Mage Gauntlet - from Rocketcat Games

Doing all the enemies in one go would take a long time to balance. We could add in specific-enemy-type arenas, then later do a big varied arena. Haven't thought of rewards for the arenas, or if there even should be any. There's no cash in Mage Gauntlet, you just find loot in chests for the most part.

We probably could add new areas, will see. Arena Mode is first up, though. Will see how popular it is. If it is popular, we'd like to add more arenas and leaderboards for them.

We'll make separate iPad versions for future games, at some point. But not this one. If that's what you meant, I mean: a true separate iPad version rather than universal support.

 

It's done by world map, you can just select any level you've played and replay it whenever you want. You can just go back into old levels and search for any items you've missed, so there aren't any items that get lost forever if you don't find them the first time through.

Max level is 75. Each levelup gives a stat point (the first gives two), and each stat tops out at 25. It's pretty easy to max out your first stat, but it gets progressively harder to level past that. Maxing out a second stat happens before halfway in the master mode playthrough, and hitting the absolute max level should take awhile.

 

15 Weapons
19 Robes
15 Trinkets
19 Pets (16 unique, 3 rehues)
A little over 100 hats (some are similar to each other, but no rehues)

Out of these, 1 weapon, 1 robe, 1 pet, 1 trinket, and 8 hats are IAP.

Generally, instead of the weapons doing more damage than each other, they provide different bonuses. There's an axe that gives you a higher crit rate the closer you are to death, a sword that makes enemies flinch from pain longer than normal, a sword that makes defeated enemies randomly drop extra spells, stuff like that. Trinkets are similar. Pets provide a small bonus depending on the pet, and otherwise just follow you around. Robes generally provide a bonus to a specific spell. Hats are purely cosmetic.

 

The inferno sword (fiery explosion) and ancient staff (earthquakes) are the weapons that stand out the most as having "different abilities". Maybe also the End of Hope, which sets your melee crit rate to 0 but has multiple effects from other swords. I've played SOTN, I remember Crissagrim and Muramasa totally breaking the game, and generally not a big focus put on game balance. We wanted to do whips and maybe a punch weapon in Mage Gauntlet, but cut them because we figured we wouldn't have the energy to balance really exotic weapon types. Definite sequel material, though.

7 hats + 1 pet is one single IAP, for 2 bucks, though that's the Rocketcat Fan Pack. You get that pack for free if you get the game in the first couple days.

The weapon, robe, trinket, and hat are all separate items for 99 cents each. The weapon is the inferno sword, the items have a fiery theme. The plan is to do another 4 IAP items of a new theme every time we do a major content update. IAP will be balanced around the loot you can just find in chests, but they'll have fancy elemental cosmetic themes. As an example, the inferno robe gives your dash little fiery trails.

 

I only regret not mentioning KRPGs with isometric level design, but no diagonal movement. Repeating that: diagonal hallways, but no diagonal movement, making it awkward to even walk down a hall. I presume they're just mindlessly ripping off that bit from Diablo, without having even the slightest idea what they're doing.

 

There's an early trinket that gives you an extra heart.
The IAP trinket lets you resurrect one extra time compared to normal.

Mathematically they're pretty much the same. 4 hearts x 3 lives or 3 hearts x 4 lives. Using either one prevents you from using another trinket, though. There's also a trinket that removes a heart, so you have 2 max, but multiplies your crit rates by 1.5x. It's possible to equip yourself so you only have 1 heart, but crit 90% of the time.

EXP is gained really fast, you'll pretty much get to level 50 and two stats maxed out from getting halfway through master mode. 50-75 is intentionally a grind, but by then you're really powerful, anyway. Levels don't increase your base damage or anything, either, they just provide the stat points. Due to this, I don't think we'll ever really want to provide some sort of level boost IAP.