I have to add that I like the actual real time multiplayer; it is faster than async and it's a great way of playing this game with a stable wifi connection! Even if you implement async online in the future, I think you should keep this game mode too, because it is faster for a continuous game session.
Normally I'd agree that IAP are a hated thing but the fact that here this is all made by one single guy make me kind of think he deserves some money/praise for all his work.
I want to like this game but the single player game is killing me. Are the dice rolls genuinely random for the AI? It seems to be able to get whatever it needs on demand where as my guys will consistently roll five dice under ten.
I would pay extra for async. I have already purchased the game and I would get so much more out of it if I had async. I'm surprised that this is coming as a shock to you though.
There's no added advantages to the AI; same abilities, resources, and random rolls as the player. The AI is very good at calculating statistical probabilities, however, and will usually attack you in ways that result in the most probable high damage outcomes. Dice are an interesting mechanic that represent the unseen role of "destiny" in battle. I love chess in that it completely abstracts war to game of pure strategy vs. your opponent. But "chance" is an important component of real battles: even the best general can lose due to poor weather, disease, or random battle luck. Hero Mages encourages you to find ways of putting the odds in your favor. I highly recommend leveraging the Bard for offensive dice weighing and the Warrior for defense buffs.
I really appreciate this, of course. To address ice's point, though, the purpose of the In-App purchases would not be to deny players a full gaming experience, but to allow the opportunity to expand upon the strategic elements in the same light that games like Magic the Gathering add diversity with each new card set. Also, in case you missed my earlier post, my ultimate aim is to supplement this with "player rewards" - the idea being that players could acquire new content by 1) Being active in the community or 2) Via In-App purchases. From the onset, I never intended for Hero Mages to be a throw-away purchase- but something that players could cherish and enjoy through endless playthroughs.
Hey all - iFanzine posted this developer interview with me that might help answer some of your questions about the game and it's development process: http://ifanzine.com/interview-with-d20studios-ross-przybylski/ I'd love to do something like this for Touch Arcade as well. Let me know who I need to talk to and let's get it setup
Ah ha, great that's all I needed to know. Clearly today isn't my day, I am getting crucified. Really great little game, I'm glad the AI is so smart, it gives me something to work at.
It's so interesting that you interpret the randomness of the dice roll as a surrogate to represent the unpredictability on the battlefield. I recall, years ago, using a similar argument to defend the use of the old "camera rotation peek" in third-person shooters as a fair compensation for the lack of real-world sensory cues found in a virtual game world. In other words, as good as your speakers are, the subtle ambient sounds emitted by an enemy combatant in a real environment (e.g.heavy breathing, a gulp or the rustle of a turned page) are lost in the transition to a 2-D game world. So are things like peripheral vision, smell, etc. As realistic as games are visually, they AREN'T reality. Camera-swing peeking acts as a substitute for what's lost, because if it were the real world, you wouldn't have to stick your head out to know there's someone just through that door. Maybe it's why I likes me some dice.
Sorry, saw this post a little late - was sleeping I am setting up an appropriate poll now. edit: seems that there is no option to add a poll to a thread in the main game forum. Will contact a mod about this.
Well after playing through the tutorial. All I can say is wow! Between this and Saturday morning rpg I'm back in my youth. This takes me back to the days when I used to play warhammer 40k all the d20 rolling for battles is fantastic. The graphics and animations are very nice and it looks like the whole game has clearly had a lot of thought put into it, I can see me spending a lot of time with this game. If anyone has even a slight interest in turn based strategy games then I'd advise picking this up. One thing that made me lol was at the start when you find your third character (the Mage women) it said she was barely sixteen? From her picture she looks a bit older than sixteen lol.
Errr... there are a lot if 16-yr-old girls with breasts out there... I've seen them, believe me. Uhm - the girls, not the boobs. Well, thanks Red1, I've managed to set up a poll so everybody can vote for her/his preference. Poll rund two weeks, I guess that's enough. Soooooo... now the game just needs to get on the front page for more exposure and therefore more sales and online opponents to play with. A review by tA would be nice! Btw., what do you folks think about founding a social HM group and organize a Hero Mages tA tournament or maybe kind of a tA league?
One thing I'd really like to see added is some stats for single player. Things like wins/loses number of games played etc. As I can see me playing single player more than multi (until there's a bigger online following anyway)
Hahaha, I'm so glad you bring this up. When I first demoed this tutorial to my sister she burst out laughing so hard milk almost came out her nose. The idea behind the story is that she starts off as a young girl raised in village/farmlands, and then grows up to become the emperor's champion. This image represents her in imperial sorceress dress. There *should* technically be another illustration of her younger self wearing more humble villager clothes, but I couldn't justify overhead cost for a one-time use, so I just used the main sorceress image. Quite a few people have gotten a good chuckle out of it since, so I haven't bothered to have it updated. Would rather focus on artwork for new characters
