Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars Reforged 
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Update #6May 30, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsOVERVIEW ๐ฌ 4 New Text Languages: fully subtitled ๐ง Minor Improvements: because you're worth it ๐ฎ Interface: for better clicking โจ Steam Deck: just some bits we noticed ๐ค Charles is giving a talk: at at TEDxNorthernQuarter ๐ฉ๏ธ Congratulations Rolf Saxon: he made that mission possible ๐ Overwhelmingly Positive: user rating ๐ฑ But first, let's talk aboutโฆ ๐ฌ 4 NEW TEXT LANGUAGES Thank you to everyone who's been vocal about what languages you would like to see in Broken Sword. It's not always possible to do these out of the gate, but encouraged by your passion, and by some very dedicated Broken Sword fans, we are able to announce subtitles for: ๐ฆ Brazilian-Portuguese ๐ฅ Polish ๐งฟ Turkish โ๏ธ Russian, and support for Cyrillic character fonts Please give your love to Michaล "mziab" Ziฤ
bkowski and his friends for their phenomenal work on the Polish localisation, and Gรถkhan Halil Dรผzgรผn and his team for the extraordinary work they put into Turkish. For full credits of the localisers, who did such a wonderful job, please go see the updated credits in-game! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/da9f2ddd6c70e9c51b7d7fdac83f6969517fffc7.png ๐ง MINOR IMPROVEMENTS Because we listen, and we do judge (ourselves, for not finding these sooner!) โ๏ธ Check Mate for this bug The chess puzzle at the Villa de Vasconcellos was designed on a 5x5 checkerboard, rather than the more traditional 8x8 grid. So not 'real' chess, but chess adjacent, we would argue. Nevertheless, the reforged UI uses standard notation to label each position on the board, so for the first time - you could hover over each spot to reveal what square you were moving your chess piece to: A3, B3, C3, D3, or E3. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/9a1da144a366663d42b5489e2bd425aac6f99816.png So what in the fresh hell is this?! King to A7?! Low and behold, seems like the chessboard labels had gotten the 'smart copy' treatment in the localisation sheet, going up one per language - all the way to A9 in Spanish! No bueno! No new languages were harmed in the solution of this "bug". Shoutout to ArcticXWolf for shining a light on this one over on Discord! Also on this screen, we now temporarily disable the 16:9 cropping to make it easier to select any piece placed in the top square, A1. ๐ 4 kay bye - Rare Memory Crashes at 4K A long, long time ago, many of you will still remember - let's be honest - computers were 32-bit and couldn't address more than 4GB of RAM! Turns out, our old resource manager was still using a 32-bit integer to track certain memory usage. Not a problem in itself, but now that the game is playable in 4K, it could hit that limit if you played for long enough, and in rare instances cause crashes that would seem out of the blue! Well, no more! You deserve the 64-bit integer treatment ๐
๐๏ธ Movie Player Read Overrun Movie files (cutscenes) are a data format designed to be streamed, which means they are loaded in chunks, one after the other, until reaching the end of the file (EOF). In Broken Sword we package lots of fi...Update #5Jan 17, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsOVERVIEW ๐ง Reprocessed Audio: English, French and Spanish speech ๐ฅ๏ธ Frame Pacing: for a smoother experience on various monitors ๐ MacOS: Xbox controller support ๐ฎ Gamepads: triggers now adjust cursor speed Letโs get to the bit youโre probably most curious aboutโฆ ๐ง REPROCESSED AUDIO We went back to the original low quality source recordings, and reprocessed tens of thousands of speech lines, using a mixture of new methods and settings best suited to language and character performance. ๐ฑ 10 thousand? Yes, per language! Inspired by your passionate feedback, and with careful guidance from native speakers, we manually reviewed each character and their different recording sessions and tried to improve quality and achieve a consistent sound across all dialogue lines. ๐ฎ So whatโs changed? For some lines, not a huge amount, and expectations were realistic. Yes, some audio files in a vacuum could be pushed further, but with diminishing returns, and at the cost of sounding really incongruent with the rest of the cast. However, overall background noise has been reduced and significant distortions have been addressed, for a cleaner more balanced sound that best preserves the nuances of the original actor performances. It might not sound drastically different in some cases, but it should sound a lot more enjoyable now, especially over longer gaming sessions with headphones on. ๐ค Some interesting things that factored into this process While the original voice lines from 1996 were recorded at 44kHz, they had to be reduced to 11kHz because of memory limitations at that time. That doesnโt sound like a big difference, but it sounds like a big difference! At least twice a day someone will perform a flawless ๐ถHello George, what can I do for you now ๐ถ in the office. If you try to routinely compare thousands of audio files in a collaborative database your browser freezes. This is a clever design that forces you to take breaks before everything starts sounding the same ๐ โค๏ธ Conclusion All in all weโre still glad we chose preservation of these original audio performances over re-recording them. This has been a subjective and exhausting process, we have learned a lot, and are pleased with the end result. We really hope you enjoy it too. ๐ฅ๏ธ FRAME PACING Some of you reached out to us about uneven frame rates. And unfortunately, there was a delay in that feedback reaching the tech team. Ironic. Anyway, some effort has finally been spent fixing this up. The game should now detect your monitor refresh rate and automatically deliver a smooth and efficient experience! Even if you drag the game window to a different display. Hurray! If you prefer your settings manual - or just wanted to fiddle about with our โcreaky OpenGL backendโ, there are some new vt7.ini config values to play with too: // Automatically adjust swap interval and frame rate limit for current display video_frame_pace_auto=1 // GPU synchronisation video_swap_interval=-1 // CPU FPS limiter video_frame_rate_limit=6...Update #4Dec 19, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsOVERVIEW ๐พ Original game from 1996: freshly packaged, and free to download ๐ Trading Cards: badges, emojis, and steam profile backgrounds ๐ Epilogue: a little bonus story content ๐ Credits: some refinements to make it more enjoyable ๐ง A bit of tuning: some subtle changes to German text & speech ๐ Steam Winter Sale 2024: and bundles with other indies we love Thank you for all your amazing support this year. We come bearing gifts... ๐ PRESENTS! ๐พ Original Game from 1996 It's back, better than ever - and free to download if you own Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged! The original English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish editions running on Windows, Mac, and Linux thanks to the brilliant ScummVM. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3361990/Broken_Sword__Shadow_of_the_Templars_1996/ Once installed, Steam will offer you a second launch option to choose between playing Reforged or the 1996 original. You can also change this setting in the Steam client: game Properties > General > Selected Launch Option. Let us know if you need any help! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/935b8e39a7a57b131fbe5976fad66a533e773fc9.png ๐ Trading Cards We got so many messages about Trading Cards! 15 character cards, 10 emoticons and 8 profile backgrounds are now live for you to collect as you play. We don't want to say much more than that, but we really hope you like them! ๐ Story Epilogue Perhaps you made use of the Game Help screen during your adventure and perhaps you didn't. Well, the Story So Far recap feature has been fleshed out to fully cover the end of the story and beyond, unlocked after completing the game. Ever wondered what happened next? Andy did, and he worked really hard on making this fan dedicated feature a reality. We're incredibly curious to see what you think... ๐งฆ STOCKING FILLERS ๐ Credits According to Andy, the transition from the final dramatic cutscene at the end of the game, to the scrolling credits "was a right old scruffy pickle" - for those of us not fluent in British Programmer it roughly translates to "not well implemented". Highlighting modern features such as: a cursor that behaves itself, backgrounds that fade in nicely, and music that starts without a fight. Glamorous. Makes you wonder what else he snuck in there... ๐ง A bit of tuning Thanks to yet more amazing community feedback, and some more diligent work from our Localisation QA (LQA for the cool kids), we were able to make a few changes where possible. We have to always work within the structure of how this game was originally recorded, so please don't expect any miracles. But please know, that just because we're not releasing big language updates, doesn't mean were nor fiercely exploring them behind the scenes. For now this means we got to correct some minor text issues and squash some German specific language bugs! ๐ฑ๏ธ Browse the Recap Screen with the mouse wheel! Also known as end of barrel. ๐ STEAM WINTER SALE Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged is currently on ...Steam Awards Nominations and Autumn SaleNov 27, 2024 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/291cd1c8ea17b1b7536fac123f1a4ac41423aa42.png "The characters are memorable. The story is full of twists and turns. And it's funny. Like, really funny." - PC Gamer Thanks to this wonderful community, who has emboldened us to reforge this classic narrative driven adventure game, proving once again that Broken Sword's writing has stood the test of time. We hope you'll consider nominating us for โญ Outstanding Story-Rich Game โญ in the Steam Awards 2024. And we wouldn't come to you empty handed... {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/e9be4969dc35c4ab9ab0420842126adf37af19b3.png ๐ We're part of the Steam Autumn Sale ๐ Celebrating Paris in the Fall with -15% off! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2544110/Broken_Sword__Shadow_of_the_Templars_Reforged/ Already own the game? We have another little surprise! ๐ต OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK Featuring 30 tracks of original music from the game by composer Barrington Pheloung. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3303470/Broken_Sword__Shadow_of_the_Templars_Reforged_Soundtrack/ ๐บ๏ธ DELUXE MANUAL AND TRAVEL GUIDE โ๏ธ The perfect digital companion guide packed with useful information, developer insights and bonus history. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315730/Broken_Sword__Shadow_of_the_Templars_Reforged_Game_Manual_and_Travel_Guide/ {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/f127ca81c7ef7cb738a1e969779189c172acd021.png Travel Guide: discover the real world inspirations for key locations in the game, and plan your own adventure across Paris and Europe! Original Prologue: introductory story recovered from the 1996 manual. Character Biographies: profile gallery of memorable characters in the game. Development History: from concept to cover art, and the team behind it all. Game Help: controls reference, accessibility features and gameplay tips. Savage Warriors: booklet tracing the remarkable story of the real Knights Templar (available in English, French and German). We are working on some really exciting things, and hope we can share them with you soon, but more on that another time... Happy Paris in the Fall, from us at Revolution Update #3Nov 11, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsOVERVIEW ๐จ Graphics: less shadow, same amount of templars, and fixed a rare cropping bug ๐ค Text: another swing at typos โ๏ธ UI: no more double-cursor, and minor SFX adjustments Without further ado; Let's take another look at the manuscript... GRAPHICS ๐ค Performance! At the Mausoleum In a previous update we briefly touched on how shadows in Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged work, and part of that is exposing a "softness" parameter to control blur. Blurring in itself can be quite an expensive operation, and softer results require the engine to redraw, and re-blur elements over and over again. We noticed some performance issues in the mausoleum on lower end devices, which turned out to be every shadow being redrawn 35 times - a beautiful number the art team landed on! We probably should have told them that in total it should never exceed 10 pongs... The good news is that most PCs would have probably blasted through that. But we care a lot about supporting lower end devices and non-gaming laptops, as well as handhelds! So if you noticed frame rate issues, or a choppy curser, please let us know if this made a difference! ๐ป Floating Maguire Some of you reported that the shadow beneath Maguire's feet made him look like he was floating. Well, Halloween is over, so the Pub is now officially less haunted. ๐๏ธ Cropping gone wrong for dedicated adventurers This one is super obscure, but it relates to a feature Andy is quite proud of! When Broken Sword first released in 1995 its aspect ratio was 16:10 (4:3 minus the 40 pixel borders top and bottom reserved for the menus = 16:10). In Reforged we support both the original aspect ratio by using black bars, or 16:9 for a contemporary fullscreen experience. 16:9 is a very subtle crop, only a 10% reduction in height. Usually that means 5% from the top, and 5% from the bottom, but there are screens in which the top section is a lot less important than the bottom section. That's why we decided to go through each screen and tailor those offsets manually. Onto the bug. If you played through the entire game, and stayed around after the credits you will have noticed the post credits bonus scenes! The last bonus scene is set in Hotel Ubu where the custom crop had been set to focus on the bottom section of the screen. If you went from there, to immediately re-playing the game, the intro would adopt that specific crop setting! We now made sure that the intro always starts as intended. We're kind of curious how many of you noticed... TEXT โ๏ธ Typos and Errors Another swing at the text correction in the French controls help menu. Please let it be correct this time! "If not, I give up" - Andynonymous Programmer ๐ Updated Credits Credits were missing the German voice for George Stobbart! All fixed now :) UI ๐ Menu sound effects In most cases you can open the menu by pressing ESC or by using your mouse, but in some moments we might prohibit that from happening for gameplay reasons, like on the Map screen, where the UI...Update #2Oct 11, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsOVERVIEW โจ Gameplay: more fixed gamesaves ๐จ Graphics: fun with dust renderers ๐ต Audio: dialogue volume adjustments ๐ค Text: fixed typos thanks to your submissions โ๏ธ UI: Cutscene subtitles, and Chess puzzle ๐ฎ STEAM DECK: more touch control stuff!!!! A small update just in time for the weekend... GAMEPLAY Last update we talked a little bit about areas in the game that could get you stuck if saved in a particularly inopportune time. We're now following up with two more areas that will now feature 100% less getting stuck. Hopefully. We think... Hover over black bars with care! ๐ Night at the Museum It's all about timing. Unless of course you, or the game, decided the best timing to create a gamesave was the very split second before George gets shot... Then it's all about regretting that terrible choice, because reloading this gamesave would load you in just in time to get shot again and not much else. That's what we in the biz call adeathloop and that's what we in the biz also call abug. So we squashed it. ๐๏ธ Locked out of the toilet This one requires a bit of setup. In Syria when Ultar has left to wait for you at his taxi George can not leave the club without leaving the toilet keys on the bar! When you do that, a bespoke animation plays, and it would really appreciate if you let it finish. Because for those who interrupted the animation by Fast Exiting out of the club, that animation was still pending! Not a big deal if you return to let the animation finish before saving or quitting the game. Else you'd get stuck forever... Pending logic is never saved because the game never expected to be so rudely interrupted. Well it should get used to it, cause Fast Exits are here to stay! This should now be adjusted in past, and future gamesaves! GRAPHICS โ Fun with Dust Renderers This is an environment you briefly experience in Spain when you descend into an ancient well - and if you know anything about descending into ancient wells it's how dusty it can be. That's why this animation was so befittingly labelled "Dust". Though, we wouldn't blame you if you never noticed that it was supposed to be dust at all... Here it is in Original: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/300829d7d8fd482d5e5fd8372de1c722a319dc6b.gif Here it was in Reforged: (can't tell? neither could we...) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/0f66d3df394354ce7ca95b87d8412d66f63541c2.gif Here it is in Reforged now - new and improved flavour: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/d09f9c7c682bcd7d49297ea493145a82134bc0e9.gif Steam Updates only support gifs 5MB and under, so maybe you should check it out for yourselves, but we can really tell the difference, and we think it's so pretty :) โ๏ธ V-Sync enabled by default Smoother and better behaved on devices with high refresh rates! ๐Under Pressure In Update #1 we briefly touched on the light map! While this is not technically related, it's still affecting the overall feel of vibrancy in the game. This time just a little colour adjustment on the blood pressure gauge in the Hos...Update #1Oct 2, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsOVERVIEW โจ Gameplay: restoring beloved exits, and getting you unstuck ๐จ Graphics: textures, cropping, and lighting ๐ต Audio: some important initial improvements ๐ค Text: subtitle shadows, typos, and updated credits โ๏ธ UI: a few bits for quality of life, and a little bit of fan service ๐ฎ Steam Deck: tap your way through the game End of cliff notes! Beginning of mountain notes... GAMEPLAY ๐ Operator - I need an Exit In the original Broken Sword - the Shadow of the Templars, some doors or exits to scenes also gave additional dialogue when explored. This was always kind of hidden, because most of the time, right-clicking to leave would just do the same as a left click. When launching Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged we got so many reports about this being missing from the game, which surprised us for two reasons; 1) How did you even find these?! & 2) They're in the game! - or at least now they are. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/79ca389dc0ae3faf39812ae241c4cf56fb4ae3d0.png Turns out we forgot to add hotspots to the few doors that did originally have that feature! Happy hunting :) ๐๏ธ (Can't) Open Sesame This one's a spoiler, so only hover over the black bars if you don't mind knowing what happens in Syria. When solving one particular puzzle with a ring pull it triggers an animation . It's in our nature as adventure gamers to want to save when exciting things happen, and for a very unlucky few that was exactly what got you stuck! Specifically when the ring pull was used to open the cave, and a gamesave was created before the cave had fully opened. This gamesave would recall a cave that had not yet been opened, and on the other hand also recall that the item to do so had already been interacted with. The game now understands that it shouldn't restore your gamesave without certain key elements being reset, so going forward saves made in areas like these will self-adjust. If you were affected, your gamesave should now be adjusted, and give you the opportunity to continue your playthrough. The game also now recognises how to prevent you from saving yourself into a pickle, so hopefully you have nothing to worry about! We know that there are more areas where this is technically possible to have a gamesave that leaves you with limited options, like in the museum, and while those are caused for slightly different reasons, we know they can feel very similar, and we're already exploring solutions for those too! ๐ถ On the road to nowhere Or at least he was! This was an extremely rare case of the game crashing when exploring wide maps. Specifically when asking George to walk the opposite direction to an item you wanted to take a quick look at, just before it scrolled off the edge of the screen. Broken Sword is overall a pretty sedentary game. George stands around, you click, you wait until George ambles over, you click, you are listening to dialogue, etc. The game does not ask for much. And to make that experience more cinematic, we actually hide the inte...Coming to Steam 19th September 2024Aug 16, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsPARIS IN THE FALL The last months of the year, at the end of the millennium. The city holds many memories for me, of music, of cafes, of love, and of death... RELEASED IN 1996, REFORGED IN 2024 Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars is celebrated by many as one of the greatest adventure games of all time. Now this adventure game is coming to Steam, substantially enhanced, and remastered with love, by the same indie dev studio. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2544110?utm_source=steamnews&utm_campaign=BS1Reforgereleasedate โจ REANIMATED All character animations redrawn in high resolution, with beautiful facial expressions, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/9db8be67cc45ed0cdc39e68fadc40d1c473b9976.gif and subtle body movements to make characters feel fantastically engaging, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/03e113bb7a178b6d92c7e290f4bb7abc04f18ff3.gif while enhancing and polishing original cutscenes, to make this the game we had always hoped that it could be, {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/7912294d97253bbf270462c0c50c53488b59b3d0.gif brought from 480p to stunning 4K. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/13ed20fe0cc461921dbd31e8d7ce319c6ec54c80.gif โจ REPAINTED The game draws upon the existing beauty of Parisian back alleys, Syrian marketplaces and rural Irish villages. In 1996 we created close to a hundred pieces of pencil drawn line art. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/7d3ded37cc850df430120d5dacd8af5a4b16f2e2.png In 2024 this beautiful original artwork has been lovingly repainted in 4K. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/a9d0469b398623f946c5996d8d3f78ea80b0beda.png โจ REIMAGINED {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/41ba23dc48d19522ce5777025b93479778532b6f.gif โฆall while allowing to seamlessly switch between the original game and Shadow of the Templars: Reforged through a built-in toggle feature. โจ REFORGED {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44575168/2118bffb926d875657e70589fa6bcb5a38d96b94.png ๐ Coming to Steam on 19th September 2024 ๐ Wishlist the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2544110?utm_source=steamnews&utm_campaign=BS1Reforgereleasedate With only a few weeks until release, we are really excited to share more about Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged! Let us know what you'd like us to talk about in our next post โค๏ธ All the best, from all of us at RevolutionBroken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged releases September 19Aug 16, 2024 - GamingOnLinuxReady to go on an adventure? Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged from Revolution Software Ltd is ready to release on September 19. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/08/broken-sword-shadow-of-the-templars-reforged-releases-september-19 Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars remaster hits over ยฃ400k on KickstarterMar 18, 2024 - GamingOnLinuxBroken Sword - Shadow of the Templars is getting a big fancy remaster in Broken Sword: Reforged, and it's currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter by Revolution Software. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/03/broken-sword-shadow-of-the-templars-remaster-hits-over-400k-on-kickstarter Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars getting remastered, plus a whole new adventureSep 5, 2023 - GamingOnLinuxRevolution Software recently announced two huge bits of news for adventure game fans! Not only will there be a whole new game with Broken Sword - Parzival's Stone but Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged is coming too. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/09/broken-sword-shadow-of-the-templars-getting-remastered-plus-a-whole-new-adventure
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