It’s that time of the year again where we celebrate gaming’s best armoured good boy, Caesar. If we’re being honest, the reason this post exists is because we wanted to take trip down memory lane and wax lyrical about how much we love his cute, floofy face.

But before we kick off, we’d like to shout out to our merch partners The Yetee, who are helping us raise money for The Humane Society International by selling these brand-new cute ‘Doggo Allover’ tees. The Humane Society is one of the biggest animal protection organisations in the world, and do fantastic work including saving dogs from the dog meat trade. We’re waiving all profits which will go directly to charity, so check them out if you’re feeling generous and looking for something cool for yourself or as a gift! (They also come in black).

Without further ado, let’s dive into it!

At Chucklefish we are absolutely dog people. We often have 2 of them roaming around the office on any given day and if you’ve followed us on social media or watched our game credits, then you’ll know they’re an essential part of the development team. So, back in 2017 when we first started working on Wargroove, we knew immediately we wanted to have some kind of faction or unit that featured a dog. You can see below exactly how that went.

We wanted dogs to have a meaningful part in Wargroove, which is how we came up with the individual dog units and how we eventually ended up with Caesar as you know him today.

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However, the search for the perfect kind of dog was difficult. We looked at dozens of images of dogs in armour, spend 2 days straight spamming one another with pictures of dogs we wanted to cuddle and protect, but ultimately decided that Caesar was to be a Great Pyrenees. They’re strong, powerful, and they do the cute thing where they look like they’re smiling all the time.

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We also had the absolute pleasure of seeing Caesar come to life in The Line’s Wargroove intro scene which can be viewed here. The goal was to show the deep-rooted bond between Mercia and Caesar, but demonstrate that he was a strong, independent good boy too.

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We also got to celebrate his adorableness in plushie-form when we partnered with The Yetee! They did such a wonderful job making him as cute and cuddly as possible, but you just know that Caesar would be ready to protec and attac when he needed to be.

Caesar also took time out of his busy schedule of defending Cherrystone Queendom and getting belly rubs to join the cast in both TINY METAL: FULL METAL RUMBLE and Rivals of Aether! He’s gotten into all sorts of hijinks this year; you can pick up TM:FMR DLC ‘Caesar’s Rescue’ completely free, as well as a free Buddy option in RoA today!

It’s been over a year since Caesar hit your screens, and we hope to see his snoot again in the future 👀. Thanks for reading through and celebrating just how wonderful Caesar is with us!

Hey folks,

Hurray! Today we’re launching v2.1.0 across PC, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. This patch mainly focuses on competitive play and online bug fixes. Thanks to our friends at Groove of War for the feedback!

Gameplay Balancing:

• Fog of War sight ranges reduced across the board
• Single Player and Co-op campaign balance changes due to sight range reduction
• When a unit is ambushed and ends on a neutral unit, it will backtrack instead of dying
  
• Nuru’s groove charge rate reduced from fast to medium
• Spectator can now spectate online campaign matches

Other:

• End current campaign map from lobby screen command added. If you’ve been experiencing issues continuing your online campaign, visit this thread for more info
• Added 45 Minute Chess Timer option
• Only hosts can add CPU players to multiplayer matches
• Event Editor actions that remove or modify units can now affect units in transports
• Event Editor conditions that check for unit presence now include units in transports

Bug fix:

• Save/resume desync bug in online matches
• Harpoon ships don’t die on reefs when its raining
• Spearman in the Act 1 Mission 3 tutorial now spawns in correct location
• Outlaw faction units now correctly display the codex button

We haven’t forgotten about you, PlayStation players! A combination of submission mishaps and the current pandemic have meant that Double Trouble has been delayed for longer than we would have liked. We hope to be able to bring you the DLC soon and will let you know a date as we can. Thank you for being patient!

Also don’t forget, you can come hang out with us over on Discord or Twitter.

Hi guys, senior level designer Armagon, back again!

Yesterday I unveiled the first of our map editor video guides. Now today, as promised, I have the next one locked and loaded for you!

This second video takes a deep dive into how to design a skirmish map with competitive play in mind. When writing this guide, I received valuable input from some of our most dedicated competitive mapmakers in the Groove of War community, so I have confidence in this guide as a good starting point.

Hopefully these first two videos will prove useful to you folks! They took quite a bit of time for me to write and produce, but I’ve already started preparations on the third, so I’m hoping to get it to you before too long. In the meantime, be sure to let us know what you’re most interested in learning next! I’ll be looking to tackle the topics that benefit the most people across the board, so let your voices be heard!

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Come talk to us over on Twitter, Discord and the Wargroove subreddit.

Hey everybody, senior level designer, Armagon here!

In the wake of Wargroove: Double Trouble being released, I’ve been tackling something of a personal project at Chucklefish; something that I’m hoping will prove useful to a lot of our players, or at least those who are interested in making their own content with the game’s robust tools. Today I’m pleased to be releasing the first of several video guides on using Wargroove’s map editor!

This first video is ideal for beginners who are new to the editor and want to know how to set up their map, and how to use the most essential tools to start laying things down.

If you like what you see, be sure to come back tomorrow for our second video which will delve into how to design your own multiplayer maps!

Talk to us over on Twitter, Discord and the Wargroove subreddit.

Oh lawd, he comin’!

I’m so happy to finally share with you this adorable Caesar plush!

(Wargroove vinyl for scale – sold separately via Yetee Records & Boss Battle Records)

I’ve been working with The Yetee on this very good boy for some months now. The idea to make a plush Caesar has been floating around since the early days of Wargroove development, and it was a pleasure to bring him to life with the Yetee’s talented designers and all their plush expertise.

We went through a few iterations until he was just right, consulting the development team here at Chucklefish all the way through. We frequently referred to photos of the dog breed that Caesar is based on, which, if you’re a Caesar fan you’ll undoubtedly know is a Great Pyrenees. The trickiest parts were the ears and the expression, we wanted him to be as cute as can be so, in the end, we went for Caesar’s happy expression which you see when he wins a battle (or when it’s dinner time).

Our Caesar Plush is available to purchase right now on The Yetee store for $26, and ships worldwide from the US.

I hope you all enjoy this huggable pup as much as we do!

Hi everyone,

Just over 1 year from the original launch of Wargroove, we’re very proud to bring you our big, free content expansion, Wargroove: Double Trouble, out right now!

• Steam
• Humble
• Nintendo Switch
• Xbox One + Windows 10 (Xbox Play Anywhere)
• Xbox Game Pass for PC
• + coming soon to PS4

When Chucklefish decided to take a shot at developing a traditional turn-based strategy game it was a difficult decision to make. Was launching a game like Wargroove viable in 2019? Would there be an audience? Ultimately we decided to move ahead with the project because it was a game we wanted to play, it needed to exist. Wargroove was a game for us.

A year later and we’ve not only found that there is an audience, but a community. We feel incredibly humbled at how passionate, kind and talented a community has emerged. Wargroove: Double Trouble is our way of saying thank you, of delivering on the community feedback and throwing in an expansion’s worth of content as a bonus. Wargroove: Double Trouble is for you.

We hope you enjoy what the team here has been working on and continue to give us feedback.

Oh, and look after Errol and Orla, they have important futures ahead of them.

Hi all!

We checked our calendars and it turns out Wargroove is 1 year old today?! It’s crazy to think how much has happened since the game’s launch on February 1st 2019 – from content updates, to bug fixes great and small, new languages, the PS4 release, a physical launch, modding beta, community competitions, Xbox Game Pass for PC launch, events, livestreams, Groove of War tournaments, awesome merch including a vinyl record and the upcoming free DLC!

Before we get too carried away looking ahead to Wargroove: Double Trouble next week, we first wanted to look back at the game’s development, and share our favourite community fanart and dev stories!

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Rodrigo – Technical Director
My favourite part of working on Wargroove was when I finished the basic engine port to the Nintendo Switch. It all wrapped up at once, and I was suddenly able to hold a Nintendo console running our game. For someone who grew up enamoured with the SNES, it was a magical moment!

Fan art credit to DEL-chan on Steam

Finn – Lead Game Designer

My favourite part of development was when we took Rodrigo to the mall to meet Santa, and Rodrigo sat on his lap and said all he wanted for Christmas was to make a turn-based strategy game, and Santa said his wish would come true.

Fan art credit to @Gzeidraws on Twitter

Adam – Artist

One of my fondest memories during the lead up to Wargroove’s release was my championing of ‘Wagon Strats’. Only once you realise that wagons are fast-moving mobile blockades with lots of health, will you understand the true majesty of wagon strats. The community really got into the spirit of utilising this strategy at release, creating all sorts of wagon related fan art.

Fan art credit to Jubei-Sama on Reddit

Katy – Marketing

There’s been so many highlights for me working on Wargroove, from finally getting to put my Japanese folklore knowledge to good use by naming Koji’s giant wooden puppet, Tenko, to revealing Caesar by putting a silly hat on our office dog Iorek and then recording a weird Twitch livestream of him playing against the AI on Wargroove, or maybe even when I ashamed myself with my awful strategy skills live on the Nintendo stage at EGX playing Wargroove against the all-knowing Rodrigo…

But seeing Wargroove climb the Steam and Nintendo Switch charts on launch, and all the excitement in the community was pretty darn cool too. Oh, oh and Hot Derek! (Thanking you eternally Mr.A on Discord!)

Credit to ABCME TV’S GGSP for their amazing Mercia, Ragna & Caesar cosplay featuring their dog, Boatmeal!

Rosie – Brand Designer

Tom and I spent the last few days in the office before the Christmas break, when everyone else had already gone on holiday, designing and building the Wargroove site so that it would be up before the holidays for people to explore. We wanted it to be full of cool art and info about the Factions and gameplay, like an old game manual. The most fun part was making the quiz and coming up with answers for each Faction to questions like “What is your approach to homework?” and “What would you wear to a party?”. Really the whole site is just a vessel for that quiz. You bet we’re updating it for the DLC!

Fan art credit to @sthelning on Twitter

Abi – Narrative Designer

I remember that time– Oh how we laughed! But you had to be there…

Fan art credit to @Jaffre_Duzzly on Twitter

Shona – QA

My favourite bug was when Caesar’s groove didn’t do anything! He would howl and nothing would happen. Oh, and maybe Ryota causing the game to crash when he tried to dash onto water. Oh oh oh that one time that the tutorial mission spawned Golems!

Fan art credit to @YoungAudree on Twitter

Caryn – Programmer
My favorite part of development was prototyping Wulfar’s groove. It’s fun to punt enemy units across the map. Also it’s got the best name. Hitting the “go live” button on Steam as a big group was a pretty great moment too.

Fan art credit to @Darlihy on Twitter

Stephen – Technical Designer

There was a time when Sedge would use his standard attack animation on structures too. He would dramatically burst through the front door like he was the Kool-Aid Man, which I thought was both awesome and hilarious.

Unfortunately, I came to realise this looked incredibly broken when he didn’t destroy the door, so I had to be a killjoy and pushed for him to get a unique animation instead.

Fan art credit to VanRipper on DevianArt

Hello friends!

Welcome to this week’s episode of How It’s Made! Today we will find out exactly what the inside of a bowling ball looks like!
See below to discover–

–I’ve just been informed that I’m not ‘qualified’ to talk in detail about the intricacies of bowling ball fabrication. So I’m going to talk about the writing process for Double Trouble instead. I guess.

I’ll start at the beginning. The seed of the idea for Double Trouble was this: Everybody loves a villain. We had hugely enjoyed developing the Outlaws for Caesar’s side missions in the original campaign. The lawless, pontification-prone bandits had been a pleasure to write. So when it came time to explore Aurania through fresh eyes and from a new perspective, these Outlaws, the antitheses of Aurania’s heroic band of royals and rulers, were our first choice.

We had a good deal of fun trying to discover what motivates the denizens of this semi-nomadic, highly anarchic society. We talked a lot about what kind of people they were and what they wanted from life. We went deep. Have you ever read an academic paper about the social and judicial practices of 17th century pirates? Because I have. Ultimately, all that research, thought and discussion payed off, because we managed to come up with some of the most engaging Wargroove characters yet to act as our new protagonists. I’m talking of course about the highly esteemed Wulfar, and his cute-as-all-get-out kids.

These characters helped us establish the basic essence of the Double Trouble narrative: while the twins’ mother is away the weans are coming to work with dad! And by ‘coming to work’, we mean engaging in an international crime-spree. So we’d established that our story would take us across Aurania by means of a variety of daring heists and close-run getaways. But while there’s a lot of conflict inherent in grand larceny, that alone didn’t feel enough to drive the arc of our story. We knew that even anti-heroes need a foil – a villain amongst villains. Enter Vesper: the theatrically cruel and vindictively spiteful fumomancer. The arch-villain we sincerely hope you love to hate.

So Vesper became the driving force behind this pan-national criminal caper. Ensuring that this story, like the original Wargoove campaign, begins and ends with a villain. A character with a twisted core, heavy and hidden, obscured beneath a flashy exterior… Which, now I think about it, is a pretty good way to describe a bowling ball.

G’day folks!

Those of who you follow this blog probably know me as “that guy who sometimes posts music spotlights”. For those not in the know, I’m the Wargroove team’s sound designer and lead level designer, responsible for creating the missions that made up the original campaign. I’m telling you this is because today, I’d like to talk about our process in developing the Wargroove: Double Trouble campaign and how we ended up where we are.

When we were first discussing what form we’d like our downloadable content to take, it quickly became clear that a lot of us were interested in expanding on the Outlaw faction. After all, they show up a bunch in the original campaign, were pretty tough despite the lack of leadership, and managed to be quite charming even while performing heinous acts. Developing them further just made sense to us.

Our art team spent a considerable amount of time creating and pitching character concepts for these new Outlaw Commanders. We looked at which ones we liked most, figured out what their social dynamics with one another would be, what kind of abilities they might use, and so on.

Eventually, the idea was posed of having a campaign where you play as the Outlaws as they rob the kingdoms of Aurania in grand heists. This idea sparked a lot of excitement among the team! Given that one of the most requested features at the time was for more co-op functionality and content; taking that heist campaign concept and designing it for co-op play seemed like a great fit.

Initially I felt pretty confident with a lot of ideas that I wanted to try in order to tie into the heist theme; especially since we’d conceptualised our new thief and rifleman units, which seemed ripe for setting up stealthy scenarios. As an example, I was imagining a mission where one player was responsible for using riflemen to provide sightlines on guards in the fog of war, while the other player had to use thieves to slip around them and steal enough money for the pair of players to start recruiting more powerful units to fight them directly. Unfortunately in practice these ideas had a number of problems.

First, our systems were not designed to accommodate this concept of avoiding enemy sightlines; I didn’t really have a good way of communicating to the player where it was safe to move, or where best to position units for optimal sightlines without giving the player the solution outright. Then there was the issue of the sheer amount of turns spent sneaking around, slowing down the overall pace of an already fairly slow game. Most crucially, the missions I’d been trying to develop were just not proving all that fun to play. As much as I wanted to make the thief unit a driving force of the campaign, in practice it simply wasn’t the right direction and it wasn’t playing to our game’s strengths.
I had also learnt very quickly that designing for co-op posed many of its own challenges. We wanted the players to feel a sense of collaboration, occasionally having to rely on one another to get through a situation. Initially I’d been having the Commanders starting together in one place, usually recruiting from the same general areas of the map, but this more often than not resulted in the players just grouping up and focusing on one objective at a time, which ran counter to the goal of the players working toward their own objectives in order to beat the mission.

So I went back to the drawing board and got help from the rest of the team to brainstorm some new ideas that could still tap into the spirit of a heist, without relying on the elements of stealth commonly associated with it. We managed to come up with a bunch that would mix up the roles that each player served, with an emphasis on interesting combat scenarios that were preventing players from getting to the treasure, and then having to escape after they’d snatched it. It didn’t take long before these new designs started to bear fruit.

Interestingly, in scenarios where the players’ units were limited, we found that people were enjoying these missions much more when each isolated group had a mixture of units belonging to both players, so they had to plan around each other’s optimal moves. For instance; one player could position a Spearman to let their ally take advantage of the Spearman critical hit condition. Similarly, giving each commander’s party a Mage belonging to their ally meant healing that group became the ally’s responsibility, so they could play a crucial role in each other’s survival at clutch moments. Little things like this went a long way to encouraging active communication and collaboration between the players.

All in all, I’m really happy with how this campaign has come together! Each mission has a variety of distinct objectives, fun events and interactions, and I think we’ve succeeded in building a challenging set of missions that reward player collaboration. The Double Trouble campaign is ten missions long, roughly one third the length of the original story campaign, but I feel like the lessons I learned from that first effort have allowed me to make this co-op campaign one of my most polished efforts. The talented artists and writer who came together to craft the story driving it have done an incredible job and I can’t wait for you guys to experience the whole thing for yourselves.

As a final aside, some of our community have been wondering how this co-op campaign is playable on your own, and I thought it would be good to clarify. If you play Double Trouble on your own, you simply play out both Commanders turns yourself. It can take a little getting used to, but it’s just as playable and still feels distinctly different from playing the single player campaign. As it turned out, being able to play this campaign alone at all is one of the unique benefits of Wargroove being a turn-based game. We still recommend playing it with a friend if you can, but you won’t be getting an inferior version of the campaign if you don’t.

I hope you guys found this stuff interesting! It was a lot of fun to work on and I’ll be very interested to see what everybody thinks of the campaign when Wargroove: Double Trouble finally launches on February 6th!

G’day folks!

So for this, the final music spotlight for the Wargroove: Double Trouble soundtrack, it felt fitting to close it out with something fun. People who’ve watched the trailer or gotten themselves a copy of the Wargroove Deluxe Edition have already had a chance to take a look at Double Trouble’s campaign map. In a repurposed old tavern that’s likely the closest thing to a home that the nomadic Outlaws have, Wulfar uses such a map to plan their heists across all of Aurania. Remarkably, he’s able to do this in spite of all the music and revelry his clan often fill the space with.

It was great to get to work with Phonetic Hero again so soon after completing Wargroove! He met every challenge we threw his way, and came through for us with five great new tracks that we think complement the original soundtrack really well. If you’ve enjoyed hearing his music while playing our game, or while checking out the YouTube playlist, please do show the man some love! The original Wargroove soundtrack is available on all the major streaming platforms and we plan to make all of these Double Trouble tracks available for purchase shortly after launch.

The release day isn’t far off now and I can’t wait for everyone to get their hands on it!