I like the idea of 1) but i feel alot of the current scenarios have a large number of mobs already. I prefer more difficult battles, not necessary more mobs. Also i have an idea on the 2nd game. Instead giving each character 6 abilites, maybe give each character a max 4 skills. And get the option to power up a skill as you level up? this way you can customize your character to your liking, and also you as a developer don't have sooo many skills to balance out (4 vs 6 skills) - Know what i mean?
My preference is for an expansion available to purchase at any time from the App Store that also adds some extra element to the original game, such as special enemies or the chance of exceptional rare loot. It would make a player more inclined to get an expansion earlier, rather than wait to the end of a game, which in my case is sometimes never.
You do have a valid point, BUT because there are so few good SRPG on the app store. I still think people will buy the expansion. But for your next game, from a financial standpoint, you are better off holding off adding extra characters/maps and just bundle it in an expansion.
My main point, which I might not expressed properly, was that having an expansion only available at the END of the basic game was not ideal, especially from a financial point of view of the developer. My suggestion was to have the expansion available to purchase at any time, and as an added inducement to buy it, have the expansion include just a couple of extra goodies to enhance the basic game as well. And yes, the amount of good SRPG's are few on iOS. Hopefully games like Demons Rise can help those rotten pc gamers (and yes I love my pc games too) realise that mobile games are not all just Candy Crush Freemeium rubbish.
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm thinking that a good way to do it would be to have the extra levels be playable at any time during the campaign. Since the new battles are on the surface, they don't have to be tied to the events in the underground campaign. The only thing I would have to do is modify the difficulty according to the current player level. So that would make sure the expansion is worth playing for both high level players and not too difficult for low level players. How does that sound?
Don't worry ... I've got the second game at around 70% complete and plan to release a few more after that. So hopefully iOS will be a platform with a good number of decent sRPG's. I started playing around with alpha builds of the sci-fi game, by the way. Experimenting with square grids like deathwatch.
Are they standalone scenarios or a campaign like the original? Reason I ask is I think it would totally break the storyline in the original and the expansion if you were able to come and go between the two at any time. I think your original idea of having the expansion available to play at the end of the original campaign is good. But for the reason I said in an above post, I think it should be available to purchase anytime, rather than only at the end. And as an added incentive for both existing and new purchasers to buy the expansion, add something in the expansion that can also be used in the original. Perhaps a travelling merchant that occasionally appears that offers very rare items? I don't really know what would be feasible from a developers perspective. But just my suggestion. Your game, your decision. Whatever you decide I am ready to buy the expansion.
Yeah, I'm thinking probably to have the expansion be something that can be purchased at any time that will add more levels at the end of the campaign and some more patrol levels and then also give some benefits like extra gold or something. That being said, it may not come out that quickly. I think I want to focus on finishing the next game first. Will see. The next game has all levels completed (30 campaign levels and 30 quick battles). I am just stitching it all together into a playable game and doing some test builds to see what it looks like from an early alpha build stage. I still have loads of work to do for polishing, balancing, etc, etc. Still I think it is highly likely we'll see a very polished release in late August given that the core content is now done. Here's a random pic: Orc Warlord by Rajpreet Dhillon, on Flickr
Reset campaign with same characters Hi with the latest patch I'd like to play through all the levels again- but with my current characters unchanged. Would that be at all possible as a simple setting?
It's a good idea that should be easy to add in the next patch. I'll add a button on the main menu to reset the campaign. Thanks for the suggestion. The way I've built the next game is much better. You can play any of the campaign levels as often as you want once you've unlocked that level. There's even a difficulty slider built into the level selecter so you can play the level at any difficulty you like without having to change difficulty in the options menu.
Hey guys, Quick status update on things. Been working on optimizing and testing the next game. Most optimizations are done and it's running very smoothly. First 15 levels play well and because they are set in the open, feel more tactical and less congested than the dungeons of the first game. Still on track for a late august release.
I'll add another set of quests to this one. Just want to get the next game released before I shift gears. So hopefully the expansion pack for this game will launch end of September.
Hey guys ... Quick question. I have 10 characters as the initial roster for the next game. I plan to add more characters with each expansion. However, only 10 characters still feels kinda lame as compared to the 30 in Conquest of the Deep. What fo you huys think? Should I add another 5 characters as part of the initial launch?
It might be lame compared to Conquest of the Deep but 10 characters is not lame compared to similar games. Take for instance Arcane Quest 3 which has recently been released. That game has 4 characters to start with and you can then purchase another 8. The price for the extra characters was very reasonable and I personally had no hesitation with purchasing them. In fact I really liked the purchase model of Arcane Quest 3. It was free for the whole game with the four characters. I instantly downloaded the game to try it, whereas I would have hesitated and waited for gamers reviews if it had an inital price tag. Once I had played for 15 minutes I knew it was a game I liked and hence I bought those extra characters, for both their extra content and to support the developer. I think 10 is more than enough for the original purchase. Keep the extra as optional purchases or included in the expansions.
10 is doable, but I think 12 is better since you have a 6 man party. Really looking to playing your name game.
Cool ... I'm thinking I'll make it 12. I will probably add a fat ogre type warrior and a mongolian style archer.
I'm checking out the game now. It's interesting though very different from Demon's Rise. I like the world map that it uses and might incorporate something like that in a future game. The payment model is interesting and I may use something similar as an experiment in the future. Not for this or the next game though. By the way, I'm increasing the price of Demon's Rise. So if you want to get it at the currently very low price, I would grab it today.
