This month, I'm here to talk about the heart of the resistance. The resistance fighters! They are the player's most important pieces as controlling them is the main way the player interacts with the tactical layer. But before we get to that, let's start with some eye candy! Northern region
The northern region map generation has been completed. In the upcoming demo, the temperate and the northern region will be accessible for missions. A few examples of how it looks:
Recruiting units
The resistance can recruit new units in the recruitment tab for gold. The available recruits will be cycled monthly, and the amount of them depends on the resistance monthly soldiers tab (top left on the next picture).
Not all soldiers are created equally. There are positive and negative traits a soldier can have, and that can affect their various statistics. Building training facilities in the resistance bases can improve the monthly soldier rate, giving the player a bigger pool of units to choose from, plus every facility increases the freshly recruited soldier level by one.
Leveling up
All soldiers at level one will start with access to 1 skill slot and will gain one every level up till they reach the max skill slot number of 6. The skills will be freely swappable at any time outside combat. There are no classes so every soldier will be able to access any skill the resistance has access to, leading to a high amount of possible skill combinations. There are 2 restrictions though:
Every skill belongs to an attribute, for example, sword-wielding. On any unit skill bar, there can be skills from 3 different attributes.
There are very powerful elite skills, which have a golden border. Every unit skill bar can only have 1 elite skill.
Besides getting access to more skills, the level-up increases a unit's melee attack and melee defense of a unit by 5, making them more consistent.
Experience is earned on the battlefield. The amount of experience earned will depend on the invader's unit amount and level, plus there will be a bonus if the mission has been successful.
How to learn new skills
The resistance has access to different attributes depending on their bases location. Every region has attributes that belong to that region. If the resistance wants to use skills of that attribute, they will need to build a base in a region that has that attribute. In practice, that means the player will going to have to consider this aspect as well when choosing base locations. Choosing one can mean losing access to another.
Research has a big impact on the availability of skills as well. There are 3 levels of understanding for a given attribute. Researching a higher level will unlock stronger skills belonging to a given attribute. Neglecting research will lead to slower skill accumulation.
The plan is to have 11 attributes in the game, 5 for the weapons, 3 non-magical, and 3 for magical late-game attributes with at-least 6 skills each. This should provide plenty of combinations for replayability.
Closing thoughts
So that's it for today's devlog! Some general information is that we are getting very close to our new demo. It is nearly feature complete, it just needs a bit more time for polish and general bug fixing. If you want to be among the first to know about its release, feel free to join our discord here.
Devlog #23 Combat changes
Hello everyone!
This month, I'm here to talk about how the combat layer has changed since our previous demo! Let's get to it!
Connection to the campaign layer
To recap, check out what a mission briefing looks like when the enemy army tries to accomplish its mission.
The important part for this devlog is the Resistance mission part and the magic dust rewards at the bottom. The resistance mission shows what kind of mission the resistance will have to conduct to foil the army. These will be randomly generated except for special situations like base defense. For now, we have implemented two types. Ambush, in which the goal is to clear the area of enemies, and escort, where a VIP will be needed to be escorted to a designated location. But we plan to add more types of missions.
Another big change in the design of these missions is that we have removed the unlimited reinforcements. This came from a design philosophy change. I wanted to move away from hard timers which punish players if they are too slow. I still want to make the player take risks, but I wanted to rather reward players if they do. And here comes the magic dust into the equation.
In the campaign layer, there are basically 2 main resources. Gold, which is gained by the resistance's current status in the campaign layer, and magic dust, which will be earned by performance in the combat layer. A combat mission can end in three ways:
The player couldn't archive the objective. In this case, the enemy army mission goes through, and the resistance does not receive any magic dust.
The player archives the objective but failed to meet the time limit. In this case, the enemy army mission has been countered, and the player receives the normal magic dust reward.
The player archives the objective, and inside the time limit. In this case, the enemy army mission has been countered, and the player receives an increased amount of magic dust.
General combat changes
The general combat has received some changes as well. To recap, originally we had a system very similar to the new XCOM-s with 2 activations, where the most "meaningful" actions will end your turn, like attacking. In addition, we have a stamina system that is being used by the unit's activatable skills.
The biggest change we have made is that no skill will end your turn. This means for example if you have an enemy unit adjacent to your active unit, that unit can attack twice if it wants to! But to make it more interesting, and not a no-brainer choice, every attack after the first will have a quite big multiple-attack penalty to the hit chance. This means that attacking twice will always be a strong option, but other non-attack skills can still make sense for a second action as they don't get the attack penalty.
The movement has received some changes as well. Namely, attack of opportunity became a passive skill rather than being always active by default. Instead, leaving a tile that is inside the enemy zone of control will cost 2 instead of one. This change makes maneuvering stronger by default, but it is a necessary change so that the movement action can compete with the sheer value of a second attack.
The way stamina is used has been fundamentally changed as well. Now, every time a unit uses its second action, that costs 1 stamina. If they don't have enough stamina they can't use their second action. This makes stamina an integral part of the system, rather than just the fuel for skills (though it retained this function as well). It gives a nice dilemma to the player when you have an exhausted unit to use its one possible action point or skip the turn to rest and regain stamina.
Ranged combat
Another big feature is the return of ranged combat! We have implemented both bows and crossbows. Regions with the marksman attribute will unlock them for the resistance. They share the marksman skills between them, but they have some pretty big fundamental differences.
The bow does rather low damage but is able to shoot twice. This means that it is very deadly against badly armored targets, but armor is very effective in reducing its damage.
The crossbow has an accuracy bonus and does moderate damage with armor piercing. But there is a big catch! After every shot, it will be needed to be reloaded. So while its damage is more consistent, especially against armored opponents, the max potential damage per round is lower.
The calculation of hit chance is a bit different for ranged attacks as well. Instead of using the target defense statistic, it will use the double of the distance between the attacker and the target. And there is no flanking hit chance bonus in case of a ranged attack, though it will still ignore shields in this case. There is a possibility to obstruct a shot if there is an obstacle or another unit right next to the target.
The best defense against ranged attack is not being in the line of sight, or if that fails shields and armor. The max range by default is double the sight range of the unit, so other units can spot for the ranged attacker.
Closing thoughts
On an unrelated note, the heavy armor the resistance is using has been reworked:
So that's it for today's devlog! As always, if you like what you see and want to show your support, the best way to do that right now is to join our Discord here. Otherwise, see you next time!
Devlog #22 Base evacuation
Hello everyone!
This month, we have done a lot of work on a new mission type, called base evacuation! In this mission type, the resistance will need to hold up the invaders long enough for the evacuation. Let's see how it works in detail.
Campaign side
A quick reminder of how rebel bases work. Every region has multiple territories, and the resistance can have one secret base per region, in one of the territories. If at any point the territory with the base loses all loyalty to the resistance, the rebel base will be exposed, and the base will be attacked by the army that caused the loyalty loss. So managing the loyalty of territories with a rebel base will be very important if the player wants to avoid this kind of mission.
In case there are other valid territories for the resistance base in this region (so territories with non-zero loyalty), then the base evacuation mission will trigger. How much of the base will be evacuated will depend on the performance of the player on the mission. On a failed mission, or if there are no valid territories to evacuate the base is automatically destroyed.
Combat side
The combat map will be generated using the rooms that have been built in the campaign layer for the base. A reminder of how it looks in the campaign layer:
Every buildable room has a combat map equivalent. Few examples of parts of the different rooms:
The mission itself will be the inverse of what the resistance is used to. The mission starts with the resistance units semi-randomly placed around in the base, with the enemy's first wave teleporting in. The player will have 1 round to try and make the best of the given situation, but depending on the circumstance, it can be a very tough fight!
The player units can retreat at any point like in a normal mission, but the objective is to defeat 3 waves of enemies. The end result depends on how many waves have been defeated. In case of 1, the base will be evacuated, but the rooms are lost. In case of 2, a random 2 rooms have been evacuated as well, and in case of 3, the full base has been successfully evacuated.
Closing thoughts
Unrelated, but a piece of very good news is that we have found a great composer who did a great job creating custom-made music for the game. Thanks to this, we will have control over the copyrights of these tracks, so there won't be any issue for content creators who will want to create videos about our new demo! While you will need to wait for the demo to check out the tracks themselves, but the composer has a Youtube page with great tracks if you are curious about what to expect here.
So that's it for today's devlog! As always, if you like what you see and want to show your support, the best way to do that right now is to join our Discord here. Otherwise, see you next time!
Removal of the demo and plans for a new playtest.
Hello everyone!
I thought it would be a good idea to talk a bit about our plans for the start of this year! We have a good and a bad new.
The bad news is that we will remove the demo from the store on Jan 30. I hope everyone who was interested in it has already tried it out in the 3 months it has been available so far. The reason for the removal is that we feel it doesn't really represent the current state of the game anymore. But we don't want to backport every change that has been made since then into this demo.
Now onto the good news! We are planning to release a new demo in spring with both the campaign layer and the combat layer, so for the first time, you will be able to try out the whole experience together! It is a very exciting moment for us, seeing all the systems in action together, and getting it into the hands of the players.
But learning from the previous demo, we would want to present a more polished version to the public, and for that, we will need your help. Considering the number of systems interacting in the game, it is just pretty much impossible for the two of us to find every bug. So we plan to have a closed beta test for this demo, which will be accessible from our Discord. I will make another announcement when we are ready to start this closed beta but if you would be interested, you can already join our Discord here.
Devlog #21 Adding details to the combat map
Hello everyone!
I hope you had a great holiday season and let me welcome you to this year's first devlog about Slaves of Magic! I think we start this year with a bang, as we have completed the first finished tileset for the game.
Changes since the demo
People who have taken a closer look at the game's campaign map could notice, that generally, it has 4 regions. Every region will have its own tileset and the ones you will see in the pictures are based on a temperate climate with medieval European architecture.
In the picture, you can see the reworked temple. It received a lot more details all around, plus as you can see we have added light emitting wall torches as well, rather than the old standing ones.
But that is not the only change for the temple! We have added some environmental storytelling as well. These temples are repurposed by the invaders as a base of operation, as they masquerade as the returned gods. They have erected new statuses to their image, as they try to destroy and replace all kinds of depictions of the old gods.
You can find some quite worrisome sights if you take a look into the priest's private room. You can only guess what kind of experiments they are conducting in secret! In addition, you can see that the lighting system has been reworked to support multiple colors of light as well.
But of course, that is just one of the many hand-made tilesets that have been created for this region. While I want to leave some for you to explore in the game, I want to show you one additional smaller tileset, which has some interesting new features as well.
As you can see, we have added support for the visual representation of damage to the environment. You will be able to find ruined houses like this one by default, but this was done in preparation to support environmental destruction so that combat can destroy houses as well! We just need to actually add skills that destroy walls and obstacles!
Closing thoughts
So that's it for today's devlog! As always, if you like what you see and want to show your support, the best way to do that right now is to join our Discord here. Otherwise, see you next time!
Devlog #20 Polishing the Campaign
Hello everyone! This year's last devlog is about presenting our new reworked artwork for the campaign map, plus other gameplay changes related to it.
Campaign art rework
Let's start with the flashy bit! Every asset on the map has been reworked, and their size and positions adjusted. Take a look at a few examples of how it looks.
Typical month
But not only the art change but the gameplay as well. In our previous devlog we talked about bases, and how they function, so if you are interested in that I advise you to check that out! Today we will talk about the invaders, what are their goals, and how they want to archive them. When the player clicks on their holy city, they will see an intelligence report which shows some vital information about their general resources.
You can see 3 important values:
The first is their supply level. Its level will affect the number of units on missions, plus they can use it to activate stronger missions for their armies (like building a new base).
The second is their research level and progress. When they reach a new level new they will receive new stronger units.
And third is how dangerous they think the resistance is to them. While this doesn't have any immediate impact it does affect AI decision-making.
At the start of every month, the AI assigns missions for the armies, taking into account these 3 values. For example when the resistance is deemed not dangerous, they will more likely to choose high-risk high reward missions, while they choose a more slow and steady approach if the resistance put up a fight. There is a bit of randomization added to the choosing and assigning of missions so that the player can't accurately predict the exact missions.
But what are these missions? There are 3 common missions:
The first is tax collection. If the army succeeds in it, the invaders will gain supply, and the region's loyalty value will be reduced by 1. How much supply will be gained depends on the region's loyalty value at the start of the mission. Generally speaking, they will receive a high amount at 4-5 loyalty, medium at 1-3, and low at 0.
The second is abduction. This mission is nearly identical to tax collection but instead of gaining supply, the invaders gain research progress.
And the third is a crackdown. This mission does not provide any resources to the invaders if successful but will reduce the territory loyalty by 3.
There are other missions as well but those cost extra supply to conduct. One such mission is to build a new forward base:
This mission can't be countered by the player and will build a new forward base for the invaders in a region which does not have one already. Besides in the first month, this can only be played on a territory that has 0 loyalty. An enemy forward base will provide extra supply and research progress for the invaders at the start of every month, and makes countering missions in that region harder. Later in the game, the resistance can learn how to destroy these, but till then, they will pose a big problem.
Throughout the month, these armies will conduct their given mission at a randomized time. When they start their mission, the player will be presented with a screen like this:
There is an important part, namely the enemy amount. The quality of the units on a mission will be defined by the army size, but the amount will depend on this value. You will get a summary of what modified this value, but in general, it depends on the enemy supply level, if there is a resistance/invader base in the region and the current loyalty value of the region.
Closing thoughts
So, that's it for today's devlog! As always, if you like what you see and want to show your support feel free to join our Discord here. Otherwise, I wish you a great holiday season, and see you next year!
Slaves of Magic demo gameplay and interview
A recording of an interview with the developer plus let's play of the demo with kormakrtv.
Devlog #19 Breaking the base
Hello everyone! We had our hands full with the release of the demo at TactiCon and we had to blow off a bit of steam after that. But we are back now with a new devlog about the resistance base -or more accurately- bases!
The old ways
Before I go into how it was changed, a quick recap of how it worked previously. It was pretty much identical to how XCOM 2 did its base. It was set up like an ant farm underground, and every level had 4 slots for rooms. Like so:
Now that is okay, after all, it worked for XCOM as well. But to me, it doesn't feel like the player has too many decisions to make here. Mostly it's just the order in which the player builds stuff. In addition, I had another problem, namely that I wanted the player to care about the different territories a bit more in the campaign map.
Then a solution dawned on me that could solve both of these problems. What if I break up the bases into smaller ones, and place them inside territories on the maps? This creates bases that need to be protected, leading to certain territories beings more important than others. Plus I can make bases more unique depending on which region they reside in.
What can a base do for you?
Every base built will provide the region base resources, by simply existing. These are smiths, scholars, soldiers per month, and gold per month. Smiths provides equipment points that govern how much equipment can you bring into a combat mission, scientists speed up research and skill acquisition, soldiers per month governs how many new recruits you have at the start of the month, and gold per month is well, the gold you receive per month.
The base rate for these resources is different for the 6 regions on the map so that itself differentiates the bases. But that is not all! Every region has attributes(reminder, every skill belongs to an attribute) that belong to them, and the player will only have access to those in which they have a base in. So for example, if you want to use swords, you will need to have a base in a region that is known for sword-wielding. That means the choice of the base location is not only determines your income but your available and researchable skills and equipment!
Anatomy of a base
The base itself is a tavern that acts as a front for the secret base below. Every base will have 4 slots to build into. At the beginning of the game, you will have four buildings you can build, corresponding to the 4 resources a base can provide. A black market for gold, a laboratory for scholars, a smithy for smiths, and a training center for soldiers. In addition, if you research one of the early techs you will unlock the scrying room, which will add scrying charges for your planning phase in combat.
What is important to note here is that income these buildings provides are not flat but dependent on the base value of the region. So for example building a laboratory is more beneficial in a region naturally high in scholars.
How to lose them
Now I have deliberately avoided what makes territories different inside regions for a base. The reason is there is nothing if all of the territories have the same loyalty to the resistance. But the amount of territory does matter! If a territory loses all of its support for the resistance the base will be lost. But if there is another territory still valid for a base in the region, the player can play an evacuation mission to move the base there. How much of the base he manages to evacuate depends on the player's performance on the mission of course.
The player will start with one base for free, and additional bases will be buildable, for a considerable cost. This system provides a natural defeat condition for the player as well, the game will end if all of the player's bases have been destroyed.
Closing thoughts
So that's it about the new bases! For me, it feels like this was the last piece of the puzzle that was necessary to make the decision-making in the campaign portion compelling!
For more general news, the TactiCon event feels like a big success for us, as we managed to more than double our wishlist count! I want to thank everyone who is supporting us in this project! In addition, we have started a Discord channel where we post everything related to Slaves of Magic, so if you want to ask us anything, or just want a central place for all the news related to the game feel free to join us here.
Demo hotfix 3
Hello everyone!
The third bugfix for the demo is live with the following changes: - Various optimizations to improve the combat map performance. - Implemented small usability improvement. Now at the beginning of the player's turn, one of his/her eligible units will be selected, and the camera will focus on that unit.
Demo hotfix 2
Hello everyone!
The second demo bugfix is live with the following changes: - Fixed crash when removing unit in the planning phase. - Fixed a common crash that can occur when a unit is at the edge of the map. - Fixed disappearing corpses. - Fixed the bug that let the use of weapon skills with the wrong weapon.
