Hey everyone! The "Kingdom Reborn" update (which revamps the game with a new isometric overworld) has been in the works for a while. And now it's releasing on October 1st! At this point I'm fixing some bugs and making some final UI design changes.
Isometric Overworld Teaser
Here's a short video showing Gideon walking around the new isometric overworld:
There's no UI in the video because the UI is not quite finalized. As you can see though, the game looks a lot different than the old version:
Old Overworld
Barbarian Rework
This update also includes a Barbarian subclass rework. These subclasses are very hard to design. If you make their starting cards too synergy-heavy, you end up drafting the same archetype every run, which gets repetitive. On the other hand, you do you want the subclasses to feel very different! So you have to balance making them distinct while making sure they don't get repetitive to play.
The two goals for each subclass are:
-Each subclass has a "super power". (i.e. Starcaller's comet lets you strike down huge monsters in one hit.)
-Each subclass makes you slightly (or greatly) rework your card tier list. (i.e. Beast Tamer loves Equipment cards, Astronomer doesn't love deck-cycler archetypes because she bloats the deck with extra cards. Brewmaster loves cards that can trigger his explosive barrels.)
I won't show the entire Barbarian rework today, but here is his new starting card! It will replace "Skull Crack". Skull Crack was a damage card that wasn't too good at anything, and had the "Overload" drawback.
This is subtle. The "pick 1 of 3" mechanic is one of my favorite mechanics from the original Mage Tower. I even put it on the promo card for the Kickstarter!
So, "pick 1 of 6" is more of the same, right? Actually, it feels a lot different. When there are 3 options, there's usually a clear best pick. When there are 6 cards, you get to sit for a moment and consider how you want the rest of this battle to play out. It feels more like planning a chess move than picking the least-worst option. 6 is just the right number for a weighty and interesting pick. If we went with 10+ options, you'd usually end up just picking whatever S-Tier rare card shows up.
The other Barbarian starter card will be the highest base damage 4-cost card in the game... we'll talk about that when the patch releases! So... the new Barbarian is a brutal and thoughtful class. Its "super power" is having the 4-cost card with the highest base damage, plus its ability to adapt to every encounter with Battle Lore.
That's all for today, see you all on October 1st!
-Brett
www.supermegagames.net
Mage Tower Discord: https://discord.gg/JUBfXamCcG