It's been a while (we've been working on Wheelie Legend 2 which comes out this week- TA wrote a lil' thing about it last night!) but Castles is still going strong I actually tore down the base because I was building on top of something that wasn't all that nice, code-wise, and now I have a way more modular and better performing engine to work with. Took some time but it was worth it! While I was at it, I also redesigned some of the visuals. Not a huge departure but definitely different: Also added Pro Mode for those who know all the cards: The entire interface is now adjustable on the fly: You can change the time of day by tapping the sun to cycle through 4 different background colours, and if you prefer numbers to icons, tap the HUD! (You could also decide to only have numbers up for health, or only for resources- up to the player)
This game is going to be great, and seeing those screen shots really makes me want to find an old Gameboy (sadly I don't think I have my B/W one any more).
Ohh a discard would be great since there would be times in theory that you don't have the AP to do anything. Maybe make the discard option cost like 1 or 2 AP so people don't just cycle for a winning hand?
Well discarding costs you a turn so that in itself is punishment enough. You can cycle every turn if you like but your opponent won't, so while you're doing nothing they're killing you!
Hi everyone! This won't be the happiest of updates but I try to be as open as possible about my work even if it sucks to admit mistakes, so here we go. Last week I sent out a preview alpha build to some testers I know I can trust to give it to me raw, and the feedback has been identical from everyone: "Game feel is great but I have no idea what's going on". Clearly I've been working on Castles too long by myself to understand the perspective of a new player- can't front, I f'ed up. Basically the way I've labeled the cards and laid out the numbers aren't intuitive enough, aren't clear enough to convey the information they should, don't give enough visual feedback when a card is played. So it was back to the drawing board for a while, and I think I've arrived at a sweet spot now. I'm putting it all together and this time I won't make the same mistake again, I'll keep my testers in the loop and see what they think. Sadly not much to show yet but while I was breaking everything down anyway, I decided to tighten up the implementation of PRO MODE, which let people change the game style to play cards immediately rather than select them and then play. I think it's a lot more elegant now, plus it doesn't require separate modes: Tap to play a card, tap and hold to pop the card into select mode. That gif also shows where I'm headed w the card redesigns but more on that later
I'll beta test this game. It looks phenomenal in terms of presentation and I'll bet the symmetry inherent its design lends itself well to solid game balance.
I have the same problem when it comes to setting the difficulty for my games. After you've played it a thousand times, it becomes rhythmic so it's really hard to see it in the perspective of new players. I find it helpful to ask two friends/family members (one gamer, one casual player) and see if you can scale it to both of their levels. Good luck with your game dev!
That's good advice I love tweaking and designing and polishing but sometimes I just fall into a place where I keep messing with everything for so long that I completely lose sight of what *players* might get out of it. Anyway, I appreciate the comments everyone, I'll keep you all posted on Castles!
