Halloween Progress Report

Just some words about our current progress.

Creatures - Art (~70%)

The total number of planned creatures is 100, plus 10 bosses, these are not recruitable.  Currently we are ready with 75-ish regular units and 3 bosses. We need a lot more high-end creatures (tier 7+), so expect stuff like vampire queens, war trolls, demons and other strong creatures. We also need a few more beginner (tier 1-2) creatures, like rats, insects, and so on.

Creatures - Skills (~50%)

We began using a new node editor to allow more refined skills. Now we are able to make conditional skills, like "Execute: This attack deals more damage if the target's HP is under 50%". Most of our old skills translated nicely to this new system, but we need to make some refinements, and enhance some skills to take advantage of these new possibilities.

Lands, Dwellings (~55%)

We planned 10 different biomes,  currently we have 6 and another one halfway done; we will need a lot more dwellings, but those are "just" static images, so probalby won't take that long.

Items (30%?)

We planned 100 items, these are faster and easier to create than creatures. We currently have 30-ish of them.

Features (?%)

This is a hard question because we aren't exactly sure how many additional features we want to put into the game.

Some features already implemented:
Core game works, you can fight, recruit units, you gain experience, you level up, you choose talents that affect specific units, you can equip items on units and so on. Basically the core game works, yet it is buggy and unpolished.

Some features are planned but won't be in anytime soon:
You get quests on islands. Islands have rivers and paths that lead to dwellings (to make exploring easier). There are dungeons, entering the dungeon takes several hours, but once you are in you can use as much time as you want to solve them, and get epic items. We even discussed some dialog system that allows solving quests by using specific units.

Jungle Biome and creatures

A few words about the goblins in the Jungle biome.

Goblin Headhunter

This is a Tier 3 unit, which means it "costs" 3 leadership points to lead (the maximum is 9, so the Goblin, while not the weakest, is relatively weak). It has quite a few "tags" (namely: Living, Tiny, Ranged, Melee, Humanoid), these are used in various skills. For example if a knight gives bonus ATK to all your Humanoid troops, the Goblin gets this bonus too. Another thing to note that this gobbo has both the tags Ranged and Melee, usually an unit is either this or that, but this unit is both.

The Goblin's basic attack is a simple strike, but it costs 0 AP (as all basic attack skills). It is a melee attack that triggers counterattack (if the enemy has it).

His AP gathering move is Hide, this gives him 1 AP and some ATK points, and a small amount of heal. This will be important later.

The Goblin's third move is Javelin, which also costs 0 AP. This is unusual, as 3rd skills usually cost 2-4 AP, but for the goblin it is free. He throws a poisoned javelin to a single enemy, dealing small-ish damage but also poisoning it. This is also a ranged attack so even if the enemy could retaliate, it won't.

His ultimate is Vodoo, which only costs 3 AP. It gives the Goblin a large ATK buff while also poisoning him. Remember that Poison does a current life percentage based damage and cannot actually kill the goblin. But, here is the trick. The goblin can heal himself (through the Hide skill), and all healing removes poisons!

The goblin (being an agile scout) also has a common passive skill, "Spot Weakness", which reduces the DEF of a random enemy unit at the start of combat.

Bosses

As mentioned in the previous post, Bosses are large units that can only be fought, but not recruited. They usually have some special mechanics that need to be countered in order to win (also having a strong army is a must). Generally it is far easier to fight bosses if you can debuff them well, or buff your own creatures.

Lets take this boss for example (the rightmost adventurer is there for the scale):

The Jungle Boss uses totems to unleash his fury. His totems gain 1 AP per turn, and at 5 AP, they explode, dealing huge damage to your whole army. Obviously this must be avoided. The Boss also poisons your units, and the totems themselves buff and heal the Boss.

Now you can combat this several ways. Killing the totems quickly is a possibility (Some units, like the Mining Robot or the Tiger excel at a single decisive strike near the start of combat). Draining them from their AP is also a way (Red Cultists, Bears, and some other units also can do that). But then you still have to fight the boss himself.

Countering the poison is also a possibility: any unit with an AOE heal will do (High Priest, Monk, even the Faerie). For the boss himself you will need either strong debuffer units (Vampires would be ideal, but most of the undead have debuffs), or units that buff your army (Flagbearers, Enchanters, and many other).

Don't panic if you don't have the ideal army, since after all a very strong army will defeat this boss even if you don't care about any of the above (well, maybe killing the totems first is a good idea anyways). But if you don't want to grind and level up, spending precious time, employing tactics like these is a great  idea.

Main gameplay

Combat is great and all, but what about the non-combat gameplay? Roughly, it looks like this:

- you start with a small army (depending on class)
- you conquer dwellings so you can recruit new monsters
- you level up and find items, so you can customize your army depending on the items found, talents chosen and dwellings conquered
- when you become strong enough, you try to kill the island's boss
- that means you are strong enough to go further, and you are allowed to go to the next island (where you find stronger monsters to purchase, so this repeats).

We plan to do a separate post about both items to equip and bosses to fight, but just a few words about them:

Bosses are special monsters that are much stronger than anything you will meet in the wilderness. They are not recruitable. They usually have some trick that needs to be discovered.

Items are artifacts that you can give to your units. They can give stat boosts, passive abilities and even active abilities. Items usually have some requirements, for example a sword can only be used by Humanoids. One unit can equip one item.

Inspirations

It is time to talk a bit about what games inspired us to create Bounty of Pixels.

First and foremost, the original King's Bounty gave us the idea. It is about a hero that can recruit various units, and has a time limit to find a magical artifact. I have to confess, I actually never played it on c64, and later on PC (emulator) the technical limitations were too severe to really enjoy it, but I was fascinated by the idea and I really regret that I somehow missed it when it was at its prime.

King's Bounty, c64 version

We changed quite a lot from the King's Bounty idea, our combat system is totally different, the way we handle our units, and so on. But the idea, that you are a hero who gathers an army, stays. We also played the new King's Bounty series, and while great games with tons of great features, the removal of the time limit made them a whole different experience.

The second obvious inspiration is the Heroes of Might and Magic series, most notably the second one, since it was the first of the series we played a lot.

Heroes of Might and Magic 2

The way our hero can develop, interact with buildings, choosing from a few available skills, is something we liked very much. Gathering treasure chests, items, and again, creatures, was always fun.

Third, perhaps less obvious inspiration was Master of Magic.

Master of Magic

Though it is a civilization-like 4x strategy, again, it was mostly about gathering armies, upgrading them via enchantment spells, casting powerful spells and so on really gave some memorable moments. We were inspired by its random world system, with roads connecting the cities, and caverns and ruins filled with loot.

Grand Skills

Though Grand Skills aren't special gameplay-wise, we decided that some of the more notable skills will have their own special effects. Here is a Bansheee's Hymn of the Dead skill. It gives all your undead units bonus stats, bonus AP, and also heals them.

Currently it is a bit bugged, as it plays 3 times instead of once, but we hope it really adds to the wow factor of these stronger skills.

And here is a Water Elemental's Acid Rain skill, it deals some damage, and reduces the defense of the enemy units.

Not all skills will have their own effect, in fact most of them will be relatively general, but we try to give all of the larger skills their own small graphics. Anyway, that's for today!

Active Skills

The most interesting part about minions is that each of them have their own unique skills. Though technically unique, the first 2 skills are rather similar, the first one being a basic attack that might have an additional small effect (for example the Zombie's "Bite" heals the Zombie), the second skill is almost always an energy gathering move that also may have an interesting secondary effect (Monk for example blesses a random friend while gathering energy).


The other two skills are more interesting, and more specific to the creature. These are stronger and cost AP (the "mana" or "energy" in our game). Most monsters have a skill that is 5 AP (the max), but significantly stronger than his other skills. These skills range from a Tiger"s Killer Strike (huge damage but exhausts the tiger), a High Priests' Divine Power (gives ATK and DEF to each your units, while reducing the enemy stats), or a Necromancer's Seven Deaths (fires 7 magical bolts to random targets).

Some examples:

The Royal Archer, the Jouster and the Pikeman, defenders of the human realm. The archer has the following skills:
- Attack (shoots a simple arrow, that deals its normal damage plus an additional 10 damage regardless of the defense of the target)
- Take Aim (a move that gathers AP and increases its own attack)
- Barrage (deals low-ish damage to all enemies, costs 2 AP)
- True Shot (deals exactly 150 HP damage, regardless of the enemy's defense)

The Royal Archer is great when you are facing high DEF enemies, as its shots deal some damage even to highly armored foes. On the other side it doesn't really use ATK increasing buffs, for the same reason.

The Pikeman has the following skills:
- Stab (a simple damaging attack)
- Hold The Line (a move that gathers AP and also increases defense of the front row)
- Flank (damages each enemy in the back row)
- Penetrate (damages an unit and an other unit behind it, much larger than normal damage)

Due that it uses a lot of "formation" skills, the Pikeman is best when used in large battles (6v6).

Combat, part 1

    A huge part of Bounty of Pixels is battling other monster packs. Now I already wrote an article at IndieDB why we choose the JRPG system, but a quick repeat:
- We wanted combats to be quick, so we removed the "moving in battle" element
- But that dumbed down combat too much for our taste, and made "not losing units" impossible, that forced players to go back to recruit units after every combat
- Thus, JRPG combat system gives us both the option that units regain all HP after combat (no more "I lost 3 goblins, I have to go back" feeling), and gives more depth by adding abilities and energy.
Now this is clear, but what about the details?

    We have a pretty vanilla combat system, so units have HP, Damage, Attack and Defense. This is pretty much self-explanatory. If you read this blog, then I pretty much assume you know what these do :)

    Units also have "tags" that affect which spells affect them and what are they vulnerable to. For example an Inquisitor's skill is stronger vs the tag "undead", while a hunter is stronger vs "beast". Some tags also have an innate trait, like undead are stronger at night, flying has some chance to dodge, living is affected by healing more but also vulnerable to poison.

Seems simple this far, right? Trust me, it gets more complicated :) More about the skills next time.

Intro

Sooo, Bounty of Pixels, what is this?

BoP is a pixellated strategy game, where you lead your hero, gather minions and fight increasingly difficult encounters and bosses. Different minions are good vs different creatures and some of them work together well, so building your team composition is an important part of the game. You can also find magic items to further enchant and personalize your minions.

The game will feature a Heroes of Might and Magic style hero advancement where you can choose from a few random traits at each levelup.

The battle system plays like a JRPG, your minions gather energy to execute their spells and abilities. Each monster has at least 2 unique abilities, but most have 4. Custom items can give 1 additional active ability.

Monsters don't only have active abilities, some use passive abilities as well. Quick goblin skirmishers throw spears at a random enemy each round in addition to their attack; Monks blessing increases the energy of an unit each turn; Catapults hit an enemy before the battle even begins.

In this blog I will write some additional info about development, why certain things were designed the way they are, what are the inspirations, and so on.

So, happy reading!