Hey, knights!
I took a bit of a rest so that this week I could come back to you with a bunch of changes based on your feedback. Huge thanks to everyone who wrote, streamed, and recorded videos! This is enormous support for such a small project as mine. You're the best! Now, on to the changes:
Gameplay:
Key change — the ten-victory format has been brought back. As before, after each return to the shop two new squads await your choice, while items are only offered if you've achieved a victory. The number of item slots itself has been increased to 10, with a second ring and a cloak added. I also added 3 new items to cover the artifact needs for the new slots. The shop interface has also been redesigned for the new dynamics.
The hero's number of lives has been reduced from 5 to 3. I noticed that 5 lives was generally enough for 13 victories even with fairly lazy play. So I decided to reduce the number of lives to 3. Let me know how you feel about this change and whether it's too restrictive.
Action Points, Movement Points, and Reaction Points have appeared in the game. The first are needed for interaction between squads — if they run out, your turn ends. The second speak for themselves. The third are spent on reactive attacks: Counterattack, Opportunity Attack, and Defensive Attack — read about what these are in the next point.
A fourth action option has been added for each squad: protecting an ally. Now, in addition to clicking on terrain, on an enemy, or on yourself, you can click on another one of your squads. The first squad will approach and fight alongside its ally as long as it has Reaction Points.
Some players were still running into the issue of being forced to play against mirror armies. That won't happen anymore. Now, if the server has any issues, the game will generate a random opponent so you won't have to fight an army identical to yours.
A separate tutorial scene has been added before the main run.
Graphics:
The game's scaling has been completely rebuilt. The image on Steam Deck and other devices should now look noticeably sharper.
Battlefields have become cleaner. Navigating them should now be easier.
Interface:
Ability descriptions are now generated dynamically.
Text on shop buttons now wraps correctly.
In a tie-break situation when your squads have equal initiative, the tiles beneath them are highlighted in blue. Hopefully this makes them easier to notice now.
Squad purchase buttons no longer get disabled when selecting a new one. This way you can buy a squad and immediately replace its slot with a new one.
The "go to battle" button, on the other hand, is now correctly disabled until you've selected a new squad and item.
The slider under squads in the shop no longer resets on purchase, so you can plan in advance how many units you'll buy for each squad.
The button under the squire outside of the tutorial is now called "Next Tip".
Weapon and shield slots are now called items in the right and left hand respectively.
A squad's initiative (from -2 to +2) is now shown directly underneath it, instead of its position number in the queue.
The title screen message has been rewritten.
The New Tournament, Continue, and Add to Wishlist buttons in the main menu have been highlighted.
A squad image has been added to the panel with its stats, both in battle and on hover.
Balance:
Increased health for fourth- and fifth-rank squads.
Stats for some squads have been slightly adjusted.
Bugs:
Fixed the display of the Disband and Distribute containers after the tutorial — they no longer hide behind other Shop panels.
Fleeing the battlefield with two lives remaining no longer results in defeat.
The player's ranged squads can no longer shoot while standing next to an enemy after moving.
Magic squads' attack zones are now displayed correctly: 50% up close, 100% at range.
The exclamation mark warning about a reactive attack now displays correctly.
Fixed the description of the Blacksmith's ability.
Fixed the Hero container in battle.
The game now remembers if you skipped the tutorial.
Removed the random tip display after the tutorial.
The "Skip Tutorial" label no longer appears after skipping it.
Restored highlighting of important information during the shop tutorial.
Now, even if a ranged squad is blocked by melee, hovering over other tiles will show its ability to shoot from them, if there are no enemies nearby.