Hey gents, Latest build has been approved by Apple. Invites have been sent. If anyone still wants to join the playtest, just PM me your test flight email ID.
Running sooo much better. The only issues I've run into so far is twice I had to restart a level when a spellcaster got stuck right at the beginning. Once with my Storm Seer and once with pyromancer. Neither time was it a big deal, as I just figured, oh no it's stuck, restarted the level, everything ran fine. *Let me be clear (this does not get stuck every time) just twice so far. Gotta say... you fixed a lot of things... and I'm REALLY having fun playing this!! Also, the fact that there are so many characters, I've tried out several of them, replacing ones I didn't take to on my previous runs... that is a lot of fun. The music is great.... casting spells is ridiculous... the various characters (there are like 20 of them) each are truly unique, meaning there is nothing generic about them. I think that is freaking awesome. To use an example, if you were to choose the Archer and a Ranger, or the Knight and the Palladin, with both in your party one may think they are similar, yet they are very unique classes with totally different skill sets. As you progress, the characters get more badass and I can genuinely tell they are getting stronger. Maybe I keep choosing some of the same characters each time because they are awesome right out of the gate. But when I replaced some of my party I found new characters to love with skillsets I did not know existed open up as I leveled up, and realized this guy is a keeper because he fits my play style. I'll keep posting as I progress. But thank you Wave Light Games (Rajpreet) for letting me beta test this. I look forward to paying back on all your hard work upon its release.
Thanks for the feedback. For the next phase, I'm going to focus on finishing off characters, squashing bugs and adding new enemy types and adjusting abilities and enemy stateliness to get the right level of difficulty and challenge. I want the gameplay at the normal difficulty to be suspenseful and risky. At the moment, it's way too easy ... you can basically run around with your heroes without worrying too much. There are still some bugs to fix. I've noticed what you mentioned about sometimes a character will start the level with a movement value of 0 or 1. The rest of the team is fine but that character isn't able to move. I think this happens sometimes when the character increases his movement after a level up. Seems like the code resets the movement to 0 rather than just incrementing the movement. However, it seems to only last the first turn ... so if you click end turn when it happens, the heroes movement is fine the second turn onwards. I'll look into it and fix it. I'll probably add to the knight character next. I was thinking of scrapping him initially but I think that he actually fits a good role. Not sure if he's really a knight or a halberdier. I'm going to make him a heavily armoured character who can attack at range due to his halberd's long reach and has abilities that give bonuses to nearby friends. Essentially a guy that helps his allies fight effective in formation. So having him in the middle of a bunch of friends will be very effective. Have you checked out the Illusionist yet? She starts off too weak but gets really interesting later on as she levels up. She can summon a shadow demon, mind control enemies, scare enemies to death and all sorts of other fun stuff.
Also, I'm going to try to add more levels for the initial release. I don't want someone who bought it to consider it too short. I may go for around 50 levels for chapter 1 and around 50 for chapter 2 and leave it at that.
That might be it, I don't know. It has only happened twice when I start off a character that is a spellcaster on first turn. I haven't tried the illusionist. Will give it a go next time
So far I've encountered a few very minor bugs and it has been running very well. I'm having a lot of fun!! It's freaking rad!! There are typos on one of the introductions that I just noticed (if this is too picky, than sorry upfront). Warlord is spelled "warlod" and startled is "started". It's on the level with a large purple knight boss(?) dude banging his shield on a skull in the middle of the floor (if this helps). The Samurai's Focus and The Gnome (a true hero if you ask me) has saved my ass many times when I've learned their "focus" and "conceal" skills respectively. I'm glad I have them, but know that it makes them invulnerable.
Really glad you're liking it. Sorry for the late reply and lack of updates ... been sick with a cold the past few days. Will be hitting it hard next week. Lots of characters to finalize and lots more levels to add. By all means, please point out everything you find that needs fixing. No matter if it's big or small. Sorry I didn't fix that bug where the day 1 / day 2 quest dialog doesn't update. I forgot to do that. I imagine the story won't make much sense without the journal entries updating for each quest. Regarding the Samurai, I'm struggling a bit with having characters with two different weapons (bow and hand weapon). The code base is tricky to adapt for adding animations like drawing swords, taking out the bow, etc. How would you feel about making the Samurai a dedicated swordsman and not a archer / swordsman combo? I'm thinking his abilities will focus on making his sword strikes more dangerous and increasing it's critical hit chance and damage. Also I'm thinking of allowing him to enter a medidation state (not able to move or attack) and summon a powerful oriental dragon spirit. Basically, you trade the fighting abilities of the Samurai for a powerful dragon for a limited number of turns. For the Gnome, I'm thinking of giving him a grenade attack and perhaps even summoning a mechanical creature like a mechanical golem or ballista turret. Any ideas? I like the thief angle but I think a tinkerer / inventor angle would be good too.
I think your ideas for the samarai and gnome dude are very cool. I guess all I was saying is that they are invincible (which is fine by me at times) with their cloak abilities... Sorry to hear you are sick. Hope you feel better soon. Love the game so far. I don't know if there was an issue with the Day 1 / Day 2 quests (maybe there is)... I was just pointing out some minor typos. As far as the bugs, there were a few restarts I had to do in the beginning... mainly with spell casters (no biggie). And the Samarai got stuck and couldn't perform on the first wave sometimes. A few crashes too. Nothing horrible that by no means has ruined the experience. Absolutely loving the game!
Really? I'm not sure that's true. I'll double check but I don't think the focus ability for the Samurai makes him harder to hit. I thought it just increased the chance of him inflicting a critical hit. I could be wrong ... been a while since I played around with him. For the Gnome, it could be that he's too hard to hit with conceal. I'll take a look. However, I'm going to make the enemies a lot tougher in the game so what seems too powerful now may not be once the enemies get stronger. As a side-note, I received updated armour for the Samurai from one of the artists I partner with so when the game finally releases ... the Samurai will look WAY better. Are you playing the game on the "Balanced" graphics setting or "Max Battery"? If you're not already, please change the setting to "Max Battery" in the Options menu. There are some crash scenarios that this setting prevents so until I get those fixed, please play on Max Battery mode. Really glad you're liking it. Sounds like you've got quite far. Have you managed to finish it yet? The final level in the playtest version involves a battle with a Massive Shadow Demon, several Demon Hounds, a couple of Necromancers and their undead guards. What are your thoughts on character progression and game difficulty? Is it too easy? Do characters level up too quickly?
Seems like the gameplay is pretty balanced in terms of progression. In fact, if it weren't for my gnome and samurai... I'd be in trouble. Cause the spellcasters are like glass bombs. They are great but die easy. The minotaur, or tanks are tough but not invincible and as I progress... there are more and more monsters to deal with. I think it is pretty good. If you are upping the difficulty, please drop more loot, mana and health potions... seems kind of scarce, especially later in the game. I haven't finished it yet... milking it. I have the graphics on 0. So I'll look into that.
It's not difficult from a gameplay perspective to have a character that has both effective missile attacks and melee attacks. However, the issue is just with aesthetics. With the Samurai, I have to have him put his sword away, take out his bow, shoot and then put the bow away and take out his sword. I have to then have the blade and bow appear in his hands at the right time. It could all be done but it's a lot of effort to recode for one character. For the Ranger, I'm thinking of just attaching her blade onto her wrist as some kind of strange elven weapon. That way, she can fight with it in melee while carrying her bow in the other hand and I don't have to worry about those complications.
Hey there ... I'm hoping for Feb release. It's hard to say because while the first chapter is done and could be released .... part of me wants to add more content on initial release. I also want to make sure gameplay is enjoyable and challenging and that can be a fine balancing act. I think I'll work through January and keep adding to it and then decide near the end of January on when to release.
hey Wavelight, haven't posted in some time but i'm still looking here, and i have some ideas for you for your latest "complications" For the samurai ranged attack, make him release energy from the blade, as his focus is the blade it can stand very well gameplay wise and aesthetically. FFTactics calls it "release the spirit of the katana" and lots of other games did something similar with samurai classes. For the ranger, you can attach curved blades at the top and bottom ends of her bow, and she can treat it like double scimitars. Google "Bladed bow" and look at the first picture.
That might work well for the Gnome as he uses a crossbow and a dagger but probably not for the Samurai or Ranger as their shooting animations are based around them using a longbow.
Hey ... glad to hear from you again. I was worried you'd lost interest. The Samurai using a sort magical spirit-focused shooting attack is a cool idea. I can scrap the bow animations and just have some sort of energy come from the blade and use the standard sword swinging animations. I'm going to experiment a bit with that and see how it works. Adding blades to the ranger's bow would work except that all of her melee attack animations involve her attacking within her right hand and the bow is carried in her left hand.
lost interest? not at all, your game is my "buy on release" of january (hopefully it can come out this month) glad to help as always, and for the ranger, a sword i feel would be great in the one handed case, or a dagger if you want it to be less powerful.
