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[Belimoth]

Another mechanic that I didn't mention: some units don't regenerate points automatically, they have to do it manually with an action. So for example the Minotaur unit has a super attack that costs ○△ but the only way to regain that ○ is to use the Prepare action. This means he can only do his super attack every other turn, and he is vulnerable it the meantime.

This is a pretty similar idea to accessories, so I might try to consolidate the two concepts into one. Gonna do a pass on visual feedback for everything and see how it plays out.

My design strategy has been pretty TCG-ish; there are rules and what makes units unique is how they break the rules.

[Belimoth]

Coded in some more units, started working on triggers, and put the ▽○□△ symbols in the font.



The HUD is being drawn at a higher resolution so everything is readable, just a temporary solution.

[eigenbom]

This is my kind of game

[Belimoth]

Glad to hear it! I should have a playable alpha sometime this week, but I said that last week.

New screenshot


Been working on symbols:



Solid shapes are points that regenerate, hollow shapes are points that don't. The lock indicates an accessory.

[Belimoth]

Coded in a bunch of Passive Skills. These are the skills that let some units break the rules, for example the Headless Noble has Inexhaustible which means his turn doesn't end when he spends △. Nifty because it allows him to attack twice per turn, or attack and then retreat.

Another example in the screenshots is the Spearmen who has been given Reach, which allows him to attack enemies that are at a different elevation than him.

Also spent some time cutting the fat from the design. While I liked the idea of spawning units in groups I think the game is better without it, for these reason:

• Control points can be one tile, instead of a 2x2 square or similar = smaller maps.
• I can cut some group-related mechanics that didn't add enough to the gameplay.
• Easier to predict player strategies at the opening/middle/endgame, and balance units accordingly.
• Less units to move around means a faster pace. I had some control ideas that would mitigate this but they were clunky.

I'll have to modify what I had in mind for the economy part of the game so that it still works kinda the same way it did with groups.

I'm going to release an alpha on Thursday whether I think it's done or not. Right now I'm working on help screens so that people can learn the rules without having to read the devlog.

[Belimoth]

Early early early alpha build here.

Controls:

Arrow Keys - Move
Z - Select
X - Cancel
C - Info

Press the Info key when you've selected a unit to see how its skills work.

Press Select on an empty tile to open up the menu.

Flaws:

• Local multiplayer only.
• Fog hiding units was giving me trouble so I disabled it for now.
• Flames don't do damage or dissipate yet, but they can be created and can burn down ladders.
• Triggers are in but not completely. Right now they only trigger if a unit ends its movement on them.
• No economy, units are free and infinite.

Credit to this guy for transcribing and formatting all the help and info text:

I am working on this as well.

[marvinhawkins]

I kinda dig this. I kinda dig this a lot.

[Belimoth]

  Next time there's an IGDA/Indie City Games thing we should have a battle.

Besides fixing the above issues, here's what's next in development:

• Refactoring the multiplayer code. I have a much better idea of what shape this should take than when I coded it in the first place.
• Giving abu a haircut. I built this on my abu framework but that was originally engineered for action games.
• Second pass on control scheme. The control scheme is the oldest part of the code and it hasn't aged well.
• Second pass on ui. I've got some ideas for visual feedback widgets that should make the game much easier to play
• Second pass on fog. It's using the same algorithm for elevated units and the results aren't that great.

Less Boring:

More units! So far there are 12 in the game proper, 10 designed but not in the game, and a handful still on the drawing board.

The plan is to end up with a total in the 30-40 range.

I'm also beginning to think more seriously about what is achievable for single-player.

My first thought was to have three different story arcs, one for each faction (factions? I'll go into more detail about those later). To continue the trend of cutting the features that I love the most, I'm going to boil it down to one arc, with just enough episodes to introduce all the gameplay mechanics and units (which you will unlock along the way).

Procrastination:
Still putting off mac and linux builds. I have no good excuse for this.

Still putting off map-design, not going to start on that until all the mechanics are nailed down.

Still putting off looking for an artist. I like Oryx's sprites a lot but I want to be able to match the graphics to the game, not the other way around.
Plus there are details to be figured out before I involve anyone else. For example how many sprites there will be, how elevation is going to be rendered, and whether or not there will be cutscenes.

Still putting off sound and music. Not really sure what I want yet.



After all the refactoring is done I'm going to start on AI. Wish me luck.

[Belimoth]

P.S. Trello is the best thing ever you guys, I never would have been able to keep everything straight without it.

[oryx]

Cool to see the sprites get used for a tactics game! I love that it looks like an Intellivision game. If you happen to stick with the sprites it might be fun to do some custom art for it.

Now all you need is a world map like this: http://www.tdubel.com/emulaattorit/kuvat/intellivision/pelit/adad.png

[Belimoth]

That would be cool, I'll let you know how it goes.
You can see how I've been improvising with some of the sprites, like using the centaur to represent cavalry.



I've started to code in the economy aspect of the rules because it's low-hanging fruit.
Also I want to be able to playtest it as early as possible.

Economy

Armies:

• Players will build their armies beforehand according to a system I haven't figured out yet.

Spawning:

• Units are spawned at friendly flags.
• A player can spawn one unit per turn for every flag they control.
• Flags cannot spawn, and do not contribute to the total, until the turn after they are captured.

Slots:

• Each unit has a rank, which can be soldier(1), lieutenant(2), or hero(4).
• Each player has a number of slots that are equal to 4 x number of flags they control.
• Each unit on the field consumes slots equal to their rank.

Garrisoning:

• Flags take a total of 4 ranks to capture. So 4 soldiers, 2 lieutenants, 1 hero, or a combination.
• Units contribute to the capture by moving onto the flag and choosing the "garrison" action.
• If the enemy had units garrisoned on that flag, they cease to exist are sent to the bench.
• Units can be un-garrisoned after the flag is captured.

[Belimoth]

Since I'm also starting to map out the single player campaign I'll say a bit, however cryptic, about factions.

Factions
Yellow Faction: Imperial society, direct strategies. Soldiers and cavalry.
Red Faction: Tribal society, alternative strategies. Fire wielders and health-regenerating ents.
Blue Faction: Religious society, advanced strategies. Sneaky and force-multiplying units.

Your army can have units from any faction so it's not like an RTS.



Wooo, page 3!

[Belimoth]

Triggers are working properly, which means things like this can happen:

[Belimoth]

Been making diagrams and trying to iron out the balance issues between the many units and skills.

I originally started with the rock-paper-scissors nucleus of...

• Fencer, uses Feint to bait Ripostes and kill...
  
• Swordsman, counters with Riposte, can step into Triggers to kill...
• Spearman, places Trigger, area control.

... and built off of that until I had a lot of raw material to work with as far as units and skills.

Now I've got that raw material so I can address some of the design issues:

The Fencer's Feint became Disarm and the mechanics of it evolved along with the point/action system, but it's never achieved anything more than being a hard counter to Riposte.

The core idea of the Spearman is that he can't defend himself or be as offensive as some units, but has the ability to defend himself/allies/territory by placing attack triggers on the field.

That's solid, but I could never think of what else to give him so that he has four skills like everyone else. I've tried a few things, the most recent of which was Thrust which was just an attack that skips a space. That was something, but it gave the Spearman a hard counter to Riposte since it's technically a ranged attack. It also raised a lot of questions about how attacks work between elevations for units with <Reach>.

In addition, there are a bunch of ambiguities with Triggers that I didn't see until I was coding them in. What happens if two units have Triggers on the same space? Can they put Triggers on the same space? If they can't, what happens when only one tile has such a conflict for units that put down multiple Triggers in a shape (like the Halberdier that's on the drawing board)? Can units without <Reach> put Triggers on ladders?

Lots of tough decisions to make, here's how far I've gotten:

1. Spearman's Couch puts Triggers on two tiles instead of just one. This resolves some issues with <Reach>, let's me take out Thrust without making <Reach> useless on the Spearman, and allows for some interesting combinations that I'll be making gifs of.



*OH if you have managed to follow along with me this far, Triggers are what I was talking about when I said:

• You don't ever choose a direction for a unit to face, at least not in the traditional way. More on this later.

Because even though units don't have a 'facing' they can still be vulnerable from certain directions if they've committed to only defending one with some sort of Trigger skill.



2. Triggers cost ★ to activate when they are stepped on. This makes them more closely related to Counter skills, gives some more depth to ★s, and allows Triggers to be repeatable without being overpowered.

3. The Fencer's Disarm is now ★Disarm. It can only counter Trigger attacks, but when it does it depletes the attackers ★★★★. This completes the reversal of the original triangle and gives me room to make some more powerful Trigger-related units, such as the Halberdier. Also good because the Fencer was pretty close to being cut in favor of a Swordsman-Spearman-Cavalry triangle.



Sorry I'm not sorry about the wall of text, everything will be in version 0.6 of the alpha.
Give me a week or two.

[Belimoth]

Added a new arrow to show when you've reached the end of a unit's movement range.



Still don't know what else to give the Spearman.

[Belimoth]

Bugs forever.

[Belimoth]

Now shows the arrow indicator when you're aiming an action that involves movement.

[Belimoth]

Had a dream about a battle taking place inside a Hogwarts-style castle with shifting rooms and corridors.
Kinda wish I had scoped the game for that to begin with.

Oh well, save it for the sequel.

[Belimoth]

Possibilities for the Spearman's fourth skill:

a) ★Dodge, ★Block, other counter. Don't really like this option.

b) Kick, a non-attack skill that still gives him the option to push enemies around.

c) Merge with the Hookman, a Spearman-like on the drawing board who can Pull enemies with one of these:



d) Take the Spearman out of the game because of all the grief he has caused me.



I've started working on AI. Instead of trying to build a general AI I'm instead designing individual personalities that are fine-tuned to the kind of army that I'll be giving them in the singleplayer campaign. This has made the whole endeavor a lot easier to handle.

At most I'm going to allow AI players to see two turns ahead.
I'm hoping this will be enough to look convincing and still reward the player for planning things out.

There won't be any AI in 0.6, but there might be in 0.7, maybe?



What's left on the checklist for 0.6:

• Army-building screen.
• More help screens, for example one that shows the controls.
• Rules for flames.
• Rules for combat between elevations.
• Ironing out some inconsistencies with triggers.
• Various interface tweaks.
• A few more units.

And postponed until 0.7+:

• Actual levels and level editor.
• Panning camera, so far I've kept the levels to one screen to avoid having to code this.
• Floaty UI widgets.
• Revisited fog algorithm.
• The more complicated-to-code units and skills, Clairvoyance etc.
• Networked multiplayer.

[Belimoth]

Did a bunch of refactoring, and coded in the rules for combat between elevations.

With <Reach>:


Without <Reach>:


Gifs are dumb.

Units with <Reach> can target things at a different elevation with a 1 tile penalty to range.
Ladders are treated as if they exist at all elevations.