This update improves the sound design and effects. It introduces a few gameplay enhancements too.
Improved design for sound effects.
Added 75+ new sound effects for game units and events.
Rebalanced volume for all sound effects.
Implemented automatic leader respawning 30 seconds after death.
Decreased first chaos level to 4 minutes so invaders spawn sooner.
Added a game message for avatar ability upgrade.
Updated icons for guardian upgrade and buff.
Fixed check for determining when a campaign game has ended (won or lost).
Updated some help info.
Various fixes.
Next up, I will make a new game trailer because the current one is 4+ years old. It is missing a lot of new artwork, sound effects, and gameplay features. I'm going to update the Store page and screenshots as well.
After that, I will make a lot of improvements to the computer AI to make it even more challenging. In particular, I need to add logic for capturing rifts since they are so important now. Currently, the computer AI only captures rifts if they are along the path to fortresses, which puts it at a disadvantage. I will change that by the next update.
Finally, I will be participating in Steam Next Fest, which is coming-up soon. I'm planning to do my first livestream, so check back for those details within the next week or two. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this update!
Campaign game, major gameplay improvements, new visual effects!
Pursuit of Power 2 now has the start of the campaign game in the full version. The first board has been completed, along with objectives that create a simple tutorial. I will continue working on the campaign boards over the next 2 months.
In addition, I have made some major updates to the gameplay and visual effects. Here are some highlights:
Heal all player units at end of a chaos surge.
Stealth can now only become active again during a chaos surge.
Updated rift and combat effect animations.
Leader abilities now hit a larger area and limit number of targets, starting from center of ability target.
Leader abilities only trigger if there is at least 1 valid target for the ability.
Improved design for avatar abilities, where level bonus is tied to the avatar ability itself.
Avatar ability for casting decreases cooldowns for leader abilities per counter and increases the number of max targets each level.
Avatar ability for damage decreases rate of losing rage per counter and increases damage for leader abilities and the leader troop each level.
Avatar ability for invaders increases damage of structures versus invaders per counter and increases damage of troops versus invaders each level.
Avatar ability for divine increases banner effects (power, prestige, damage, rage) per counter and protects 1 zealot from being destroyed each level.
Improved design for visual effects and added many new ones for unit abilities.
Implemented enthralled immobilization effect, which makes troop attack all other entities.
Implemented Harm Touch which halves health of troop.
Improved computer AI so it uses all available leader abilities.
I also overhauled the leader abilities, along with many troop abilities. They should now be more closely tied to the leader class. There are some innate bonuses for those leader classes too. For example, the Mage has +2 target bonus for its leader abilities. I will go over all of the new abilities and effects in a future update.
I'm currently working hard on finishing the gameplay features, so I can begin testing with a larger group. I'm continuing to polish the Demo in anticipation of Steam Next Fest, where more players will hopefully find Pursuit of Power 2. Finally, the planned release is around the end of August, which is only 3 months away. The updates will come more frequently now, so please keep checking!
Pursuit of Power 2 updated to version 2.1.1.8 on February 15th, 2022!
Multiplayer is now fully working in Pursuit of Power 2, which gets the game another step closer to release. There are also a lot of game improvements and fixes in this update.
* Multiplayer is now working without any known issues. * Entire board is now visible during Apocalypse phase. * Leader must exist for avatar abilities to have any effect. * Made all troops and invaders move slightly faster. * Reduced tower mitigation versus troops from 50% to 25%. * Increased rate of rage for troops that are immobilized, so effect breaks faster. * Banner zealots no longer attack when at tier 0. * Stop projectiles from rifts and fortifications when they can no longer attack. * Fixed rift and fortification attack targets in saved games. * Optimized zealot data for saved games. * Fixed guardian portal for the fortifications, which now also go up to tier 4. * Fixed false attack signal for rifts after they are captured. * Stop voice effects after exiting current game.
Pursuit of Power 2 updated to version 2.1.1.7 on February 5th, 2022!
This major update includes many new gameplay features, improvements, additional artwork, and bug fixes. There are too many changes to list them all, but here are a few of the highlights:
Finished the design and implementation of chaos levels.
Updated chaos level display to indicate progress within a phase.
Finished the design and implementation of avatar abilities.
Finished the initial pass for leader abilities that are upgraded by avatar abilities.
Finished the initial pass for balancing the prestige resource generation and costs.
Finished basic AI for computer player to upgrade avatar abilities.
Rebalanced all player units as well as invaders.
Added skeleton and zombie invader troops along with new artwork.
Automatically send zealots to nearest magic source or ally fortress when portal is summoned over a magic source.
The gameplay is now much closer to how I envisioned it. The leader abilities are still a work in progress since I want to make them more specific to the leader classes. However, the structure of upgrades and overall concept are in good shape. Since so much has changed since the last update, I will explain some of the new gameplay in greater detail.
[Chaos levels and phases]
4-overall phases (gathering, rifts active with increasing invaders, invaders start reverting, apocalypse).
Mini-waves during each chaos level (skeleton, zombie, slime, and random player troop types during apocalypse).
All player units are partially healed at end of chaos levels, with more heal for higher tiers.
Gathering (chaos level 0) lasts 5 minutes and leaders can summon fortresses over magic crystals during this time.
All other chaos levels are 90 seconds each to provide constant action.
Rifts become active at CL 1 and invaders increase until CL 8.
Players start losing control of invaders starting at CL 9, with the time of control decreasing until CL 16.
At CL 17, the final apocalypse phase beings, where unprotected fortresses are destroyed permanently, and fortification repairs are increasingly disrupted.
During apocalypse, invader troops do extra damage per chaos level to help bring the game to a conclusion.
Display chaos level in color that matches phase (green, yellow, orange, or red) along with a progress bar for current phase.
[Avatar abilities]
All 4 avatar abilities can be upgraded to 15 counters, where every 5 counters is a level for associated leader ability.
Implemented the counter upgrades (leader ability recast, structure damage, rage rate reduction, zealot banner effect) for all avatar abilities.
Lower leader ability recast makes leader abilities refresh faster as well as the global action timer, which means players can use more leader abilities during combat.
Increased structure damage applies to fortress fortifications, rifts, and towers (player units), enabling them to do more damage.
Rate of rage reduction means that troops hold on to rage longer, which increases troop damage, allows leader abilities to utilize rage more, and increases heal amount at the end of chaos levels.
Zealot banner effect gains more resources for players, and does more damage when enemies hit by its effect.
Each avatar ability is also associated with a leader ability, where a level is gained every 5 counters, which adds effects to the leader ability (design still in progress).
The zealot protection upgrade is not tied directly to its leader ability's effect yet, but it is very powerful. Structures can now kill multiple zealots per hit, depending on tier of the structure. The protection upgrade offsets that greater destruction and can even make zealots immune to some structures (rifts, T1 towers, and fortress that have not been upgraded to "guardian" in order to boost tier to level 4). T2 towers have an innate +1 tier bonus, which means they can always break zealot lines at max level tier 4 versus max 3-zealot protection of leader ability at level 3.
[Player unit and invader balancing]
Tier 2 towers mitigate extra damage versus main troops and gain prestige for number of zealots killed.
Fighter troops mitigate extra damage versus other troops.
Ranged troops do more damage versus other troops, especially invaders.
Siege troops mitigate extra damage versus other structures and inflict more damage versus towers, and especially rifts.
Invaders do more damage versus other invaders, fortifications, and especially portals.
Fixed issues with reflective/reactive damage that should not kill target entity.
I hope you enjoy the changes. I would love to hear all feedback. Thanks!
Version 2.1.1.5 (gameplay changes for chaos levels and more!)
Updated to version 2.1.1.5 on November 24th, 2018.
Chaos levels now trigger every 2 minutes after the initial level
When players capture a rift, they now own those invaders!
Invaders are always Toxic Slimes until the Apocalypse phase, when they change to troop types of players (1 slime replaced each new chaos level)
Slimes can attack zealots when they are within range (so protect your zealot lines!)
Invaders are destroyed at the end of each chaos level (watch out for exploding slimes!)
Zealot connections pulse more progress as portals gain tiers
Upgrading fortresses requires more pulses to compensate (puts additional emphasis on connections)
Apocalpyse phase negates 1 progress pulse per level (makes it harder to rebuild so the game will come to a decisive end)
All structures now have a summoning time before they become active
New troop artwork for Venomblood Conquerors and Toxic Slimes
Path-finding can use up to 4 processor cores after improvements to code
This update focuses on the chaos levels, rifts, and invaders. It sets up the main gameplay loop and helps prepare for the remaining changes. The next update will focus on tweaking power and prestige to smooth them out.
Then the leader abilities will get a major overhaul to fit within the improved game structure. For example, Shadow Knights will gain an ability that can destroy invaders and raise them from the dead into skeletons. Those skeleton troops can be controlled until the end of the chaos level, when they will be destroyed like the other invaders.
There will be lots of cool mechanics added for each leader class. I have some different ideas that I'm excited to implement too. I'll go over that stuff after I get these next changes into the game. Expect updates each month until the game is released during 2019. Please feel free to ask any questions!
Version 2.1.1.4 (talking eyeball, map icons, and more!)
Updated to version 2.1.1.4 on February 8, 2018.
Added new Avatar animation that is a blinking dragon's eye
Added placeholder voice-over for an initial set of game events
Made many improvements to the game map, including the ability to resize the map up to 256x256 and new icons that give status for game events
Added the new Werewolf troop animation
Game now supports from 720p up to 4k display resolutions
Various bug fixes and gameplay improvements
The Avatar is now present within the game and will telepathically speak with you to provide situational awareness. The eyeball will become animated while speaking with you and the eyelid blinks in a random pattern.
The voice-over tracks are just placeholders until I can have them created by a professional. I plan to have many different game events with voice-over and several variations where it makes sense. That will help to reduce repetitiveness. I also have different limiters for each voice event to prevent spamming them.
Some of those events are tied into the game map now. For example, fortresses and rifts will signal attacks by blinking their new map icons. The voice-over is triggered when the attack happens for a certain amount of time off-screen and limited by a global threshold. Leaders are circles that always blink to help find them on the map. All zealot banners are displayed as icons and their paths are shown too. That really improves the situational awareness for attacks.
The map can be resized from 128x128 to 256x256. The map will automatically scale according to the game resolution the first time the game loads for this update. Afterwards, you can re-size like any of the dialog windows, by pressing the lock icon and dragging a side or corner. The new dimensions and position will be saved when the game exits.
Upcoming changes I am now going to re-design the rifts, Avatar abilities, elite troops, and chaos levels. Players will be able to select up to 4 different epic rift types to summon over a captured basic rift. That epic rift will boost a specific Avatar ability and allow the player to summon a specific elite troop.
The Avatar abilities will become buffs that are active for a set amount of time during a chaos level. There will still be 4 of them and the buff order will randomize every chaos level. The idea is that players will have windows of opportunity to use certain abilities that are boosted by that active Avatar buff.
In addition, every epic rift unlocks a new buff for that specific Avatar ability. That means you can essentially choose an upgrade path similar to a character "build" in an RPG. I plan to make each unlocked Avatar level unique, fun, and increasingly powerful! I want to really do a lot with this idea and emphasize the god-like abilities.
Chaos levels will all be the same amount of time and much quicker, most likely 3-4 minutes. I will tweak the pace of invaders and eliminate the evicting each chaos level, so players can keep rifts for the upgrades. I will then start evicting slowly when the Apocalypse phase begins, so the game still has that intense pace towards the end.
I will have a lot more to share as I make progress with these changes. I'm hoping to have most of them done by the end of March. I will try to post incremental updates on the Steam forums. Please feel free to ask me any questions. Thanks for reading! :)
Version 2.1.1.3 (epic rifts)
Updated to version 2.1.1.3 on October 12, 2017.
Normal rifts respawn as epic rifts during next chaos level
New rifts no longer spawn until next chaos level (stops invaders for that targeted fortress when its associated rift is destroyed)
Toxic Slime spawns from epic rift (placeholder artwork)
Fixed a few bugs for loading game when a rift has been destroyed
The first epic rift is now in game and it spawns the Toxic Slime. It has a Toxic Affliction ability that causes maximum debuffs for all troops in the area. If any troops are debuffed, the damage is doubled. Also, it explodes when it dies, causing massive damage around it.
Shadow Knights can use the leader ability Blessing of Hate to convert each debuff to rage. In addition, Despair can be cast on the Toxic Slime before it explodes in order to prevent that massive damage.
If the Toxic Slime is able to hit the portal, it will disrupt the progress timers for the fortress. That will make it much more vulnerable to being destroyed since the fortifications won't be able to rebuild when destroyed. All epic creatures will most likely have that disrupt ability.
Eventually, there will be multiple epic rifts with unique mechanics. Right now they just hit for double the damage of normal rifts and spawn epic creatures. I'm also going to focus on interesting ways for players to counter the challenges of those epic rifts and creatures.
In addition, I plan to create some more fun mechanics involving the zealot lines. Those new features will probably be tied to fortress upgrades and they will help players conquer opposing fortresses. I'm especially looking forward to adding the flying dragons that will travel along the zealot paths, wreaking havoc below.
Finally, in the near future I will explain in detail what I envision for the game when it is complete. That includes the talking Avatar, player abilities, tactical decisions, pace of the game, campaign, and much more. I hope some of those ideas will interest you! Thanks for playing :)
Kickstarter launched on Oct 3rd, 2017!
The Kickstarter campaign is now live. You can find it at:
The current and future gameplay concepts are explained in detail. There are a few new GIF videos too.
You can play the Demo for the Beta 1 milestone right here on Steam. If you enjoy playing it, you can get a Beta Steam key on Kickstarter. That will give you access to the game several months before it is released (and at a discount).
I would love to hear your feedback so Pursuit of Power 2 : The Chaos Dimension can reach its full potential. Thanks for your support! :)
Demo released for Beta 1 Milestone!
The Beta Demo for Pursuit of Power 2 : The Chaos Dimension was released on September 29th, 2017.
The demo places you in a skirmish game as a Shadow Knight versus another SK computer player at normal difficulty. The features are limited in order to simplify things, which is important since the campaign tutorial has not been implemented yet. You will definitely want to read the "help tips" image and it would be good to read the extended help window too.
Pursuit of Power® 2 will not be finished until around August 2018, so this is really just an early preview of it. There are some important gameplay features missing that will add a lot of depth to the game. Over the next few months, I will add an upgrade path for your leader, multiple fortress upgrades, epic bosses that spawn from special rifts, powerful zealot abilities, flying guardians, and more. The current version of the game should give a good idea of how it will play, but the final version will contain much more depth and have a lot more polish too.
Kickstarter campaign has been launched!
The Kickstarter campaign has been launched for Pursuit of Power 2 on January 31, 2017. Here is the link:
