The game was fun but it needs more stuff, both combat and surroundings, otherwise it gets old pretty fast. Civilization might give you some ideas, especially with the unit diversity. Would love to see units like horse carriages and catapults. Also you need to differentiate more between units that are out of turns vs those that still have turns. Maybe an outline or a glow? Something that catches the eye.
For me, the best strategy was about 50/50 split between cheap units and archers. This helps most of the time except of the times when the enemy zerg rushes you with cheap units.
This game has a lot of potential, looking forward to seeing more in the future.
Thank you! I have two more gamemodes planned for the future: One where you have to capture and hold certain hexes to gain points and one where you have to grab some treasure and bring it back home. I don't think I will ever add carriages and catapults, for that would make it feel more like an actual battle between two armies rather than a skirmish between two mercenary warbands. Now, a guy on a horse on the other hand... Or some guy with a mortar that hits far away? That could be included.
I'd like to understand better what you mean with differentiating the units that are out of turns. You mean the ones that can still move some spaces but haven't attacked/used a skill? Or between your unit and the opponent's? Or do you simply mean that greying out used units is not enough of a strong indicator?
I mean the last one, I kept selecting the units I have used in the same turn and tried to tell them to attack without realizing I already used them. If the units are close together, it's kinda hard to tell if they are available or not. May be just my monitor, though.
since you've said you're going to add actual graphics later i won't talk about that
using 3D graphics for backgrounds and 2D for characters is weird but fine, using hexes is weird but fine, the pillars would look better if they were shorter
selecting another unit when you already have a unit selected could be simpler and the buttons are too far away from the actual hex after you click on it, or maybe the problem is that the buttons are too big, the gameplay is very simplistic and just picking lots of cheap units seems to be the best strategy, also i don't know if bushes give cover or a DEF bonus or whatever but it looks like they should
if you just pass the turn without doing anything you're unable to make any moves during your next turn, idk why
i'd try and differentiate units more, all four factions played very similarly, but it was the game i had the most fun playing this demo day so gj
Thank you! I'm glad you had fun! I'm still figuring out how to make the controls more user-friendly, maybe changing the way targeted skills work altogether and making switching characters instantaneous. The way they work now, bushes are simply difficult terrain (takes 2 steps to move onto) which obstruct line of sight (meaning you can't shoot or use certain spells at something behind them, but you can shoot at someone inside). I'll take into consideration giving a defence bonus to units in bushes (maybe just from ranged attacks?) if that doesn't make the game more complex.
Not being able to do anything is a very big and weird problem. Thanks for finding it, I'll make that my priority for now.
The factions are supposed to play very differently, but since right now the low cost units are both the winning strategy for every faction (due to my poor calculations on balance), and don't have many race-exclusive traits (I should have made the basic units the MOST iconic, instead of the other way around).
Anyway, thank you again for your feedback, I cannot express how much I appreciate it!
Game is very cool, can see a lot of potential out of this. I think you could keep adding to it and make a pretty big game if that interests you. A race I would like to see would be skeletons because everyone loves undead. Maybe chuck humans in there too? It'd be really convenient if I could right click on a square or enemy to move/attack (whichever is appropriate) than have to go through the menu each time. Switching between allied units was difficult too as I wanted to select allies that were yet to move and kept on being prompted to 'swap' them instead. Perhaps only make that option available if it is actually viable, as opposed to trying to swap two guys on other side of the map.
Also the best strategy I found which resulted in a 100% success rate against every other race despite the map was playing orcs and just spamming the 15 gold raiders and getting one of the slavers. Every character seems to take around 2 hits to kill from any other character so it became apparent that if I simply had more bodies than the other guy I could charge him in a clump and clean up pretty easily.
Thank you for your extensive reply! You actually read my mind because I will add undead at some point. They will have spooky skeletons that reassemble after getting destroyed, and zombies that bite enemies and turn them into more zombies. Humans will probably follow up aswell but I have not decided a theme for their army yet. I thought of using the right click button on pc, but I'm not sure how to implement it when a character can both shoot, attack in melee or use an ability on an enemy. Do I default to shooting when both attacks are available? Also my end goal is to have the game ported on a tablet, so you can pass it to your friend after you concluded your turn, so no right clicks there. The same problem, as you pointed out, happens when switching characters. In the next update I'll make it so it automatically selects the other character if it's the only option available when clicked, instead of bringing up the menu every time.
As for balance problems, it will require some drastic changes. As you pointed out, spamming low cost units is the best strategy (for every race, not just orcs). I thought I could balance it by adding more abilities (and, in turn, versatility) to high cost units, but that has not been enough (expecially against the AI which, at the moment, isn't smart enough to use skills yet.)
Again, thank you a lot for your input! I hope you had fun!
This was really fun, though I haven't managed to win yet. It's all pretty intuitive, especially with the tutorial. There seemed to be a lot of options, and other than he art style it seemed very polished. Only issue was that I couldn't camera panning to work, but my laptop has a shitty mouse that doesn't like to click and move, so that's probably why. WASD or arrow key panning would be nice though. Good shit, Merfolk best folk
I won a round, I feel so proud. The tutorial was cool and useful.
My only technical problem with the game are the bars that appear when you hit a unit. They look so much like health bars, but they're obviously not, because units keep dying even when their bars are still filled.
Thank you! I'm proud you enjoyed it! Yeah that's a bug I forgot to patch until I already uploaded the build. Basically the green healthbar is scaled horizontally based on the unit's health, but if the total hitpoints go below zero, the scale of the bar also becomes negative and the bar appears still full.
Comments
The game was fun but it needs more stuff, both combat and surroundings, otherwise it gets old pretty fast. Civilization might give you some ideas, especially with the unit diversity. Would love to see units like horse carriages and catapults. Also you need to differentiate more between units that are out of turns vs those that still have turns. Maybe an outline or a glow? Something that catches the eye.
For me, the best strategy was about 50/50 split between cheap units and archers. This helps most of the time except of the times when the enemy zerg rushes you with cheap units.
This game has a lot of potential, looking forward to seeing more in the future.
Thank you! I have two more gamemodes planned for the future: One where you have to capture and hold certain hexes to gain points and one where you have to grab some treasure and bring it back home. I don't think I will ever add carriages and catapults, for that would make it feel more like an actual battle between two armies rather than a skirmish between two mercenary warbands. Now, a guy on a horse on the other hand... Or some guy with a mortar that hits far away? That could be included.
I'd like to understand better what you mean with differentiating the units that are out of turns. You mean the ones that can still move some spaces but haven't attacked/used a skill? Or between your unit and the opponent's? Or do you simply mean that greying out used units is not enough of a strong indicator?
I mean the last one, I kept selecting the units I have used in the same turn and tried to tell them to attack without realizing I already used them. If the units are close together, it's kinda hard to tell if they are available or not. May be just my monitor, though.
since you've said you're going to add actual graphics later i won't talk about that
using 3D graphics for backgrounds and 2D for characters is weird but fine, using hexes is weird but fine, the pillars would look better if they were shorter
selecting another unit when you already have a unit selected could be simpler and the buttons are too far away from the actual hex after you click on it, or maybe the problem is that the buttons are too big, the gameplay is very simplistic and just picking lots of cheap units seems to be the best strategy, also i don't know if bushes give cover or a DEF bonus or whatever but it looks like they should
if you just pass the turn without doing anything you're unable to make any moves during your next turn, idk why
i'd try and differentiate units more, all four factions played very similarly, but it was the game i had the most fun playing this demo day so gj
Thank you! I'm glad you had fun! I'm still figuring out how to make the controls more user-friendly, maybe changing the way targeted skills work altogether and making switching characters instantaneous. The way they work now, bushes are simply difficult terrain (takes 2 steps to move onto) which obstruct line of sight (meaning you can't shoot or use certain spells at something behind them, but you can shoot at someone inside). I'll take into consideration giving a defence bonus to units in bushes (maybe just from ranged attacks?) if that doesn't make the game more complex.
Not being able to do anything is a very big and weird problem. Thanks for finding it, I'll make that my priority for now.
The factions are supposed to play very differently, but since right now the low cost units are both the winning strategy for every faction (due to my poor calculations on balance), and don't have many race-exclusive traits (I should have made the basic units the MOST iconic, instead of the other way around).
Anyway, thank you again for your feedback, I cannot express how much I appreciate it!
Game is very cool, can see a lot of potential out of this. I think you could keep adding to it and make a pretty big game if that interests you. A race I would like to see would be skeletons because everyone loves undead. Maybe chuck humans in there too? It'd be really convenient if I could right click on a square or enemy to move/attack (whichever is appropriate) than have to go through the menu each time. Switching between allied units was difficult too as I wanted to select allies that were yet to move and kept on being prompted to 'swap' them instead. Perhaps only make that option available if it is actually viable, as opposed to trying to swap two guys on other side of the map.
Also the best strategy I found which resulted in a 100% success rate against every other race despite the map was playing orcs and just spamming the 15 gold raiders and getting one of the slavers. Every character seems to take around 2 hits to kill from any other character so it became apparent that if I simply had more bodies than the other guy I could charge him in a clump and clean up pretty easily.
Thank you for your extensive reply! You actually read my mind because I will add undead at some point. They will have spooky skeletons that reassemble after getting destroyed, and zombies that bite enemies and turn them into more zombies. Humans will probably follow up aswell but I have not decided a theme for their army yet. I thought of using the right click button on pc, but I'm not sure how to implement it when a character can both shoot, attack in melee or use an ability on an enemy. Do I default to shooting when both attacks are available? Also my end goal is to have the game ported on a tablet, so you can pass it to your friend after you concluded your turn, so no right clicks there. The same problem, as you pointed out, happens when switching characters. In the next update I'll make it so it automatically selects the other character if it's the only option available when clicked, instead of bringing up the menu every time.
As for balance problems, it will require some drastic changes. As you pointed out, spamming low cost units is the best strategy (for every race, not just orcs). I thought I could balance it by adding more abilities (and, in turn, versatility) to high cost units, but that has not been enough (expecially against the AI which, at the moment, isn't smart enough to use skills yet.)
Again, thank you a lot for your input! I hope you had fun!
This was really fun, though I haven't managed to win yet. It's all pretty intuitive, especially with the tutorial. There seemed to be a lot of options, and other than he art style it seemed very polished. Only issue was that I couldn't camera panning to work, but my laptop has a shitty mouse that doesn't like to click and move, so that's probably why. WASD or arrow key panning would be nice though. Good shit, Merfolk best folk
Thank you! I will add the keyboard panning to the list of stuff to do. Merfolk is best folk indeed.
I won a round, I feel so proud. The tutorial was cool and useful.
My only technical problem with the game are the bars that appear when you hit a unit. They look so much like health bars, but they're obviously not, because units keep dying even when their bars are still filled.
Thank you! I'm proud you enjoyed it! Yeah that's a bug I forgot to patch until I already uploaded the build. Basically the green healthbar is scaled horizontally based on the unit's health, but if the total hitpoints go below zero, the scale of the bar also becomes negative and the bar appears still full.