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1
Game Discussion / Re: Feedback regarding the Biomes
« on: October 11, 2022, 05:25:26 PM »
Thank you, Chumsie, for the "gold-mine" of feedback, insight and recommendations here. This is kind of detail developers like myself absolutely love to receive - super detailed, specifics on what you like/don't like, and even actionable changes we can make to immediately improve the experience.

It probably won't surprise you to learn that the biomes were designed in the order of dungeon, forest, desert (with the original intent to play them in that specific order). In each iteration, I attempted to out-do myself with greater ideas, hence the increasing complexity of encounters as you move in this direction.

As a rogue-like game, I expected many players to fail their first few runs, and so I wanted to encourage players to keep coming back and expose more of the content so they'd see more of what the game has to offer rather than being distraught with the same opening sequence each time. So, I programmed difficulty scalers to allow the biomes to be playable on any chapter. Until just recently, the desert could not spawn until chapter 2 or 3 (it can now spawn on chapter 1 as well) - and I had hoped the balance changes were enough to support this. However, it's clear from the feedback here (and elsewhere) that we still need some further tuning to optimize the experience.

I'll keep pondering this and come to it with more response as I digest it, but just wanted to thank you for now :)

2
Game Discussion / Re: Feedback regarding the Summoners
« on: October 10, 2022, 12:49:49 PM »
Wow, just...wow! Incredible feedback and insights here, Chumsie! Thank you so much for taking the time to put together such a detailed write up and share it with us. There's a lot of great suggestions to digest here, so I'm going to start by sharing this in a few places so others can help build upon your feedback here - and I'll be personally reaching out in the near future to get your guidance on the actionable changes needed.

3
Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
« on: June 18, 2022, 10:02:39 AM »
After six years in development, we're excited to announce that...

Summoners Fate will be available on Steam Monday June 20th (Early Access)

Demo available on our store page here.

If you're curious to see just how far along the game has come, check out these great videos from some of my favorite content creators, Wanderbots and Retromation:


"This is a solid deck builder roguelike. It’s got a lot of features that I love. It plays completely differently from a lot of other ones on the market [closer to Hearthstone or MtG]. It is a ton of fun." - Wanderbots


"I’m impressed… I’m pleasantly surprised. This is not like anything I’ve ever played…while being a little like everything I’ve ever played" - Retromation

4
Game Updates & News / Releasing on Steam June 20, 2022
« on: June 18, 2022, 09:59:55 AM »
After six years in development, we're excited to announce that...

Summoners Fate will be available on Steam Monday June 20th (Early Access)

Demo available on our store page here.

If you're curious to see just how far along the game has come, check out these great videos from some of my favorite content creators, Wanderbots and Retromation:


"This is a solid deck builder roguelike. It’s got a lot of features that I love. It plays completely differently from a lot of other ones on the market [closer to Hearthstone or MtG]. It is a ton of fun." - Wanderbots


"I’m impressed… I’m pleasantly surprised. This is not like anything I’ve ever played…while being a little like everything I’ve ever played" - Retromation

5
Game Updates & News / Release Notes v0.69.1
« on: May 03, 2022, 02:10:22 PM »
    Release Notes
    Latest Release: v0.69.1
    Date Released: 06/12/2022


    Pending Changes
    Coming Soon
    • Fixed bug "RangeError: Invalid child index" when positioning card in hand

    Changes in v0.69.1
    Released: 06/12/2022

    • New Feature: Stats tab in Progression menu allows you to view your collection of gameplay stats.
    • New Feature: When returning to the title menu, any new cards unlocked are now shown to the player.
    • Improvement: Added a "New" flag to indicate cards the player has not yet unlocked when card is shown in "You Found", "Choose Card", and "Shops" prompts.
    • Improvement: Sorted locked Summoners by their relative difficulty to unlock.
    • Improvement: Per player feedback on getting the "Challenger" achievement (defeat boss with no soul gems) and a clever hardcore strategy to avoid picking up heart containers to reserve them as extra campsites, we've disabled auto-loot on soul gems and heart containers. You'll have to walk over these tiles to pick up these items.
    • Improvement: Reduced difficulty of unlocking Antarus, Battle Mage. Reduced difficulty of unlocking Cora, Ice Queen. Changed Sylvia's starting deck cards to include Animal Growth.
    • Fixed bug where tutorial uses the Advanced difficulty instead of Novice difficulty.
    • Fixed bug where crocodiles in forest encounter always took the first turn (even if player is not powerful enough to survive their attack)
    • Fixed bug where it was possible to summon killer bunnies, armored squirrels or skeletons in the water.
    • Fixed bug where Breed spell could copy units onto invalid tiles (such as walls or water).
    • Fixed bug where All-star decks weren't populating after exiting an adventure to the title and then attempting to play a battle.
    • Fixed bug where the same Satchel cards were appearing twice in the progression menu.
    • Fixed various reported desyncs and soft locks.

    Changes in v0.67.1
    Released: 05/26/2022

    • New Feature: All-new progression system allows you to unlock cards, characters and achievements through gameplay.
    • New Feature: Cross-platform cloud save allows you to play on one device and continue on another.
    • Improvement: Defeated guardians are now revived when using a portal to travel to a new world.
    • Improvement: Barbarians who defeat enemies by knocking them into spikes will now get credit for the defeat and trigger their activation. Effectively, we changed the rule for who actually does the damage/defeat such that neutral targets (ex: spikes) do not take the credit, even if they deal the remaining damage.
    • Fixed bug where Gruar appeared super-tiny after defeating an enemy instead of growing larger.
    • Fixed bug where game might lock animations during situations where trees or other placable objects were destroyed.
    • Fixed bug where successions of spore pods being destroyed did not animate the "burst" of adjacent spore pods.
    • Fixed bug where it was not possible to buy the last card from a shopkeeper on desktop.
    • Fixed bug where AI could desync with the player in certain situations.
    • Testing Fix: Implemented a solution to help improve framerate and performance.
    • Testing Fix: Implemented a solution that potentially fixes the stuck on "Loading Assets 100%" bug after updating.

    Changes in v0.65.1
    Released: 05/08/2022

    • Fixed bug where it was possible to get a hurled squirrel to follow you in explore mode. This meddlesome squirrel could then go on to create undesirable mayhem, such as making your Summoner run away or causing the game to freeze.
    • Fixed bug where the Battle Mage did not apply the knockback to some damage spells with multiple AOE targets (such as Dragons Breath or Fireball). The Battle Mage now properly applies knockback to all damage spells with the exception of spells that cause their own gravity effect from a point other than the caster (for example, Exploding Fireball knocks backs units from the center of the blast.)
    • Fixed bug where hurling squirrels at groups of explosive barrels could cause errors (see bug above).
    • Fixed bug where the Guardian Angel redirect could throw exception if the only available adjacent space to summon the angel was against a wall.
    • Fixed bug where dragging a satchel card into play could cause a softlock.
    • Tracking a bug reported by some users that after the game initially updates from a new build, it gets stuck in the loading screen. Restarting the game fixes the issue. Please let us know if you experience this bug and provide information if possible so we can fix in future release.
    • Tracking a bug reported where changing the language can generate an error. Please continue reporting this bug and provide any details you can on what you were doing prior to the language change so we can fix in future release.

    Changes in v0.64.1
    Released: 05/03/2022

    NEW FEATURES

    UI Overhaul: The game’s UI has been completely overhauled and optimized. This includes all-new UI artwork, improvements to the battle interface, new resource HUD, and more.

    New PC Controls: We’ve added numerous controls to improve the experience of the game on PC. Clicking the right mouse button shows the card or description of the unit or tile clicked on. Mousing over resources and buttons in the hud will now identify what the element is and how it works. Mousing over cards in the deck builder instantly shows the expanded details. We’ve also eliminated the “Choose and Buy” buttons on PC in favor of using mouse over to view cards and clicking on the card directly to make your selection.

    Localization: Summoners Fate now supports 6 languages: English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, and French. Players can change language at the title screen and via settings menu.

    Risk vs Reward Features: In the previous build, we received feedback that there wasn’t enough reward to offset the risk of hunting down enemy minions and elite Summoners. We’ve taken your suggestions and added several new features to make the tension of risk vs. reward more fun and meaningful:
    • Soul Gems: Soul Gems provide incentive to explore and defeat the Elite Summoners. When defeated, each defeated enemy Summoner drops either a red or blue soul gem. A red soul gem depletes the boss’s health by 5. A blue soul gem depletes the bosses mana by 3 (denying them a turn of casting spells against you).
    • Skeleton Keys: Skeleton Keys provide incentive to defeat minions. Minions will now drop keys that can be used to unlock treasure rooms or locked chests containing satchel cards or other valuable resources.
    • Satchel Cards: A new category of cards that can be cast during explore mode to power up your characters for the next battle, upgrade characters, and unlock new content. Satchel cards are found in locked treasure chests, dropped by elites, and bosses.

    Boss Key: No more stumbling into the boss. You’ll now need to recover the boss key (carried by one of the Elite Summoners) and use it to unlock the boss’s chamber.

    Random Bosses: This build adds 3 new bosses (one per each of our current three biomes) for a total of 6 bosses. The bosses in each world are now randomly selected.

    Lore Journal and Collection Completion Reward: The new lore collection in the HUD now shows your progress towards completing your lore collection. Clicking the lore collection in the HUD lets you read the lore you’ve found. Completing the lore collection within a world grants the player their choice of a reward.

    Discard Feature: Per popular request, cards can now be discarded at any time during your turn. Additionally, if you discard two or more cards during the same turn, you generate 1 mana.

    Auto Loot: Characters will now automatically pick up loot dropped when destroying objects in explore mode (but not during combat and not after winning a battle).

    Debris: Environment objects now splinter, shatter and generate debris when destroyed making it much more fun and satisfying to smash barrels and crates to find loot. Debris is also persistent so you can follow the wake of your destruction to tell where you’ve already battled and explored.

    IMPROVEMENTS

    • Character Aesthetics: The size of character heads have been adjusted to more realistic proportions.
    • Environment Aesthetics: We’ve added textures to dirt and dungeon tiles to make the game feel a bit more “gritty” on PC while still maintaining the game’s unique charm and aesthetic. We’ve adjusted the lighting to make dungeons and caves feel darker. Torches and other light sources have been adjusted to improve aesthetics. Doorways have been improved.
    • End Turn Prompt: Adapted the end turn prompt so it now messages whether or not you have unit actions available, cards that can be played, or both. Additionally, the end turn prompt can now be disabled/enabled in Gameplay Settings.
      Updated the difficulty settings: Casual is now Novice. Normal is now Advanced. Added tooltip descriptions to each difficulty setting. Novice difficulty now has additional features to help onboard new players including bonus life to their Summoner, the ability to fully recover their party after each defeat, and having a guardian angel summoned on their last retry.
    • Title Screen, Tortoise and Battle Menus: Overhauled the design of the menus to give it a more modern and premium feel. Players can now choose Adventure, Battle or Tutorial from the Tortoise menu. The old battle menu has been removed and the battle options have been placed directly in the tortoise menu with fly out animations and polished transitions. In addition, when you start a battle and complete it, you now return directly to the battle screen so you can quickly fire up your next battle without having to navigate through the menus.
    • Settings Menu: Restructured the “Exit Game” menu to comply with best practices for PC games, allowing option to exit directly to desktop or title screen, and clearly indicating how game progress is saved.
    • Fast Travel: Added animation to complete the teleport exit effect of the fast travel system.
    • Weather Systems: Added additional support for weather effects (ex: rain storms) to control lighting by removing light/god rays during the duration of weather. Added animated god rays to further improve ambience and immersion in the world.
    • Card Types: Types now show on spell cards (ex: insectoid spells now show insectoid type).
    • Goblin Party: The Goblin party got more exciting! New aesthetics as well as boosted stats for the “Birthday Boy” goblin.
    • Map Landmarks: Key information such as treasures you’ve discovered, shops, enemies, etc. are automatically marked on your map when you discover them. This also now includes marking enemies on the map when you are defeated and opt to retry.
    • Updated tutorial: Removed lore, soul gems and boss key from tutorial (These will be introduced in the first adventure or when the player resets tips from the settings menu). Player now frees the Cosmic Tortoise from the jail cell using a key.

    SUMMONER LAUNCH SET
    To help focus our balance testing, we’re going to limit the characters available in the prerelease to the 8 Summoners planned for launch. As we reach closer towards development milestones, we will unlock additional characters as well as introduce new characters for play testing. These Summoners are:
    • Sylvia, Druid (Nature, Chaos)
    • Antarus, Battle Mage (Chaos, Arcane)
    • Albirich, Fighter Mage (Celestial, Nature)
    • Cora, Ice Queen (Arcane, Void)
    • D’Orc Slayer, Chieftan (Chaos, Nature)
    • Li, Pyromancer (Chaos, Celestial)
    • Sibylla, Conjurer (Void, Chaos)
    • Zenon, Arch Mage (Arcane, Celestial)

    NEW CARDS
    • Guardian: Drax, Scorpion Lord
    • Guardian: Araknia, Spider Queen
    • Guardian: Dameon, Warlock
    • Unit: Vampire Hypnotist
    • Unit: Vampire
    • Unit: Vampire Lord
    • Unit: Gruar
    • Unit: Dark Elf Archer
    • Unit: Dark Elf Witch
    • Unit: Frog Demon
    • Unit: Electrocutioner
    • Unit: Armored Rat
    • Unit: Mantis Warrior
    • Spell: Enrage
    • Spell: Rat Pack
    • Spell: Gust of Wind
    • Spell: Hurl a Squirrel
    • Spell: Spirit Recall
    • Satchel Card: Earth Elemental Scroll
    • Satchel Card: Fire Elemental Scroll
    • Satchel Card: Air Elemental Scroll
    • Satchel Card: Water Elemental Scroll
    • Satchel Card: Anti-Freeze Potion
    • Satchel Card: Anti-Venom Potion
    • Satchel Card: Healing Potion
    • Satchel Card: Big Healing Potion
    • Satchel Card: Mana Potion
    • Satchel Card: Big Mana Potion
    • Satchel Card: Forcefield
    • Satchel Card: Guardian Heart
    • Satchel Card: Life Potion
    • Satchel Card: Stone Ankh
    • Satchel Card: Strength Potion
    • Satchel Card: Mana Potion
    • Satchel Card: Big Mana Potion
    • Satchel Card:Stone Ankh

    BUG FIXES
    • Fixed bug where bridges in forest world weren’t populating wood planks and resulting in 1-tile wide bridges.
    • Fixed bug with some keywords not populating correctly.
    • Fixed bug where quickly adding dice to a fate encounter could result in your hud reporting extra dice that weren’t actually available in inventory
    • Fixed bug where fast traveling to a map could trigger event prompts twice.
    • Fixed bug where clicking rapidly after fast traveling could result in getting the camera stuck in zoomed in view.
    • Fixed bug where using Save and Exit Adventure during a battle within an adventure would clear the battle progress.
    • Fixed bug where light rays in dungeons would follow the player character like spotlights while exploring.
    • Fixed bug that would allow spiderlings shaken off spider mothers to spawn on water.
    • Fixed bug that would allow marauders surrounding captives to spawn on traps.
    • Fixed bug where it was possible to fast travel, land on a trap and receive damage.
    • Fixed bug where releasing card to cast could result in it temporarily appearing at the top of screen.
    • Fixed bug where cards being returned to the deck after a battle appeared super large.
    • Fixed bug where hero won't appear to reposition to gravity effect if they are pulled on the AI's turn going first.
    • Fixed bug where the guardian from Catch of the Day encounter could join the team even if the party was full. The prompt that allows the player to choose their two guardian teammates was not surfacing, allowing a temporary party size of more than 2 guardians.
    • Fixed bug where Loyal units were not being healed when resting at a campsite.
    • Fixed bug where retreating immediately after the AI has taken first turn caused a soft lock.
    • Fixed bug where suspicious tombs could not be opened.

    BALANCE CHANGES
    • Balance: Changed Freeze Time  from (Cost 2) "All non-timekeeper units cannot use actions, cast spells, be targeted or take damage units end of your next turn." to (Cost 3) "Freeze all units on the board except timekeepers."
    • Balance: Changed Revealing Light (Cost 1): "Reveal every Surprise and Stealth unit. Draw 2 cards." To Blinded by the Light (Cost 2): "Blind all enemies until end of their next turn. Reveal every Surprise and Stealth unit."
    • Balance: Steal Lifeforce spell was renamed "Vampire Bite" and changed from "Steal 4 Life from adjacent enemy." to "Give adjacent enemy -0/-4. Gain +0/+4."
    • Balance: Added type "small" to Yellowjacket, Wolf Spiderling, Bat and Rat. You can now use Animal Growth to mutate these animals and Breed to copy them.
    • Balance: Shockwave now stuns all enemies. Stunned units cannot attack or block until end of turn.
    • Balance: Reduced cost of Expose the Rear from 2 to 1.
    • Balance: Reduced cost of Lions Fury from 2 to 1.
    • Balance: Fixed chain lightning targeting so that triggered abilities no longer interrupt the lightning animation before it finishes hitting all targets. Fixed the animation so the lightning bolt seamlessly passes through all targets. Made it so that the Spell Damage Boost now applies to all targets hit by chain lightning (not just the first target). Made it so the targeting now shows all units who will be hit by the chain lightning before casting. Changed Chain lightning text from "Deal 3 damage and chain 3 damage on up to 2 closest enemies visible to last target." to read: "Deal 3 damage on up to 3 enemies closest together and visible to each other."
    • Balance: Wall of Fire was changed to allow summoning the wall on target row or column. Additionally, the Wall of Fire now lasts until the end of battle or removed using dispel magic.
    • Balance: Death Blossoms can now be cast on target row or column.
    • Balance: Reduced the cost of Redirect from 3 to 2.
    • Balance: To make the duration of effects more clear, we changed "Until end of next turn" to "Until end of their turn" and we changed "Until their next turn" to "Until start of their turn". These effects will now last relative to the turn of the unit they are cast on, not the turn of who casted it, which means the status effects placed on them will always communicate the correct duration remaining.
    • Balance: Imprison was changed to read: "Enclose an enemy in a magical cage that blocks sight and attacks until end of their turn.
    • Balance: Changed Hurl a Squirrel, Armored Squirrels, Skeleton Warriors and Killer Bunnies so that these cards can still be cast even if there isn't enough room to summon all of them.
    • Balance: Reduced the cost of purchasing heroes from Inkadoo's House of Hopeless Heroes when encountered at early level in the game. (Now works similar to mercenaries for hire, with prices ranging from 300-500 gold).
    [/list]

    6
    Game Discussion / Re: Am I missing something? Help
    « on: August 01, 2021, 01:28:20 PM »
    Welcome to Summoners Fate, Neg! Thanks for calling out the Retreat feature, Scribe!

    Thanks so much for sharing your feedback. We'll get a tutorial in for the retreat command in a future build and adjust the UI to make it more obvious :D

    7
    Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
    « on: July 17, 2021, 07:42:56 AM »
    Who needs sleep?  ;D Been streaming Summoners Fate all night for PAX Online!

    Come check it out: https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561198096395883

    8
    Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
    « on: July 14, 2021, 08:32:07 AM »
    Check out this awesome preview article from Pocket Gamer on Summoners Fate!




    9
    Game Updates & News / Release Notes v0.49.1
    « on: June 30, 2021, 06:29:39 PM »
    Release Notes
    Latest Release: v0.49.1
    Date Released: 10/19/2021


    • New Summoner Select Screen - Improved how summoners are selected for adventures based on player feedback. Each summoner now has a curated starting deck and description to make it more clear how their playstyle works.
    • Privacy - New account registration no longer requires email.
    • Fixed Bug where Battle Mage was showing the Block keyword in his card description.


    Changes in v0.48.1
    Released: 10/10/2021
    • Fast Travel - You can use the world map to fast travel to explored locations.
    • Interactive map - You can mouse over (or tap) on map cells to learn about the contents.
    • Randomized World Order - The world order is now randomized instead of always being Dungeon, Forest, Desert. Note, because of the difficulty of desert encounters, desert will still only surface on level 2 or 3.
    • PC/Mac controls: Added WASD/arrow key movement controls.
    • PC/Mac controls: Added M keypress to open/close map.
    • PC/Mac controls: Added mouse over controls to view spell cards during combat.
    • New animation: Replaced 3 Star Victory/Dance animation with Sword Clash Victory.
    • Fixed bug where running on 4K monitor in 4K resolution in Windows would cause the game to lock.
    • Fixed bug where multiplayer games weren’t showing opponent’s name.
    • Fixed bug where the contents of an explored room were not marked on map after being defeated and retrying.
    • Fixed bug with misaligned text in dice roll prompt for caged animal encounter.
    • Fixed bug where defeating Cho'Tuk while he is transformed into a bear would lock the game.
    • Balance Fix: Orc huntresses controlled by bots will no longer fire arrows at the start of battle.

    Changes in v0.47.1
    Released: 8/26/2021

    • Fixed bug where a multiplayer de-sync could occur as a result of both players using the undo feature on back-to-back turns.
    • Spawn Protection System (Smart Procedural Curation) In this first phase of efforts to address player feedback on early-game difficulty, we've implemented a new feature that protects players from being trapped in a world with battles that are too difficult to win. We accomplish this by comparing your characters current battle experience with the difficulty of encounters, and, if necessary, swapping encounter in the world to ensure a better distribution of fights that escalate in difficulty with the resources available.
    • Added a tutorial tip to for the retreat command. This should trigger during adventure mode when encountering a battle that might be too difficult to win with your current resources. The retreat command provides a way to safely scout the area and leave the battle.
    • Added ultra-widescreen aspect ratio support for Android phones.
    • Fixed bug where the Log Out button was being scaled weird on iOS
    • Added new card: Siphon Mana
    • Added new maps to procedurally generated worlds

    Changes in v0.46.1
    Released: 8/4/2021

    • Fixed bug where starting a multiplayer game, then backing out before a game connected resulted in adventure campaign progress being erased.
    • Improved experience for how Adventures are saved to meet player expectations. The game will still auto-save at every step. In addition, there is now a "Save & Exit to Title" button that will allow you to return to the title screen with campfire and tortoise. From here, you can choose to "Continue Adventure" or start "New Game". This way, it's more clear that campaign progress is protected, and you are free to start new battles (multiplayer or vs. AI). If you try to start a new adventure while an existing adventure is in progress, the game will prompt you with a warning, indicating that starting a new adventure will erase the current adventure progress. Player can then choose to start new adventure or cancel and keep existing adventure.
    • Fixed bug where the first three cards in deck were not getting shuffled.
    • Fixed bug where switching to Desktop UI on mobile would lock the UI in Desktop mode until selecting Mobile UI and restarting the app.
    • Fixed bug where attempting to remove a card from deck while the Sort prompt is filtering it out crashes the deck builder.
    • Fixed bug where debug code was showing on character during rainstorm.
    • UI: Made the magic school buttons in Sort cards prompt consistent with those in the Choose Summoner screen.
    • Balance: Reduced the Insectoid card mana discount granted by Mating Season from 2 to 1.

    Changes in v0.45.1
    Released: 8/1/2021

    Fixed bug where starting a Battle while in Adventure mode could result in advancing to the next chapter with your Battle team and losing your previous adventure progress.

    Changes in v0.44.1
    Released: 7/30/2021

    More updated UI (prompts, victory/defeat, and turn start indicators)

    Changes in v0.43.1
    Released: 6/30/2021

    Single Player Adventures
    This build is all about the new single player experience called "Adventures" (also called "Prophecies"). Your goal is defeat three powerful bosses in an ever-changing lands where new encounters are generated each time you play. Adventures are divided into 3 chapters, with each chapter representing a different world (ex: dungeon, forest, desert). For this release, the order of the biomes and the bosses for each world are fixed. In future builds, the plan is to randomize the worlds, enemy and boss themes so you'll never know quite what to expect next. Even still, there is plenty of content in this build to keep you delighted and surprised :)

    New Tutorial
    Sylvia's squirrel-hurl staff finding mission has been updated to introduce many of the new mechanics of the game's new open-world, free-roam exploration engine.

    New UI and Desktop Layout
    The game's UI artwork has been updated and I've added a new layout mode optimized for playing the game on desktop.

    Seamless Multiplayer Battles
    In previous builds, it was necessary to complete your single player games before you could engage in a multiplayer game. In this build, you can start a multiplayer battle (or quick match against the AI) without disrupting your campaign progress. This build also features an optimized caching system, so game load times after the initial rasterization process should be very fast.

    Music
    Several new music tracks have been added to compliment exploring during adventures, resting at camp, and the escalation of boss battles.

    New Cards
    Nearly 50 new cards/characters have been added to the build and are available in both the single player and battle modes.
    • Animate Plant
    • Ant Pheromones
    • Arcane Insight
    • Bat
    • Bonus Attack
    • Call to Arms
    • Carniflower
    • Celestial Blast
    • Sir Cheesles/Chronomancer
    • Demonic Lash
    • Demonic Strength
    • Dreadnought Titan
    • Dreadnought Warrior
    • Dreamstealer
    • Dwarven Armor
    • Flash Bomb
    • Freeze Time
    • Giant Crocodile
    • Giant Stag Beetle
    • Harpy
    • Hellhound
    • Imprison
    • Incubus
    • Jungle Cat
    • Lightning Storm
    • Mating Season
    • Meditate
    • Necrotic Blast
    • Orc champion
    • Power Overwhelming
    • Rat
    • Screaming Skull
    • Shadow Bolt
    • Shatter
    • Shockwave
    • Silence
    • Skeleton Reaver
    • Stolen Dreams
    • Succubus
    • Shunder Armor
    • Tactician
    • Three Point Palm
    • Time Bomb
    • Timekeeper Warrior
    • Toxic Spores
    • Unusual Size
    • Water Drake
    • Wooden Buckler

    And More!
    Many other game improvements and fixes have also been added in this build.

    10
    Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
    « on: May 19, 2021, 01:12:37 PM »
    Summoners Fate Wins Big in the Big Indie Pitch Competition
    First off, thank you all for being so kind, patient and supportive during our development process. It means so much to get your personal messages of encouragement and know that you're still behind me in this journey we're on together. I hope this update brings a smile and some joy to your day.

    Check Out Our Award-Winning Pitch
    I'm pleased to share that Summoners Fate just won third place in the Big Indie Pitch competition! Not only did we get a chance to validate our game with veteran game journalists and publishers, we also take away a $3000 prize package in marketing and exposure with Pocket Gamer and 148Apps.

    Here's a video of the winning pitch I delivered:


    But, the build Ross, what about the build?!
    As ecstatic as I am about our recent victory, I am absolutely thrilled to announce the release details for our long-anticipated single-player build.

    When to Expect the New Build:

    We plan to release the new build to prerelease players next month (June). I've just completed all the content planned for this release, and now it's just a matter of fixing known issues and optimizing the experience. I don't have an exact date. The timing will depend on final testing as well as review process for the Apple submission. My goal is ASAP, and I will commit to delivering before the end of June, whatever state it's in.

    What To Expect in the New Build:

    The next release of Summoners Fate is all about the single player experience. When you first login, you'll be transported to the forest realm where you'll once again help Sylvia, the Druid save the forest - only this time it will introduce our free-roam, open world mechanics including campsites, lore and fate encounters.


    The Cosmic Tortoise invites you to relax by the fire and play Summoners Fate.

    Upon completing this mission, you'll be presented with our new Play menu featuring the fan-favorite tortoise who has evolved into a key character within the game, carrying the burden of your growing card collection as well as opening portals to new worlds. From the play menu, you'll be able to choose the new Adventure mode or Battle mode (the gameplay mode you know and love from our earlier builds).


    Adventure or Battle? Choose Your Fate

    Adventures have three chapters, each featuring a different world. You'll choose a starting Summoner and begin your quest to defeat the three bosses. Worlds are populated with a combination of hand-crafted battles, fate encounters, shops, treasure and camp sites, selected through procedural curation to ensure you'll have a unique experience each time you play.

    Note: For the sake of getting this build out to you sooner, there will be 3 different world biomes (dungeon, forest and desert), surfaced in a linear order, and with fixed bosses. For full release, I have plans for at least 2 additional biomes as well as up to 3 potential bosses per biome. For future builds, the biome order will also become dynamic (rather than linear) with the enemies scaling in difficulty according to the number of chapter the world is played on.

    Another great feature in the upcoming build: You'll be able to switch between single player and multiplayer/battle mode at will. Battles and deckbuilding for multiplayer can be accessed directly from the settings menu, and upon battle completion, you'll return seamlessly to your current single player world. And with our new asset caching, load times between battles have been virtually eliminated.


    Lore - Our Unique Way of Telling Stories
    Battles in Summoners Fate are complimented by story presented through fate encounters and lore. In a previous update, I discussed how Fate Encounters will use D20 dice to determine the outcome of light RPG scenarios (ex: freeing a caged bear) to deliver story, activate events and unlock new characters. Lore is a new mechanic to Summoners Fate that I designed to help bridge the gap between these encounters and the story of the world and its characters.

    Scrolls containing lore can be dropped by defeated enemies and discovered while searching objects. The text in these scrolls can:

    Identify and provide flavor and depth to characters you encounter in the current world you are exploring
    Reveal the identify of the world boss and tactics useful for defeating them
    Reveal interesting insights about the world of Summoners Fate (this is called "universal lore")
    We've found that lore can foster emergent story telling due to the random timings of its reveals with the encounters in the world. I think lore will also help further connect you to the characters you so diligently command in battle.


    If nothing else, lore should ease any concerns you may have about the characters looking up at you

    Until Next Time
    I know you're all super excited to get your hands on the new build, and believe me, I am too! I can't wait to see our Discord and forums ignite with your feedback and ideas for new fate encounters and lore. I have a strong feeling the new adventure mode is going to spark some amazing creativity in our community.

    See you next month for the release of Summoners Fate adventures!

    11
    Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
    « on: February 02, 2021, 10:26:23 AM »
    And so the prophecy foretold, a future generation of D20Studios developers would rise up and do great things... Ross's son Wesley and Peter's son Michael create a game together in their first game jam!

    Ancient Blade


    For those who aren't familiar, a game jam is an event where participants are challenged to create an entire game over a short period of time (in this case 48 hours) that meets a particular theme. For this year's Global Game Jam, the theme was "Lost and Found". My son Wesley pitched, designed and programmed "Ancient Blade". He worked remotely with a team member (Peter's son Michael) who created artwork for the game per the asset list defined in his game design document. Throughout the event, he took feedback from industry professionals and applied this to improve his game with each iteration.

    I was in awe to see how fast his young mind works and how passionately he embraced the challenges he encountered to make his game the best he could. While it's no secret Wesley looks up to me and wants to be a game developer like his daddy, in these moments watching him, he was my inspiration and role-model to aspire to.

    Play Ancient Blade at: https://globalgamejam.org/2021/games/ancient-blade-3

    12
    Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
    « on: January 27, 2021, 01:28:00 PM »
    How Randomness Contributes to Strategic Thinking

    Today on Gamasutra, I argue in favor of randomness in strategy games and explain how randomness contributes to the development of strategic thinking. Wanted to share and also thank my community here for all the input over the years on why things like the dice are so important in our games.

    https://gamasutra.com/blogs/RossPrzybylski/20210127/376691/How_Randomness_Contributes_to_Strategic_Thinking.php

    13
    Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
    « on: January 11, 2021, 10:16:12 AM »
    Let's Talk Tactics Game Design
    Today I'll be making a guest appearance on Keith Burgun's game design show to discuss Summoners Fate and game design. Keith is a fellow tactics developer currently working on Gem Wizards Tactics.

    Should be a lot of fun - join us at 12PM MT at Keith's twitch channel: https://m.twitch.tv/keithburgun/profile

    14
    Game Updates & News / Re: Daily Updates
    « on: September 14, 2020, 01:57:27 PM »
    Fluidity and Seamless Openworld

    Hi D20Studios fans - I just posted a new dev blog discussing how I'm using "fluidity" to improve gameplay experience in Summoners Fate. Check out out some of the new features coming in our next update and more here.

    15
    Game Updates & News / Re: Dev Log
    « on: September 14, 2020, 01:00:31 PM »
    Dev Log 12: Fluidity and Seamless Open World

    How we're using fluidity to build a better experience

    Good day D20Studios fans :) I wanted to thank those of you who've reached out to me personally regarding updates on the game. It's very heartwarming and encouraging to know you're still excited about Summoners Fate. Rest assured, this project remains my top priority, and my communication remains sparse only because I'm so focused on doing everything I can to get the next build out. I don't have a release date for that yet, but what I can say is that it will be significant and hopefully deliver on your expectations. Here's some of the progress I've made to show we're moving in that direction.

    In previous updates I've discussed that one of my goals for single player is to create fluidity in the moment-to-moment interactions as I believe this will significantly contribute to a feeling of joy as you explore the open world. To expand more on this concept, I define fluidity as a seamless connection between intent and response. Friction is anything apart from your own input that delays or inhibits your intended response or breaks your connection with the experience of the activity.

    Oftentimes, friction is caused by poor controls or bad camera angle. But, the biggest friction culprit is undoubtedly waiting for the thing you intended to happen to happen; or, in the case where you made the wrong input, waiting to try again. Imagine trying to shoot a basketball into a hoop and improve your skill by gradually moving further and further from the goal. Each time you have to chase the ball, that delay causes a loss of focus that inhibits the joy you would otherwise feel in hearing a consistent sound of swishes. Now imagine how much better the experience would be if a ball magically appeared in your hands immediately after you took a shot. A consistent series of swooshes in a row is not only rewarding, but provides a meaningful sense of skill and joy in pure connectivity with the activity itself. And, even if you miss the basket, the removal of any delay provides immediate ability to try again so you can excel and do better. When there is fluidity, even failure can be fun because there is the joy of overcoming challenge and a feeling of growth in doing so.

    Zero-Wait Retry
    Summoners Fate has zero-wait time whether retrying a battle or undoing a command to try something else. If you fail a battle in the over world, you have the option to try the battle again immediately, or explore another area if you wish. Depending on your chosen game difficulty, retry may also exhaust resources to add further tension and strategy.

    Fluid Controls
    Eliminating friction may seem counter-intuitive for a turn-based game where "waiting for your turn" is undoubtedly one of the worst-case examples of friction that there is. But I think there is room for innovation to improve that experience. One of the ways I've already done this is by eliminating the waiting within your own turn. It's a very subtle thing - but players noticeably felt it and have commented during our public exhibitions: You don't need to wait for animations to complete to perform your next command. You can issue orders as fast as you want on your turn and the characters/cards will respond immediately (in some cases, jumping past previous animations to catch up) so they always respond in sync with your input.



    Parallel Animation
    It was among the pieces of the vision I had last year that this same principle could be applied on the opponents turn as well. I recall watching folks at conventions play the build and losing attention while waiting for the AI to move and attack its horde of skeletons one-by-one. Or, take for example a slow moving enemy like these withereds and having to wait for each one to slog its way over and attack before you get to take your turn again:


    Sure, you can use the skip button to jump right to your turn, but then you're left trying to piece together what just happened to your team. Wouldn't it be a lot less friction if they just all moved and attacked at the same time? Here's that same scene with a new feature I've developed called "Parallel animations":


    What once was a chore of slogging animations becomes a fast-paced onslaught that adds to the excitement of the battle. But what happens when something more complex than a series of move/attacks takes place? Well, the system is programmed with intelligence to automatically detect anything that might make watching the flow of battle confusing (a surprise trigger, multiple units attacking, getting killed on the same tile, etc.) and revert to serial animations on demand as needed. Players can also toggle parallel animations if you still want to see each animation one-at-a-time as they occur (which works great with the replay turn feature for when you want to study your opponents moves more closely).

    Descending into a Dungeon
    Fluidity is not necessarily about removing all waiting (which could be directly achieved by eliminating animations entirely), but delivering the appropriate amount of feedback to validate a player's input. Take for example descending into a dungeon from the over world. Putting up a loading screen between scenes is an example of the kind of friction I want to avoid. But, instantly jumping to the next scene also feels unsatisfying because it breaks the experience. So, I opted for an animation of the character descending the stairs with black fade to convey the players intended response and maintain the flow of the experience:



    Mist of Mayhem
    One of the harder design challenges I've had with introducing open world to Summoners Fate has been reconciling the seamless exploration with turn-based combat. The problems lie in when (and how) to communicate the transfer from one control type to the other. Is it the proximity to an enemy that triggers it, or the entering of a new map? And what happens to the enemies when you retreat? Folks who played our PAX East demo got to experience one of my earlier solutions where I utilized a blackout on unexplored maps, with a yellow "portal" ring that served as the entrance to the level. It served its purpose, but it introduced a lot of friction in that the portals diminished your connection to the experience: they looked unnatural with the environment and they restricted your freedom to enter the map where you wanted.

    For our latest iteration, we've introduced a "fog of war" style design thats often employed in real-time strategy games. Kelly has more appropriately named this feature the "mist of mayhem" since you're not actually at war and the revealed maps need not contain enemies (they could be more whimsical encounters with a fairy princess or a goblin birthday party).

    The basic idea is that the world is shrouded in a mist over all the areas you have yet to explore. When you enter the mist, it disperses to reveal new areas. If there are enemies in the area you reveal, the camera pans to the battle area and tints out the non-playable area outside the battle. When you initiate a retreat, the mist reforms over that area, allowing the enemies to heal and reposition themselves relative to where you re-enter that map.


    This improves over our previous solution by providing the player with total freedom to enter a map from any direction and creating an aesthetic that feels natural in the environment. The border of the mist also signals where potential combat transitions could take place.

    Keep in Touch
    I remain diligently busy with completing single player for our next major build update. In the meantime, feel welcome to reply with any questions you may have. I am also available on Discord. Our verified server is: https://discord.gg/d20studios and my username is RossD20Studios. Hit me up anytime :)

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