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).