[Project] Spell-Caster (Working Title)
Guess it's about time I transition this from a prototype to full project status and get some more hands on it, so here goes.
As the design stands at the moment, Spell-Caster is a light/casual RPG with a spelling based combat system. As the player navigates the environments they'll encounter enemies which they'll battle by forming words from a (mostly) random grid of letters. The battles take place in real-time which puts pressure on the player to make words as fast as possible. The levels will be procedurally generated and I'm not sure what the meta-game is going to be at the moment. Different enemies will have different attacks and abilities which may alter the board state. The player will also find new abilities as they progress. A lot of this may change, but that's the general direction anyway.
Much of the art is placeholder (as you can see) since I'm still trying out ideas and working out exactly what this is going to be and how it's all going to work.
Playable Builds:
Windows
Web
Here's a link to the original prototype's thread: makegamessa.com/discussion/2849/prototype-word-game-rpg-thing
I'd really appreciate any and all feedback - even if you don't like it. ;) Want to make this the best it can be so I need all the play-testing I can get.
More screenies:
As the design stands at the moment, Spell-Caster is a light/casual RPG with a spelling based combat system. As the player navigates the environments they'll encounter enemies which they'll battle by forming words from a (mostly) random grid of letters. The battles take place in real-time which puts pressure on the player to make words as fast as possible. The levels will be procedurally generated and I'm not sure what the meta-game is going to be at the moment. Different enemies will have different attacks and abilities which may alter the board state. The player will also find new abilities as they progress. A lot of this may change, but that's the general direction anyway.
Much of the art is placeholder (as you can see) since I'm still trying out ideas and working out exactly what this is going to be and how it's all going to work.
Playable Builds:
Windows
Web
Here's a link to the original prototype's thread: makegamessa.com/discussion/2849/prototype-word-game-rpg-thing
I'd really appreciate any and all feedback - even if you don't like it. ;) Want to make this the best it can be so I need all the play-testing I can get.
More screenies:
Comments
My thoughts:
It would be cool if letters that enemies are weak against are highlighted, also I think there needs to be a stronger visual indication of when you get first strike. At first I thought it wasn't possible and then it just sort of happened, which was anti-climatic for me. Maybe a differently colored particle effect when you collide with them?
I also think effects like screen shake (and related juice) should happen in differing levels of intensity, proportional to spell length. Games like Hearthstone uses this to great effect.
Sound would really add a lot to this prototype, even small effects like footsteps would make this prototype feel a lot more polished, recommend giving a shout out to @Tim_Harbour on that front.
Edit: just realised that this game has another thread :/ could you place a link in the OP for poor souls like me who might have missed it?
Sound is something I'm holding myself back from at the moment until I'm happy with the direction of the whole game. It's one of those things that, when done properly, makes everything feel WAY better, but if it's half done it makes a product feel less polished that if it had no sound, in my experience. But, yeah, I agree it feels pretty flat and empty without it.
Edit: Oh geez! Forgot about adding the link to the original thread. Thanks!
My favourite thing was definitely uncovering new enemy cards. It adds a sense of progression because it makes you feel like you're getting better/stronger. I wonder if you could randomise the enemy stats on each run? One level skeletons might be strong against N, the next they might be strong against R. I think that would add a lot more re-playability.
The dungeon crawling is pretty nifty, and certainly gives the fights some context. I imagine that it'll feel a lot more interesting once their are different enemies and items in the world. Because at the moment there aren't many decisions to make. They key system is cool though. Gauntlet does a similar thing but often has more doors than keys, forcing you to make some choices which can be fun.
Right now, the thing I'd most love to see is just more enemy types (and maybe items). The fun part is trying to come up with words to exploit enemy weaknesses. I wan't to discover more interesting weaknesses and exploit them. I want that feeling.
I think you could definitely come up with some enemy designs that try and force you to play in a different/interesting way. For example:
- An enemy that takes no damage from words longer than three letters, forcing you to find as many words as quickly as possible.
- An enemy that is only vulnerable for a short window at regular intervals. Effectively enforcing a maximum time you can spend looking for a word, lest you miss the window.
- An enemy that does a devastating attack every five words to incentivize taking your time and making sure you win in under five words.
- An enemy whose attacks are high damage, but the next one is nullified by a three letter word, also it takes no damage from three letter words. So you've got to play a defensive word, and then an offensive one.
- An enemy who takes critical damage if you use the same word more than once in a battle. This incentivizes trying to remember your words, or make words that are easy to repeat.
Beyond that, in terms of the direction of the combat system, here are some ideas off the top of my head. Hopefully you can find something useful in them.
- Different spells: For example, use two vowels in a row to cast a poison spell. Perhaps you could find these in chests?
- Status effects: Maybe an enemy could take double damage whilst poisoned? Maybe you could slow their attack rate, or apply a dodge chance?
- Different items: Perhaps you could deploy a shield as a once off item before an enemy attack? Or drink a potion that grants your next attack life steal?
- Passive items: Maybe something grants you dodge chance, or health regen, or fire damage, or 25% more vowels etc.
- Parts of speech: I don't know if this information is readily available, but it would be cool if certain enemies were vulnerable to nouns, or something to that effect.
- Board altering: Perhaps an enemy attack could change some tiles into half damage tiles? Or maybe you could cast a spell that highlights three random letters that form a deadly combo if they can be used together.
For the meta-game, I think some standard RPG/hack 'n slash elements would go down well. You could introduce some risk/reward systems for exploring. Eg. "I can see that fancy special chest over there, it's probably got an awesome item, or spell in it. But unfortunately it's defended by ghouls, and I'm not very good against ghouls. Maybe I'll come back when I stand a better chance, or maybe I should just risk it now?".
What I think might work well is having a very limited inventory for battles, and allowing the player to choose what they take in. Eg. "I'm fighting a dragon now, so I'm going to take my freeze spell (dragons are weak against ice). And I'll take the amulet of double vowel damage (that's always useful), and finally I'll take the big shield just in case he tries that crazy fireblast attack that dragons have."
Anyway, I like where this is going. I found this version quite compelling, and it's polished as hell (as always).
Awesome. Thanks. A lot of cool ideas there that I'm totally going to steal ;)
Glad you liked the cards. I wasn't totally sure they'd work. I could definitely randomise the enemy weaknesses, but it depends on whether the cards collected are a permanent resource. ie: You collect the cards to fill up a beastiary that carries between games, giving the player some progression between runs.
I wanted to do something more with the keys (like locking off areas for good), but I didn't want to put the player into a position where they couldn't progress. I guess I could not have any locked doors on the critical path, but I was thinking that was a good way to encourage exploration...
I'm dying to add more enemies, but I want to make sure that whats there at the moment is solid first since everything will be building on top of it.
I was thinking of doing a limited inventory system thing (and probably still will), but I'm worried that it'll lead to a player having to constantly retool before each battle which seems like it wouldn't be that fun. What do you think?
- Spells. Each spell takes a certain amount of time to charge after being used. When charged it will generate a single random letter imbued with the power of this spell. To use a spell, use this letter in a valid word. Spells could include bog-standard fireballs and ice blasts, to armor spells and weird things that mess with your board.
- Enemy attacks that target specific letters on your grid, destroying them over time unless you use them before the timer runs out.
- Any kind of invest to identify enemy card traits.
So I feel like there's a lot of debate possible about the map interaction. The real meat of the game is in the spell-casting (hah!) but the map/dungeon could add a ton of stuff to that, like if I can do more to choose what I fight against, I might want to leave my board in a particular state after fighting an easy enemy so that I can nuke a difficult one with my first word. Or if there are things that would allow me to exchange letters, I might want to go there after a really difficult fight and I'm swamped with Xs and Js. I'm not sure that a turn-based map exploration thing isn't a better idea because those allow for more options to be made available to the player to choose between at a time, realtime maps have lots of little decisions, but fewer strategic ones open at the same time. You sort of end up just choosing to walk a particular way and deal with the consequences (that are difficult to estimate in advance).
What sort of thought have you put into the map/dungeon interaction at the moment?
I have considered a turn-based map, but didn't really have a strong idea of how to make that compelling/fun. The idea behind the map was to provide context to the battles, have a space to encourage exploration that was rewarded in and out of the battles, give the player choice in how and what they battled and provide a framework to hold some more traditional RPG elements (like loot and maybe levelling). None of it can't really be done in a turn-based map, I just have a lot less experience and history in turn-based maps. Thinking something along the line of Paper Mario and the Thousand Year door/Earthbound/Chrono Trigger/Persona 4 dungeons/etc.
What did you have in mind for a turn-based map? Would could you do in a turn-based map that couldn't be done in real-time?
Currently there's no carry over with your board between battles because I didn't want players to get their boards into a bad state and then be stuck. You think there should be a carry over? It's an interesting idea, but how do you solve the problem of players screwing themselves?
A few ideas
- a changing list of enemy traits each time you play, so knowing them before doesn't always help. (personal preference but follows the ideas of many rogue likes)
- random dungeons, just to give that feeling of discovering something new.
- a way to review the cards when not in a battle. (perhaps I missed a way to do this)
- the carry over idea could be just the bottom row of letter carries over. Perhaps a once off glyph in the dungeon that will reset those. (of course you would want to know what the locked letters are between battles.)
- if you have the carry over you could get cursed and have 2 rows of letters carried over until you "blessed" to remove the
curse.
- perhaps a few standard special spells, like FREEZE that pauses the timer for a while and does damage.
Glitches
-Games freeze (reset still works) when you already have the full card unlocked and you collect another card.
-If the card is on screen and some parts are not yet discovered when fading out the marking over the words goes slightly transparent.
Good luck, I like where this is going.
An interesting idea...
Thanks for your feedback. A lot of food for thought.
Player Spells
Heal - Heals you according to the value of the next word you can make
Freeze - Freezes an enemy so they can’t do anything. Will unfreeze when attacked.
Slow - Slows an enemy’s attack timer
Burst Attack - Stops time allowing the player to fire off 3 attacks at once
Poison - Poisons enemy using next attack/Directly poisons enemy
Destroy Tiles - Can choose three tiles to remove
Shield - Next enemy attack is blocked and nullified
Focus - Next attack does extra damage
Guard - Takes less damage for an amount of time
Vowel Creator - Changes 2 consonants to vowels
New Board - Resets the whole board. (will be more useful when there are poison/stone tiles)
Lifesteal - Next attack steals some health for the player
Enemy Abilities / Characteristics
Enemy only counter-attacks (essentially a turn based fight)
Casts “Shield” to create magical shield (same as normal shield)
Poison - Enemy throws poison on some of the tiles on the board. Using that tile will deal poison damage to the player.
Crush - Enemy attack breaks some letters so they can’t be used for a time
Conceal - Enemy attack conceals some letters on the board (maybe change the letter to a weird glyph). Can still be used as normal if the player can remember what they are. (maybe each attack the enemy does reveals one letter and each successful attack from the player reveals one)
Petrify - Converts tile to stone. Does no damage until used a certain amount of times
Throw Bomb - Bomb lands randomly on grid and destroys all letters around it.
Enemy takes no damage from words longer than 3 letters
Enemy does a massive attack every five words to incentivize taking your time and making sure you win in under five words.
Enrage - Enemy’s next attack will do a lot of damage, but a 3 letter word will reset him to normal
Melt - Enemy makes some letters melt and are destroyed after an amount of time.
Enemy Weaknesses / Strengths
Weak to certain letters
Weak to vowels or consonants
Weak to word lengths
Weak to words starting with certain letters
Weak to specific words
Weak to words with two of the same consecutive letter
Weak to being hit by the same word twice
Weak to words containing 2 of a certain letter
Anybody got anything else they'd like to see?
I will, eventually, reply with something meaningful. I just really like the project :)
I had an issues where I had already collected all the cards on an enemy and when I got another one it showed the card screen, didn't add a new weakness (because its already full) and didn't give me the option to continue back to the game. Just a heads up, because the game did it twice.
Looking at the stuff your planning of adding, I think this can turn out to be something really great.
Here's a build with the new player spells implemented. It's very rough and "prototypey" and some of the spells have almost no feedback but the functionality is there. You also have access to all the spells immediately which won't be the case later (they'll be pickups or something) and I'll probably limit how many you can take into battle.
Windows Build
Web Build
If you want to be kept up to date on Spell-Caster stuff here are some places to go:
http://www.latchkeygames.com
https://twitter.com/LatchkeyGames
https://www.facebook.com/latchkeygames
Gonna do some work on a spellbook UI system for a change of pace.
I've changed my battles so that they take place in the map instead of in a separate plane of existence which I think has brought a unity to the game, so it all feels part of the same game now.
I've also implemented an idea I had for teaching players the basic battle mechanics in a low pressure environment before they get into any actual danger. The idea is that the player has to brute force their way through a barred door using their spells. Here's a video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-H4HB-o7Olo
I've done a lot of work on the level gameplay for Spell-Caster, since that seemed to be the weakest aspect of it. Added some more interactable objects, puzzles and secrets. I think it's more interesting now and feels more like an actual level.
Also added a new enemy and some gear for some of the enemies (which modifies their stats), and various smaller things.
Some new screenies:
Spell-Caster went to A MAZE, which was exciting and seemed to be well received by people from what I've heard, which is hugely encouraging (I've been ill, so couldn't go and see for myself).
Here's the build:
Windows Build
If you played it there or play it here I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
Yeah, that lever turned out to be really badly placed and not visible enough and a lot of people had trouble with it. I had a task in my list to make it more visible but didn't get to it in time. :/
Did you find that the timer/real-time thing reduced your fun of building long words or enhanced it?
I thought about doing a keyboard thing, but I wanted the game to be as cross-platform as possible and later if there are two of the same letter on the board it'll become important which one you use. Not sure how I'd get around that? Did you find it to be a large hindrance/annoyance to have to use the mouse?
The timer was pretty cool, I think that it's an easy thing to change in the difficulty settings (or with some sort of calibration at new game time, to see how fast people spot words in a search, for example) but I felt the tension it added was great. The whole first strike for attacking from behind felt really cool too - you could take your time to try and set up this massive kill shot, which was a great contrast to the frenzy of the realtime mode... You might want to indicate the lack of an incoming attack on the UI a bit better though, but it's not essential ;)
Yeah, the keyboard comment was literally made with "because it seems like which character you use doesn't matter" right as we were talking about it. I feel like keyboard input should work, mouse input is slower than tapping. Maybe if you allowed players to mouse-drag tiles of the same letter to swap them out? You're already letting players choose when to fire the spell, so swapping letters with different effects feels like a good idea - that way I can type the word fast and then modify it before firing... I think the mouse thing was mostly frustrating because of the low mouse sensitivity on the demo machine, and the fallback of trying to type didn't work.
Also, idea about firing spells: Instead of the launch button, make players click/tap on the enemy itself with a big targeting ring or something. That would mean you could have different targets on larger enemies, each with different vulnerabilities. My imagination is playing with casting a verb at a dragon's mouth to slow its attack timer for a bit, while peppering its body with damage spells. That could be epic :)