Greetings Friends!
We haven't published a gameplay loop description, so I’ll introduce the core mechanics of Hidden Pass.
Overall.
For an easier understanding of the gameplay: Songs of Conquest/Age of Wonders 4 meets Mutants Zero: Road to Eden/Urtuk: The Desolation.
Basically, Hidden Pass consists of 3 main parts: Global, Lore, and Combat. And action takes place in a technomagic world, called Averon. So, the gameplay loop looks mostly the same as in Heroes of Might and Magic/Songs of Conquest: you as a player move through the global map, trying to reach the edge of the map, and fight in multiple battles, because there are plenty of enemies that try to stop you. The main goal is to defeat The Gate, which is heavily defended. During the whole process, you are greatly involved in the plot of the main storyline.
Let’s visualise the main parts of Hidden Pass.
Global:
Combat:
Global Gameplay.
On the global map your faction is developing your base (Wanderer's Tower), exploring the map, fighting+colonizing new floating islands (The Eolites), and moving towards the center of The Elyrium Belt (It is the cluster of floating rocks in the sky). Certainly, the main goal is to reach the center of The Belt.
Wanderer's Tower is your flying operational base. Most of basebuilding and development activities you will be doing here. There are main structures which give you new units and heroes (possibility to resurrect your heroes), learning of new abilities, teleportation through astral, exchange market, connection with Big land and many other things.Finally, the only way to lose in Hidden Pass - the destruction of your Tower. And, it goes without saying, that you start your exploration of The Belt near the Tower.
From the beginning you will know that your goal is to reach the Gate (the background is told in the Demo of Hidden Pass, you will be able to play it during Steam Fest in february). From this point you start your exploration and expansion activity through The Elyrium Belt space, but it isn’t easy because there are a lot of troubles on the way.
Troubles on the global map involve monsters, human mercenaries, and demons, but the most difficult part is The Gate, which stands right in the center of The Belt. And This Gate (and creatures staying behind) has their own will and power, which grow with time. And this power will try to destroy the player’s faction. So, the troubles and the game progress are highly connected with the game lore and will give you a lot of gameplay stories inside Hidden Pass. We won’t be spoiling the game lore, but in the future DD will certainly explain the mechanics that are connected with it.
Combat Gameplay.
Combat in Hidden Pass is classic turn-based x-comlike but with some fresh things. First, our combat field is quite narrow, but has 3 layers. Heroes and non-hero units can move among them freely with usage of different mechanics (from flying, for example, to simply climbing the high ground).
Then a player has two different types of units: heroes (they can level up, gain new abilities, equip artefacts, etc.) and non-hero units. Automatons, which you produce on your base, and invoked units. This gives an opportunity for a player to lose units not painfully as you can craft new automatons instead of destroyed ones.
And, finally, there is elyrium madness track (or inverted mana) in Hidden Pass. All units in this game use elyrium for casting the abilities, and they receive EM points. The more EM you have, the closer death is. But on the other hand, high Elyrium Madness track level means higher damage from all abilities, which makes you stronger. The high risk means high profit.
GG😎😎
Thanks for reading, guys! We hope you found them interesting. We couldn't describe the mechanics deeper as long as it would be too much long🤣 In next articles, we'll focus on one part and will try to write more complete.
If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts, feel free to leave your comments on our Discord or X (ex-Twitter).
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P.S. Don't forget that we're planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign in early 2024, so you can sign up on our Kickstarter page.
