arMaiageddon V 1.1

Since no one other than alpha testers have commented about the game, I think that I will make battles, enemies, equipment and abilities for the game. That way the great game will be more of a game instead of just a great story.

CREATURES

Yes with any battle, there need to be creatures. I am play testing 90 minutes into the game, which puts me at the start of the "Creature" mission. There are 71 creatures in the game and at 90 minutes, I have killed 21 of them. Fortunately there is a beastiary to list them all.

DIFFICULTY

Clear out 1 area and that is tough enough, but with this game, when you return, all of the creatures have "leveled up" to meet your level. There are SIDE missions that will send you back to places that you have already conquered. As usual enemies also have new abilities and attack strategies when your party raises its level. Such as gushers (slimes) will dissolve you when your party is at level 5. Once timmid enemies can become fierce foes once you have reached a certain level.

WHERE TO EQUIP THINGS

Instead of equipping things to a character's body, head and arms (shield), you now can equip things on your body, legs, neck, feet, head, hands (gauntlets) and arms (shield). Not just that, but instead of having a single slot for an accessory, you now have slots for your neck, undergarments, overgarments (capes) and an extra slot for an accessory.

INDESTRUCTABLE CHARACTER? EQUIPMENT POINTS

If you have so many slots to equip things, then you will probably have some uber character right? You should, but I am a mean person, so all equipment has an equipment point to it. Some weapons use 3 EP, others use 5 EP. Some boots use 2 EP, and others ues 3 EP. Each character has a limited amount of EP they can use to equip things. This is used to balance characters and will prevent any character from getting too indestructable. You will be forced to pick and choose weapons vs armor. accessories vs magic orbs.

LEARN ABILITIES / MAGIC ORBS

Instead of learning new abilities when you gain levels, each character (except 2 who are briefly in your party) can learn abilities from things they have equipped. A red hat will learn Fire for a character. The Fire Orb will learn Fire 3. Each character can learn several abilities at once. If the equipment is changed, then the character loses that ability unless they have battled enough creatures to have earned the ability perminently. Some skills require 20 creatures to be killed to learn them, other skills like Fire 5 require 200 foes to be dead before you keep it. Having these abilities learned from equipment gives a new purpose for having simple things equipped. Sometimes, you will give up a good piece of armor for a weak cloak that will teach you an amazing spell.

HOW DOES THE WEATHER IMPACT A BATTLE?

This is not fog of war or anything like that. After all, this is still a role playing game. There is a purpose to the weather patterns for each of the areas. Each character has a unique set of skills they can use depending on the weather and time of day. The rain skills seem very straight forward. The night skills are strategic. The daytime skills are defensive. The storm skills have an interesting strategy to them. All of these skills work well together as a team, especially against boss characters.

WEATHERMANCY

With the set of skills being accessed only durring certain weather, day and night times, there needed to be a weathermancer. Someone that could flat out control the weather and time so the characters could use the skill sets they want. Sure this character is not around forever in the game, but he has a big impact on the variety of gameplay.

ENEMY STRATEGY AND GOALS

Due to the unique characters of the game, such as one of them being the child of a god, and another character being a demon Halfling, the enemies have interesting goals. Devout foes like Paladins and priests will attack your party for having a demon in it, but then once the demon is dead, they will leave your party alone. As for enemy strategy, the foes are purposely intelligent about your tactics as a player. Ailing creatures will cure and heal one another. Silent or muted foes will attack, defend or run away without the use of their magic. Blind creatures will do what it takes to allieviate their blind woes. The characters are smart.

EQUIPMENT VARIETY

Characters are not limited to just one weapon or armor type. No one uses only bows or only swords. Each character can use three weapon types and have a variety of defensive equipment choices. That way you can turn a character into an archer, a swordsman or someone well balanced. Whatever you prefer.

EPIC BOSS BATTLES

All of these facets combine with the traditional RPG elements like water kills fire and make a more interesting game with plenty of strategies. The boss battles are big and multi phasic if not multi faceted. Each boss battle is designed to take around 10 minutes to complete, and the finish is defeating the boss. However, the path you take to get there is up to you with all of the variety.