Prealpha 7 was in development for longer than previous versions of Land of Seylia, primarily because we've been busy coding all sorts of improvements and new features. Here are just a few of the highlights.
First of all, classes have been vastly improved since prealpha 6. In prealpha 6, we added the ability to change classes, and to learn new abilities. This time, we've added a slew of new abilities, and the ability to subclass -- allowing any given unit to use the abilities of two separate classes. Soldiers have received a number of basic melee-combat skills, Archers can shoot more accurately, Herbalists have a number of MP-less buffs and a new status effect or two to use, and Wizards/Mages are even better at blasting large numbers of units. Some fun additions are the Soldier's Counter ability, the Herbalist's Drowsy Herb (basic sleep effect) and Quickling Weed (non-stackable speed boost), and the Mage's new 2-tile-radius AoE spells Mana Explosion (pure damage) and Miasma (poison).
You can get a sense for the size of Miasma in the following picture:
Conveniently, you can also see another of our major improvements in this picture: many added points of user feedback, in this case attack results. All three enemy units were poisoned (a result which is no longer guaranteed!), and the game now tells you this with floating text. Similarly, you can see that the Mage on the left has used Miasma, and spent 12 MP in the process.
Another place where the interface improvements are particularly obvious is in the resource generation phase, on the overworld. Previously, you would be silently given resources, as if they appeared by magic. Well, no longer! Now, you will see the precise number of resources you gain displayed just under the main resource bar, such as a floating "+2" if you gain two units of wood in total. Additionally, each tile that produces a resource every turn will show the basic resource that it produced, as in the following image:
In this case, it should now be abundantly obvious that the pink faction has gained some grain. Lastly, before we go, we wish to highlight another major unit-related improvement: a much-expanded marketplace, and item list. No longer must your soldiers equip themselves with only basic, hand-me-down equipment, thanks to many new items, such as the copper spear and iron helmet showcased here:
And for now, that concludes our tour of prealpha 7. Of course, there are many more features that have been added - the new version will be available shortly, if it's not already, so why not download it and see for yourself?
Future Plans
Now that we've got a richer class system, it should be possible to expand the SRPG side quite a bit. One of the immediate goals, naturally, is to flesh out the class system even further; we've got placeholder graphics ready to go, and will be adding at least a dozen more classes over time. We also plan to make the world a bit richer, with a monster units, more varied ways to acquire items and upgrade your marketplace, and -- obviously -- better AI. Longer-term, we also expect to add a campaign mode, and both network and hotseat multiplayer (although except for hotseat multiplayer, those will definitely not show up next version).
Lastly, we're currently hoping to get a proper artist on-board the team. We're already talking with one promising candidate, which is good. Provided we can locate funding, we may be able to deliver proper graphics, just like in all your favorite sprite-based SRPGs.
