Devblog #2: Battle Basics
The prime mover of any drama is conflict. This is also true of games, and video games especially. Whether you enter conflict with another player or versus the “environment”, you expect some kind of opportunity to prove your skill and show that you are better then the other. This is why combat is an integral feature of Cryptic Legends and the first one we had to tackle once we knew the main focus of the game was collecting and hero building.
So, your band of legendary or soon-to-be legendary heroes sets out in search of glory and loot, as legendary heroes do. Whom will they fight, what feats will they accomplish? You, as a wise leader, can only hope that you’ve selected the right bunch that will complement each other and that you’ve given them sound tactical advice. The rest is up to them.
In practice, after selecting four heroes from his own roster, the player selects the option for Battle and the game searches for a random opponent (we wish to add single player missions, but would like to hear thoughts on that, so hit us up on our Discord to discuss the merits of single player missions once you’ve signed up for the closed beta and tried out combat for yourself).
Once you are matched with an opponent of similar rank, you can see the heroes in their party, along with their level, stats and talents (which is all the scrumptious RPG nuts and bolts stuff we will leave for another post, but surely you can already guess at the gist of it) and their name and the Tribe they belong to, but not the formation the party is in.
If the adversaries you are facing give you pause, you can edit your party formation as well as your heroes‘ skills and equipment to adjust their roles and better suit up for the battle ahead.
When you are ready to fight you tap on the Fight button which leads directly to the Battle Screen, where all the action takes place.
We are going for a turn based approach, but fully automated, with heroes taking turns every millisecond. Each turn, each hero goes through a decision-making tree.
This decision-making tree allows for a range of options for each hero: skills in this respect include combat skills, special talents and even some item abilities. We are aiming for fast-paced combat where the player’s ability to create varied and effective skill and equipment builds for their heroes is what really shines through.
Our goal with this sort of approach to combat is not only to allow the player to focus on hero building and collecting, but also to create a sense of a world as it was in legends of the cultures that inspired us, where heroes roam the land and the gods are satisfied with subtly influencing their actions as it suits their whims.
Next, we will be talking about how you can configure your party and what the actual Battle Screen looks like. Stay tuned!
The CL Team
