Hi folks. Update 10 this week continues our work to improve spellcasting in HexWind. Let’s get into it!
New “Spell” Slot
Until this update, lightning has been the only spell available in HexWind. We’ve always wanted to add more spells, but HexWind isn’t supposed to be about managing a big spellbook in a mission during intense combat. So before we jumped in to creating a bunch of new spells, we took some time to think about how spells and choosing spells should work in single missions and across multiple missions.
As we build out the mission system down the road, we want the choice of which spell you pick to matter. As we alluded to last week, we’re building up a light but meaningful slot and loadout system that, if we’ve done it well, should have you asking questions like “Do I want to be a fire wizard or a lightning wizard today?” and filling your slots accordingly before jumping into a long session of either setting bad guys on fire or electrocuting them.
For now, we settled on adding a single slot for a single spell which can be cast using the spellcasting action added in Update 9. This will always be for the hand/controller that isn’t holding your wand, and we’re going to call it your Spell Hand. The idea of spells cast from your Spell Hand is they should be more powerful, and used less often, than wand slashes. The two most basic examples are casting a “clear the screen” spell if you’re overwhelmed by lots of basic enemies, or casting a single more powerful attack when you’re up against a boss with lots of health.
Down the road, we want that choice between spells to matter by having you commit to a loadout used across multiple missions, but there’s a lot more mission design work to do before that makes sense, so for now you’ll be able to switch spells between individual missions.
New Spells
Obviously choosing between spells isn’t helpful if you only have one spell to use, so in this update we added three brand new spells, Lightning Storm, Fireball, and Fire Burst. We also reworked the existing lightning telekinesis spell into Lightning Grasp. You can check out the details of these spells in the new Loadout area in the Mausoleum.
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We love hearing strong feelings about new work after updates, so come on over to our Discord server to let us know what you think!
The Charm Games Team