• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

All about that BATTLE SYSTEM; it's almost ready!

Got a few topics for you! Here's the order.
1. Key Game-play Elements!
2. Build sample: the Monk!
3. Progress Notes!

1. Key Game-play Elements!

As you can probably tell, it's all about the game-play to me! Combat in this game is designed to be challenging. There is no concept of "spam attack to win," rather, it's "spam attack to get stomped". Status ailments are plentiful, and that applies for both you and your enemies. The further you get, the more difficult and complex the enemies become, to the point where they're working together to take you out. There's a few surprises they'll begin to pull out that I don't want to spoil for you. But basically, there will come a time where the gloves will come off. By then, however, you will be adequately equipped to handle them.

Puzzles are not the biggest focus on the game. There are some minor mechanics unique to some areas, but no actual "puzzles". That's because combat is the focus of this game. I could add some half-hearted puzzles to this game, but they would only serve as a distraction to the focus of the game-play. Rather, I want to allow you to enjoy the combat instead. This game will be about finding cool new items, swapping gear around, playing with new builds, and trying new approaches to combat.

Want to be a ranged archer with a deadly knife for quick actions at the start of a turn? You can do it. Want to be a metal wall? Sure, how about a magic-focused metal wall? Maybe you want to be an offensive axe and shield user? Or a spear user focused on lowering enemy defense while buffing your allies? Or how about a spellsword? Want to use hand-to-hand combat? How about attacking enemies using a magical banjo in one hand, and a focus in the other? Sure, because why not? At the end of the day, this is a combat focused dungeon crawler that allows you to experiment with builds on the fly. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I do!

This game uses random encounters. There's a script in play to make sure that you don't get into a battle every step. There's also an item that can significantly reduce them, if you choose to avoid combat. My goal, however, is that you won't want to use this. The enemies are challenging yet the XP is plenty.

I'm doing the best I can to keep grinding at a minimum. My goal right now is to make it so that no level grinding is required, that by the time you fight your way to the next boss, you'll be at the appropriate level. I haven't capped the levels yet, but most likely the cap will be around 50. A little grinding may be needed not for xp, but for gold. One area, in particular, is quite filled with gold, and you may even want to revisit its levels after beating it, simply for the gold.

Status effects are huge, and can turn the tide of battle. Both you and your enemies have access to a plethora of them. Most status effects are set to last for 3 turns, and 3 turns only. In practice, this means that statuses go into effect for the turn they're applied, then the two following turns after that, before dropping off. Exceptions to this will be blind and poison. This 3-turn rule applies to both buffs and debuffs, so you'll have to time your skill synergy carefully!

Items play a big role in the game. Not only equipment, but consumables. You'll want to get your hands on a nice stack of consumables each time you visit the town. This means your usual antidotes, health and spirit potions, as well as Bagged Lunches. Yes, stock up on Bagged Lunches. They'll save you so much hassle.

Spell rings are complimentary. I'm still tweaking these, but the idea is that there are a bit of spell rings that you can swap around. They're mainly meant to compliment other things, for example, raising your attack power, or poisoning an enemy, putting them to sleep. In a way, they can be used to fill in blanks in your gear, as well as to compliment other skills. Each player can equip 3 spell rings.

2. Build sample: the Monk!

Here's a sneak peak at one of my higher level builds. The monk!



This build is a rather straight-forward one. If you're someone that doesn't like having to juggle a lot of skills but just wants some straight forward damage and defense, this one is perfect for you!

The weapons are the Brutal Claws, found in the dungeon. This weapon is strong against humanoid targets. This weapon type is also unique in that it does not permit the use of an off-hand weapon. These are the three skills:

Cross: A straight-up, full damage attack.
Tiger Stance: Buffs the user's attack and agility.
Mantis Stance: Buffs the user's evasion and agility.

The stances for claws are different, in that they defy the 3-turn rule. Once you enter a stance, you are in that stance until you switch to another chance, and it will last the entire battle.

The spell rings are complimentary: a heal, a non-elemental attack, and a sleep skill for enemies that are rather pesky and need to be put out of commission until later in the battle.

The two augments are "thick skin," which essentially are tanking augments. They don't do anything to boost your attack, but they're for high-defense characters. So why is the monk wearing them? Because her damage is quite plentiful even without attack augments. That means that not only is she focused in damage, but she's got a good bit of physical defense. She won't go down that easily!

In combat, I buff her using one of Sally's spell rings, War Cry, which raises attack power. This stacks with Elsa's stances, meaning her damage goes from good to REALLY good. Now if you take that and keep in mind that this is strong against humanoid enemies, her damage goes even higher. And if you really want to get nasty, change those tanking augments to physical attack augments and her damage will skyrocket!

This is an example of one of the many builds you can create in this game! Here, I took a weapon I liked, and I build around it and customized it. No other weapon will handle this way. What I came out with, is a one-punch powerhouse that doesn't require a lot of maintenance.

The downsides? Well, she's got a generic non-elemental magic attack, but that's only for enemies with really high defense, and Elsa won't hit hard with the spell since her stats aren't focused into magic. Furthermore, defense-heavy augments don't tend to compliment your evasion and agility very well, which means she's a slower attacker. She's also got a magical defense of 2. That's bad. Real bad. But luckily, even in this weaknesses, you have three other allies in your party that can more than make up for it.

3. Progress Notes!

I'm at the end of production and I'm almost ready for the release. There's only a few things left to do, and that includes plenty of testing. And that testing, however, is going to take up quite a bit of time. This game turned out much larger than when I first started out.

If you would like to volunteer to test the game, please let me know either in the comments or through a message, your choice! This is a difficult game however, so just keep that in mind.

I'm looking to release it very soon! It's almost done. I hope you're as excited as I am!

Posts

Pages: 1
Sure, I'd like to test your game.
That'd be great! I'll have you listed as a tester soon.

Probably early to mid next-week, the test release will be ready to go.
I could give it a test! I'm not sure I'm too good with bughunting but I think I could give feedback on the skills and items and such C:

IT looks like an exciting game!
author=JosephSeraph
I could give it a test! I'm not sure I'm too good with bughunting but I think I could give feedback on the skills and items and such C:

IT looks like an exciting game!


Thank you very much! I've actually already released it since this post, and you can find it right here. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the game!



Come to think of it, since the RMN crash, my "game release" blog got removed. I should probably add that again.
Pages: 1