Universal Demon's Rise (by Wave Light Games)

Will definitely be fixed in the next patch. I've gotten past it without issue on my Android device.

I could add a flame wall spell. However, it would likely be just another damage spell with the difference being that the damage is applied to all units that occupy a certain tile / position. Will give it some thought. The new hatchling dragon character in the next patch has a fireball that ignites the ground ... doing both immediate AOE damage and making the affected tiles hazardous to further occupation.

In the next patch, the Pyromancers phoenix and fireball spells will do less damage. He has basically 3 damage spells, a team buff, a self buff and a summon spell. Not sure what to really change here.

Cool ... it's good to know she feels balanced. I can use her as a measuring stick to compare other characters.

A shield throw / projection is cool. A missile attack that renders his shield weakened for a few turns could work and would be a useful skill. He has a couple AOE damage spells that probably are too powerful in his later skills. Give them a try and let me know what you think. I think I will need to change at least one of them to a buff or a shield projection or something.

Yeah, the Dragon Hunter is an insane fighter. I have toned down his 6th ability (Dragon Flame) because the damage on that was just ridiculous. Other than that, I'll leave him as is for now and tweak as necessary. He does get some changes with the new counter attack system in the next patch but I think those are generally positive changes, if I recall. Some of his abilities are tweaked to grant additional counter attacks.

I agree ... the spells that do big AoE damage are too strong. I've reduced some of their range and effectiveness but I still want to change this guy in a bigger way. I'm thinking of having him be able to summon rocky defenses on tiles similar to the Tree Giant's Root Haven skill. Could also have him summon a stationary rock that does stuff like shoot fireballs or something.

Thanks for the suggestions ... I'll take them on board. I didn't notice that he was too far along into the defensive / buff area.

She becomes a bit more interesting with the next patch as she benefits from the new counter attack system. She also has some abilities that grant extra counter attacks and take those away from enemies.

Yes, I think I put a limit on the skeleton summons in the next patch ... either a cooldown or a limit of attempts per battle. You'll find cheap summon spells even more useful with the next patch to draw out counter attacks.

Yes, the 1st ability buffs stack with her other ones. I think she needs a little bit more variety. She is a bit like the Pyromancer in that she has a lot of different damage spells. 3 damage shots, 1 buff, a summon and a damage / debuff attack. Still not a huge concern ... there are probably other characters that need changes more than her.

He gets a bit of a nerf because as Undead, he doesn't make any counter attacks. Also, his fear ability is slightly reduced in range and now prevents enemies from counter attacking. I also toned down the damage of his AoE spells. I agree that he could probably do with one less AoE spell and some other kind of ability for greater variety. Will look into it.

 

Sorry about that ... Patch is in final rounds of testing. Should be submitted mid next week.

Made lots of balance tweaks based on your feedback and my recent play testing.

Will respond to your second page soon. Currently on a mobile device. #

 

I'm running a Samurai and he seems pretty decent. In the new patch, he has more counter attacks than average so that's quite a boost. That being said, I did modify his abilities a bit to take into account the counter attack system. I do think he's a bit too similar though in his freeze spells. I'm thinking of switching his highest level freeze spell for something else. I might give him the ability to summon an oriental dragon but at the cost of becoming stunned for the remainder of the battle.

Probably right about the centaur. I haven't done a proper run with him yet.

His abilities are supposed to be stronger to compensate for the greater risk. I'll try him out for a few battles and see what he's like. I've used him for a low level team and he seemed to work well. The demonic possession penalty didn't kick in that often.

Yeah, he's weaker physically but has a longer range missile attack. I wanted him to be an older wizard that's slightly more powerful. I'm running a 5th level one now and I actually like him. The ice blast and mind control spells are really effective. Also, his default magic missile scales with his level so becomes more powerful as he levels up. Try him again in the next patch. With the scaling down of most damage spells, I think his abilities will look more impressive in comparison.

Never played with him more than at level 1 or 2. You're almost certainly right that his abilities to deplete enemy AP are probably too weak. I think I'll switch them out for just an outright prevention of enemy using their abilities at all. That should make him a lot more useful. As a low level fighter, he's pretty decent though. The longer range of his halberd becomes much more useful in the new patch as it allows him to strike most enemies from outside of their attack range and therefore stay safe from counter attacks.

The Chronomancer is meant to be more of a support character that makes everyone else in your team more effective by getting more AP and getting faster and so forth. He's also good at slowing down the enemy force. He becomes more critical with the new change that has everyone start at 0 AP (+ item AP bonus) as he's the only character that can boost other characters' AP. I did tweak some of his abilities in this patch but I don't recall how exactly. I'll switch to him and try him out in practice as it's been a while since I used him.

The Illusionist is actually one of my favourites. Mind controlling enemies is very useful and she can do it relatively cheaply. She also has access to a very cheap summon spell (mirror image) that is really useful with the new counter attack system. She can also summon a Shadow Horror at high level, which is one of the most powerful summoned creatures. I think her Lower Guard spell is weak but otherwise, I've found her to be a good choice.

I'd have to figure out how to make abilities that move the character to a new position. That might be a bit tough actually with the current code base. I am thinking of adding a trait that gives a temporary melee bonus if the unit moved a long distance to get into combat that turn. That would probably be easier to code.

If by taunt, you mean the ability to make the AI more likely to attack the giant over targets, I would like that. However, it would be a big structural change to the AI code so not sure if I want to take that on. I suppose having an ability that reduced missile attack range for those units near the taunting unit would do the same thing. I may be able to do that. I'll explore it and see how it works.

Shape shifting is a cool idea. Not sure how I would do it though with the current code base. I could have a druid that becomes knocked out (counting as a casualty for the battle) to summon a really powerful creature. That way, the player can start the battle with the druid's spell casting skills and then if things look really desperate, he or she could sacrifice the druid to summon the powerful beast creature. Could be a cool mechanic. I may try something like that in the next game.

The Samurai has frost magic but is mostly a fighter. In the next game, I plan to do a dedicated ice sorceress.

Flight is tricky. It would involve changing the terrain / movement code and would probably be too nasty. Also, it would open up unbalanced situations where a fire breathing dragon would just fly into the middle of a lake and be invincible if the player didn't have any missile units.

There are several fear spells and a panic state but none of these affect movement. Adding a "move to random position away from enemies" shouldn't be too hard. I'll look into it.

Resurrecting would be a really hard thing to code with the way it is currently setup. I'd also have to keep track of all killed units and then put in a new UI to allow the player to look through all dead creatures to select the one to resurrect. A lot of work for one ability.

However, doing a really big self heal for a fighter that is on the brink of death could definitely work and would be easy to implement. I like the idea of having a one shot self heal that brings the fighter back to max health or something.

I'm not sure I follow ... what would the button do exactly?

Would be good but seriously hard to code. I'd have to undo the effects of whatever just happened. Also, not something I really want to give to the player. That way they could try an ability and if it failed or didn't do much damage, they could just undo and try something else.

Fixed in the next patch.

Yes, that's actually intended and built into the code. I forget what triggers it to be honest.

I think I'm okay with 15% for now. It seems risky enough that once in every two turns or so (with 6 characters ... assuming 3 wizards), something fails and you have to rethink a strategy. Seems okay to me. The spells that can fail are supposed to be more potent than those skills that can't. I may not have always stuck to that though but I'll fix those anomalies as I go through more testing.

Totally agree. I've reduced those kinds of spells in the next patch. Very few like that remain and those that do have some other aspect to weaken them. Thanks for pointing this one out to me.

 

Did a bit of work on the next game. Here's a picture of one of the main bad guys from that game:

Lord Aedin by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

He's a human nobleman that's been corrupted by a demonic sword.

 

Hey guys,

Should be submitting the next patch today. Everything seems to be in order. It's a huge update with 2 new characters, a whole new gameplay mechanic (counter attacks), graphical enhancements, lots of minor polish and some minor bug fixes!

 

Made some progress this morning creating new characters for the next game. Here's a nice pic of some playable beastmen characters:

beastmen by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr

Let me know your thoughts.

 

Yes, this should be the last major patch. After this, updates will just be for bug fixes, minor / cosmetic enhancements and small changes to characters / abilities for balance.

 

Sorry gents, I'm having difficulty uploading the patch to itunes from the hotel internet. Will keep trying but it may have to wait untill this weekend when I'm home.

In other news, Hungary is a really cool place for those that haven't been. Really enjoying it.

 

Back home today. Will try uploading patch today.

 

Working on the upload now actually. I made a last minute enhancement:

- Walk / Run animations: All characters now have different animations for walking and running. When moving a short distance, the character will play a walk animation and move slower. When moving a longer distance, the character will play a run animation and move faster.

Going to do some quick testing on it and then do the upload.

 

Uploaded today. I neef to take some new pictures and update descriptions on the store front. Should be submitted today. Apple have been quick lately in their review process so should be out soon.

 

Update has been submitted!

Here's the change log:

New Content: The Shadow Ghoul has been added as a new playable character class. It brings powerful plague magic, ethereal powers and the ability to feed on the dead.
New Content: The Void Dragon has been added as a new playable character class. It is a nimble flyer that can spew fire, fight with its claws and cast powerful magic.
New Content: Several new enemies have been added to quest 4 onwards, including the Orc Champion, Grand Plague Priest, High Ratmen Sorcerer, Goblin Guard, etc. These new enemies significantly increase challenge in the latter half of the player campaign.
New Content: New counter attack mechanic added that allows some melee fighters to fight back a limited number of times when attacked by an enemy within range. This makes melee combat much more bloody and adds greater tactical depth.
New Content: Quest levels now have short cinematics that provide greater immersion and more narrative.
New Content: The barracks have been added that allow players to make changes to their inventory in between battles.

Enhancement: Updated bloom camera effect improves visual quality.
Enhancement: Walk animations and slower walk speed added to all characters. Characters now walk short distances rather than running at all times.
Enhancement: Improved touch controls.
Enhancement: UI improvements for on-screen camera controls and unit life / action point displays.
Enhancement: Many abilities have been updated to use the new counter attack mechanic.
Enhancement: Added a toggle in the options menu to hide corpses of defeated characters.
Enhancement: Added a low ram mode toggle in the options menu. This mode reduces ram usage by compressing textures and should any random memory-related crashes on lower memory devices.
Enhancement: Added a toggle for global fog, which can now be enabled / disabled independently of all other special particle effects.
Enhancement: Touching the character portrait in bottom left of HUD now brings up character stat window.
Enhancement: UI screens, windows and menus now fade in and out when opened or closed.
Enhancement: All gold in a level is now automatically picked up when finishing a level successfully.
Enhancement: Improved position of action camera.

Game Balance: All units now start with zero action points plus whatever they gain from items instead of full action points. This reduces the benefit that the player receives for moving first.
Game Balance: Several characters have had changes to abilities to reduce overpowered abilities and increase effectiveness of weaker abilities.
Game Balance: Several of the damage spells now do less damage per level.
Game Balance: Several abilities have been adjusted for balance.
Game Balance: Area effect skills that do damage have been reduced for melee fighters.

Bug Fix: Enemies appearing on the level and creatures being summoned by enemies will now be visible immediately.
Bug Fix: Player characters will now no longer face odd directions at the start of certain levels.
Bug Fix: Loading / Saving a mid-battle save now works correctly on the Reaper Lord quest level.
Bug Fix: Fixed a rare crash where some characters would attack while affected by terrain that increases attack range.
Bug Fix: Several minor bug fixes.

 

Update is already in review.