Hello!
Based on all the valuable feedback, I've been busy making big changes to the game and just released a major update for the demo! (Build #25337916)
Here is a list of all the changes to the game:
The entire map is now open from the beginning to end, instead of being split into two separate phases.
Previously, the game was split into a survival phase where you were locked into an area by invisible walls and defended your castles, and a final battle phase where you attacked enemy castles.
One consistent feedback players gave is that they found this structure strange and didn't like the invisible walls.
Now, the entire map is open from beginning to end, and you can defend or attack at any time. I also made a completely new map to support all the new mechanics below!
A new morale system
While players didn't like the invisible walls, they did like the claustrophobic tension of defending their castles. I wanted to retain some of this tension in the beginning of the game.
Therefore, I implemented a morale system where you start the battle with low morale and enemies start with high morale (represented as a three-color bar at the top of the screen). You slowly gain morale over time by defeating enemies and enemy champions.
Each army's strength and speed, and therefore how far they can advance outward, scales with their morale. Therefore in the beginning of the game, this adds some natural pressure to defend your castles first while working on increasing your army's strength. I hope this feels more natural than the invisible walls from before!
This system went through the most iterations, but in the end, I felt that a simple scaling of your army's strength worked best, since there's already a lot going on during gameplay.
This is also very much inspired by Dynasty Warriors, so a morale system was something I really wanted to add to the game!
Combined currency
Players also liked having their own armies and wanted to be able to lean more into upgrading their armies. Therefore, I combined the currencies for upgrading your champion and your army.
Previously these were separated as coins and supply boxes, but now coins are used to buy both. The idea is to add some more decision making into the game, as well as allow you to spend more on your army versus your champion!
Enemy unit spawning
Players also gave feedback that they wanted a more symmetric experience between you and your enemy, especially with how units spawn.
Previously, enemy unit spawning was mostly random, whereas the player needed to upgrade their castles to unlock different types of units.
Therefore, I updated the enemy champions so that they also need to go to each castle and upgrade them to start spawning different unit types, same as the player.
Individual castle upgrades
Additionally, you now upgrade each castle individually, instead of upgrades applying to your army as whole. Each castle can be assigned a different unit type on upgrade, but losing that castle means losing that unit type. This is indicated by a floating unit icon above the castle.
Castles also have a level that increases each time they are upgraded. Castles with higher levels spawn foot soldiers at a faster rate.
The same goes for the enemy, so I thought it would be fun to be able to prioritize certain enemy castles over others, depending on which unit type it is spawning or how high its level is.
Ultimate abilities
This was the game mechanic that I was most excited to put into the game, ultimate abilities! Similar to "musou attacks" in Dynasty Warriors, these are powerful abilities that can drastically change the tide of battle! For example, a barrage of holy rays that damage enemies and heals allies! Or an earthquake that creates a circular wall of spikes!
Ultimate abilities are unlocked at the max level for your champion (level 10). At max level, your level up bar will instead progress towards being able to fire your ultimate. The idea was to make sure coins still had value even at max level.
I also wanted players to be able to gain new weapon upgrades beyond the max level, so I added chests that spawn on random intervals. A large arrow will point in the direction of the chest when they spawn.
Each champion has their own unique ultimate ability, and there are currently three champions in the demo!
Improved art
Players thought the sprite textures for units were a little small, so I reworked them to be larger and more detailed!
I also improved the tileset textures for the map!
Technical improvements
There were a lot of technical improvements that needed to be made to ensure the game would be scalable. This included dynamic generation of shared texture atlases for performance, preloading enemy upgrades to avoid stutters, etc.
Localization
There was interest from players in other countries, but they were disappointed when they couldn't play due to the language barrier. So I added localization support for the game!
Since the game is still in active development with frequently changing text and descriptions, I am using AI translations as placeholders, so there may be errors!
Currently included languages are English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, and Korean.
Thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think of the game after these changes!
I still have to update the store page and description, but wanted to get this update out first. Thank you again!