Scratch

To be released in at most two months is a side-view strategic combat game. Within it you build your defences and units to stand against an enemy base which attempts to overwhelm you.

You can build towers, moats and gates to hold back the opposing foe. But you gain a mere six building plots - use them wisely! You also need gold and food to construct buildings and units, thus why you must build gold mines and farms.

You can then build a barracks, shadow camp, stables or war machine factory to crush your foes. Each constantly creates units every ten or so seconds, with a maximum of eighteen for either you or your foe at any one time. These can only be controlled by three commands - defend, which has them return to the base, attack, which has them attack an enemy base, or hold, which has them stay their positions - but without them you cannot win. Now let me give an overview of what the units will be like.

Infantry, trained from the barracks, are your cheapest, weakest and most basic units. They are most likely the first units you create, and the backbone of your armies. As they are faster than both shadows and war machines, they can be used to weaken an opponent before your stronger troops reach them.

Assassins, trained from the shadow camp, are more powerful versions of infantry, with several other abilities. While being slower, they are far stronger, with an array of special abilities. Their abilities are to Blink - when damaged, they have a 25% chance of temporarily vanishing, regaining a portion of their health while being immune to damage for a 1 second duration. They can also Ambush - appear behind an enemy and deal a massive amount of initial damage. Other abilities include Rush, which yo can order them to do. This makes them attempt a Blink, which lasts five seconds and increases their movement speed to 200%, almost matching cavalry. They also have a ranged attack, hurling knives at opponents. They can still attack while under a normal Blink, but not when they are ordered to Rush.

Cavalry are released from the stables, and are your shock troops, and have few weaknesses. They are your fastest soldiers, and charge across the map the moment they are trained, dealing a large amount of damage to any unit they trample. They deal a large amount of damage to the opposing base, then retreat to regain their lost health. They have a few weaknesses, though. They do not have much health, and thus an assassin can Ambush them and kill them almost instantly. Also, they take extra damage from moats, and their damage depends on speed, so under effects that slow their speed, their effectiveness is lost.

War Machines are your strongest units, the equivalent of a tower on wheels, with a battering ram at the front. While slow, they can deal a massive amount of damage when they get into melee range, and they have an archer at the top which rains arrows down on foes. They have a massive amount of health, but are vulnerable against assassins, who have a ranged attack and are only damaged by the archer. They can also be killed by a large number of weak units (around six), thus for them to be the most effective they need to have some guards. These could be preferably infantry, as they spawn rapidly and are faster than the machine.

Thus you have a basic system. Infantry conquer assassins, which are good against cavalry, that can defeat infantry. War machines are the strongest of them all, but can still be defeated by either a rush of cavalry, a few assassins or a large number of infantry.

There are more unpredictable metaphors than what your foe will use, though. There is the weather, which is a constant raincloud that slows all enemies in it. Influenced by a constantly changing variable called Wind, it will drift to either side of the map, reducing the effectiveness of certain units and weakening them. For example, all units loose speed and do less damage in rain, while for cavalry their only advantage, their speed, is lost.

There will also be a Spell system. For this, you need to build a shrine, and then an altar of either light, dark or elemental magic. The shrine constantly generates mana, while the altars allow you to cast the spells. There are four categories of spells, four spells in each, which will be listed here. First, there is such a thing as friendly fire, as your spells are not always focused and often harm your soldiers alongside your enemies.

ELEMENTALISM

Clear Skies. Your spell removes all clouds from the map, allowing your units, and your opponent's, to function better.

Storm Call. You create a storm cloud, which you direct with the arrow keys. It only lasts sixty seconds, though.

Frostfall. You release a jet of sheer cold in an area you target, immobilising all units within it and temporarily slowing their speed.

Meteorite. You call a meteorite form the air, using the elements of earth and fire, and hurl it to the ground at your enemies.

LIGHT MAGIC

Healing: A beam of light falls from the sky, and heals every unit it strikes.

Divine Guidance: You contact the god of light, who releases a beam of light to guide your units. The troops which are struck by it cannot be slowed except by dark magic, and gain some extra speed for a short duration. This also negates any slowing effect of dark magic, without giving it's bonus if there is such an effect active.

Divine Strength: Selecting an area, the units within gain a large bonus to damage and health.

Cleansing: This spell removes all effects, negative and positive, from units in an area.

DARK MAGIC

Slow: You select an area and slow all units within it.

Weakness: A spell cast by you reduces the damage of all units in an area.

Decay: You cast a spell of decay in an area, causing constant damage to units within.

Blindness: For a period of ten seconds, units in a small area you choose cannot move or attack.

The spell system can be used by both you and your foe. But, however, you only have six build plots, meaning that you can only focus on soldiers or magic at any one time.

I am planning to drag this out as a series, with several expansions, each adding new units, spells, buildings and build plots. They will each add a new race, to be released one every year, each race with different gameplay. So far I have finished the building and spell system and will add units. Then I simply have to program an AI and I have finished. Each expansion will also follow a plotline in the Campaign mode. There will also be a campaign mode in the regular game after I release the initial beta. Each expansion will feature one to three campaigns.

The campaigns will also feature Hero Units, which you can control manually, with their own special abilities. If they die, you loose the mission, but they get stronger over time, and carry on to the next level.

The plot of the original game will be:

Chapter 1, A land torn by warfare. The kingdom of Almer is in civil war, ruled by a tyrant, Lord Monothal. Resistance gathers in the eastern foothills, led by Teir, a former knight of Monothal. At the start you can choose what type of hero Teir will be. Either a Knight, who deals a massive amount of damage with a large amount of health and speed, meant for combat. Or a mage, with numerous spells of light and elemental magic to use.

The chapter starts with Teir leading a raid on Monothal's city of Tharas . The task here is to conquer the village on Tharas's border, within which you learn the basics of the game and instructions. This also teaches you how to use cavalry.

Chapter 2, Strike at Tharas. Within this chapter you are at the border of Tharas, and need to conquer the city. You start with only a barracks, which they also begin with, alongside a wall, moat and tower. The mission here puts focus on war machines, your only other buildings being a large farm and a gold mine, due to you taking them in the last mission.

Chapter 3, Ambushed. As the walls of Tharas fell, the king's soldiers attacked from the rear, overwhelming the rebel camp. Teir is left in between the city and the soldiers, and must survive three minutes.

Chapter 4, The Will of the Gods. Teir managed to escape, and must return to the eastern hills. Monothal's soldiers are pursuing him, though, and he finds a shrine to the gods in the forest. Here he needs to survive one minute, using the shrine and their abilities to fight off the attacking soldiers.

Chapter 5, Cornered Animals. Teir made it back to the rebels, but Monothal's army was already attacking. He calls the assassins within the rebels towards him, and gives them the task of thinning their opponents' ranks. The first part of this mission teaches you which situations to use assassins in, and leaves it to you to use the tactics you picked up in previous missions. When you have killed two hundred soldiers you have won this chapter.

Chapter 6, Rage of the Demons. Monothal resorts to dark magic, and summons demons to do his bidding. When you kill thirty he begins to get desperate, and summons an archdemon that you need to vanquish. An archdemon will appear like a skeletal dragon, breathing a black flame to damage your units. Monothal's army is also attacked by the archdemon, and they attempt to fight back, as well as attacking you. As soon as you kill the archdemon they surrender.

Chapter 7, A symphony of Frost and Flame. Monothal summons another demon, which possesses him, and creates an enchanted wall between you and your soldiers. You then need to kill the demon-Monothal. At his death the campaign is complete, with an epilogue showing Teir being crowned.

The expansions will be:

The Horde's War. This introduces the orcs, which have far stronger units that take much longer to train. Their defences are cheap and weak, and they have more of an emphasis on melee combat. They also have new spells. Their units will be:

Grunts. These take two infantry to kill, but take twice as long to spawn.

Hunters. Orcs with spears, these are the counterparts of assassins. They have no blink ability, or ambush, and instead deal massive damage with their weapons, as well as having 'black blood' which makes them immune to all magic.

Wolf-Riders. These are the Orcish cavalry, slower than their human counterparts but with an extra ability, the wolf-bite, which has their trained wolves bite out at all nearby enemies for extra damage.

Wyvern Rider. Orcs riding wingless dragons, the wyvern rider has more emphasis on range than melee. It releases a jet of flame that deals massive fire damage to all units in front of it, and can snap with teeth and claws in melee fighting. It's rider will always hurl spears at foes too far for wyvern fire to reach.

The missions here will follow the orcs, who were exiled to the South of Almer after they attempted to take control over the nation. They will have a more role-playing element, where you can also attempt dialogues that influence future missions.

Chapter 1, A Chieftain of Strength and Skill. Gatlok is the main character within this campaign, a young orc aiming for the title of chieftain over all clans. You need to choose whether Gatlok is a Warlord, meant for melee combat, or a Shaman, with Elemental and Dark magic at his disposal. The shaman of the clan Gatlok is within calls a trial of strength and skill, where the orcs that desire the title of Chieftain need to kill their opponents. One at a time, Gatlok needs to fight and kill ten orcs, each of which is stronger than the previous. After this there is a brief dialogue which Gatlok has with the lesser chieftains. What you say in this affects the next mission. You can either vote to attack the humans (see Chapter 2 A) or bring the chieftains who do not obey you to their knees (see Chapter 2 B).

Chapter 2 A, The Invasion. Gatlok marches a hundred thousand orcs into Almer, and is met with little resistance. He has to attack the village of Straughnbrad, and when he has taken it he has the option of sparing the inhabitants, or killing them.

Chapter 2 B, Bring them down. The new chieftain, Gatlok, is not followed by all the tribes, and he rides towards those that would threaten him. Within this mission you need to destroy an orc village that refuses to follow you, before killing it's chieftain. After this you move to Chapter 2 A.

Chapter 3, The Siege of Straughnbrad. Teir leads an army of thousands to drive Gatlok back, by far outnumbering the orcs. Gatlok needs to survive five minutes. If Gatlok spared the villagers in The Invasion, they flee and join Teir's army. If he crushed the resistance in Chapter 2 B then orc reinforcements march towards Straughnbrad. If he did not crush it then the resisting tribes would intercept the reinforcements, causing them to be delayed until the last sixty seconds and be weakened.

Chapter 4, Where Wyverns Dare (optional by dialogue in Chapter 3). Gatlok knows he cannot win this war without more Wyverns, and seeks out a colony of the beasts to commune with them. He is attacked by a small human army on the path, though, and must survive five minutes.

Chapter 5, a War in Tharas.  Tharas is the next city, to be conquered for the second time, this time by Gatlok. He attempts to take it with Wyvern riders, and destroys the walls. If he recruited wyverns in Chapter 4 he spawns one additional Wyvern every twenty seconds. There is a choice of dialogue at the end, whether to take time in order to search for a colony of Shhrgn (giant wolves, orc mounts), continue the invasion, or search for an enchanted artifact used by Monothal when Teir killed him.

Chapter 6 A, Tooth and Claw. You search for the wolves, and find several packs. Many of them, however, are fiercely territorial, and need to be killed before you can tame the rest. Your army needs to survive five minutes against a constant stream of Shhrgn.

Chapter 6 B, Rage of the Demons. You seek the artefact used by Monothal, and your shaman tells you it is within the eastern hills, left there after his death. Within the hills, though, you find lesser archdemons guarding it. You need to kill them in order to take the artefact.

Chapter 7, Clan Loktar. If you did not put down the rebels in Chapter 2 B, they will attack you now. The survivors will scatter at the end of this mission, and join Teir.

Chapter 8 A. You have the option here, in dialogue, to consult the Orcen Gods for aid by travelling to a temple without your army. The system here is slightly different, where you need to move to the edge of the screen and fight past the humans in your way several times to reach the temple. If you have completed Rage of the Demons then the gods will not answer you. If you have not completed Rage of the Demons the gods will give you the gift of magic, granting an additional hundred points of mana in Chapter 9.

Chapter 8 B. Another dialogue option lets you attempt to take the city of Cerius, for it's gold mines which you can use for mercenaries.

Chapter 9, Press on to Almer City. Gatlok presses down on Almer City, and is met by Teir's army. He needs to destroy it before he can move on to the next mission. Many choices you made during the campaign will affect this mission. If you failed to do 2 B, Bring them Down, then the survivors of Clan Loktar will fight against you. If you spared the inhabitants of Straughnbrad, they will also fight for Teir. If you did Chapter 4 then an extra Wyvern will spawn for you every thirty seconds. If you completed Tooth and Claw an extra Wolf Rider will spawn every fifteen seconds, while completing Rage of the Demons will spawn a demon to fight for you every ten seconds. If you completed Chapter 8 A you gain an additional 100 mana at the start, while completing Chapter 8 B you gain one weak human mercenary every five seconds, as well as a bonus two hundred gold at the start of the mission.

Chapter 10, Divine Death. Teir uses the artefacts he gathered over the years to temporarily gain godlike abilities, and you need to kill him, as well as his army. You gain the same bonuses you received in the previous mission, and if you visited the Temple without completing Rage of the Demons you gain an additional five spells. If you completed Rage of the Demons you temporarily transform into an archdemon to kill Teir. An epilogue will show you establishing your control over the rest of the land.

Another expansion will be called The Restless Dead, where you can command an army of cheap, fast but weak undead. Undead fight better on Blight, tainted land, which is slowly generated from the base and spreads slowly toward an enemy's base. At a research centre the undead can research Blightblood, that allows them to generate blight wherever one of their units dies. The reason their units are so weak is that they can swarm a foe with sheer numbers, alongside the abilities of necromancers to raise fallen foes. Also, instead of light magic they will have Void Magic, which fulfils the same functions.

Undead units are the following:

Skeleton, the weakest unit of them all, but spawn quickly.

Ghouls, the assassins of the undead. At a research centre you can learn a technology that allows blight to be generated whenever a ghoul kills. They move faster than any other unit released so far in the game, also using a specific ability when they find a target called Leap, causing them to jump in the air and thus avoid ranged attacks while they are airborne. In the air they hurl spikes towards their foes, and use claws on the ground. They deal a small amount of damage on the ground, but attack much faster than any other unit.

The undead have no cavalry units, instead they have necromancers. These are practitioners of dark magic, who send powerful ranged attacks towards their enemies. They can revive a killed opponent, which will re-spawn at their base as either a ghoul, skeleton or void soul depending on it's type. They cannot resurrect a unit to be a necromancer, if it is at that level it will automatically become a ghoul.

Void Souls are the souls of powerful slain enemies, those which need no physical form to affect the mortal world. They have the abilities of Flicker, which insures that half of all attacks miss, as well as having high health and damage compared to other undead units.

The campaign will follow Walric, a necromancer in the north, ruler of a necropolis. He is attacked by orcs, and the necropolis burned to the ground. In retribution he starts a campaign against Gatlok, and liberates Almer, only to enslave it himself. He steals the demonic artefact Gatlok gained after Monothal used it, and summons a group of archdemons to take the earth. They turn on him, however, and all thirteen possess him at the same time. He is then known as the 'Fallen King', and begins to eradicate the humans and orcs he enslaved.

The third expansion will feature the elves, who attempt to kill Walric and the demon army he summoned. They have an 'uproot' system that allows most of their buildings to act like units. These buildings cannot be used again as buildings, and you cannot use the build plot until the uprooted building is destroyed.

Their buildings are known as Sylvans, spirits of the forest who take residence in trees. An uprooted building is as strong as a war machine, but they are incredibly weak to fire damage. Thus they must be used carefully - a good suggestion with them would be to use spells that control the cloud, and keep it hovering above them to guard against fire damage - and are very slow, so they can be destroyed by ranged attacks. Elf units are the following:

Blade Dancers. These are elven monks who train themselves to perfection in hand-to-hand combat and blades. They take time to spawn but are faster than most units, and have a few specific abilities. Their regular attack is with a sword, but they have a 10% chance in each blow they strike to follow up with a kick to stun their enemy. They also have an 'agility' ability, wherein they have a 25% chance to leap backwards if their health is low, and then rest until they regain some health.

Rangers. An elven archer who homes his skills to perfection, rangers have the longest range and damage of any ranged unit. They take ages to train, though.

Riders. A rider is an elf upon a stag, using an oaken staff sharpened at the tip. They have some druidic magic in them, and use it whenever they strike an opponent. Their druidic spells cause the grass under a foe's feet to temporarily ensnare him, an effect that cannot be stopped with a purge spell, only with a decay. Creatures hit with the spell of decay while this is active simply loose their binds, rather than loosing health.

Druids are the high priests of the elven pantheon, and as such have power over nature. They heal any nearby sylvan, whether uprooted or not, and use powerful ranged attacks to defeat opponents. Each attack ensnares an opponent, slowing him down, but the attacks have several seconds in between them. A druid will, every few seconds, use a clear skies spell, and remove rain from the map. They will use multiple combat spells, calling down lightning, ice and fire upon their foes. They have one key weakness though, very low health, and thus spells can easily kill them.

The campaign here will follow Talanar, an elven druid. At the end of each mission you can get him an upgrade, either a new ability, or an increase in stats, making him more like one of the four existing elf units. This will be more like an rpg compared to previous expansions, within which you advance by completing tasks for stat and ability points.

To customise your character, whenever you finish a mission it will show a depiction of four trees, each branch stating the ability it will have. You start at the base of each tree, the most basic ability for that class, and can slowly gain abilities that are higher on it.

You also need to find specific weapons and mounts that aid Talanar. Certain abilities only work with or without a certain type of weapon, so you can use very few Ranger abilities without a bow, or Rider abilities without a mount. After each level you can also visit a merchant to purchase items, or change your equipped one. You have six equipment slots, two rings, armour, a mount, a weapon and a helmet. You cannot change them during a mission.

The campaign plotline has thirty missions rather than ten, and begins with Talanar's forests under attack by Walric's undead. Talanar is placed in charge of the elven nation, and dialogue lets him choose how to place his troops in the many cities. His choices each affect the other missions, but the largest effects they have are in the final chapter, where he attacks Walric's necropolis. Along the way he will have recruited allies and made enemies among humans, orcs and other elves. These will either fight for him at the final battle or for Walric. After this, the souls of dead key characters such as Teir, Gatlok and Monothal will fight alongside you against his thirteen archdemons after you are separated from the rest of your troops. Other characters may join you here depending on your choices in the campaign. In the final chapter Walric shatters the demonic artefact, calling to earth the thousands of demons trapped within, causing 'a storm to shatter the world'.

The final expansion features a new race, the demons, and a campaign for all five of them. Each campaign lasts twenty chapters, following a plot where each influences the succeeding one. The campaigns follow the demon Veyer, using the same system as the previous expansion. There are, however, twenty ability trees, Veyer being trained to learn how each race fights and how to counter them. Sixteen of these are for units, not including human infantry and war machines, or undead skeletons and ghouls. The other four are spells, either elemental, light, dark or summoning.

Last edited by tenzinkendrick (2013-03-11 06:47:41)