The Mines DevLog - 003

Been awhile since I've updated the Dev Log- not for lack of dev however. Just prepping our 0.9 release which will have the entire first level all playable and at least play tested a few times by ourselves. Fixed many bugs, as in play testing discovered many piece of math and RNG for combat that really wasn't working right at all! Found out basically no magic resist and the whole to hit bonuses were essentially not used! So needless to say this caused some interesting adjustments the first play through until corrected!

In one quick update on the last thread, settled on an accumulator for random battles, so chance of battle grows with each step taken in the dungeon. I like the visual indicator as it adds a bit of stress to dungeon exploring as it changes from green, to yellow, to red.

Also our artist got the title and refugee camp art in place - amazing looking as always! Sets the mood as bleak and hopeless nicely!

We are really trying to find the right balance between hard but fair. Not sure we have it nailed yet, but getting closer anyway after a few play tests, fixes, and tweaks to fixed encounters and monster values. I think we'll likely add at some point on game start, a difficulty setting, and have 5 pre-set difficulties that change some of the key monster values. Think not so much HP, but instead their armour classes and to hit and save bonuses and damage they do. So battles shouldn't get significantly longer, but instead be a bit more deadly and certain special monsters will be meaner yet if you don't defend hard against their attack.

Have really landed on a general design design to avoid all enemy or rows of enemy damage spells. We have just a few rare items that do this. Just from our own experience playing older RPGs, soon as you have mass damage spells, they become quickly the go to, and a lot of other tactics are replaced with bulk up on magic users and spam a few spells. While the trade off is slightly longer battles at times, the goal is to keep decision making during combat important and meaningful to avoid pure grinding.

Anyway, look for our next update to likely be the launch of our 0.9 release with about 8-12 hours of game time and the entire level 1. We plan to release it free and are really looking for feedback so we can iterate and finish it up with the remaining level.