the opportunity to make moving around even smoother. You will see the difference!
Here are a few new features:
-Moveable pet health/mana bar
-Bigger main QuickSlot bar
-Autosave every X minutes (configurable)
-World Tooltips are now viewable from a distance
-Eye protection mode “Eye Care” (enabled in the video tab under the “style”)
-Options button in the Main Menu
The extra time allowed us to finish scrapped lore bits and quests so there is even more to do in the world.
Thank you for your patience everyone. We are working as hard as we can.
Read MoreGreetings dear Backers!
Estimated released date: February 2016
Thanks to your great feedback the game is better than ever!
The last year for us was a huge challenge. We never posted about the problems and struggles we had during development because those have nothing to do with Balrum. We have been working pretty much non-stop even on the weekends for ten months now. It is great to see the game near complete. Balrum ended up being a huge game!
You can expect a massive update to the Kickstarter version of the game at the same day when Balrum will be available on Steam. The update will have almost as many changes like the previous mega updates. Content wise you will finally be able to play all five chapters! During the beta you were only able to play chapter one. Some of the big new features are:
Character Creation
Intro
Difficulty Settings (on the hardest mode monsters will be smarter not just tougher)
Tutorial text pop ups
Simple executables with a bundled JRE on all platforms
All of your suggestions have been added to the game (the ones that were reasonable and compatible with the game, pretty much 99% of them). Some of the more extreme ones turned out to be great additions!
The whole game has been redesigned and rewritten completely over a dozen times. Balrum is our first project and we quickly learned that if something is not working or requires a lot of “hacking” to get somewhat working, that means that a part of the engine needs to be rewritten.
We think that its only fair if we tell you what could not fit in the game. The only thing that we could not get into the game are portraits. There are almost 200 NPCs in the game that would have needed portraits.
Most of you sent us your designs regarding NPC/Monster design. Those of you who have not can still send them and they will be included in a patch. (Kickstarter goodies will be included in the final version)
Without your help none of this would have happened. We are truly grateful for your support and you can count on our continued support for Balrum in the future!
We uploaded a new trailer that showcases a few brand new parts of the world. If you are interested you can check it out!
Thank you everyone. See you soon!
Read MoreHello Backers!
Thank you for your reports! Your bug reports and suggestions are helping us in a big way!
This update includes dozens of small fixes and patches for a few nasty bugs. We also made a few adjustments to make the game systems more understandable.
The new version is 0.90_270. You can find it at the usual location.
Saves are compatible. Please copy your “saves” folder into the new version.
Have a nice day everyone!
Read MoreHello Backers!
First of all we would like to thank everyone who sent us bug reports. Pretty much all reported bugs were fixed.
Save games are compatible but the config.xml is not. Please delete the config.xml located in the root directory of the game! The new version is 0.90_252. You can find it at the usual location.
We added a few features suggested by the community.
Here are a few of them:
Line of Sight Indicator in combat (optional):
Small moveable Rested/Thirst/Hunger indicator (optional):
Transparent MiniMap (optional):
The survival skill received attention. Now you are able to tend to your wounds at your tent. A higher survival skill level will allow you to restore more health. The “Tend Wounds” function requires a splint.
We added the final teleportation system to the beta. When you examine a teleportation obelisk you will be able to replicate that obelisk at your safe place. This will make your safe place a teleportation node. Also the cooldown of the safe place trinket has been greatly reduced. (If you already discovered the 4 teleport nodes in Darkwood simply touch them again and you will learn how to build it at your safe place.)
Now there are three quick slot bars at your disposal.
Daggers now have a proper sprite.
Other areas that received changes:
GUI
Farming
Cooking
Options Panel
Sound System
Critical Crafting
Spell Tooltips
Item Values
Combat
Have a great day folks!
Read MoreHello everyone!
We are still waiting for a few things before we can announce the release date.
We received great feedback for version 0.90_205 but there were a few bugs and oddities. We fixed the bugs and implemented a few things you suggested. This version is save game compatible with the previous version. To continue playing with your saves please copy your old saves folder to the new version’s folder. (files/saves)
A big thank you for everyone who sent us bug reports and suggestions!
We added a feature that we were against for a good amount of time. Auto walk to destination. As Balrum is a hybrid turn based game auto walking in combat could get you killed really fast. So during combat there is no auto walking. Also if anything odd happens while auto walking the walking event should stop making sure there won’t be problems. You can try out this new feature with a simple right click to the desired destination. We still don’t quite love the feature but we have to admit that it is really comfortable to play this way. Full control with WASD or the mouse still gives a better experience because you can examine everything on the screen at your own pace. With auto walk you might miss something so be cautious when using this new feature.
The trade panel has been further simplified for ease of use. And now with a mouse wheel click you are able to pick up the topmost item from an item stack.
The new version is 0.90_226. You can find the new version at the usual place.
Have a great day folks!
A few freshly baked screenshots:
Hello everyone!
As we are getting closer to release we are back with a giant update for Balrum!
Backer content is being added to the game and if some of your creations are not entirely compatible with the game you will receive an email.
The entire game has been rebalanced and redesigned. There is almost nothing that hasn’t been altered. From basic mechanics to bigger features like the new renderer everything is new. Even the maps have received a huge amount of changes. When you start up the game you might feel that it is familiar but when you play for a few minutes you will definitely feel that you are playing a very different Balrum. We truly hope that you will be pleasantly surprised. Almost every suggestion from the community has been added to the game!
This is the game we had in mind when we started our Kickstarter campaign. As you know Balrum is our first game. So most likely there will be a few bugs lurking around but this time we can finally show you a game that we are proud of. The previous versions were merely a shadow of what Balrum is now.
Thank you very much for your bug reports! All critical bugs have been fixed including a few nasty bugs that prevented you from running the game.
The new version is 0.90_205. You can find it at the usual place. We will send out the download information messages again to ensure all of you get the new version.
Now we would like to talk about some of the bigger changes.
Manual
You will find a manual for Balrum in the root directory. This is an early version of the manual for the game.
Balance
The entire game has been rebalanced. From top to bottom Balrum is a new game. Small but important mechanics have been heavily altered, for example your dexterity now influences a lot of things. Enemy spells and stats have been completely rebalanced as well as your characters stats and abilities. Leveling up skills is different. You don’t have to create dozens of weapons just to advance your weapon crafting skill to a new level. If you have the spare learning points you are able to learn a new level of the skill from a teacher. Traders, teachers, daily routines, enemy AI, item values, survival mechanics, cooking, alchemy, weapon/armor crafting and a lot of other things that have an impact on each other have been rebalanced keeping every aspect of the game in mind. Loot has been wiped on every map and hand placed again with much more care.
New Content
New quests and lore bits are in. Chapter 2-3-4 and 5 is near complete. We think that the world of Balrum is now large enough for every adventurer but not too large that the content is sparse. There are multiple twists in the main story and lots of side quests for you to venture on. As you know the main story has three paths. The guild you choose will determine your path. We are extremely excited to show you the new chapters but as you know that will only happen on full release (for good reasons)...
Thank you everyone for voting for us! Balrum has been Greenlit!
We are still working hard on the next beta version update. Again, thank you for helping us with your votes!
Have a great day folks!
Hello there backers!
Finally it’s time to send out the “Create a Magical Item” emails. As you know we already sent out emails for the NPC/Monster design tier. The procedure is pretty much the same. We will send out the emails shortly.
We made sure that the engine will allow you to make your item’s “on use” effect to be almost anything. (within reason of course)
We are excited about your item ideas!
There are a few of you who have not replied to our emails regarding Add-Ons. So please if you bought Add-Ons and have not yet replied to our emails, do reply soon.
We noticed that you might have special “Kickstarter” only email accounts so please check them because all of our messages are sent to the email addresses you use here on Kickstarter.
Right now we are trying to be Greenlit on Steam so if you are able please vote for us. Thank you for your votes so far! We are sitting in a really good place in the top 100.
As always.
Have a great day.
Hello everyone!
Our Steam Greenlight process has started! Let’s hope for the best. You can check out our Greenlight page here:
Our web page and youtube page has been updated.
Check out the new Teaser Video:
As always guys. Have a great day.
Read More