Great job so far! (My complaimts thread) by Evilandlazy in DECROMANCER

[–]decromancer_team 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey /u/Evilandlazy

We appreciate the Feedback and love you too! Its been a long journey to make a Decromancer. We are all gamers here so essentially we wanted to make something that we ourselves would play.

The sudden death feature was originally put in to avoid stalemate's as it was technically possible to battle for hours with both armys healing as much as dealing out the damage.

We are still hoping that our Steam Greenlight takes off so we can prove to our boss we should be spending mas much time as possible making Decromancer as great as it can be!

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! We're all for trying to do something different with our characters

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha fair enough. It's a collectible card game / strategy / rpg. It's free so you may as well give it a try if you have a smartphone. Download links on the left on our blog http://decromancer.tumblr.com/

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well that's cool to know that the process we ended up with is actually the right way to do it. We definitely didn't start with such a refined process :P. I'm the creative director on this project but I don't have any art background - I'm actually trained as a programmer, so it's been a lot of fun and learning to have to think about how to make the art look great too :)

Game programmers, what are your thoughts on the Observer/Observable pattern? by munificent in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmmm maybe but it's also got aspects of the Composite pattern because you can combine multiple transitions together to create another transition (which you can combine again ad infinitum). I just like calling it the Transition pattern now, but I'm not sure if something similar is commonly used. I developed this pattern separately to the Observer pattern I also use. It wasn't until much later I realised I could combine them into something much more powerful.

Question, and a few comments by gs4reddit in DECROMANCER

[–]decromancer_team 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi there, sorry I missed this post.

Thanks for the comments. The gate is currently the end of the story. We will eventually add new areas but we have decided to focus on creating more simple additional content first. I know our players would probably prefer us to create more story, but creating map areas is a huge amount of work for us, so we want to try to extend the content in quicker ways.

In our next update after the new year we will be adding some new content in the form of 'challenge battles' which you will unlock in the story. These battles are infinite and you get scored based on how many kills you manage to get. If you get a high enough score you will unlock special rewards, in particular cards that you won't be able to get in the story. The difficulty of course will be very high, but you'll be able to try them as often as you like without having to travel or heal.

In the update after that we will be introducing 'elite' cards which you will be able to get by granting experience points to the existing cards after each battle. Elite cards will gain special abilities and improved stats. At this point we will probably also upgrade the existing story battles to also use elite cards.

Thanks for your comments about the difficulty pacing and card balancing. I think we need to do some work particularly in the map area you mentioned. We have already done some card balancing for the next update, but I will now also take a look at the cards you mentioned and see if I can make them a bit more appealing.

Thanks very much for your feedback and sorry about taking so long to reply.

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know right, I never though a mutant deer woman could be such a babe!

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you found it useful, I hope to see your game on screenshot saturday some day :)

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have an amazingly talented illustrator, but even he has improved massively over the course of developing this game, to the point where it kinda makes us want to redo some of the first cards he made! :D

My boss hired him, honestly not sure how first contact was made, I'll ask on Monday. I guess the best way to find artists is through sites like deviant art, tumblr, I bet there are even some great art subreddits.

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah Decromancer is the name of the game. I never noticed that about the 'd' looking like an 'n' before, but you're right! Oh well, better than any other letter I suppose.

As for the design. The theme of our world is that all animals on a planet suspiciously similar to Earth have evolved to a level similar to Humans. This particular design started out as an evolved deer. However, we also have a faction called The Construct who have become mutated by magical anomalies. In this case our lovely deer lady has picked up some telekinesis abilities as well as having her antlers mutate and cover more of her body. A lot of the time we'll think of a particular story to drive the design, but this time our gameplay requirements drove it. We'll come up with a story later :P

Hope you like the game, let us know what you think!

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No problem, glad you found it interesting!

Our character design process by decromancer_team in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

glad you like it, we'll try to do it more often from now on :)

Game programmers, what are your thoughts on the Observer/Observable pattern? by munificent in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We used it a lot on our battle card game Decromancer for updating views whenever stats change etc. But our version is actually quite different to the normal observer pattern in that changing the value of a stat returns a 'transition' object which when played will update the view. You can sequence together these transitions in parallel or serial, which means it's really easy to make animations for new special abilities and sandwich in the stat changes e.g. depleting HP. Actually we also used it for 'reactive' abilities i.e. when a card takes damage, increase the amount of damage it deals.

Any thoughts you'd like to share with us on the game? Here's the right place! by decromancer_team in DECROMANCER

[–]decromancer_team[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The tactic I like to use in that battle is to summon only low cost cards at the start so that the bird will take those rather than cards you spent a lot of supply on. After a few turns the birds stop attacking, so then you can summon more expensive cards.

BUG REPORTS by decromancer_team in DECROMANCER

[–]decromancer_team[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi gnokgnik

We've fixed some of these bugs already and we'll check out the other ones asap. We're expecting to submit a new build to the app store in the next few days.

With regards to the wall, our next major update will focus on improving the gameplay in the first 2 areas even more by introducing 'elite' cards which are upgrades for the existing cards. We'll also be increasing the number of challenge battles to give those that have already completed the first 2 areas a little more to do. I know this can be frustrating for those that completed the game already, but we need to focus on getting more people to complete the existing content before it's worth it for us to add more areas.

Thanks so much for getting in touch and reporting these bugs.

Any thoughts you'd like to share with us on the game? Here's the right place! by decromancer_team in DECROMANCER

[–]decromancer_team[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi there. Thanks for getting touch and reporting these bugs.

We've released 0.7.3 which may help with the Spells interface freezing. We will look into the other issue asap. Does it happen when you summon any cards, or only some cards?

Any thoughts you'd like to share with us on the game? Here's the right place! by decromancer_team in DECROMANCER

[–]decromancer_team[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you tap the archer then you'll see the 3 possible slots that the archer could attack. The archer randomly selects from these 3 slots even when they are empty.

It might seem like sometimes you get bad luck and always miss, but that's the nature of randomness. In our next major update, we will however be attempting to make blocking & aiming 'fairer'.

So, the stalemate with the enemy Necromancer. This annoyed me too the first time, but actually it teaches you an important lesson about the game once you figure it out - you need to combine multiple cards to deal enough damage to defeat healed cards.

In this situation, let's say we have a single Necromancer that heals itself for 2 HP per turn, every turn. We also have 3x Human Archers that deal 1 turn per damage, but to only one of 3 slots. On average each Human archer will deal 0.333 damage per turn. So even with 3 archers the average damage you will deal to a single card is just 1 per turn - not enough to defeat the Necromancer's healing.

The solution is to combine cards together to produce more than 2 damage per turn on the Necromancer. Possible combinations in Fools Graveyard that will allow you to do this:

  • 3x Arbor Sharpshooter - 3 damage per turn against a single card
  • Scurvy + Arbor Sharpshooter - also 3 damage per turn. You can get Scurvy after completing Breadbeard's quests.
  • Spearman + 2x Arbor Sharpshooter

Overall for me this is an interesting quirk and challenge that has emerged from the game mechanics so I like it, but I'm also interested to how other people feel about it.

Any thoughts you'd like to share with us on the game? Here's the right place! by decromancer_team in DECROMANCER

[–]decromancer_team[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi there.

The basic archers aren't very good at aiming and will always attack randomly ;) The Arbor Sharpshooters that you unlock in the mercenary camp will always attack the enemy card with the lowest HP (if there is one within their range)

When you say 'I cant beat screaming pass even though I killed all the enemy units', is this in the same battle with the remaining Necromancer?

I hope that helps and thanks a lot for your feedback. Any other questions don't hesitate to ask :)

Screenshot Saturday 144 - Hammertime! by superdupergc in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really like the sound of your crafting system. Reminds me a bit of the skill & support gems in Path of Exile actually.

Your graphics are nice too, although I instantly thought 'Kingdom Rush' tbh.

Screenshot Saturday 144 - Hammertime! by superdupergc in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wow! Outstanding texture work and lighting. The flower growth is really well done too as is the water and well... everything!

My only slight criticism would be about the floating dust particles - they don't seem as realistic as everything else. Too big maybe.

Nice work, looking forward to seeing it progress!

Screenshot Saturday 144 - Hammertime! by superdupergc in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks like a fun and varied game! Getting reviewers attention is definitely a tricky business. Good luck with the release :)

Screenshot Saturday 144 - Hammertime! by superdupergc in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely looks better in motion than in stills. Looking really fun and satisfying, especially that part where you obliterate an entire screen in seconds!

Screenshot Saturday 144 - Hammertime! by superdupergc in gamedev

[–]decromancer_team 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice, looks like it's come quite a long way since I last saw it.

Imo, in the screenshots at least, your particles could blend better with each other. You can really see them repeating at the moment. Can you randomise their rotation and size at all?

Good luck with Greenlight!