Devil's Brigade (video game)

Devil's Brigade
Devil's Brigade
Developer(s)	ACBIC Games; Newmaker Studios
Publisher(s)	Newmaker Studios
Programmer(s)	Charles Madgett (Head of Development); Jacob Dumm
Engine	DE 1.0
Platform(s)	Windows, LitHD
Genre(s)	3D FPS
Mode(s)	Online Multiplayer

Devil's Brigade is a video game created by ACBIC Games and developed by both ACBIC Games and Newmaker Studios for the ACBIC Games console the LitHD and Windows. It released on 31 October 2022. The game had been in development as a personal project of Charles Madgett since 3 January 2022, however became a project of which ACBIC Games was involved started on 5 January 2022, after which Jacob Dumm - a small time developer for the subsidiary - would also begin to help. The game is notable for being the first big Elarian work regarding video games, especially considering that it is the first one not released by ACBIC Games. A sequel is currently in development titled Devil's Brigade 2, along with a standalone game in the same franchise.

Gameplay

Gamemodes

There are six total gamemodes; four of them are available for players to pick in a general server. All of them include two teams which are Devils and Ghosts. There is a sixth gamemode, infection, currently in development for the second game. Though it should be noted that infection is available to play for developers.

Team Deathmatch

A race between teams to get the most kills up to 200. One team wins if they reach a total of 200 kills or has the highest number of kills when the 15-minute time limit is reached.

Flare Domination

Flare Domination was the second gamemode to be added to the game. There are three capture points (A, B and C), which give teams points when captured. The more capture points a team owns, the faster a team's score increases. The first team to reach 200 points wins the round. If the timer reaches zero, one team with the most points wins.

King of the Hill

Both teams start with 600 points. The gamemode runs on a "health" style system; when a team controls the hill, the opposing team loses points. The first team to lose all their points or the team with the least points when the timer runs out loses the round.

Kill Confirmed

In this gamemode, when players are killed, they drop a Dog Tag. Phantoms and Ghosts must pick up a Dog Tag from the opposing team in order to score points. Like Team Deathmatch, kills play a huge role in this mode. If a team member collects another team member's Dog Tag, the kill will be denied.

Capture the Flag

In this gamemode, both teams must pick up the opposing team's flag and return it to their home base in order to score points. The first team to capture 5 flags or has the most flags captured before time runs out wins.

Weapons

There are many weapons to choose from in Devil's Brigade. Notably, the D3V1L is a developer-only weapon which can be 'punched' - or upgraded - into the D3V1L3R. The concept of punching is a developer-only tool, however it is in development for public usage in Devil's Brigade 2.

Development

The game has been in development since 3 January 2022. Development would remain consistent, with the game being even handed over to ACBIC Games to help aid in the development process. With the discovery of the Phantom Forces build, the game's development process sped up until March 2022, when Charles was rendered unable to help development which would then send the game into development hell where it has stayed since. It would eventually leave development hell in October 2022, for the game to finish completion the same month, being officially released on 31 October 2022.

A tournament aspect to the game was also confirmed to an extent. It was also revealed that while a campaign was in development for a short time and experimented with, it was ultimately decided that such a mode was unneeded for the game and a "waste of time." A battle royale mode was also experimented with after a positively received poll, however it was deemed to be unable to be completed without a radically different direction being taken for the game, which likely would have resulted in a completely restart in development. So later on it was decided that instead of a battle royale, a simple FFA would be developed instead. This was received well by the community and partners, and one later claimed it to be "the best decision they had made up to that point, honestly." Additionally, since the game was initially made to be a launch title for the LitHD - with the LitHD releasing on 13 April 2022 - it was ultimately made a purchasable public beta that same day.

Servers

Servers have been running a public beta since April 2022. Public release servers opened on 31 October 2022, 30 days after the closure of the beta servers on 1 October 2022. There have been minimal server issues with the games.

Infection

In this gamemode, one player is chosen to be infected while the other players try to defend themselves from those who are infected. After some time three portals shows up to save those who are not infected. It is worthy to note that those portals are in the same position as those capture points in Flare Domination. If no one is left not infected, the infected wins. If a survivor has traveled through a portal, the survivors wins. To those who won in this gamemode, they are awarded with a scythe. This gamemode is only accessible by developers who are using the command "/map:inf," as the gamemode is currently still in development for Devil's Brigade 2.

Community and partnerships

The Devil's Brigade team has focused immense energy on making sure that they receive as much input as possible when working on the game. Notably, Charles himself would go to small YouTubers streams and personally ask them to try it out. Most of the time, the game seemed to be played live and with positive reception. The only negatives anyone would bring up was the striking similarity to Phantom Forces which was unavoidable seeing as they were building the game off of a former build of Phantom Forces. However, Charles would later go out of his way to remove all but one Phantom Forces references and mentions in the game. Later on, a discord server for the game was made where polls would also become a common occurrence. Polls have led to showcases becoming a staple of the development team, where they release screenshots and videos according to each bigger update. Additionally, a battle royale mode was also started development since 5 January 2022, since a poll asking for one was well received. However, later on it was cancelled.

Trivia

Devil's Brigade was started as an individual project, it then went from being developed by Charles Madgett and Jacob Dumm to being an individual project again, this time the individual being Dumm. The original creator, Charles Madgett, left the project after March 2022 until October 2022 when he was offered to help Dumm's new publisher - Newmaker Studios - get the game released on all platforms.

Devil's Brigade is named after a cancelled Call of Duty third-person shooter with the same title.

Devil's Brigade was initially going to be one game continuously updated. Eventually, it was discovered that this would not be the case due to creative differences and differing work hours for multiple new developers hired to Newmaker Studios to work on the game.