Hey everyone!

Want to go back to some show, don't tell, so here is a quick glimpse at the past month of progress.

Chapter 5 map:

New weapons with powerful abilities:

New elite enemies, kite and tower shields:

I'm now working on chapter 6, but ran into a bit of a roadblock where all my units are promoting, and not all promotions are finished yet. So to be able to correctly test chapter 6's balance, I will be implementing all of the first promotion tiers (Advanced). So far I have 2 of 14 advanced classes completed. Depending on the complexity, I usually finish about a class every day, so I'm confident I can get all of them done this month.

• Chapter 5 events and balancing complete.
  
• Chapter 6 map creation started.
  
• Kaelith introduced as an enemy with the new Fury ability.
  
• New stat growth items. When equipped, increase a specific stat's growth rate by 25%. Tradeoff between future pay-off and using the weight for more item flexibility.
  
• New playable unit Cedric with a non-lethal ability "Salvation" that allows you to spare enemies with under 50% HP.
  
• New side quests and events involved in sparing enemy units.
  
• Kite and Tower shields introduced. Reworked the defender class ability to synergize with tower shields.
  
• Fixed issue where game would freeze on the death of a player unit if they initiated combat.

• Complete chapter 6 map.
  
• Finish all Advanced class promotions (14 total).

We got some great feedback during the #TurnbasedThursday fest, and over 200 new followers on Steam! If this is your first update, welcome! Your interest in the game helps a ton whether a long time or new supporter. I'm expecting some interesting updates character showcases in the coming weeks, so stay tuned on Twitter or Discord, or just stick around here and I'll have a ton of new gifs to share. ;)

Thank you all again for your amazing support.

Best,
Eldin T.

Hey everyone!

I know I said we were feature complete, but there was one more request that kept popping up in the feedback survey: battle preparations. People have been asking to be able to choose starting spots for their units and it's now in the game. You will also be able to view the map and re-equip your units accordingly.

Also I've added the first Elite enemy in the game! Elites are enemies with powerful abilities of their own, indicated by a skull by their health bar. By keeping enemy abilities limited to elites, I can make the abilities more powerful, and in my opinion more fun to play/plan around. You also will have an obvious indicator, so you don't have to look at every enemy's details before engaging, which can become tedious.

Sorry for the delay on posting this update. I have some news, and I didn't want to post it on April fools to give people the wrong idea.

I try to keep personal posts to a minimum, but I'm making an exception this once as it's going to have an effect on development velocity in the coming months. My wife has been in medical school the past 4 years. She is now graduating, and will be doing a medical residency (you can think of it as an internship). For this internship, you can get assigned to essentially anywhere in the US. She got assigned to a great program in California, but we basically have three months to plan a move to a different state. It's been a challenging month, but things are finally settling down a bit, but will likely pick back up in June when we make the actual move.

So what does that mean for Those Who Rule? Well nothing really changes. I had a lot of my free time eaten up this month, but we still made good progress and got a good chunk of chapter 5 done (It's a completely new biome, really excited to showcase it). We've also solidified our writer, and they will be going full steam ahead on writing out the future chapters in the coming months. If I end up losing my job due to the move, who knows, I may even be able to work on the game full time for a bit!

• Chapter 5 map completed. Need to add units/side quests/events.
  
• Unit selection before maps.
  
• Formation changes before chapter starts.
  
• Viewing map/editing load-outs before starting chapter.
  
• Introduced some bad luck protection during level ups.
  
• Elite enemies with abilities are now in game. They will be indicated by a skull by the HP bar.

Some other exciting news, we've featured on a couple of "Top tactical games coming out in 2024" (Best Indie Games, Joel RPG). We will also be participating in the Turn Based Thursday Fest! It takes place from April 4-8. If you like games like Those Who Rule, it can be a great event to get to know other up and coming games in the genre!

Thanks all for tuning in this week, and I appreciate your patience even though progress slows a bit as we make this move. Every one of you who have left feedback, tried the demo, and even just followed the game give me such a huge motivational boost. I can't thank you enough.

Best,
Eldin T.