Happy to announce this update as it brings some much needed features to the card library. Manastorm now has a concept of card packs that will be unlocked throughout game play.
The new card pack contains specialty cards. These are cards that can do things conditionally based on what's on the battle field. It also contains some new minions.
Putting the groundwork in for these specialty cards will make adding the backlog of new cards a lot easier and will allow me to spend time focusing on Multiplayer and then Deck Building.
Specialty Cards:
- Mage's Intellect - Draw 2 Cards
- Fire Storm - Deal 2 Damage to all enemy minions
- Spiritual Light - Restore 2 health to the player
- Orc Warrior - Gain +1/+1 for each other friendly minion on the battle field
Minions:
- Crawler - 2/2 for 3 mana
- Mountain Dragon - 7/8 for 9 mana
I've also added a card deck in game which has a UI element to tell you how many cards are in your deck. The cards now spawn from this deck instead of appearing out of thin air.
Until deck building is finished the game currently shuffles 2 of each card in the library into your deck. You also get a free card on the first turn.
There has been some bug fixes and some improvements to the interactions. Fewer things such as paper scroll will collide with the cards making life a little easier.
The card text has been updated to be easier to read.
Miniature minions in the mountain tower can be picked up.. for fun.
Thanks everyone for your patience getting this first feature update out since launch. I'm now working on the second update and it will not take as long as the first to release.
You can see the progress of the card library in this google sheet. I've reached out to the card game builders guild on facebook and some of the people on there have been helping me define new cards.
P.S. I put together two videos of the game with commentary if you are interested in maybe learning a bit more about what I think of the game and its direction. I did these videos for a submission to IndieCade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtiWta5HVig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tqibpuw1mc&t=12s
500 Early Access Copies Sold!
I'm thrilled to announce that Manastorm has been purchased by more than 500 early access supporters. Thanks to you all, this really exceeded my expectations.
My hope was that if I hit 100 copies in the first month after launch I would be in good shape to work with the community to build out the game. So this is just awesome.
Because of the generous support of all the early access supporters, I'll be receiving some funds that I can invest back into assets for the game. You can see by the teaser image above that I'm experimenting with new 3D models for minions in the game. I'm happy because I'm going to be able to purchase some that have been sitting on my wish list.
Please check out the game's discussion forum on Steam for more details and updates.
Here's to a great start to 2017, the year of G'nar!
We are now live! with a special bonus.
Hey everyone I'm really happy to say that our game is now up for sale and I was able to sneak in a little bonus I've been working on over the weekend.
Rather than dropping the player right into battle with the current state of the game (Player vs AI) I wanted to make a cozy little home base for the player to live in the land of G'nar.
The home base is to serve three purposes.
1) discover and use the current and upcoming features of the game (quick battle, multiplayer, deck builder and crafting table)
2) A safe place for me to experiment with new things (check out the feather quill pen WIP).
3) To purely play on fantasy and my imagination. For some reason I always wanted to be a wizard where I lived in a small stone tower on a mountain top. Reachable only by the most determined and by flying creatures.
It's a small place to live, quiet, solitary. The outside rainstorm gives you a sense that you are comfortable and safe inside your home atop the mountain.
It's a place to explore technique, spend time crafting potions and building card decks.
There is a portal that you can open to magically take you to other places in G'nar. Currently this portal only takes you into the Quick Battle.
I'm really happy with the look and feel so far. I especially like the three open windows used with the bow and arrow. I'm thinking about adding a bow and arrow mini game where you can defend your home from flying creatures. Perhaps playing this game gives you some sort of benefit such as dropped items that you can use in crafting.
I am a fan of games that offer different types of game play in different spots of the game. A balance and choice between fast paced action and a more relaxed, idle, casual play.
It might sound weird but sometimes I want to spend my time in a particular game's world without necessarily having to play a 'full attention required' game. I just want to chill and enjoy the scenery.
I've seen this in a number of games in the past but fallout 4's home base comes to mind. Maybe I dont want to do a quest right now, give me something to do while I hang back at home.
I'm open to ideas about what to do in this home base. I hope you like it.
Deck Building and Multiplayer
Anticipating our official launch on January 3rd for Early Access, I'm pleased to announce that as of yesterday we've begun development for a deck building system and multiplayer.
I can't give any timelines on this yet as it's very (very) preliminary, but we did a really quick prototype of both, and we accomplished some good fundamentals.
Additionally I'm considering to offer both a VR and non-VR experience for deck building. I think it might be important because a lot of time can be spent on sorting and building out a 30 card deck from the available library. This isn't something that everyone is going to want to do in VR. I would like to accommodate for this.
I plan to make a cool looking room to do this in VR. Kind of like your home-base of the game. But I also want a regular point and click style method for this.
Ending on a blatant publicity pitch, supporting this game when it hits early access will give us some funds to be able to build out the card library. So if you're excited for a CCG that is meant for VR please support us!
Doing it live!
Happy to say we are launching the game January 3rd. We're really excited to see what you think of Manastorm.
Some new features are in the works over the holiday break. Expect to see some exciting updates shortly after launch.
It's come a long way from where it was back in October and so much more is still to come. 2017, the year of G'nar!
