Chapter 4: Page 97
Right as we launched our last page, we were knee-deep in PAX West. Because I’d written the page post beforehand, I didn’t get much of a chance to share the initial reception to War of the Western Deep on the show floor of the largest video game convention in North America.
Well, readers–I don’t mind telling you that the initial reception was ABSOLUTELY BANANAS.
Our booth consisted of one demo station featuring our latest demo build of the game, and one continuously playing video reel showing animations from the game and our previous Kickstarter campaigns. The demo took about 15-20 minutes to play through in its entirety, and we regularly had crowds of people 6-10 deep crowding the booth watching the gameplay unfold.
We were so happy to see more than a few comic readers swing by the booth, even some long-time fans who didn’t know we were working on a game! If you weren’t able to make it to PAX West, don’t worry! We’re planning to return next year with an updated demo, and right now you can watch a full playthrough of the demo on YouTube:
This video represents a pretty direct playthrough, but we’ll be looking at posting a more robust “Director’s Cut” version soon with lots more interacting with the environment and sassing that felis bandit.
We were also incredibly honored to have the voice of Mirren herself stop by the booth and say hello to the team. Samantha Béart, who portrayed Karlach so wonderfully in Baldur’s Gate 3, understandably had a super busy schedule the whole PAX weekend! Still, we were lucky enough to have a chance to meet in person (and hand over a big bag’s worth of Western Deep books and other goodies), and get a picture of Samantha and the team!
We are SO lucky to have Samantha Béart helping us bring Mirren to life, and can’t wait for our next voice over session!
Now, on to the page!
Bevan and the other Sratha-din would have heard about treewalkers in campfire stories, but there’s obviously a difference in hearing a story and living one yourself. For example Bevan knows they’re supposed to be big, but are they really supposed to be this big?
When you see seasoned tamian scouts like Quinlan and Crim looking distressed, you probably already know the answer.
Ah yes, of course all the noise managed to attract this world’s equivalent of a Grandfather Worm and then Crim shot it in the face.
My favourite part is the little ears and dot eyes poking out as tiny Eira hides behind tiny Rhosyn.
Congratulations on your successful convention.
After a whole year of buying the first two volumes, I finally decided to read the rest of the comic, merely a few weeks ago.
There are no words to describe this comic in a way it deserves to be described; every detail makes me admire it even more and every page makes me grateful it was created.
I only want to say -for anyone who would love to read something similar-, I discovered this piece while absolutely falling in love with the Armello (playable game) novellas, written by Alex Kain (story Trent Kusters if I am not mistaken). Those few novellas and this comic have made my life a whole lot better.
Either way, after this chattering,
CONGRATULATIONS ON THE GAME PROGRESS!!!
I can’t wait to get more of the game and the treewalker!
Thank you so much for the kind words, Ele! The Armello novellas were an incredibly fun project and Trent did help with the story outlining and editing process, though most of the writing was me :) I saw a duplicate version of this comment from a different account btw, so I removed the extra one!
Well I’m certainly not going to try to tell him how big he’s supposed to be.
Crim looks so funny when he appears so calm :D
What they should be asking is “Why is there a choir singing in Latin?” Short answer: Because this is a boss battle and it’s Bevan’s first turn!
Treewalker pulls out their iPhone and cues up Cleric_Beast.mp3
I love Dakkan’s jump after Crim appears, really shows the scout’s skill and how on edge Dakkan is lol