As the Steam Next Fest is soon upon us, I wanted to take a moment to note down some of my plans for features I want to implement the upcoming months, the list isn't exhaustive, but these are forefront in my mind:
Singleplayer AI
Adding game AI to Geomancers would mean that it'd be able to play the game with any deck, on any given level. Each wizard can be set to be AI controlled in the pre-game, allowing players to be able to play by themselves without the need of having friends available, and open up stuff like co-op versus AI.
Generally the challenge here is teaching the AI how to cast every single spell in the game. It's easy enough to make it lob a fireball, but creating terrain with Conjure Earth, or where to summon a dragon? More involved.
Online Multiplayer
After testing with Steam Remote Play, I've found that players were having a lot of issues with setting it up, and using the feature, thus, I'll put aside some time to develop online multiplayer.
Online multiplayer is also notoriously difficult as a technical challenge, and I can't take for granted that every feature that works in local multiplayer will work in online multiplayer right out of the game, this might take months.
More Content
There are currently 30 odd cards in Geomancers right now, and 5 terrain types, and the manalith, I do want to expand on the pool of content for the game in the long run, to increase game variety.
While this is actually the easiest part to iterate on, more cards means more overhead for the first versions of Singleplayer AI and Online Multiplayer, so I'm pushing it back for now! I hope to reach at least 50 playable cards in the release version, and maybe about 8 to 10 terrain types, and create more power-up type pickups.