Universal Demon Hunters - Upcoming Turn-based Dungeon Crawler from Wave Light Games

Thanks for the tips. I hadn't considered making the centaur a healer ... that's a great idea. I don't have a lot of healers currently in the roster so adding that function to the centaur is an excellent idea.

For the Minotaur, I could go with an axe but I already have another big tank character with an axe, the Half Giant. I think keeping the hammer will help separate the two characters.

 

Thank you ... I hope to do so very soon and provide you a great game in return.

Quick update, guys. I've added 5 abilities to the Minotaur. I'm going through the process of converting to a pc build so I can start recording footage for some character trailers and for the app preview video.

 

Hey guys,

I'll describe each of the characters in more detail with pictures and video but for those interested, here is a list of the character classes:

Half Giant: Large, heavy hitting melee fighter with a 2 handed axe. Has melee focused abilities and can also buff nearby friends and scare nearby enemies with war shouts and it's generally impressive features.

Sylvan Elf Ranger: Wood elf archer / swordsman with some nature magic abilities. Can shoot poisonous arrows, perform various healing and buffing spells with a nature theme. Weak in hit points but a good archer and capable fighter. At higher levels, she can summon a treeman.

Pyromancer: A human wizard focused on fire magic. Physically weak and a poor melee fighter but can cast very powerful ranged damage spells. The spells generally cover a wide area of damage but will harm friends if they fall in range. Also has a flame armour spell for protection and will get one more ability ... possibly a flame wall spell.

High Elf Archer: Another female elf that focuses purely on archery. She's lightly armoured and a very weak melee fighter but exceptional at range. Has various self buffing spells that increase her effectiveness with the bow and some very powerful arrow projectiles at higher levels.

Half-Elf Storm Seer: A female elf / human mix that's sort of a mix between a cleric and a mage focused on air / storm magic. Several lightning / wind spells as well as a couple of buff spells. Also an effective healer. Higher level spells are powerful storm spells that cover a wide area.

Blade Maiden: Female human warrior with medium armour and armed with a sword and kite shield. Emphasis on 1-1 melee combat and has several abilities that are melee focused. She can do things like break an opponent's weapon with her blade, stun them with a kick to the face, make a flurry of melee attacks for a turn and so on. Not a tank but can definitely dish out a lot of damage in melee and pretty quick.

Shadow Elf Assassin: Another female elf but one focused on stealth and melee. She is fragile but is good at dodging enemy attacks and can enter a stealth mode and teleport to a nearby tile using a flashbomb. As such, very hard to trap in melee. She fights with dual blades and can apply poison on them as well as jump in the air and throw a flurry of daggers. Her attacks have a high chance of inflicting a critical hit so will typically do a lot of damage.

Shadow Elf Witch: Yet another female elf ... I promise she's the last one. A mage that focuses on dark magic. She can do things like summon undead warriors, summon flocks of crows to harass her enemies, curse enemies with blindness, trap them with spider webs. Kind of like a female necromancer.

Illusionist: Human female mage with an emphasis on illusions and distractions rather than direct damage. Cool abilities like conjuring a decoy of herself to attract enemy fire, putting enemies to sleep, teleportation and tricking her enemies to switch sides briefly. If you've played Magic the Gathering ... she'd be the typical Blue mage. Her higher level spell will probably be to summon an illusionary monster that does loads of damage but will fade away if hit.

Minotaur: Minotaurs in this game's background are beastmen, which are essentially humans merged with lesser demons. The demonic possession causes their bodies to mutate and change drastically. Unlike most of his kin, the Minotaur in this game has suppressed the demon and regained his humanity. He is a big melee fighter similar to the Half Giant. He has various special abilities that range from simple things like attacking with his horns or punching his enemy in the face to smashing the ground with his hammer and causing shockwaves. He can also unleash the demon he suppresses which gives him a temporary but significant boost to his fighting ability.

Orc Berserker: Orcs in this world are not especially evil ... just very warlike. They were created by Elves long ago as a line of defense against waves of invading humans but since gained their independence. The Berserker fights with an axe and is a dedicated fighter. Has the ability to enter an enraged mode where he gets more attacks and strength but at the cost of reduced damage resistance / dodge chance. Basically fighting with no sense of self preservation. He can also perform various sweeping and acrobatic strikes that attack enemies surrounding him and such. He'll have some other abilities soon ... still have to develop him a bit.

Dwarfen Stone Priest: Finally a dwarf ... he's a cleric that focuses on earth magic. Very tough and well armoured and a reasonably competent fighter in melee. Spells involve things like summoning earth elementals, creating earthquakes, conjuring rivers of molten lava and buffing spells like stone armour that protects friends from damage and a healing spell. Can also meld into the earth and reappear somewhere else partially healed.

That's all for now ... this post ended up being way longer than I thought it would be. That's only 12 of the 20 character classes ... I'll describe the rest in a later post.

 

Can I get some feedback on app icon? This is the current draft. Any thoughts?



It won't have the 3D effect ... instead it'll just be a flat, rounded rectangle in line with design of iOS 8. Does this work as a cool icon or do you think it should be different? Perhaps a monster or demon or is the elf acher close up good? This is the Elf Archer from the game, by the way. She's one of the playable characters described in the earlier post.

 

Here is part 2 of the character roster descriptions:

Knight: A human knight in plate armour and armed with a halberd. Clad in full plate, the knight is obviously hard to kill. The halberd actually allows him to attack at range if he wants (or from the second rank of a battle line). He may or may not get replaced with a sword / shield version before release but will probably stick with halberd. He's one of the least developed in the current roster but I see him as a non-magical character but with good melee abilities and leadership skills that allow him to buff nearby allies. Kind of like a strong rallying character to base a battle line / strategy around.

Samurai: A human warrior equipped in medium armour and armed with a katana and longbow. Skilled at both archery and melee combat and well armoured, the Samurai is a very well rounded character. He can play a key role both in a defensive and offensive strategy. His skills revolve around buffing his weapon attacks (improving chance of critical hits, making extra attacks, etc.). His other abilities haven't been defined yet ... I'm thinking of having him be able to summon an oriental dragon spirit creature.

Centaur Marauder: Centaurs are fast and armed with both spear / lance and bow. So similar to the Samurai, the centaur can handle themselves both at range and in melee. However, with a spear, the Centaur can attack creatures in melee two tiles away or from behind a friend. Therefore, they never really need to get too close to enemies. Lightly armoured but relatively tough, the centaur will have a mix of spear, bow and nature / healing abilities as well as buffs that apply for a single turn that increase movement speed and melee strength (representing a single charge into combat).

Demonblood Vampire: The Demonblood is a special kind of vampire that consumes demonic blood rather than that of other mortal creatures. As such, they are tolerated by the other races (to some extent) and have a lot of magical powers from the magical blood they consume. The Demonblood is a male fighter in light armour and armed with a halberd. He has typical vampire powers such as being able to drain life from his opponents to heal as well as teleporting by turning into a swarm of bats. He's very acrobatic and fast and delivers strong melee attacks. He also has darkness themed magic and can summon a dark cloud around him that hinders his enemies and makes him stronger.

War Golem: The Dwarfs in this game's background bolster their armies by constructing earth golems. These creatures are massive and have tremendous strength. They are also self healing and regenerate a small measure of their health each turn. However, they are very slow but once they get into combat ... not much can really harm them. The Golem's abilities revolve around regenerating itself and making itself stronger. They can plant themselves into the ground (sacrificing the ability to move for a time) to regain health and power up. They'll also be able to hurl boulders at the enemy though I haven't coded this yet so we'll see how it goes.

Halfling Explorer: The Halfling is another stealth focused character. However, less melee-oriented than the archer and plays more of a support role. He's small and has weak melee attacks but is hard to hit. He can also hide, making himself even harder to hit. He's armed with a crossbow and has various crossbow / missile skills. He's also meant to be resourceful and can lay traps for enemies as well as set up a magical ballista once per battle. He can also search an area for hidden treasure and carries a limited supply of magical food that he can use to heal himself or allies during battle.

Dwarf Iron Guard: A member of the Dwarfen military elite, the Iron Guard is a heavily armoured Dwarf warrior armed with hammer and shield. Very tough and resilient, he has abilities that make him even tougher and more resilient. He can also buff his melee attacks and throw a limited number of grenades at enemies that do vicious damage. A definite, front-line melee character that can both dish out and receive huge amounts of damage at higher levels.

High Elf Paladin: An Elven knight clad in plate armour and armed with a sword. Faster than his human counterpart and able to cast powerful spells .. he is a very balanced character but with a strong melee focus. He can enchant his weapon with lightning attacks and perform devastating magical attacks at close range at higher levels. The plate armour also gives him great protection from incoming attacks.

Okay, that's the full roster for this game. I'm not sure I'll have all 20 characters in the initial release but it's a strong possibility as most of them are done but just need some tweaking on their special abilities and sound effects. Let me know which, if any, appeal to you from a design perspective. I'm also thinking of adding a Water-themed wizard and Ice-themed wizard so if any of the above seem lame, let me know and I may do a last minute switch for one of those instead.

 

Here's a quick video of the menu, character selection and play through of the first encounter. Shows the gameplay and interface. The animations are a little choppy because I set the sampling rate really low to try and diagnose some crashes I was running into but forgot to set it back. Therefore, please don't get turned off by the choppiness of some of the graphics. Also, the first level only has one enemy in this version as I used it for debugging / testing purposes ... the actual first level will be a lot more interesting when it's released.

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Thanks ... I hope it doesn't dissapoint.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll make a few variations and show them. I don't want to do one for all 20 though ... it would take way too long. I will post pics though of each character class so people can see what each of them looks like.

 

Hi everyone,

Quick update. I've made lots of progress going through chapter 1 and fixing bugs and making things ready for release. However, I think there's going to be a delay in meeting my original release schedule. While I could release it in a day or two ... I'm pretty sure there would be some rough edges and possibly a few bugs. So I'd like to take a bit more time to polish things up a bit. I'm still aiming for a December 2014 release for Chapter 1.

That being said, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in helping me be a playtester for the game? I wasn't planning to do much, if any, external playtesting but I think this game could benefit from it tremendously. There are a lot of complexities and I would love the chance to get real player feedback on some of the game mechanics and character abilities / balance issues.

So please let me know either through PM or on a post here and I will look into what's required to send out playtesting versions. I'm familiar with how it's done on windows phone and I'm sure there's a way to do it for iOS. As a way of saying thanks for providing feedback, I will obviously put names of all playtesters on the game's credits page and will also name some NPCs or Enemy characters in Chapters 2 and 3 after the most active / helpful playtesters.

 

Hi guys, here's today's progress report. I've fixed a few bugs and have finalized the High Elf Archer's abilities and beginning statline and character description. Here's the character's summary from the player select screen:

High Elf Archer by raj_dhillon, on Flickr

High Elf Archer 2 by raj_dhillon, on Flickr

She's a dedicated archer and probably the character most focused purely on doing damage at range and avoiding melee combat. She can buff her own shooting skills, shoot powerful elemental arrows (ice, fire, etc.) and even summon a Spirit Wolf companion to tie up her enemies in melee while she continues to shoot at them.

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Please let me know what you think.

 

Thanks ... I'll add you to the list.

Anyone else? I can take a few more playtesters if there's interest.