Binding Wyrds

Hey all,

I know I haven't updated this in forever...and in the meantime I somehow got 11k views and 122 downloads? That's a bit weird. Regardless, this project isn't abandoned, and due to some pressure from friends, I will be picking it back up.

Near future updates will include more missions and content to play through, and tweaks to existing content. I am forcing myself to stop adding characters for a while, mostly because I could keep adding cannon fodder characters for ages without enough content to play them with.

Another near future update will add 'real' game mode, allowing testers to either play in playtest mode (all characters, max level option, etc) or in the way it will be on release (starting characters, more gained through missions, dead stay dead).

To anyone still interested in the project: Thank you for sticking with me during this downtime. Personal/Professional issues can cause enthusiasm to wane, but I fully intend to finish this project.

Thanks,
Rine

Now that I've added a public release, which hopefully will have some more testing than I've managed to get previously, I'm hoping to start working on something other than missions or characters. However, I may as well post up the character blog for all the new characters that were added in this release. There are quite a few, so this is gonna be a sizable one.

Kiira Tuomi: A magus I've wanted to get to for a while, mostly because I enjoy the thought of a magus who wears a nice suit, and beats people senseless with her fists. Mostly designed for damage, her specialty is preparing a large combo, and then doing massive damage in one shot. All her buffs last the mission (unless used up). Her researchable upgrades give her reduced mana cost, and adds damage and Mana element to her attacks.

Enchant Fists: Standard Magus buff, buffs herself for a lot more damage.
Prepared: Another self buff, this one giving her evasion and counter chance.
Striker Gem: The first of two true specialty spells. This one is a self buff. While it is up, if she makes a regular attack, the gem will activate, and add a second attack, using it up and doing quite a bit of damage.
Meditation: Restores MP, while stunning herself.
Finisher Gem: The second specialty spell, only usable if a Striker Gem is also up. Altogether, it causes a regular attack to do three separate powerful damage bursts.

Sarah Blake: A vampire character with a shotgun, notable in that her regular attacks always attack two random enemies. Straddling the line between damage and tank, she has abilities for both, along with the ability to recover her MP without wasting a turn draining blood, at the cost of some health. Her researchable upgrades give her a better shotgun, and a shield.

Blitz: A simple, cheap skill that attacks 3 random enemies instead of her normal 2.
Celerity: A self buff that improves her speed and attack number.
Taunt: Another self buff, this one taunting enemies and buffing her attack, again straddling that damage/tank line.
Blinding Speed: A self buff that increases her evasion.
Blood Shot: An attack skill that costs 1 HP, does damage, and restores her MP by 10 afterwards.

Cold Shot: Because we don't have enough snipers. Seriously though, this magus has a rather powerful anti-material rifle to make up for his lack of stats. His specialty is attacks that also debuff the enemy, consistently debuffing them as he goes. His researchable upgrades remove his agility penalty due to his weapon, and improve his rifle for more damage and destruction element attacks.

Target: Armor: A regular attack that also reduces defense of the enemy.
Target: Weapon: A regular attack that also reduces enemy attack.
Target: Magic Circuit: A regular attack that also reduces enemy magic attack and defense.
Target: Mobility: A regular attack that also reduces enemy agility and luck (effectively hit/evasion chances as well, since these stats affect both).
Target: Destruction: Completely breaking from theme so far, this high cost attack does double damage, and is naturally destruction element.

Nadezhda Aliyeva: A Magitek user who specializes in high evasion, multiple attacks. Her base attack hits a target multiple times, while she suffers from a pretty harsh accuracy penalty for using a SMG. Her skills juggle self buffs and attack abilities. Her researchable upgrades improve her Flight() skills evasion, and improve her weapon's damage while giving it Wind element typing.

Flight(): A self buff that gives her evasion, 25% base with 50% once researched.
Speed(): A self buff that improves her agility by half.
Strafe(): An AoE attack.
Charge(): A self buff that improves her attack by half.
Blast(): An attack that does double damage, but after it hits, it stuns her for a few rounds.

Karl Germond: Another on the list of 'evil' characters, to some perspectives. A blooded character who specializes in anti-Magus attacks, at the cost of his own HP. His weapon is naturally Destruction typing, which also makes him great against Phage. His researchable upgrades both give him more HP, so he can use his abilities with less risk.

Curse Blade: A regular attack that also gives the target negative mana recovery. Costs 1 HP.
Magic Evasion: A self buff that gives him high magic evasion. Costs 1 HP.
Foul Wave: An AoE attack, destruction elemental. Costs 1 HP.
Spellcrush: Deals damage to the enemy equal to its current mana, although still affected by defense. May get nerfed, as mana is really high compared to HP/Defense stats. Costs 1 HP.
Circuit Break: Costs 1 HP, seals spells/skills.

Kierra De Vere: An actual classically designed Magus! Weak physically, with more focus on powerful ice spells and effects. Only notable thing about her otherwise is her weapons have natural ice elemental, meaning if she's out of MP she can at least try to freeze the enemy. Her researchable upgrades give her an improved dress with ice resistance, and improves her weapon to give her more magic attack.

Ice Spear: Cheap, reliable ice damage, also debuffs agility.
Ice Shield: A defense buff that she can put up on anyone, lasts the whole mission.
Freeze: A debuff that stops the enemy from acting for a bit, and reduces their attack and defense.
Ice Field: A field debuff that reduces ally and enemy accuracy and evasion.
Glacier: An ice attack, twice as powerful as her spear.

Darin Sabir: Less classically Magus, this one is an enchanter. Notably his only spells are basically identical, barring different elements. They are cheap enough that he can switch party member's elements mid mission if necessary without struggling too badly. Strong physically, since he doesn't have any combat spells. His researchable upgrades improve his armor, and add more damage and destruction typing to his weapon.

Enchant: Fire: Gives a damage bonus, and fire typing to a character.
Enchant: Ice: Gives a damage bonus, and ice typing to a character.
Enchant: Shock: Gives a damage bonus, and lightning typing to a character.
Enchant: Wind: Gives a damage bonus, and wind typing to a character.
Enchant: Destruction: Gives a large damage bonus, and destruction typing to a character. Larger damage bonus because destruction elemental buffs don't give a natural debuff or debuff resistance.

Sarah Blake: Another police officer, this time Blooded. Pure tank, she starts with high defense and HP, and it only gets higher. All of her abilities are either tank related (taunting, self healing), or debuff enemies. Her researchable upgrades improve her two major lacking stats, agility and luck.

Call Out: A taunt skill that also buffs her defense.
Shackle: Attempts to paralyze an enemy. Has a long cooldown.
Kneecap: An attack that also debuffs the enemy's agility. Has a short cooldown.
Healing Spasm: Stuns herself, but regenerates health very quickly.
Cell Growth: A self buff with much slower (than Spasm) regeneration.

And hopefully that's it for a while character wise...though as always, I have a notebook full of more ideas. Download the character test release, try them out!

So I'm about to settle down and make a huge content pack for the game, characters/missions/items/etc. As such, it is appropriate I go ahead and blog about the rest of the characters currently in game before I start to add more. There is no central theme connecting these characters together, these are basically the odds and ends left from the first major content set.

Magdalena Rudawski: A blooded character, with nothing really special about her...except she is the only character in the game affected by the unbound status effect. It is given to her only by her companion character, and I will detail it more in her entry. By herself, she is a fairly bland damage character, a buff and two special attacks that add debuffs. Her upgrades give her a better handgun, and increased agility.

1: Precise Shot: A very slow attack that halves the defense used by the enemy she hits.
2: 3 Rounds Rapid: What it sounds like, she attacks a target three times in a row. Has a cooldown.
3: Sweep: An attack with reduced damage, but faster in execution. Can stun the enemy.
4: Crippling Shot: Another reduced damage attack, this one debuffs attack, defense, and agility.
5: Power Ammo: A self buff that increases her attack. Has a cooldown, so can't be stacked.

Izabella Wronski: The Magus half of the pair with Magdalena. She focuses mostly on support magics, and has no direct damage spells. Her major focuses are applying debuffs, removing debuffs, and applying her unique buff to Magdalena. Her research upgrades give her more MP, and allow her normal attacks to cause blind and silence.

1: Unbind: Her signature spell, and only usable on Magdalena. The buff doubles Magdalena's attack, defense, agility, and luck, adds 50% additional hit and 100% evade (essentially making her unhittable), but reduces her HP to a maximum of one. When it wears off, she is left with one HP out of however many she has at the time. A very powerful buff, but obviously dangerous to use.

2: Seal: A simple spell, tries to paralyze and stun a target.

3: Hinder: Another simple debuff state, this one attempting to blind and silence a target.

4: Cleanse: A spell that attempts to remove every possible negative debuff from the target. Given there aren't that many enemies who will try to put negative states on the characters, and they might be wildly varying and not predictable, pretty much any 'antidote' like effects will just cure everything that is curable.

5: Anti-Magic Field: This spell places a field up that prevents any spells from being cast, both from allies and enemies. As a design bit, any enemies I have that will be highly resistant/immune to normal crippling states, will not be immune to this, so if she runs up against a boss or major enemy that casts spells, this will always work.

Pvt. Krauser: Detailed as a Magitek character infected by vampires, his playstyle is pure vampire. Notably, every single ability he has is a self buff that lasts all mission, except for his last one. He is designed to be a heavy damage dealer, and entirely self sufficient. His upgrades give him more MP, and more agility.

1: Blood Circuits: A self buff that gives him half again more agility, and an additional attack per turn.

2: Meld: A self buff that gives him half again more damage, and increases his hit chance by 50%.

3: Leeching Strikes: A self buff that lets his normal attacks recover HP.

4: Hardened Circuits: A self buff that gives him half again more defense and magic defense.

5: Bloody Oil: A massive self buff, costing what is normally his max MP (without upgrades or accessories). Increases every stat by 50% for the battle, and stacks with his other buffs.

Kenji Hayashi: An oddball, and one I might have to fiddle with since I've gotten some reviews that he's a bit too weak in the beginning. A vampire character, who refuses to drink blood. Instead, he gains mana every turn through a natural regeneration. While this may be a major buff for most characters, his signature attack requires him to get rid of MP as fast as possible. Both of his research upgrades give better weapons.

1: Focus: A self-buff that increases attack.

2: Quick Strikes: Attacks three random enemies.

3: Parry: Increases his evade and gives him a chance for a counterattack.

4: Zen: Gives him a huge mana regeneration penalty, overriding his gain and turning it into a loss.

5: Zen Strike: An attack that does more damage the lower his mana is, to a maximum of double damage if he has zero mana. Costs nothing to use (obviously).

Father Leazus: A vampire wielding a massive sledgehammer. Has a few threat abilities and self buffs, effectively serving as a tank character. His researchable upgrades give him a better weapon and better armor.

1: Shockwave: An AoE attack that also generates additional threat.

2: Spikes: A self buff that increases his damage.

3: Resilient Faith: A self buff that gives him a chance of not dying if he is reduced to 0 HP.

4: Slam: An attack that does double damage. Very expensive for him (over half his MP).

5: Martyr: An attack that does synch up with Resilient Faith, though if it turns out to cause too much save scumming, I might nerf it. Fully recovers the entire party's HP, gives a massive buff to all their stats. Kills the user.

Ignisia: One of the first of three 'not quite good guys'. If I wasn't worried about forgetting to blog about a character, I probably would have made a blog post about these and a few other future characters. A character that focuses on risk to herself for high damage. Her researchable upgrades include increasing her fire resistance, and removing the recoil effect from her Backblast skill.

1: Rising Pressure: A self buff that increases her damage based on how low her HP is.

2: Backblast: A heavy attack that has a recoil effect, dealing herself damage. The recoil effect can be removed by upgrades.

3: Wildfire: Creates an area state that causes damage to both allies and enemies each turn.

4: Burning Touch: Gives her a counter attack.

5: Burn Out: Deals damage equal to her current HP, ignoring defense. Reduces her own HP to 1 afterwards.

Anika Houk: A blooded bank robber. Her abilities tend to be less direct, mostly causing status effects, or moving threat around. Her researchable upgrades give her more strength and hp, and the other gives her more strength and adds mana element to her regular attacks.

1: Debris Kick: A weaker attack that can cause blind.

2: Low Blow: A weaker attack that can cause stun.

3: Misdirect: Gives one of her allies a threat boost.

4: Muscle Injury: A weaker attack that causes an enemy to gain a recoil effect on their attacks.

5: Survivor: A self buff that reduces damage to her by a set amount.

Lady Ligsalz: The current queen of evil teammates, and also my test boss fight in the testing arena right now. Her stats are naturally very high, you get her at level five, and she has no researchable upgrades. The downsides being that she is a very late game character, is at the end of a long quest chain, and choosing her means skipping a tough boss fight, but killing the ally that gives you the quest chain. Her story events will also include her murdering certain powerful characters to make things easier for herself once the current problem is fixed. Not a nice lady. Her boss fight is her with the exact same stats she has at level five, as I want to make sure any recruitable characters you fight are at the same power level as if you recruited them. As a note, her weapon is naturally destruction elemental.

1: Charm: Attempts to charm an enemy, and get them to attack their allies.

2: Bolt: A simple attack spell, destruction element.

3: Devour: Attempts to instantly kill an enemy. If successful, she fully restores her MP.

4: Eternal Youth: Costs 10 MP, restores 10 HP.

5: Commanding Presence: Gives all allies a heavy attack and defense buff.


And with that said, time to add to their ranks. My notebook is waiting.

Woo, its the weekend (for me anyway), time to actually get back to work on this game.

This blog will focus on the characters I designed specifically with unusual costs in mind. My biggest problem in designing characters so far has been balancing the costs of abilities. Ideally (and I know I'm not there right now), regular attacks will have their place, as will special skills. Magi and Vampires have MP, so you can balance them by just having things cost MP. Blooded, Magitek, and Clerics don't. In the previous character lists, those sorts of characters either had cooldowns, warmups, or their special abilities essentially 'used' a turn to get a benefit. These characters were designed to avoid doing that for everyone.

Lord Heidrich: A 'blooded magus', as his class literally states. Essentially a blooded character, who uses his HP for his special abilities. Given permadeath and limited healing, his abilities only use the defenders magic defense x 1, as opposed to normal (normally it is magic defense x 2, per each point rand(3): on 2, -1 damage). Ideally, he will be better suited for fighting enemies with high magic defense. Statwise, he obviously has much higher HP than most characters. All his spells are Destruction element. His unique upgrades are causing him to heal 1 HP per normal attack, and increasing his HP by 2.

1: Blood Shot: Standard single target attack spell. Costs 1 HP.
2: Blood Burst: Targets 3 random enemies. Costs 2 HP.
3: Infuse: A rare healing spell, though not useful inside battle too much. Heals an ally for 1 HP, costs 1 HP.
4: Blood Wave: AoE spell. Costs 2 HP.
5: Blood Rage: Buffs a target, giving them an additional attack, additional damage, and higher speed. Lasts till end of combat, and costs 1 HP.

(blood blood blood blood)

Renato Merlo: An actual magus, but one who is noted in game to have weaker magic than most. This manifests in him having half as much MP per level as other mages. Instead, beyond two spells, all his spells require a spellgem to be in inventory to use, and consumes it in the process. He only has one unique research upgrade, which gives him +2 intelligence, his other research slot is creating spellgems, adding a resource cost to using him.

1: Prism Blast: A straight up magic blast, single target.
2: Gem Blast: Consumes a gem, does double damage to a single target.
3: Prism Gem: Consumes a gem, and tries to apply a huge list of status effects to a target.
4: Gem Shield: Consumes a gem, applies a large temporary buff to a targets defense and magic defense.
5: Pressure: Tries to instantly kill a target. If it succeeds, it creates a spellgem. At max level he can only cast this twice in a mission.

John Wyatt: Another under-represented Magitek character. John focuses on using specialized ammunition for his gun. He can do a lot of damage very quickly, especially at higher levels, but the costs for using him can get prohibitive if the player relies on him too much. He actually has no researchable upgrades, instead at R&D he can purchase the three unique bullet types he uses in his abilities.

1: Magitek shot: Uses a Magitek Bullet, and does double damage to a target.
2: Emergency Craft: Creates a Magitek Bullet, has a warmup of 3 turns and a cooldown of 3 turns, so it can't be spammed.
3: HE Magitek Shot: Uses a HE Magitek Bullet, and does triple damage to a target.
4: Fan the Hammer: An AoE attack with a cooldown.
5: Bloody 9: Uses a Bloody 9, an AoE attack that does triple damage to all targets.

Acolyte Albus: The character that made me realize 'pile bunkers' are only in fiction. Sad. A cleric (almost as under-loved as Magitek) who uses a large pile bunker. His unique theme is based around soul shards, creating them by chance with his first level skill, and using them to power larger attacks. His unique upgrades consist of reducing his weapons speed and hit penalties, and giving his weapon a defense bonus.

1: Spike: A slower attack that has a chance to create a soul shard when it hits.
2: Soul Strike: Uses a soul shard, does more damage than a regular attack. Mana elemental.
3: Soul Shield: Uses a soul shard, creates a defensive buff on himself that cuts damage by two, and creates threat.
4: Soul Drain: Uses a soul shard, to create an AoE effect that has a chance to create a new soul shard for each target. Intended to be used against large groups obviously.
5: Soul Storm: Uses 3 soul shards, a powerful AoE attack. Mana elemental.

Julie Sky: Cleric number two for this list. Clerics all have a unique blessed relic, typically weapons. Julie's is a rosarius that gives her regeneration. Her HP is higher than average, and her stats are fairly low, but she is entirely based on buffing her allies in exchange for her own HP. All of her buffs last until the end of the fight. Her unique researchable upgrades include giving her an attack spell, and increasing her HP.

1: Blessing of Wrath: Costs 1 HP, Buffs a targets physical attack.
2: Blessing of Resilience: Costs 1 HP, Buffs a targets physical defense.
3: Blessing of Speed: Costs 1 HP, Buffs a targets agility.
4: Blessing of the Mind: Costs 2 HP, Buffs a targets magic attack and defense.
5: Blessing of Health: Costs 3 HP, Gives all party members regeneration.

Emerelda Jonsdottir: Magitek represent! This character came about with the realization that if I have a script that lets me set custom costs, could I set it to cost a buff? As such, her first level skill is a buff that gives her lightning damage and increased attack, and all her subsequent abilities use up that buff to deal damage. Her researchable upgrades include giving her a stacking attack boost each time she casts her buff, and giving her armor heavy lightning resistance.

1: Charge: Gives her an attack buff that lets her deal lightning damage.
2: Lightning Strike: Uses Charge, deals heavy damage to a target.
3: Arc Weld: Uses Charge, deals a slightly stronger attack with a chance to paralyze.
4: Chain Lightning: Uses Charge, does her standard damage to three targets.
5: Recharge: Uses Charge, heals her for 3 HP.

Woo, that was a long one.

Beyond the fact that the player will get to choose what sort of main character they have, and which of the tutorial characters they will get to keep. The first mission they will likely pick (top of the list when they get to mission control) is also designed to give them a choice. The mission is rather easy, mostly low level ghouls who will likely hardly damage the characters, especially since at the time you will likely only have two. The player is presented with a choice, to save the contact they were sent to recover, or the civilian they left as bait to draw off some ghouls. This choice allows the player to further customize what sort of setup they will have initially, as the characters are wildly different in approach.

Lt. Perle: The person the team was sent to recover, a fae-blooded sniper. Perle's skill set includes a random set of weaker attacks, three different skills that debuff enemies, and a party buff. Thus of the pair, he is more the mezzer, focusing on reducing enemy efficiency. His unique research upgrades increase the damage from his rifle, and allow him to get critical hits on regular attacks (something so far no one else can have).
1: Rifle Burst: Deals reduced damage to four random enemies.
2: Targeting: Adds a reduced defense debuff to a target enemy.
3: Pin Down: Does a weak attack, and reduces a random set of enemies' agility.
4: Covering Fire: Does a weak attack, and reduces a random set of enemies attack and magic attack.
5: Smoke Grenades: Gives the party a buff that improves evasion.

Lucia Alvez: The civilian magus left for bait. She is notably and intentionally a very weak direct combatant, focusing more on buffs and a single attack spell. Her three main buffs last for the whole mission, and players will likely spend most of her MP at the start of a mission to give everyone else advantages. Her unique researchable upgrades give her armor the ability to reduce her mana cost, allowing her to cast more spells and buffs.
1: Reinforce Weapon: Improves a targets attack for the whole mission.
2: Reinforce Armor: Improves a targets defense for the whole mission.
3: Pothole: (Might get renamed), her only direct damage spell.
4: Reinforce Life: Adds regeneration to a party member, lasts the whole mission. May need balancing if its too powerful.
5: Stone Wall: Reduces all damage for the party by 2 for the rest of the battle.

Posting these gives me a bit more will to go ahead and start coding the rest of the missions and characters, so I'll try to do it more often. As a side bonus, it also catches mispellings in skill names, woo!