Greetings, Commanders!
Today’s update is all about The Commander, the hero of The Dragoness: Command of the Flame, and the character that you’ll be controlling during your adventures across the Drairthir Peninsula.
The calamitous civil war fought between the Regal Dragons and the Shai-Va brought an end to the long period of peace and prosperity, and the Dragoness, despite claiming a narrow victory, lost many close allies during the conflict.
In the aftermath, riots and insurrection spread amongst the surviving factions, bringing chaos to an already shattered realm. In response to a petition made by the Dragoness, the powerful Elvish Empire dispatched you, the Commander, to quell the uprising and restore peace to the kingdom.
Hailing from a noble house, the Commander is one of the Elves’ finest warriors and leading tacticians.
As the appointed leader of the Dragoness’ forces, it is up to you to reclaim the capital city of Voven-Sal and defeat the forces that are threatening the kingdom.
Accompanying you on your mission is one of the Dragoness’ close advisors, Natiq the Battle Pangolin. Natiq dreams of one day ascending to become a dragon himself, boasting that pangolins are in fact distant cousins of dragons…or so he believes.
Regal Reincarnation
Unfortunately, it seems that victory over the Shai-Va may have been gravely exaggerated as upon arriving in the Drairthir Peninsula you are unceremoniously slain by one of their kin. When brought before the Dragoness it is revealed that a strange magic has separated your soul from your corporeal body…
Thankfully, the Dragoness has the power to restore your physical form, if only for a short while, with the assistance of revival spells and Níwenborh's Magical Amplifier.
Before heading out on one of the Dragoness’s quests, players will be able to choose from several revival spell loadouts, each with a separate Skill, Talent, set of Turn Bonuses, and starting Resources. Commanders will eventually have up to three randomly determined revival spells to choose from at any one time.
A Skill is a spell that the Commander will have at their disposal at the start of a quest and can be used during combat encounters. For example, one revival loadout may have a healing spell while another may be focused on dealing damage.
Talents are passive abilities that confer buffs to the Commander and their army. These vary from boosting specific types of damage (such as ranged or melee), to increasing the number of steps the Commander can move per turn when exploring the map.
Turn Bonuses are a set of three perks that can be selected at the end of the Commander’s turn during map exploration. Once you have exhausted all your steps, choose one of the three options to gain a bonus. Examples of Turn Bonuses include gaining extra resources (Iron, Granite, etc.), gaining additional experience points, or replenishing health or mana.
The potency of these revival spell loadouts can be upgraded back at the Capital in Níwenborh. By spending resources to upgrade the Magical Amplifier you can improve Skills, widen the selection of possible Talents, and unlock more Turn Bonuses.
Levelling Up
Once a revival spell has been selected and you have chosen your army’s starting units, you’ll be ready to head out on a quest. During a quest, you’ll discover many ways of earning experience points and levelling up the Commander!
The most common means of earning experience is by defeating enemies, but other methods include discovering sites of interest, completing side quests, visiting universities, and through Turn Bonuses.
When your commander gains a level, she will be able to choose between two options: upgrade an existing spell to improve its effectiveness or learn a new spell entirely.
Combat Sorceries
The Commander will provide invaluable assistance for your army during battles by utilising powerful spells from her spell book to influence the units on the battle grid.
Hidden Dagger is a vicious spell that doubles the damage of a target monster's next melee attack. Haste allows you to close the gap between you and the enemy by increasing an individual unit's movement range by four spaces for three turns. Conversely, if a friendly unit has taken some serious damage, use Rejuvenation, to heal a target for 10HP every turn for three turns.
Be advised that the Commander has a limited source of mana from which to draw from during every combat encounter, with more powerful spells costing more mana to cast. Mana can be refilled while roaming the map at Mana Pools, overtime after expending all movement points, or bolstered by Turn Bonuses.
Development Updates: Improved spell FX, Audio polish, and level balancing
Recent changes to the game include improved visual FX for the Commander when she is casting her spells (to make them appear more epic!), as well as new voiced audio lines.
We’ve also been working on re-balancing some of the early levels in the campaign based on the feedback we received during our closed beta period, notably Gates of Noita and Ent’s Grove.
For the Gates of Noita we have implemented teaser units from later biomes, reduced the amount of attacking waves (to make the map shorter and more re-playable), added additional resources, a new shop near the gate with "exotic" units, and stronger units to the starting defence force in the gate itself.
For Ent’s Grove we have altered the map layout to discourage the player from wandering and help improve the flow of exploration. We’ve also reduced the difficulty of early encounters and added a new cutscene which signposts new areas for exploration when they are unlocked during the quest.
That’s all for now, but we’ll be back in a few weeks’ time to take a closer look at revival spells in more detail.
See you soon!
- Crazy Goat Games & PQube
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