Hello everyone!
I'm happy to announce a very big update for the demo, in preparation for Steam Next Fest! This is a preliminary version, to iron out the bugs and to listen to your feedback about it before the fest begins.
The general thought process behind the changes is to accelerate the player's progress toward fun things and to provide more interesting decisions for the player. Some fundamental systems have been changed as well, so sadly saves from the older demo's will not be fully compatible with the version.
Major changes:
- Official support for 2k resolutions. While the game was made aimed at a maximum 1080p resolution, over time more and more people have transitioned to 2k and 4k monitors, since the inception of this project. We don't have access to a 2k monitor so would love to hear some feedback if everything is working correctly or not. For 4k monitors, the 1080p is perfect for upscaling to 4k, so the game defaults to that resolution instead.
- Expanded magic system with new enemies. All 3 enemy race got their spellcasters.
- Reworked initiative system. In the new system, every turn the player will receive 6 command points, that can be spent to activate units. The unit's initiative is the cost of its activation. In layman's terms, the player can activate more faster units or fewer slower ones. This system is a lot more intuitive for players coming from games like X-COM, while still retaining the importance of the speed of the units.
- Added a new marksman school, dedicated to improving ranged attacks.
- Reworked escort missions to give higher emphasis on scrying before starting the mission. Now there will be 2 valid escape tiles for the VIP and the player will need to decide which one he/she will use.
- Expanded the lighting system to add dynamic lights to various skill effects like teleport.
- Weapons are no longer locked to regions, the starting region only defines the starting equipment. This has enabled me to rebalance the weapons to be more unique, as they will always be available for the player to buy.
- Injury times have been rebalanced. Melee units without a shield were overly penalized with a long recovery timer for small injuries. Now, only if a unit takes more than half of its health in damage will it have longer recovery times than the default teleport sickness.
- Every unit will get a starter school in their first level up, and the player can only choose a new skill from that school. Further level-ups are not affected. This makes it easier for newer players to learn about the available schools in smaller increments. Plus makes players try out skills they would otherwise not have.
- The final mission arrives a month earlier than previously, in correspondence that we have made progress faster in general.
Of course, a lot of bug fixes have happened as well, and I'm planning to do another pass on the AI of the enemies till the start of the festival.
So that's it for today! As always, looking forward to hearing your feedback, which you can share in the forums or our Discord here!