Monthly Archives: July 2013

Heroes of a Broken Land – Alpha 0.9.1

Alpha 0.9.1 is now out, lots of improvements and fixes all around.

Try the latest version of Heroes of a Broken Land

    • Added status effect icons (bless, stun, etc) to indicate character status
    • Stunned characters cannot counter attack
    • Character customization from the Adventurer’s Guild
    • Increase base world movement points by 33% (6 -> 8)
    • Show victory stats when dungeon is cleared
    • Golem factory changed, skills are now based on Golem level
    • Tool-tip help added to most UI elements
    • Improved UI icon images (still a WIP)
    • Improved scrollbars (a bit…)
    • Building and World UI screen cleanup, making the UI more consistent (not done yet!)
    • Cleanup Character stats screen, split Skills into separate tab for more detailed descriptions
    • Fix some transition issues with HUD background
    • Fixed Treasure Hunt quest
    • Improved dungon defeat and win screens
    • Plus lots of minor tweaks and fixes

What’s next? There are still quite a few features to add before the game’s done, my next focus will be on

  • Party selection at start – allow the player to choose the classes of their initial party
  • Improve the dungeon object variety, more interactive objects (this will be on going throughout development)
  • Fix the dungeon graphics, there are quite a few minor gliches that are bothering me

Of course the game is still in development and I love to hear suggestions. So give it a try and let me know!

Alpha to Beta and Beyond

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Heroes of  a Broken land is currently versioned as  “Alpha”.  But what exactly does that mean?

In game dev jargon Alpha generally means “functionally complete”, meaning the major game functionality has been implemented – such as dungeon generation, character progression and combat systems – and are working as designed.

In more general terms, Alpha indicates the game is still in development, and is in fairly early in development. Meaning lots of stuff can and will change, perhaps in major ways.  In my option Heroes of a Broken Land is nearly “Alpha Complete”, most of the systems are in place and working.  I expect the next version or so to be the last Alpha build of the game.

So very shortly HOBL will enter “Beta”, the next phase in development, and the last phase before being the game is completed.

What happens in Beta? Finishing off the content, making sure the UI is working smoothly, balancing the gameplay and general bug fixing. There will also be art updates as a lot of the existing world and town art will be replace.  Basically I’ll stop adding new stuff, and focus on making the existing context better.

Some areas of focus:

  • Dungeon variation and complexity – I try and make dungeon exploration more intersting with new objects to interact with and improved layout
  • Graphics – especially world backgrounds and buildings, but some dungeon parts and combats effects will be improved
  • Sound & Music – I’ll add better sound effects where needed, and I’m still undecided on what to do for music (I’d like more variety)

The demo will also probably become limited in some fashon, not letting you access the whole game. Probably a level cap on character progression, allowing a few hours of gameplay, but not the full game.

What about post-Beta? Post-Release? It’s a bit more difficult to say. I believe that Heroes of a Broken Land has a lot of potential, and I still have a lot of ideas of what could be added, but the future will also depend on the players – what do they want to see from the game? I’m certainly intersted in continuing to update the game after release.

 

New Town Backgrounds – Preview

Nathan, the artist who’s responsible for the character portraits, has started reworking a lot of my placeholder art. Here’s a preview of the new town background artwork.

Quite the improvement over the current backgrounds. What do you think?

Lizardmen Swamp

Lizardmen Swamp

Fae Forest

Fae Forest

Human Outpost

Human Outpost

Artificer Desert

Artificer Desert

 

 

 

Heroes of a Broken Land – Alpha 0.8.0

This has been a busy week for updates!  Version Alpha 0.8.0 is now out.

Changes in this version:

  • Adventurer’s Guild & Inn buildings added
  • Added the ability to automatically exit a dungeon after completing your mission, removes back tracking
  • Fix save/load option disapearing after exiting certain dungeons
  • Fix save game exploit after clearing dungeons
  • Started updating the World map UI
  • Plus lots of minor fixes and tweaks

hobl_alpha080_overworld

Don’t forget to preorder Heroes of a Broken Land at its special pre-order price.

Heroes of a Broken Land – Alpha 0.7.1

The newest version of Heroes of a Broken Land is now avaialble.

This is mostly a bugfix release to Alpha 0.7.1, and is save game compatible so you can continue your games.

  • You can win the game now: Added end game sequence (artwork is still unfinished)
  • Fixes to combat – mostly related to status effects
  • About a dozen new world events added
  • Four new monster types added
  • Numerous small bug fixes as well

Don’t forget to preorder Heroes of a Broken Land!

motherslime_attack

Heroes of a Broken Land – Alpha 0.7.0

The newest version of Heroes of a Broken Land is now avaialble.

Lots of good stuff in this release:

  • New Hero portraits are now available
  • A UI rework is underway and 0.7.0 has the first preview
  • Character development is now more important, attributes are more influencial making level up attribute point selection more important and meaningful
  • Skill selection on level up, now you will select which skill to learn on level up, allowing you to customize your Hero
  • Lots of new skills, especially for fighters and other melee classes: counter attacks, weapon specializations and more
  • Lizards are now bezerkers – they attack automatically, but are powerful
  • Treasure rooms at the end of the larger dungeons
  • A world event system as been added, you will be faced with hard and interesting choices related to kingdom management
  • Numerous small bug fixes as well

Don’t forget to preorder Heroes of a Broken Land!

New UI and Portraits

New UI and New Portraits

UI Update Preview

I’ve been working on reworking the in game UI, cleaning up some the the buttons and adding just a bit of flare and a neat feature to two – like the new compass at the top.

 What do you think?

New UI and Portraits

New UI and New Portraits

New Portraits Preview

You can’t have Heroes of a Broken Land without heroes.  The new Hero portraits are almost ready, with lots more detail and variation than the current portraits.

hobl_heroes_large

Check out some of the variety here:

hobl_humans hobl_lizards hobl_fae hobl_golem