Hey Happy Bastards!

In case you missed it, we just premiered a brand new trailer as part of PC Gaming Show at Summer Games Fest!

Check out the trailer here

Although the full game will be an open-world tactical RPG, this playtest consists of a dungeon filled with traps, events, loot, and, of course, combat.

Combat Features

• Deep Tactical Turn-Based Combat - Small battlefields emphasize positioning, elevation, line of sight, control zones, shoving, and directional targeting.

• Command System - Support your mercenaries with powerful battlefield commands that add tactical flexibility each round.

• Tag-Team Swap Mechanic - Swap active mercenaries with reserve party members mid-combat to adapt your strategy on the fly.

• Living Characters - Mercenaries and enemies react dynamically during battle with dialogue, emotional responses, panic, and morale effects. Characters constantly comment on combat events, creating personality-driven and unpredictable encounters.

• Inspect Mode – Zoom in and closely examine allies and enemies directly within combat environments.

Out of Combat Features

• Character Generator – Even though the playable mercenaries are set for the combat demo, you can experiment with creating unique mercenaries and preview the game’s character variety.

• Dungeon Exploration – Explore a handcrafted dungeon layout featuring branching paths, secrets, and interactive encounters.

• Dynamic Events – Encounter dialogues, traps, and dilemmas that create immersive adventuring moments.

• Loot System – Discover gold, equipable combat charms, valuables, trophies, food, and other rewards throughout dungeons and combat. Consumables, such as potions, can be used strategically in and out of combat. 

• Roster & Inventory Management – View character stats, XP, inventory, and equipped gear through the roster panel.

We're so excited to have you all get a chance to test out the Combat Demo and dive into the bastards and batlles of Happy Bastards!

Want to chat more with the devs and community? Be informed of future playtests? Join the Happy Bastards Discord Server![discord.gg]

In preparation for the upcoming release of the COMBAT DEMO, here's the final of five dev logs that focus on explaining how combat works in Happy Bastards.

Check out Part 1 for the basics, Part 2 for the battlefield, Part 3 for the Command system, and Part 4 for Composure and how we make the bastards feel alive.

In Happy Bastards, you hire untrained recruits, and you specialize each of them into a character class when they reach level 2.

Detailing the progression system is beyond the scope of this dev log series, but what matters here is that this combat demo simulates a squad of four level-3 mercs of different classes. There will be many more classes available in the full game and you'll be in control of squad composition.

In addition to the four mercs is a captive monster, another interesting feature of the game.

Let's see what each class looks like.

The bastard with a short fuse

• Tosses firebombs at enemies

• AoE and DoTs for a deadly distance combo

• Hurt? He can heal and cleanse debuffs

The bastard who's always looking for a fight

• Loud mouth that draws attention of the enemies

• Intimidates enemies and makes them flee

• Can take a beating AND provide counterattacks

The pushy bastard

• Shoves enemies around on the battlefield

• Better yet, shove them into dangerous objects, or vice versa

• Nudges allies out of harm's way

The long distance bastard

• Reliable ranged DPS with her crossbow

• Always looks for a height advantage for more devastation"

The disposabl--errr, we mean the CAPTIVE bastard

• Captured lizardman forced to fight for you

• Tough, powerful, inflicts bleeding damage

• Must be commanded each turn

There's more about captives that we have not yet developed and, to be honest, this implementation in the demo is not what we think will be the one for the final game. But we still wanted to give players a taste of the particularities of this cool feature.

That's it for this series of dev logs explaining Happy Bastards' combat system.

Be sure to try the COMBAT DEMO, available on Steam soon!

And see you on the Discord[discord.gg]!