Mysterious Castle Windows, Mac, iPhone game

0 comments by eclectocrat on Mar 18th, 2013

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• GENERAL:
  • Added permadeath mode! Although not recommended, it's there for the
    hadcore. Because this is a party based game, permadeath is implemented a
    little differently. When permadeath mode is enabled, any character that dies
    is entered into a persistent store. Any game that is loaded will be scrubbed
    of the dead character.
  • New contextual help system! When you select an entity, or an action in
    a menu, a translucent question mark '?' will appear in the bottom left
    corner of the screen. Click/tap it to find out about that entity or
    action.




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• ADDITIONS:
  • Undead spell replaced with a new spell for players (AI's still use it),
    Acid, a cone effect damage spell that has a high chance to blind targets.
  • Vision spell replaced with a new spell, Quicken, which ends the casters
    turn and grants target an extra out of initiative turn.
  
  
  • Standard world is now 60% larger.
  
  
  • Added lakes with shorelines.
  
  
  • Added blight areas, with different flora and fauna.
  
  
  • Many races now come in 'factions'. All members of a faction are colored
    the same, and factions have relationships between one another, sometimes
    hostile.
  
  
  • A whopping 6 (six!) new player races, including lynx, minotaurs, orcs,
    kobolds, lizardmen, and wolves.
  
  
  • New tactical action 'defend' allows a character to protect another from
    melee attacks. When a defended character gets attacked, their defender
    switches place with them and becomes the target of the attack.
  • New tactical action 'trip attack', allows you to knock a character prone.
  • New tactical action 'block' allows a character to trip an enemy that is
    moving past them. When an enemy enters a square adjacent to a character
    that is blocking, the character gets an attack of opportunity against
    that character. If the attack hits, then the enemy is knocked prone. If
    the tripped character has enough action points, he may get up and continue
    moving.
  • Prone characters can be stepped over by members of any party. This allows
    for very interesting positioning tactics.
  • New ability, 'rage'. When a character with rage reaches a low health
    threshold, they gain a bonus to melee attack and damage, and an equal
    penalty to armor class.
  • New ability, 'stoic'. When a character with stoic-ism reaches a low
    health threshold, they gain a bonus to their armor class.
  • Crafting! Well, the first hints of it anyways. You can now collect
    broken sword pieces, and reforge them into unique weapons them at an
    anvil.
  
  
  • Some containers in dungeons are locked. The keys are usually nearby,
    but some locks must be picked.
  • New NPC races: humans, ogres, cyclopses, and basilisks.
  
  
  • Almost every race enhanced with new members.
  
  
  • Unique NPC characters.
  
  
  • Different weapons now grant specific mods to combat maneuvers. Heavy
    weapons are better at power attack, pole weapons at trip, etc.
  
  
  • Two handed weapons.
  
  
  • Many new, more specific, books that enhance combat maneuvers.
  
  
  • Elixers of health, that permanently raise a member of your party's max
    HP by 2. There are up to 30 of these scattered all throughout the game,
    so that characters who start with low HP, will be able to withstand
    the increasing punishment of late game enemies.
  
  
  • New unique items.
  
  
  • New item powers.
  
  
  • Items of regenerate are now cursed, and cannot be removed after equipping.
  
  




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• INTERFACE:
  • Overhauled minimap system fixes glitches and adds colors.
  
  
  • New world map overview.
  
  
  • Totally new sneaking interface makes it perfectly clear which characters
    are sneaking, and how others percieve them.
  • Entities are highlighted based on your perception of them. Entities which
    are hostile to you are highlighted red, while entities that are neutral, or
    have not noticed you are highlighted in yellow, and entities that may be
    beneficial to you are highlighted in green. This allows sneaking characters
    to target enemies that have not spotted them.
  
  
  • Added icons indicating the duration of actions.
  
  
  • Combat actions now show their relative bonus in the right menu item margin.
  
  
  • Added labels to menus indicating why an action can't be done. For
    example, if you click on an apple in battle, it'll show 'no time to
    eat'.

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  • You can now drag the pather around to find an optimal path.

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  • Interesting corpses (with bonus items) are now highlighted in green.
  
  
  • When exploring a dungeon, characters make spot checks to notice items in
    containers. Upon a successful spot check, a container is highlighted in
    green.
  
  
  • Weapons now display their damage bonus in their menu.
  
  
  • During combat in the character panel, the non-active party members are
    drawn grey, to indicate that they are not selectable.
  • When creating a new character, default stats are automatically filled
    based on race recommendations. Stats can still be changed of course.
  • Slight spellbook alteration replaces description with a party select panel.




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• RULES CHANGES:
  • Books now affect every member of your party. When you study a manual of
    dexterity, for example, every member of your party gains +1 to their dex.
  
  
  • Individual attack actions (attack, flurry, shoot, rapid shots, etc...)
    have their own bonuses. For example some races get a bonus to flurry,
    but a penalty to power strike.
  
  
  • Enemies will now make tactical decisions when selecting terrain, trying
    to take higher ground, cover, and flanking positions when possible.
  
  
  • Enemy AI now singles out the party member which deal the most damage,
    this makes spell casting very, very dangerous!
  • Enemy AI's can now open doors and move between rooms in dungeons.
  
  
  • Enemy archers can make spot checks to determine the most vulnerable party
    member and target fire them.
  • You can now sneak and stop sneaking during combat.
  • All races rebalanced and differentiated with new bonuses and penalties.
  
  
  • Columns, candle stands and torch stands now grant cover.
  
  
  • All entities have about 25% less HP, making battle even more furious.



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• TECHNICAL/BUGFIXES:
  • Optimized saving and loading. It will be about as fast as before, but with
    a world of more than double the previous size.
  
  
  • Fixed the reset stats button in character creation.
  
  
  • Countless minor and not so minor bug fixes.