Now moving to the game development, I started building the UI. It took me a lot of time, since I'm more of a backend developer. Luckyly I found an amazing UI set, made by DYCHA, and started working torwards it. Here are some screens:
As you can see in one of the screens above, the game now has a map. In this map players can choose the set of bosses they want to face and manage their teams and supplies. This said management is yet to be implemented, but the system is already documented. Since the battle system (which is the main engine for this game) is up and running, now I'm working on strategies to engage the player even more. Not only players will have several possibilities with all 10 initial characters, but by buying itens with currency obtained in combats they can create whole new strategies in order to beat the most powerful bosses.
Let's talk numbers now:
Out of 10 characters, 9 are fully functional. The last I'm working on is the Dwarf Warrior. It's taking me more time because he is a character that has a complex set of skills.
Out of 6 initial bosses, 2 are fully functional, 2 demand revisions and 2 are yet to be implemented.
I designed each boss to have a different mechanic, and some demand more time than others (one thing that is short for me at the moment).
Boss Design
For last I would like to talk a little about the boss balancing. This is a lesson I learned while developing 'SHE'. For a strategy game it is very important that the player actually think strategically. You don't want him/her just pressing buttons and winning the game without thinking. For every boss I design, I do several playtests by only mashing the attack button, just to see where this gets me. A few times it made me win some fights, and that was a sign that I needed to change something. What I want to create with this game are bosses that can impose fear to the players. I want the player to think very carefully what to do next. And to achieve that I must reach the perfect balance, the boss' attacks must be very powerful, but not to the point of leaving the player without any options.
Bosses with probabilistic behavior are the hardest ones to balance. Even with all probabilities well defined, they are still probabilities. A boss may miss an attack ten times in a row (a slightly chance, but it exists), so it is very import to conduct several playtest sections and take an average of the results, adjusting their probabilities percentage after the analysis.
I defined a few steps that a boss battle has to offer in order to achieve the balancing I'm looking for:
1) You feel that it is difficult, but not impossible.
2) After each 2 turns, at least one new threat should appear.
3) The boss doesn't stay idle for more than 1 turn.
That's it for today. I'm planing on releasing the first demo soon, until then, development continues.
Disclaimer: All the player characters images and boss images are only used to ilustrate. I found them on Google and I do not own their rights. The final version of the game will contain content created exclusively for it.