I can probably answer most of these... Bosses are on the to-do list, though we haven't really gotten much done on them yet, the focus so far has been on making an interesting mix of melee, ranged, and support type enemies that represent different threats to different party members. Loot acquisition is also something that's not 100% decided yet. At the moment you simply buy upgrades, but I do think random drops of some fashion would help add an incentive to replay areas beyond simply leveling up your dudes. Your party composition is similar to something like FF:Tactics, where you can potentially have a large number of folks in reserve, but can only field X-number at a time (in our case 4). At the moment, party members that don't participate in battle don't gain levels, so it's in your best interest to mostly stick with a consistent crew. New recruits can be hired between battles, and will generally start at levels comparable to the rest of the party, so you can potentially swap guys out if you later decide that you'd rather try a monk instead of a warrior, or a barbarian instead of a rogue, etc. You're correct, there is a pool of abilities per class that you must make choices between, opting for powers that either give damage, control, survivability, or a mix of some kind. Want to do a whirling cleave attack, or a terrifying roar that makes enemies run in fear? There are also passive traits that you make choices between too - it's kind of like a simplified "talent" system. Overall each class has a total of about a dozen of these traits and powers that you get to choose half of. There actually is a very simple "aggro" system in the game, its more like a priority system than something as complex as WoW's threat system. The more armored you are, the higher your priority. So while an enemy may decide to attack your cleric, you can force their attention elsewhere by having the rogue or warrior attack them and "peel" the enemy off. Protecting your more fragile party members in this fashion is a big part of the game.
Thanks for the in-depth answers, sounds fantastic! As a former WoW addict, I prefer the 'loot drop' style, partly because of the unpredictable/surprise of getting items you didn't know about (as opposed to a list in a store) and the rush when you manage to get a 'rare' item. I agree that it would help improve replayability as well. I would definitely farm levels over and over to get 100% completion on the items. Really happy to hear about the 'agro-lite' kind of system. It should add a lot of strategy, and agro management was one of my favorite aspects of WoW boss encounters. In any case, I'm sure it'll be great whatever you decide to do
Just a note from the audio guy: The music is done, and we're working meticulously on SFX. I can tell you that the MikaMobile team is picky about sound. Cohen Brothers picky. Stanley Kubrick picky. Just another aspect of what sets their games apart: attention to detail. Battleheart is really gonna be something special.
As promised, here's the first video of some of the game's many special moves. Edit : youtube embedding fail, lemme figure this out... Youtube Link
Looks great and i will be picking it up due to the satisfaction i got from OMG! Pirates. the art style is perfect for me and it's definately what an iPod touch game should be like, i do hope there is a fair amount of RPG elements in the game
Already does, and looks pretty ridiculously awesome on my iPhone 4 if I do say myself. Makes testing it on the old 3G painful!
I was just keeping an eye on this to see if it would be worth few dollars to waste time when I was bored. After watching the video, I'm really excited about it. And, I can't wait for the release. Where is your time being spent, now? Additional content? Balancing and debugging?
@CoagulatedSpam - Most of our remaining time is being spent adding content (enemies, backgrounds, spells etc.) and working on the fairly elaborate menus. The interface for equipping your guys, swapping party members, and choosing skills is probably the biggest thing left on my plate. @Spaztrigger - There's no real technical different between the iPhone and iPod's respective retina displays - they're both 960x640 and Battleheart will support both.
