Went ahead and bought this in anticipation for the universal release...I lost about 3 hours of sleep last night as a result.
Because I'm lazy and only update that every once in a great while. Updated now though ;- ) No need for universal (although I am looking forward to it). It plays great as is on the ipad. I mainly wanted the screen flipping (because currently the D-pad is right near the headphone jack on the Ipad which makes it tougher to hold) but they already are putting that in the update :- )
The next update sadly (FOR ME ANYWAY) makes the game a lot easier. Even the end of Master Mode gets a tad less difficult. On the plus side, the game has given me a way better handling on the difficulty curve for this new genre we've gotten into. For the spinoff I think we're going to make it so that each time you beat the game as a class, it unlocks a new difficulty mode with new enemies, levels, bosses, endings, and so on. Bronze mode and Silver mode will be made so most people can beat it. Gold mode will be difficult but possible. Then Diamond mode will be brutally difficult. For sequels, I'm thinking along the lines of making the main story pretty easy to trudge through, regardless of experience level. Then having an optional super difficult storyline for people that want to give that a shot. Anyway, those are my early plans in regard to difficulty. EDIT: Oh and for the record, Mage Gauntlet was way harder than I intended it to be. Especially story mode, which was intended to be a breeze-through. In hindsight I would have liked to keep the levels small, probably smaller than they are now, but with more enemy difficulty and variety. The current difficulty (before the update hits) is difficulty-by-attrition, which is "bad difficult" unless paired with random generation to ease the repetitiveness of dying.
Honesty I'm really happy you changed genre, I adore Mage Gauntlet at least as I hate Hook's series Can you please clarify what do you mean for "spinoff" and "sequel"? Maybe I miss something: I know you're are working to a sequel (as declared in Twitter and Facebook), but I can't understand "spinoff".
The sequel is Mage Gauntlet 2, which continues the story. The spin-off is a randomly generated dungeon crawling action game, based on the framework of Mage Gauntlet. Besides the random generation, it will make a lot of changes, the main one probably being the use of multiple different player classes. It will also most likely be free to play, where there's always a "free class of the day" to play as. A lot of the stuff we do in the spin-off will go directly into Mage Gauntlet 2. The spin-off isn't a sequel because it has its own story and so on. The only thing shared is the basic art style, the combat (the Spellsword class in the spinoff will basically be a tweaked Lexi), and the Mage Gauntlet monsters get reused (but with new additions obviously).
Great game! Can we expect more projects like this in the future? I'm glad you guys made the transition from platformer to RPG so easily. Definitely a talented group of hats you have .
We'll be doing action-adventure/action-RPG games for awhile, sure. Mage Gauntlet's story takes place over three games, for one thing. And we have lots of ideas for more games and settings. On the release of the game (more if the game is successful, not including any secret classes) - Warrior (preview posted to our Facebook already) Mage (preview posted just today) Spellsword - Basically a slightly tweaked Lexi. Rogue - Fast shortsword attacks supported by backstabbing and thief tricks. Cultist - Just a plain dagger supported by assassination-focused shadow magic. Gunner - Finds and equips an arsenal of weapons, many that are appropriate to his title. I'll be posting more specific info (with pictures) on the facebook page every week until I'm out of things to post. Act surprised when you see them there.
Are you sure spin-off doesn't overload/saturate MG fans? I mean the trilogy is a path of "events" (each episode is an "event" for series fans), why you should "break" it with a out-of-sequence recycled game? If I should have to talk as a player I should have to say "I can't wait for spin-off while MG2 is out". If I should as marketing addict (as I am) I should alert you as I'm doing right now.
http://www.facebook.com/rocketcatgames A lot of the stuff we do *tech-wise* in the spinoff will go into MG2. We're not copy and pasting the plot or anything. Examples: Multiple abilities, random level generation (though MG2 will still have a world map), bits and pieces of the spinoff classes will be turned into unlockable abilities, stuff like that.
I like the multiple abilities and unlockable spinoff classes for MG2... but I think the random level generation should be an extra side mode if anything. Keep the story mode and master mode as set designed levels. Then the random generation would be something fun on top of that for after you beat the game. Just my two cents :- )
I already know that a Rocketcat rogue-like will be my favorite rogue-like of all time. It will also be the only free to play game that I put money into. Good random level generation is a given, but what about good random humor generation? How will you pull that one off?!
Right now I'm thinking a majority of levels in MG2 would be randomized, with some hand-crafted. That's what I'd like to do, anyway. Shiren the Wanderer did this pretty well, or hell, Diablo. Probably just have a big list of NPC's/books/sayings that the game pulls from. Like the game puts a library room into a level at random, and there's a random book in there, weighted towards things you haven't seen yet. Kind of like the Hook Champ/Hook Worlds beginning of level dialogs, but on a larger scale.
Your priority with mf2 should be having hi res graphics ,hook worlds quality and screw dl limit ,IMO!!!
Those are both great games so if you can pull that off it'd be great. I bet you can too! It'll be interesting to see how you do the dialogue, humor, and items as cplr brought up but it looks like you're already sorting through that. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing the finished product!
I like the graphical style in MG, personally. Will probably stay that way for the whole series. Though any other series we do will have higher res graphics. As for a DL limit, I'm considering releasing HD versions of future games. HD versions would cost more, come out a little before the normal version, and ignore the DL limit. For starters, this would let us do tons more music. I've seen other games I like do this to great effect. Checking which levels got shortened... looks like, after a brief glance: Forest3, Boar3, Crypt3, Blorpx3, Pinnacle3. Though pretty much every level got touch-ups. Urns added, some annoyingly placed enemy groups removed, some of the lamer secret areas removed. Stuff like that. The only levels untouched were the master mode levels before the last page on the map, which were fine. Though even with the master mode levels that were altered, generally I just added a couple urns. I didn't want to change the master mode difficulty too drastically.
Really looking forward to the update. It took me a bit to get into MG but after that I've enjoyed it a ton. My one suggestion/request/gripe is pretty specific and not generally a big deal--I really want the Death Duck and all the dashing radness it provides. Right now I'm at 283 stars on Pinnacle 2 MM. The 290 star threshold seems a little high; by the time I get 290 stars, there won't be much need for the Death Duck. Most levels will already be 3-starred. So maybe for the sequel and other games, the requirement for getting the last best items/equipment/pets could be lowered a little. That'd be awesome. Good work, Kepa and RC crew.
