In the last months we have been working on getting the combat system ready for an alpha release. It still needs some work but we expect to release a demo in this half of the year.
In preparation for that, let me show you all the new features developed so far. Take a look:
The first thing you might notice is the green. All that lovely green courtesy of the new grass block. But not all that's green is grass as a slime monster is also wandering the land, next to one of our characters. In turn this little armored girl is looking at the fire spreading downhill.
Interface
Looking at the sides you will notice some interface elements.
The turn information displays the current turn, the current phase of the turn with its remaining time as well as the total number of turns left which is infinite in this case. It will also allow you to end your turn early when clicked.
On the bottom we can see our selected character stats, her hit points, mana, stamina and focus points.
Skills
Some initial skills have been added, like the typical Walk and an Explosion spell with the ability to start fires and break certain blocks.
Notice the Walk skill includes a path finding assist line. While paths will be updated on the server right before the walk action executes, the client side assistant will let you know if reaching a target place is even possible or not.
As to why paths are updated in the server, imagine this, another character explodes part of the land in our path right before you start moving so a new way to the destination has to be found.
Speed and order
All actions in the game have a certain speed which in combination with your own reaction time (how long you take to input actions) will determine the order in which they actually occur.
Movement skills are usually the fastest so as you can see, an slow explosion spell has a high chance to miss the target.
Fire mechanics
We tried to model the fire behavior as closely as possible to what we know from real life while making it compatible with other game mechanics. The result is a fire that burns for a different amount of turns depending on what it is feeding on and with the ability to spread to other blocks according to their own flammability parameters. Additionally, once a block is burnt completely it can be replaced (grass into earth) or just break apart.
Next...
In the following months we will be working on polishing things up to release an alpha demo featuring the combat system and optionally multiplayer support on local server instances (host your own mini server and let your friends join for a dirty quick battle).
Stay tuned and join us on IndieDB and Facebook.
