Great-looking as always Said that before I think: I really like your eye for detail. Like the cross with the red inner circle, or the faint glow around the soul.
Well I've got a dilemma,, two even.. I'm tweaking the core reward loop, which is the chaining of shadows you defeat. As you saw in the gif, if a unit is defeated its soul will try to escape.. Now i have three approaches to dealing with this.. option A: 1. player collects crystals which appear in a seperate interface, activating the crystal as a button, will drain resources, but it will collect the first soul when its trying to escape. 2. the filled soul crystal is added to your inventory to summon at a later time. you can collect as many crystals as you collect. option B: 1. you have X open crystal slots, if you activate an empty slot, it will be ready to capture a soul (which will cost some resources). 2. if a soul is captured, that slots will show the creature and allow you to spawn it. 3. number of slots is limited to a fixed number. option C: 1. you can activate a single capture crystal in the interface, 2. it captures a soul, you get the option to spawn it immediatly for resources 3. crystal is empty again. 4. if you don't spawn it you can spawn it later, or drop it. 5. you can only keep one creature chained, either use it or drop it. So each option is different in small ways.. but i'm a bit torn..(the last one for instance introduces a new risk/reward mechanic, do you keep the collected soul, or discard it for something better, as you can only keep one in the freezer so to speak).. Another dillema I have is: the game now uses 4 stats, but it really doesn't need 4 stats, I can do all the combat calculations, just with health, stamina and attack values.. It would clear up some interface and readability, but take 1 resource out of the equation. In the end its all about streamlining, without dumbing it down.. Any clear cut winners here?
For the first dillema, option B is the way to go, it keeps that risk/reward mechanic... Its just not as risky... If I were you, I would go with a small amount of slots (3-5) and include numbers 2-5 of option C. For your second dillema, I'm not exactly sure what the 4th stat is that you're talking about, so I can't comment on that Hope I helped!
Hard to answer without knowing the actual mechanics (e.g. what does a soul do exactly? Will it be worth it to release it immediately for a resource gain?). Long answer following below... I don't know what the "separate interface" is, or how it works. If it integrates well with the rest of the GUI, why not? Without seeing it, I really cannot say what is better. For now, I'll treat "crystal slots" like equipment slots, and souls/creatures like different gear/units. Having only one slot is too limiting. With 2-5 slots you can try out different builds, see what suits your playstyle, etc. Needing to get more crystals first would be a nice touch. Let's say, you start out with none, get the first one during the tutorial, and a 2nd/3rd during normal story progression. For 4th/5th, you can do optional sidequests, for example, or as reward for special achievements. Look at Ravenmark:Scourge of Estellion for their secondary goals during missions. Some are easy, some are incredibly hard to get. I still don't have all. Essay-style following, on some further thoughts this spawned, straying far from the original topic. Topics covered: Powerups for soul crystals? ; game balance; additional content; IAP. Also, it would be interesting if you can powerup the crystals, and have to do so, e.g. for holding stronger souls. This way, they would grow with the player. If you don't give out enough powerups to get all crystals to maximum level, players need to make choices, which I always like. Just be careful to balance different builds properly: one thing I do not like about e.g. The Quest series, or the Spiderweb games is that they offer you a lot in terms of skills and character builds, at least at first glance. Ravenmark:Mercenaries is another example: lots of possible skills and units. But, with all these games it is more like dangling the proverbial carrot in front of my nose, and never letting me catch it. Specific builds have been proven to be so powerful, that in reality your choices are severely limited, because the games are balanced around these high-powered builds. My advise: balance at least normal difficulty for the lowest common denominator: e.g. 3 cores builds with slight optimisation above "worst-case". Something an average player can easily achieve. You can always add a "Hard mode" and/or "Ultra mode" - which would be balanced against more specialised and "high-end" builds (ones that experienced players would come up with) - with a later update. If it also gives additional content (e.g. more missions, skirmish mode, new character/unit), you could make them IAP content packs. Example games: Strike Wing does that, it offers IAP scenario packs that contain better units and harder missions. Warhammer Quest, with the extra regions, items, heroes: all IAP, and executed extremely well; i.e. no blatant cashgrab. Epoch is a great example of developers offering the same kind of content for free. I don't know which model is more successful, so I cannot give an informed opinion. Last thought on this: A future "Hard Mode" I would like to see as additional campaign from a different viewpoint. I'd pay a high price without hesitation, if the content matches it.
If the resource isn't really needed and has no purpose it is easy to remove. There is nothing more annoying in a game than something you work to collect and is effectively worthless to you.
Totally forgot that part I agree with the others. If you don't need the extra stat, remove it. Addendum: Different attack speeds would be interesting as 4th stat.
Well I'm building option C to test, I'm adding the capability to add multiple slots. But somehow being able to capture one creature at a time and deploy it seems interesting.. It would require you to focus on your next capture, and scout a bit before you engage. Are you sure you have enough resources to deploy it, if not its just dead weight,. Or do you want to capture a stronger creature and save up by scavenging some resources.. i'm making it quite cool I think, if you do nothing the soul is swalloded by the earth, if you capture it a black claw flies out of the soul crystal and snatches it.. took some work, but its gonna be nice..
just a work in progress preview,, I really hate boring and dead interfaces, hence the work on such silly things as this. (crystal part is not done yet).
Inspired by tentacle hentai(tm)? Also, cool new word for crappy GUIs, thanks to misreading your sentence: interfeces.
Thanks, it's really coming together.. I kinda was worried that the combat would be very wait and see, but with the stealing/grabbing of fallen units things become quite hectic, and you really have to prepare your units and resources.. I'll have to add a scout unit, so you can scope out what you need to do though.. By the way my favorite MAgic the Gathering card was the seasinger, (for those in the know)
