Skills have become cards
Their availability during combat follows the classic card battler formula, with a deck and a discard pile. This comes after reflecting on all the feedback we got, from the original combat-only alpha up to now.
Yet another slay the spire clone you say? Stop right there! Here's the real deal of this post: runes! Runes allow you to power up skills during combat, enabling you to create powerful effects and execute crazy combos.
Let's take one step back and break down what a card looks like:
The top left area contains the card cost, its icon, name, and, just below the name, its tags, like "Attack" or "Skill". Certain runes require a card to have a specific tag to be applied. Below that, are the rune sockets, which show what runes are already applied and what capacity the card has.
At the center of the card is the combo: this effect is applied only if (at least) a certain amount of rune colors have been applied. Finally, at the bottom is the base effect of the card, e.g. doing some damage.
Runes follow a logic similar to cards: you start the game with a deck of runes and discard or acquire new runes by visiting points of interest or as a reward for battles.
New battle UI
The battle UI went through a comprehensive rework to accommodate cards and runes. Moreover, characters aren't in a line anymore but are distributed across the battlefield for a more natural look.
Runes and Prayers
Most prayers of the prayer system (link) have been realigned to (also) provide runes at the cost of some water, this will help in getting out of tricky situations when, if only you had that one rune, things would work out!
Dialogs
Runes and prayers also tie in with dialogs. We wanted to get away from the (in our humble opinion)
stale "classic" formula for dialogs, and runes fit the purpose perfectly.
Dialog choices will now include rune sockets that can represent a requirement or a power-up, that is, fitting the right runes would increase the probability of a good outcome or its magnitude. Short of a rune? Perhaps a prayer can help.
The camping location has been reworked into a special dialog where the available activities depend on which characters are in the party! ⛺⛺⛺
What excites us the most about runes is the opportunity to plug in rare and tricky runes into the game, daily runs will be an excellent place for this.
We also hope that modders will enjoy the experience of creating new runes, something that we're making as simple as possible.
Wishlist and follow us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2730820/Path_of_the_Djinn/
