Update v0.1
This update brings the initial implementation for the game's crafting system, called Alchemy (more details below). Also, revised Card layout graphics, a small rebalance, and a bunch of work behind the scenes to allow for new and fancier visual effects for cards and units.
Attack cards are now not instant but instead queue at the end of turn. Attacks will also have a certain "repeat" value, where a single attack card can be used multiple turns. This value is not yet shown anywhere on the card but will be at some point.
As part of rebalancing changes, attacks are now more expensive to account for the "repeat" feature, and starting Maximum Focus, as well as focus per turn have been reduced. Right now this means you can't progress past a certain point after a few zones, but this will be addressed in a future update.
Note that the Deck viewer is currently broken due to the large renderer refactor!
Below is a description of the basics of how the Alchemy system works. Please note that everything is still very temporary and subject to change and complete overhaul.
Alchemy
The crafting system in the game is called Alchemy, and it's done through the Alchemy Device inside the Laboratory. The alchemy device is presented as a set of 5 boxes/slots, 1 central one and 4 surrounding it. The central slot contains a Base, which determines what type of item is produced, and each surrounding slot is an Augment, which influences the final produced item. Then, there will be a designated space where you get the Product(s) resulting from the craft.
For instance, using the "Scroll" as a base lets you create cards. Then, augments determine which kinds of cards are possible. Each augment will increase the chance of a specific outcome.
Gemstones are augments that add a 25% chance to increase the item level of the outcome, in a specific range, and they are increasingly rarer the higher the item level. For instance, "quartz" is the most common and lowest value of the gemstones, with a level range of 1-10, while the next in line "amber", has a level range of 11-20, and so on up to 91-100. So, if you want to guarantee a level increase for the item, you have to use 4 gemstones and thus fill all the augment slots. Shards for each gemstone have the same exact effect but with a 5% chance.
Essences are augments that filter the outcome, only allowing products with specific properties to be created. For example, "essence of vigour" will only generate items/cards that are involved with the "health" property set, such as healing cards, or a card like "Wonderous Berry", which increases an Ally's toughness (toughness is max health). Each type of essence will have 5 tiers and each tier determines the maximum level of item they can support. So, a tier1 essence can only affect items of level 1-20, tier2 21-40, and so on up to 100. Essences are not broken down into shards/fragments.
Parts are augments that add a 25% chance to create a minion-related item, and a minion card when used with a Scroll as a base item. Different parts determine the “family” of minion. For instance, “immaculate fur”, “pristine claw”, “sharp fang”, and “luscious tail” could represent parts that allow you to generate Beast cards. The uniqueness of parts is that you need different parts to increase chance, you can’t use 2 furs to make the chance 50% you need a fur and claw and for 100% you need one of each part. You get these parts when killing enemies belonging to the same family, so for instance the parts above will be obtained from killing Beasts, like rats.
Orbs are consumable items that can also be used as augments, in which case they’ll apply their effect randomly to any of the values in the crafting process. For instance, a chance orb, that modifies numeric values of an item randomly (within the allowed range), when used as an augment in the alchemy device will alter the numeric value of any of the numbers in the crafting process (within the allowed range). This can be used for some (generally, high-level) crafts to obtain products that would otherwise be impossible, for instance items or cards over level 100.
Crafting through Alchemy has a chance to fail, which depends on the amount and type of augments used. Essences having a 100% chance means they will never fail to generate an outcome. Bases will also come with their own chance of success.
For instance, using a Scroll (50% chance for success) and a “immaculate fur” (25%) means you have a 75% chance to generate an outcome, and 25% chance to generate nothing and lose the ingredients. Then, if you succeed in generating a product, this will have a 25% chance to be a Beast card because of the immaculate fur effect.