Hey dave, Played the new prototype, loving the arcanix! As always heres some feedback! Character customization: love it, but i hink capes and hats would be cool to add in. Faces are ugly, I'm not all about the GFX but the faces bother me! Arcanix: Awesome, I think you need to make the holes smaller as well as their touch zones. A lot of the time when doing diagonals the finger strays and hits the wrong the hole. The Arcanix still seems a little flat and dull! Arenas and 3d models: my opinion hasnt changed lol Energy Bars: I would like to see a numeric counter of how much energy I have. That way I can plan my attacks more efficently. Also the general UI is still kind of boring. Menu: What can I say, the new BG for the menu is awesome ;P still the general UI needs work Being an Arcanist: Right now, With access to the spell book, theres no real challange to being an Arcnist, you can look up the spell you want at any time. I'm not real sure of how to get around that, maybe a time penelty when you look up a spell? Make the turn times shorter maybe? Thats all I can think of right now! As always, shoot me a PM or something if you want particular feedback or something. Or even some art done! Tavoss
I agree to an extent. I was thinking about giving Arcanists a shorter turn. Without it, I can imagine I would get blasted badly for making the game 'too hard'. But it would be neat to let people figure out the spells themselves, and be able to keep them secret for awhile. That way I could add new spells anytime (through online XML) and people could discover them. Hmm... will need to mull this over. I know I'm overdue for some art loving! I will be on that soon.
And thank you very much, as always, for your feedback. As the sole dev here, it's very valuable to me.
No problem, you're doing something I wish I had the know how to do. Least I can do is help! I've had so many game ideas I wish I could do, alas I neither have the money or the know how to follow them up!
I just beat up an AI and went through the menus for the first time. 1-When I customized my character, it didn't effect the character I played with... 2- The in-game menus look okay, but are very obtrusive. If they were tucked away to the sides and revealed through animations, that would be make them seem less "there" 3- I hated having to double click. I understand the first selects and then the second actually uses it, but maybe you could have a question mark under it, and when you tap on that it shows the description. 4- The graphics are pretty good and I am sure they will look loads better on the iphone's screen, but I wouldn't mind more detail 5- The still camera was torture. If you want this to seem action packed, you are going to need multiple cameras and movement. Keys to remember: Sweeping cameras work best for setting up locations or movement. Quick cuts are better for action scenes. Maybe for some of the action scenes when the prepare a spell, have close ups where it might be hard to tell what exactly it is, but then, after a few cuts, zoom out to reveal it hitting the opponent. (good example: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1910869). So far it is really great, especially considering how early it is. I am excited to see it expand and what it eventually becomes.
That is some awesome feedback! 1) This is a WIP, the ingame chars haven't been replaced yet and I'm still shopping the final characters I will be using (though the options are very limited from what I could find) 2) Agreed, 100% 3) This is a tap-mechanic, meant to show what the options are for a beginner. It quickly becomes annoying when you already know what you're doing however. 4) Me neither 5) Agreed, I've got several ideas for camera code changes which would change things dramatically.
Didn't spend a whole lot of time with the online prototype, but what I've seen so far looks very interesting (and something I would definitely pick up). I do have a few thoughts to share: 1) I know that the character graphics are in progress, but you should make sure to include a reaction when being hit by an opponent's spell. The explosions are pretty unsatisfying and fail to convey the dangerousness of the attacks. 2) Environments: I agree with Tavoss about the need for an Arena. It would be a great way to show progress in the game -- perhaps the arenas change from "mundane" locations (forests, castle) to weird astral planes (see Dr. Strange for reference). 3) Camera movements: One of the better examples of great camera use on the iPhone is Baseball Slugger -- it's amazing how much excitement it adds to what's essentially a one-on-one duel. Great work; can't wait to pick it up.
YES. Baseball sluggers is a great example. The first time you see a cinematic hit, you think: HOLY $%#& That is AWESOME, but really, it is just a normal homerun!
I'm finally working on the duelling areas, and the character art. I am going with higher resolution characters as appear now in the character customization screen. They have animations which aren't as varied as the Ork's, but are more fitting for an Arcanix-based game, and (more importantly), I have rigged the characters already for lots of customization, I will just need to use the higher res textures I have.
New character has been added with customization options. I created a reusable class for appearance customization that will support additional character models as I can add them. The spell system has also been updated to use different constraint nodes and animations based on the current model being used. Next step is to pick the animations I want to associate with each spell. Also added in are a new dynamic camera model to enhance the visual experience, and a cool missile follow cam. It brings a visceral feel to blasting someone. I also added in a support system which will let me take a single scene and predefine several encounter positions on it, so that we can randomly choose a duel location on a map, and I get to use some gorgeous scenes I have built. For some fun, I toyed with adding in GPS based energy bonuses (nexuses), but it will wait awhile longer I think. Also finally got an iPhone to use for testing. Lastly for this cycle I am experimenting with the portrait display mode to see if it helps gameplay visualization. The file size is going to be much bigger when I put this version up on the web.
awesome!! Cant wait to see it! Leeme know if you ant an iphone beta tester.... but, i may be unavailable after tomorrow for a period of time... so if you dont hear from me tomorrow here, dont worry about it lol
OK, I'm back with an update! I have been on vacation and took a tiny break from coding while I rethought some of the gameplay and playtested the game with several people in the real world on device. It looks like I have some more work to do to make it easier for some to pick up and understand. But, I have been working on the interface (learning photoshop) and duel scene system. I've got a large outdoor map with several predefined locations on it to battle in, and have one more scene planned with several more locations on it. The list is growing shorter also, I am targetting end of this month (August) to submit the app. I haven't updated the web version in awhile, so here are some screenshots from my blog:
Another small update: Synched up the customization with the ingame characters, and began working on Nexus Planting, which lets you increase the Energy points you gain each turn.
Foci (aka Nexus) planting is complete in functionality, now needs a model and a little animation. These are awesome! I replaced the useless Dodge ability with the ability to plant a Foci, which shows up next to you. It gives you an additional energy per turn. It can also be destroyed with the use of a Disrupt spell: a Disrupt spell destroys one linger off your lingering action queue, but you must have no lingering actions before a Foci can be destroyed. Of course, you can have multiple Foci planted. This was a small idea which turned out to be extremely useful. Also added: Player pain animations and sound effects Larger more prominent spell charge up effects and sound effects <- Awesome!!! A damage/energy flash over your player info area for actions which affect your energy or health Went through the spell data file and revised the animations used for each effect. This should take one more pass through before the spells are satisfactory
Early this morning I added in some nice summoning effects for the Foci objects, and it's model. I should be updating the web demo later today finally!
New Arcana: Spell Duel Online Demo! I've put up the latest Work in Progress as a playable web version. Arcana: Spell Duel (Online Demo) And here are some shots of some of the most recent additions. 1) Improved GUI! 2) The mighty Foci! Allows casting of supremely powerful spells: Next up will be the levelling and exp system. As always, comments and feedback welcome!
I like the new look, but the buttons seem too obtrusive still. Maybe make them shorter and drop them to the bottom of the screen.
