I have some thoughts on this game. Firstly, it's fantastic, and the closest thing to Torchlight or Diablo that has yet to be released on the iPad. A few things really stick out, though: 1) I would like to have to make choices about how I spec, and not just pick up everything. There should be more things to unlock via stars than there are currently, since those accumulate slower. One way to do this would be with skill trees, another would be to make the skills have multiple ranks, so you could choose to invest more into specific areas. For instance, with the mage character, I prefer using the fire scrolls and books. I don't really want to invest in talents that boost ethereal or frost, so if there were additional skills for fire (radius, burning damage, etc., I could choose to put all my points there). 2) The unlocks for certain equipment makes me not want to spend gold on certain ones, since I want to improve my chances of getting the gear I prefer. For instance, on the melee character, I have been unlocking the chance for specific axes, since I prefer them, but not the swords. This is because certain items are mutually exclusive. I can't find an axe with both fire and ice on it, so if I prefer ice, I won't bother unlocking fire, poison, precision, etc. I think that these unlocks should enable to ability for stacking stats on items, so if I unlock fire and ice, it would be possible to find an item that had both attributes. This would be incentive to unlock everything. 3) No endless dungeon. Why? This would have been the icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned. Since you already scale mobs and loot on player level, it wouldn't be difficult to make endless dungeons. This would be something worthy of a leaderboard, assuming it's hard enough. 4) Class power discrepancy. I feel that the classes are archer > mage > melee in terms of power. This isn't too bad given that this isn't a multiplayer game, and you can always play on "hard mode" with a less powerful character. 5) Melee character OP bug. I occasionally get into a situation where the melee character is dishing out thousands of damage per hit under certain circumstances (it's something to do with levelling, the rampage on level skill and other factors that I haven't figured out). Although this is fun, it kinda has trivialized some run-throughs for me. 6) The game is a little too short. I've probably put in a little over ten hours to get most of the way through with all three classes (and this includes multiple, multiple crashes). Again, some sort of endless dungeon would fix that. 7) Defend the relic is awesome. I like that fact that it also appears in the hard-mode run-throughs. More of these sorts of things would be cool. 8) I would like to be able to toggle different difficulty settings. So far, this game is a tad easy. 9) I like the way you have implemented "specs" with armor, that can be switched between locations. More sets of armor for each class (or higher-level ones with bigger effects) would be nice, so you can define a playstyle prior to going into a map. I think this is another place where you could add further unlockable ranks to the same armors as the character advances. Anyway, the idea of choosing the kinds of gear that drop, prior to starting a dungeon sounds a bit clunky and a bit of a hack. The depth of loot tables wouldn't be so bad if more loot dropped, but since you have only a handful of chances per area to find loot, you might never see items you wanted in the whole dungeon. Change the less-wanted gear (stuff that only adds crit chance, crit damage, attack speed, vampirism, rage, focus, etc.) to be the possibility of adding those stats to the other gear and keep the different elemental stuff separate and then it'll make unlocking everything worthwhile. I am looking forward to, and hoping the devs will come through with updates based on feedback (unlike many other games where I've seen things promised but they never happened). I'm liking that the devs are very active here, and this is giving me hope that requests will be considered, and new content will be added. I might post a review of this game at some point, but right now, I'm honestly too busy playing it!
I'm obsessed with this game, despite what I am going through. Well, made it to the Dragon's Lair, and finally the Dragon. Almost got that sucker down in a fair fight, but I didn't make it. Had the Ankh waiting, got right back in, but this time, just as I approached the corridor LEADING to the Dragon, his enormous red beam appeared right down the corridor without any warning or without even seeing him; instant death with absolute zero warning. That's got to be a major bug because you don't stand a chance! Might as well have the lazer kill you at the beginning of the game for that matter.
For those who are playing the game, what have you found to be he hardest achievements to obtain so far? I have only played as the Blademaster, as I don't want to lose my progress. I have not yet played through the whole game with the original weapons, nor have I defeated a boss at lower than level 9. Those seem pretty tough. I have played through most of a game with the base swords, but not the last part though. Depending on your weapons, sometimes defending the relic is so tough. It would be neat if someone listed all the ingame awards that you can get on a level - or on a whole quest, such as finishing the quest in under 15 minutes, and finishing a section in under 5 or even 2 minutes.
Thanks Rozetta for the feedback. Those are good ideas indeed. Well, I say that because what you've suggested is bizarrely similar to what I actually intend doing. (so I would think your ideas are good ). We're going to create a big content update, probably after the iPhone release. I don't really want to trickle in content, because one new spell or one new sword isn't a good reason to return to the game and play for a few hours, while a new area and a new playable class is. I'm planning on adding a endless dungeon. I'm certain if we're going to do it before a big content update though. It won't be all that hard to produce... though given how different the classes are, it's going to be tricky to balance (for instance the Battle Mage becomes incredibly powerful towards the end... if she were allowed to play for twice as long then I doubt I could build a enemy tough enough). Oh no! that sucks. The dragon takes a good 7 seconds longer before trying to beam kill you in the update (that is going through the submission process). I had a kind of sadistic moment when designing the dragon's beam attack. It's just plain bad design. I'm wondering if the difference in power between the classes is something I should fix. The Ranger is a tad too easy. Although perhaps it would be better to add a difficulty setting that makes all the classes a little weaker and balances them for players who want a challenge. (I play all my games on hard-mode these days). Is a difficulty setting something that's in demand? (I could put up some difficult mode leaderboards and achievements as well) You don't actually lose your progress when switching characters. You just lose progress on the current quest if you start a new quest (each quest is a series of levels ending in a boss). The wording is absolutely confusing. The update fixes this.
I haven't played the Ranger yet, but I started with the Blade Master and midway through the map, I found I could not get further and I was pretty beefed up with weapons and skills. I kept dying on the same map. I finally gave up and started with the Battle Mage and I made it past those areas (which the Blade Master had trouble with) with ease! As mentioned in previously, I'm in the Dragon's Lair. I wish I could start a new game with the Ranger, while retaining my current saved area of the map with the Battle Mage! I can't wait for Apple to spit out the update!
@Tasty Poison I just finished my third play through on the battle mage and I really love this game, however, I think what could make it truly epic is a persistent survival/endless mode. Something that unlocks after you finish the core game on any one of the characters, allowing you to use that character and all their unlocked skills and items in an endless mode, with randomly created dungeons and bosses, one after another, progressively getting harder and harder, mixed in with a nice online scoring system for kills, dmg, crits, explosions, freezes, time, level ups, etc...this would allow you to keep building your character stronger and stronger, experimenting with all sorts of different item and skill combinations...One of the downsides to the core game is right now, anytime I get my character to a state that I am happy with, you finish the level and start anew..the actual time spent finding the right fun combination of items is really limited...towards the end of each of the current runs...I for one would love the ability in an endless mode to keep building and tinkering and improving as enemies get harder and harder, ultimately leading to a defeat (kind of like Solomons Boneyard)...Maybe make it hardcore, you die your out kind of thing, but something where you can exponentially grow and experiment and blow up lots and lots of stuff! PS Complete aside, but playing as the battle Mage, it seems lighting is way overpowered vs, the other three dmg types?
The mage's spells have been adjusted slightly in the update. Charging spells has been made a bit more useful. We're planning on making some new content, and the mage is going to get a few more spells (which excites me because I love programming new spells), and lightning is going to be much less game ending. An endless mode is busy being worked on. (Although I can't say whether it will be out before a big content update.) Thanks for the ideas and feedback! Sorry I didn't respond to it sooner. The dash is performed by attack twice (two normal swipes) and then holding a direction and attack for long enough to do one of those 360 degree attacks. I'm adding in a moves screen in game.
LOL, gotta admit though - I picked up a lightning scroll (or book?) that was worth over 100,000 gold or something insane like that. At that point, I was like ..I am so equipping this right now. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm all for the better balanced update. Oh, btw - the Dragon isn't exactly easy prey even with that maxed out lightning spell. Then again, I didn't have much of a chance to prove differently if anyone's read my previous posts.
One other suggestion that I had would be to allow a slightly farther camera distance to the action, like an extra 50% from where it is now.
Speaking of this, there's something that I found annoying when entering many of the boss rooms. There's this little cut scene that shows the boss that starts right when you enter the room. In many, many cases it started right when I stepped on one of those floor traps... I'd try to play it on a hard/permadeath setting. I'm not saying I'd enjoy it but I'd at least try
I totally agree it's well worth the price, but you've played for 30-40 hours, since July 14th!? That's 6 to 8 hours a day, man. You may have a problem.
Playing as the Blade Master is indeed pretty brutal, even on the game's earlier levels. The snow-trees and minions ganging up on me on the Snow level was a pain.
Exactly! Same experience - switched to Battle Mage and wrecked everything with ease (maybe a little too easy), but did not kill the dragon yet -- waiting for update. Spectacularly-fun game which needs serious balance tweaks.
