Just bought and downloaded. First impressions - - nice graphics - some basic shadows would be nice- on an iPad Air a game like this looks a bit weird without them these days. *edited after tip from developer* - had a problem with over sensitive camera at first but the gameplay settings allow it to be adjusted it seems. Works good now. - huge selection of playable mages, Warriors etc - nice spell animations - no IAPs
I would like to know in comparison to XCOM if it has a similar depth in gameplay. For example in XCOM you start an open-wide mission and you have various ways to finish it. You can send your troops in different spots either for waiting for an ambush or to rush to the enemy. You have grenades, healing if someone is injured, mecha units, various weapons, go to upper buildings for better shots, etc. I have finished XCOM EW (in iphone) and I liked it very much. I believe that this game will not be like XCOM because it's made by a small company. No offense to developers. But if the core gameplay is like XCOM, then it would be close to it. My favourite turn-based strategy is Fire Emblem on Nintendo Wii and I like also Advance Wars series. Even these that they don't have good graphics, they have a gameplay unique to all other games. That's why I'm asking because I cannot found any video at all !!
Damn I wish I'd seen this before Dungeon of the Endless (which I'm not very keen on). Can anyone who has played it answer a few questions for me please? How difficult is it? How deep are the customizations? Is there a decent storyline?
Leveling is very linear: After each stage all chars get XP, with some things like number of kills factored in, but pretty close together for all (guy with the most kills is not leaving everyone else behind). When you have enough XP, you level up automatically and get stat improvements across the board. Levelup improvements are different depending on class afaik, e.g. fighter types get more HP than squishy mages. The custom development is through equipment. You don't get enough gold to buy everything for everyone, so you need to make choices, e.g. : "this dagger that'll give my Assassin another attack and more damage; or the book for the mage, to increase her spell point pool?" Especially when combined with the various skills/spells you want to somewhat balance which equipment goes to whom. Found a few of my examples from the betatesting thread: Skill stacking: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=3544253&postcount=763 Ranger rush: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=3541855&postcount=698 And an example for overstacking: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=3546125&postcount=818
Here's a Mobcrush stream of Carter from Touch Arcade playing the game for about an hour: http://www.mobcrush.com/TouchArcade/v/55ca4807d6a562cfa44127b8 It's only the first couple levels but should give you a feel for how the game plays.
Thanks for the support and the feedback. Regarding the camera controls, have you tried adjusting things in the options menu? You can slow down or speed up the touch screen sensitivity there. If it's still not up to scratch, let me know and I'll work on improving it in an update. For the shadows, I can add it in an update and just put it as a toggle in the options. In my view, dynamic shadows add a lot of performance drain on mobile for not much benefit but adding them as an option for those that want it isn't hard. I'll put that on the list of updates.
Difficulty depends on how you want it. There is a difficulty setting in the options screen that ranges from EASY to HARD. The main quest line gets very challenging on MEDIUM difficulty at around quest 3, when the Undead turn up. I will probably add a VERY EASY and VERY HARD setting in an update. Character customization comes from the items / equipment primarily. Each character has 13 equipment slots ranging from helmet, torso, necklace, ring, belt, cloak, shoulder pad, etc. Some items can only be used by certain characters. Items, especially the higher level ones, are very powerful and can really alter a character's capabilities. I would think so ... we are all a bunch of history nerds so we tried to make a story that was set in a fantasy world but also believable. It isn't the usual RPG story of "Bad guy sits in a tower and a bunch of heroes plunder the land and kill a bunch of random stuff and then finally kill him". Instead, the story has the player's party signing up as a mercenary band for a Dwarf army trying to retake an ancient, underground city. The player's are part of the army and will take on scouting missions and as the story develops, will take part in raids on enemy camps along side the dwarf army, participate in rescue missions, assassination attempts of enemy leaders and so on. The player's party plays an important role but the game world doesn't revolve around them entirely ... they are a small part of a larger conflict.
@nkarafo: I think the core gameplay is better than XCOM. Faster, and less tedious/slogging than in XCOM. You can rush in, take things slow, whatever you prefer. You even have grenades (if I remember right) Mecha? Does a Steel Golem or a Walking Cannon count? Healing? Of course, and in different flavours. What you don't have is lower/higher ground, but I never missed that here. You have melee/ranged/mixed chars, and spells with short/medium/long range. While you don't have different weapons per se (e.g. XCOM "do I take a shotgun or an Assault Rifle?") , you have lots of different skills to choose from which more than have the same effect. And you DO have weapons and other equipment that give various stat boosts. Check the 3 links I posted for examples of what you can do. And if you feel like reading through the whole beta thread, you can find more stuff even. @Avatre: - How difficult is it? Depends, as easy or hard as you want. Mostly determined by your party setup. I played with the "killergirls" (all female chars from the roster) and an all-Mage group; both were really easy, even overpowered. On the other hand, my all melee Dwarven party (started for flavor, because it fits into the setting & story) had such a tough time that I abandoned the poor sods in some dusty corner of the dungeons and left them there to make their way back on their own. How deep are the customizations? See above, and Wavelight's post. Is there a decent storyline? I definitely liked it. It's only told in pre-stage text blurbs, so don't expect elaborate dialogue etc. But Wavelight did a great job in bringing across the overall mood of his setting, even with just a few lines of text at the start of each stage.
Love the cover and morale (panic, berserk) mechanics. Only played for half an hour but sure can see the potential this game has.
Gameplay is similar to the battle missions of XCOM in many ways but different as well because of the setting. The similarities include: - A similar cover system with full and half cover. - Each hero having various abilities that can affect themselves, the enemy or their allies. This includes healing spells, buffs, protective wards, curses, direct damage spells, area damage, and also stranger stuff like summoning new monsters, teleportation and mind controlling enemies. - There is a morale system so heroes and enemies will panic if things go badly for them. There is a whole lot of strategy in just keeping your party's morale up while negating the morale of the enemy. - Fog of War / Line of Sight (line of sight also affects morale so if you see an enemy get killed you get a morale bonus but not if you don't see it) Things that XCOM has that this game doesn't: - No MECHS (but you can summon dragons ... way cooler. ) - There is no height differences so everything is at the same level. - XCOM had a sound element where players would detect enemy from hearing sounds from a given direction. Not currently in this game. The two games are different settings and that has naturally caused them to differ in many key ways. Because this is dealing with medieval weapons and spells, it doesn't have the same kind of "reaction fire" element that XCOM has. If you're armed with a crossbow that takes 30 seconds to load, you're not going to be popping off shots at every shadow that moves, for example. Also, because this deals with melee combat there is a lot more emphasis on formations. So if you have 3 warriors next to each other, they will fight much more bravely as they benefit from each other's presence ... effectively forming a shield wall. Similarly, if a lone hero allows himself to be surrounded by enemies, he's really going to struggle and will likely panic. So there is much more of an emphasis on medieval / melee tactics, formations and so forth than was in XCOM. In XCOM, the last thing you want to do is bunch up close for fear of grenades ... though a fireball in Demon's Rise does basically the same thing so it's still a trade off in this game too. There are other differences too and they are almost all due to the careful decisions we made regarding the setting. Best way to think of it would be like D&D or Warhammer Quest with the Cover elements from XCOM and a totally different morale / courage system not found in any of the other games.
Thanks Wavelight- I'll check the settings and report back! A shadows toggle would be brilliant. I agree dynamic shadows may slow stuff down- maybe just a black circle below each char or something. Just a personal niggle. The graphics are very nice I must say.
Finally it's out Been waiting since january Will download this after final fantasy VII Any plan for content update? I wish you sell a lot of the game This is a tought week with final fantasy VII,horizon chase, and galactic keep Wiss the best for you man
Ok, yup I didn't see those gameplay settings before!! With camera pan on lowest and zoom on normal it's great. I'll put an edit on my initial comment. A shadows toggle would certainly be welcomed still. Anyways the graphics are very nice and gameplay looks good too.
That all sounds brilliant, thank you for answering. Just one last question - is there any form of exploration?
There is but not in the way most RPG's handle it. There isn't a wide open world that you can just start walking around in. It's more like warhammer quest, where the real game is set battles / encounters. The way the game works is that you have the major quests which progress the storyline / plot. Then there are what are called "Patrol Levels" that you can play in between quests or whenever you want. These are one off stories / encounters that move along with the main quests but are random and can be replayed as often as you like for loot / experience points and so forth. There are actually almost twice as many patrol levels as there are quest levels and the patrols are really interesting. You run into strange events and get to use new allies and even face some unique enemies that aren't in the main quests. Because they're random and there are quite a few of them, you're probably not going to see them all in a single play through unless you really try. So in a sense there is an exploration element in that in a given play through you will face new things that you won't face in earlier play throughs but it's done in a different way. Not sure if that made any sense?
Yeah, we're already working on the first content update. It's going to focus heavily on undead and will basically revolve around the undead trying to overwhelm the dwarf army. A lot of big fights and daring last stands. The final boss on the main quest will be an undead dragon: Screen Shot 2015-08-18 at 5.36.02 PM by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr
Been following your thread in the upcoming games section and was so impressed with the work you put into this that it made me sign up and stop lurking Bought the game, haven't had any time to sit down and play yet but loaded it up. My only comment is I was a little overwhelmed with picking my starting roster from such a big pool right from the beginning. That's a lot of choice without really knowing what I'm getting into. Maybe have a suggested starter roster? Or a random button would be cool. Have the game randomize the starting party but it makes sure you have at least 1 melee, 1 ranged, 1 healer/support, 3 random (or whatever you think a good distribution would be.) Anyway, looking forward to really getting into the game and congrats on the release.
Ok, you have got my attention. It's on my wish list and I believe it will be a great title, similar to XCOM ! Too sad that you developers have to face a big competition this week ! So many good games, so little free time !! And it seems that you will continue support it as you wrote that you will bring free content update. This is fantastic !
@WaveLightGames First off, congratulations on your release! This is a really minor nitpick but I wanted to mention it because I think it can make a big difference in sales. I'm not crazy about the game icon. I prefer the artwork in the game and I think the icon should better reflect it.
Thanks ... you're probably right. We might try a few variants and get some feedback on what the community likes best.
