Happy Launch-iversary (and version 1.1.10)!

To celebrate the game's one year anniversary outside of Early Access, I put together a little "laurels" trailer cramming together some of my favorite clips from reviews so far (these are obviously edited to keep it under 5 minutes--make sure to watch the full reviews, they're great! 1 2 3 4 5 6)

In the months since, I've pushed regular free updates with balance improvements, loads of UI improvements, AI improvements, new save game logic, New Game Plus, Multiplayer Arena mode, new items, new promotions, a new weapon type, new dialogue, expanded character portrait options, custom character sharing, campaign editor improvements, and--of course-- one gazillion bug fixes.

It feels good to sit back and see how far the game has come, but I'm not done yet. I also want to announce a contest--specifically:

A Custom Character Showcase!

For the rest of the month, I'm running a Custom Character Showcase Contest!

The way it works is simple: between now and June 6th, export a character you created in Together in Battle's custom character creator, copy the text...

...and paste that text into a new post in this thread along with your character's name. That's all you have to do!

After the first week of June, I'll select the most clever, creative, interesting, and/or funny submissions and showcase them in a Youtube video.

Here are a few things that will make me more likely to showcase your character:

• made in-game: your character was created using the custom character creator.

• usability: your character's class, traits, and growths feasibly work together (e.g. they're not a golem with all their points put into Psy, a shadowling with all their points put into Strength, etc.)

• writing: you took the time to write custom dialogue for your character.

• cohesiveness: your character's name, traits, class, portrait, growths, and dialogue all present a coherent picture of who they are as a person.

• depth: your character has more to them than just a single gag or personality trait.

• taste: your character isn't wildly out of place in this game's world--or if they are, they at least have some dialogue addressing it. (If you submit Isekai'd Guy Fieri, for instance, then I want to hear his backstory about what brought him so very far away from Flavortown!)

There is no limit to how many characters you can submit, so feel free to post as many as you like. I'm excited to see your creations! 😃

Now, how about a free anniversary update?

That's right: there's another free update, too! As replayable and packed with variety as Together in Battle already is, I figured I could do a bit more to cement its place in the pantheon of SRPGs You Can Always Keep Coming Back To. This update has some meat to it, so I'm jumping the version number up from 1.1.01 to 1.1.10.

We'll start with the biggest new change:

• Addednew level-up mechanic for Roguelike ModeChoose Advancements! As of this moment, when you start a new game in roguelike mode, any time a character levels up and is due to gain a skill, equipment mastery, or stat proficiency, instead of the game having them just learn that thing, you now instead get to pick one of three: Truth be told, I've long disliked how "pick one