Hero Mages (by D20Studios)

[Kirenx]

Originally Posted by twiccan

Also, some people are bashing this game on boardgamegeek.com. They don't seem to get the concept and they are saying how the base game (the android version specifically) is not complete as is. I'm trying to educate them, though!

Not they are not. Like several people on this forum, players on BGG have stated a disappointment at a lack of async multiplayer, not anything to do with platform specific issues. The moment this game sees async multiplayer, most of those same posters will likely purchase it, I know I would.

[Bool Zero]

Originally Posted by GeekyDad

Could be. We must be around the same age (I'm 40), and I always considered D&D to be roleplaying gameplay. Sure, there's strategy to be considered, but we never considered the genre turn-based strategy. Even the monster manuals and guides all say Roleplaying Game on them (or they used to).

If you play D&D even remotely close to the rulebooks, then for all intents and purposes it is a TBS game, that just also happens be a roleplaying game. The way I always looked at it with D&D is that you can't make rules for role playing as it is largely subjective. There're no rules in the game manuals that dictate how players role play in the PHB or DMG to tell you how to role-play; that largely is something that happens naturally during the course of playing, either at the motivation of the DM or the initiative taken upon by the players. Role-playing happens with the gamers and the Dungeonmaster at varying degrees; and sometimes, though rarely, it doesn't at all. With all that though there are always the rules. You can roleplay any situation, but at some point as a DM/GM you need to impartially and fairly declare the failure or success of a players actions. This is why we use dice and have stats on our players character sheets; to help the DM validate the rules of the world.


Now some may vary the rules, some may alter the rules, some may throw out some of the rules, but there are always the rules. Rules dictate how the world works and the world always works in an orderly manner. The one rule that always stays is that players take turns. That would be utter chaos for the DM if they did not. At no point does a player take an action out of turn unless the rules say-so. The rules dictate how the player hits, misses, dodges, parry's, flanks, hides, sneaks, climbs, swims, performs magic and does any other type of action within the game. Those are dictated by the rules, are done in an order (eg. Turn based) and must often be coordinated and planned in succession with the party in order to be successful (strategy). Otherwise you have one dead party.


I remember one encounter I laid on a party I DMed for in which a group of bugbears what's crossbows flipped over some tables which provided them additional cover. It was a simple encounter but between the room layout and making the monsters use tactical maneuvers in order to make the encounter more difficult for the players in order to make the players think more strategically. They adapted and overcame the encounter but not before getting their butts severely handed to. Afterwords they always referred to the encounter as the "S.W.A.T. bugbears" encounter!


Then again it is a matter of how one plays their games too I guess. Perhaps you've played a lot of games where role-playing was given a heavy emphasis. I always ran a healthy mix of role playing and combat, as in my experience too much of one or the other is boring and can leaves players wanting even if the story or combat is good; because unless you are lucky, you are not going to satisfy every gamers needs being one way or the other.


For me personally, if I wanted to sit around and just deliberate, I'd play V:TM. If I wanted to sit around to roll the dice and just destroy stuff i'd play Rifts as it is a twinkers delight of a game. But with D&D, at least the way I've always ran and played it with others, it is equal parts role playing and TBS, and when the combat (or just encounters in general) comes it is a turn based strategy (transparently so when playing with figures and a combat map, of which was usually the case with the groups I have ran over the years).


Sorry for the hefty response. It is just fun and I guess I am a little enthusiastic to talk about my hobby of which I do not get to enjoy as often as I'd like to anymore!

[oooooomonkey]

Is it just me but I'm having my game crash (just shut itself down) quite often. I'm using an iPod touch 4G.
It's happening pretty much every other match online. And most times I can just load it back up and join in again but the last time it took so long to load that I lost the game :-(
Just wondering if it's crashing for more people.

[RossD20Studios]

Originally Posted by oooooomonkey

Is it just me but I'm having my game crash (just shut itself down) quite often. I'm using an iPod touch 4G.
It's happening pretty much every other match online. And most times I can just load it back up and join in again but the last time it took so long to load that I lost the game :-(
Just wondering if it's crashing for more people.

Keep me updated on this. Another user reported a bug today that caused the game to freeze and I was able to figure out what was causing based on the game logs. I would file this on the HM support forums as well. Don't want anyone's apps crashin!

[Pitta]

While thinking that without async or a strong SP campaign I wouldn't have so much fun with the game I decided to buy it nonetheless to support the dev, mostly after reading his plans in the thread and after realizing the game is a single person effort (plus wife support ).
On top of my head, considering the price, I thought it was more offering him a coffee and chat about games than really buying something.

Well...I just ended the tutorial and played a game (offline) and let me tell you...I'm loving the game as it is much more than I thought.
Everything is slick and fast, gameplay is deep and engaging (AI is BRUTAL), graphics and sounds are fitting and set a great atmosphere.

Just some things on right off my head, in no particular order:

1) Interface is great, but I would love that the button to 'unselect' a spell just brought me back on spell selection...not the 'home' panel.
I love to read every spell description before deciding which to cast...so it's an additional tap.
2) NO SCREEN ROTATION!!! Please add it!!!
3) (MAJOR) There seems to be a bug...the game plays sounds even if my iPhone is muted after using headphones...please look into it...I was playing in bed in the middle of the night, removed headphones and BAM!!!
Wife wasn't pleased. AT ALL.
4) I love the timer, even against AI.
5) I won't start begging so fast but...please add async...I NEED to bring some friends of mine into this game!!!
No really...async is pretty popular on iOS and that's for a reason...this game is great and really just SCREAMS for async support (possibly Gamecenter but not critical at this moment)....to unleash his power and conquering the top charts.
6) The idea of adding some custom mini story bits based scenarios was sounding great before playing the game. It's killer after playing it...something simple like the tutorial ones is just perfect for the game.
7) Love that the game is really easy on battery (1 playing hour is negligible on iPhone 4S).
8) Lots and lots of love and praises on everything else, really... but I'm on iPhone and I already wrote too much.
9) Did I mentioned async?

Back to being destroyed by AI, brb.

(thanks for making such a great game, really)

[oooooomonkey]

@pitta glad you just took the chance and bought this. It's hard to explain how cool it is just having skirmish matches against the AI (even without the story or online) its still worth every penny. :-)


On another note I think the offline stats might be a little off, Because 8+7 doesn't make just over 4million lol. Unless total means something else? In which case ignore my stupidity :-)

[drelbs]

Originally Posted by GeekyDad

Could be. We must be around the same age (I'm 40), and I always considered D&D to be roleplaying gameplay. Sure, there's strategy to be considered, but we never considered the genre turn-based strategy. Even the monster manuals and guides all say Roleplaying Game on them (or they used to).

He must have been thinking of this:



...or the D20 system combat (which is fleshed out enough that there is a separate miniatures system to buy into which follows pretty much the same rules...)

Originally Posted by twiccan

I just want to say to anyone who might think that the skirmish modes in the game are limited, that the experience is alot like the classic game Chaos or the boardgame Wiz-War in that the main character and maps may be limited in variety(although way more variety than chaos and Wiz-War's map is always changing, something that would be awesome to see in this game, lol), but the variety and fun of the game is in all the spells that you can access. There are over 80 of them, and which ones come up and when they come up in a game really make each session unique.

You just sold me on this game. CHAOS meets D&D Miniatures? Oh yeah!

[Bool Zero]

Come now, that is borderline insulting, LOL! I am not confusing miniature war gaming for PnP roleplaying. The truth here is that most RPG's are that fleshed out for miniature play, not just the recent D20 outings. I have played everything under the sun when it comes to TTRPG's and they all allow and are built around the use of grids and tactical combat (with very few exceptions); of the top of my head rolemaster, time lords, gurps, D6, palladium, chaosiom, old school D&D & AD&D, Alternity, Champions, wierd wars and dead lands, etc, etc, all I consider to have tactical, turn based strategic gameplay. In short, if the game system breaks down character movement to a number and have task resolution (and all do) then it can be played on a grid with rules for resolution of in game actions be they combat, etc, if it can be played with a grid or map, it delves into the realms of being a tactical game, despite the nay saying of roleplaying purists. I mean honestly, what did we DM's draw all those maps on grid paper for if this wasn't the case?


I understand where some may be confused by this and the inclusion of the old Chainmail box art was funny, but I am not confused here. Those are also tactics games that delve solely into the war gaming pockets of gaming. What I am merely saying is that while traditional roleplaying games are mostly seen as just that, players often overlook that those are just as tactical in nature as their war gaming brothers. The turn based strategy label applies to PnP roleplaying games too, unless you run a game with no encounters and no combat and resolve everything by word of mouth, in no semblance of order at at the whim of a DM who bases success or failure for every in game action solely on his or her subjectively liking the wordplay...


On topic: this is an awesome game after the giving it a good go with a few rounds! Feels just like a good heated session of D&D combat, minus some of the finer intricate rules like elevation and such! Looking forward to custom map making included and pass and play! Money well spent!

[pjft]

I'll second these, specifically 1) - it's one of my main annoyances, since I'm trying to learn what's happening.

Originally Posted by Pitta

1) Interface is great, but I would love that the button to 'unselect' a spell just brought me back on spell selection...not the 'home' panel.
I love to read every spell description before deciding which to cast...so it's an additional tap.
2) NO SCREEN ROTATION!!! Please add it!!!

Another thing I'd like to suggest - and it might not be consensual - but it would be a text caption of the spells/skills that the AI/opponent is using. In the Duel tutorial, I have a hard time understanding what is being cast or the things that the Bard is doing. I then have to open the log to see that "oh, cool - he sang a Song of Valor", and "what, he did that?".

The card is already shown, but a small text caption would be fantastic - even for monster summons or whatever.

I'm liking the game a lot, and I really would like to see this picking up more steam with the community. It's that good.

[RossD20Studios]

Originally Posted by pjft

I'll second these, specifically 1) - it's one of my main annoyances, since I'm trying to learn what's happening.

Another thing I'd like to suggest - and it might not be consensual - but it would be a text caption of the spells/skills that the AI/opponent is using. In the Duel tutorial, I have a hard time understanding what is being cast or the things that the Bard is doing. I then have to open the log to see that "oh, cool - he sang a Song of Valor", and "what, he did that?".

The card is already shown, but a small text caption would be fantastic - even for monster summons or whatever.

I'm liking the game a lot, and I really would like to see this picking up more steam with the community. It's that good.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys! Excellent suggestions, too. The iPad version already has the feature you're talking about where you can thumb through spells and read each one, but it seems I inadvertently disrupted this feature on phone due to fact that spells hide when you activate one for targeting. You're so right...it would be 10x better if the spells just came right back up on cancelation. I'll get this in next update for sure.

Screen rotation: This was actually included in the very first mobile release on Android (when it was still in prototype phase). I removed it during the multiscreen development as it was becoming extremely difficult to figure out how the layout would need to adapt on various aspect ratios, including the Sony-P dual-screen tablet. I can certainly revisit this as an iOS specific feature (much easier when I know the device aspect ratio), but given the high demand for other features (async, content, etc.) it might be awhile until I get to it.

Text Captions: This is another feature that was originally included. I removed it mainly due to interface complexity- but if it helps, then back it goes! Some of the web-players were unhappy to see this go away as they liked the information explaining what the AI/other players were doing.