Witch Hunter (indie game) - like Fantasy XCOM

[adamzeira]

New build is up! And the name has been updated. It's only been a week so most changes aren't ground breaking, but a lot of small fixes that address many points brought up here

Among the bigger changes

• Game name change
• Towns changed to use a completely different UI
• Loot from monster battles
• More, smarter and better escorted traveling merchants
• Wytches are out, witches are in

And lots of small adjustments and balance changes

If you're up for playing and giving feedback here are some keys. As before please only take a key if you're going to help with feedback

R8LKL-VTXH4-9YQ7V
PDC8E-34GJ6-MFIWN
R8JI2-PC6P7-BB8K9
LN2X3-XFYF9-TLM3P






And wanted to thank everyone again for putting in the time and sharing their thoughts. When you develop by yourself for a long enough time you lose track of what's working/what isn't, and finally getting outside input is a huge amount of pressure off

[adamzeira]

One of the reasons i failed to get into battle brothers despite enjoying the concept is that game (at least when i played it) never really did much to actually draw me into their world, so while the gameplay concept was interesting enough, i ended up dropping it out of boredom pretty quickly simply because the world itself (and to a lessor extent the art design) didn't interest me.

That's exactly what the game is going for :) I felt the exact same way about BB and other very open world games. They're fun but at some point you feel it's pointless and wish you had that plot string to follow. So an open world you can roam around in, but several characters/plot lines with choices that affect things including the ending

And maybe a *slight* amount of pressure/urgency to progress so it's more of a strategy game you can lose in. It's something I feel lost without... but this is still under discussion as it stands in opposition to the open world game idea

[Brother Oni]

And maybe a *slight* amount of pressure/urgency to progress so it's more of a strategy game you can lose in. It's something I feel lost without... but this is still under discussion as it stands in opposition to the open world game idea

You could have quite a broad time limit - Expeditions Vikings had a month for Act 1 and a year for Act 2; they're both generous enough to give you enough time to complete the game first go blind, but not 100% anything without a bit of blind luck. On replays, you're going to be twiddling your thumbs a lot since you've cut out most of the random wandering back and forth.

Similarly, Tyranny had a time limit and I don't remember it being an issue at all (although the first limit was a bit of a fudge).

[adamzeira]

Edit: That gives me an fun idea, although I'm not sure whether it's possible - an achievement for completing the game with only Dorian and Violet called 'The Last of Us'.

Hah, I like that. Completing the game might be too much with 2 characters, but in the story there are sides and characters like the witches, the king's soldiers, princes, witch hunters, etc. and depending on your choices you fight the big evil alongside certain characters in the end
Maybe one ending will be everyone else dies except the two of you, and that can be called that. Or maybe in the ending you make the choice to

Spoiler: TLoU spoiler

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sacrifice others so Violet lives

so it's appropriately named

I do like the corruption meter idea, but I dislike it having it openly displayed as it reduces it to a mechanic to game rather than something which is a real threat to Violet's well being. If it were hidden, you should hint at its existence, with certain decisions or story events decreasing/increasing Violet's corruption level in addition to using spells excessively in combat increasing corruption. It would also be nice if her portrait changed depending on her corruption level as a rough visual indicator of how far she's gone.

This one's so tough. There are so many ways to do it, all with advantages/disadvantages. Whether corruption is displayed/not displayed, beneficial/not beneficial, removable or not, based on spells or actions, etc

This is one that seems to work in my head -

There's a game called Curse of the Dead Gods, it has a corruption system where as you play through you inevitably gain corruption which gives you debuffs. The debuffs range from some that are very bad and others you can live with. And you can clear them occasionally
but most importantly - you have opportunities to gain a big advantage at the cost of gaining corruption. for example often you can pay to buy a weapon with increasing corruption instead of gold. And you learn to make that tradeoff because it's often worth it

How does that sound?


Regardless of that I think in any system it has to be shown that this corruption is a legitimate, not necessarily evil choice, or maybe inevitable. Otherwise no players will choose to use it. It's your daughter, not many will choose to poison her

What you could use as a dramatic reveal is the unexpected level of her power and Dorian's surprise at it. To use D&D 3.5 terminology, Dorian's expecting a 1st lvl Burning Hands or maybe a 3rd level Fireball at most, instead she pulls out a 5th level Cloudkill.

Really like this. Definitely making it in :)

[Brother Oni]

This one's so tough. There are so many ways to do it, all with advantages/disadvantages. Whether corruption is displayed/not displayed, beneficial/not beneficial, removable or not, based on spells or actions, etc

This is one that seems to work in my head -

There's a game called Curse of the Dead Gods, it has a corruption system where as you play through you inevitably gain corruption which gives you debuffs. The debuffs range from some that are very bad and others you can live with. And you can clear them occasionally
but most importantly - you have opportunities to gain a big advantage at the cost of gaining corruption. for example often you can pay to buy a weapon with increasing corruption instead of gold. And you learn to make that tradeoff because it's often worth it

How does that sound?


Regardless of that I think in any system it has to be shown that this corruption is a legitimate, not necessarily evil choice, or maybe inevitable. Otherwise no players will choose to use it. It's your daughter, not many will choose to poison her

The game is now showing up as Witch Hunter, presumably because Valve updated the catalog for the Winter sales.

That's certainly an option and one I like - it gives incentive for players to use her powers but rather than punish them for their overuse, it turns it into a usable resource or an unlock requirement to certain areas/equipment/skills.

That said, be careful not to follow the system in Curse of the Dead Gods too closely - it's a roguelite, so restarting a run because you've made a poor corruption choice isn't too much of a hassle (an average run is listed as between 20-40 minutes). In a story based strategy game like this, restarting is a lot more of a hassle.

[Aragehaor]

I've taken the first key, If i can swing it i'll play it and write up some feedback tonight - if not, i'll probably end up waiting until monday.

That's exactly what the game is going for :) I felt the exact same way about BB and other very open world games. They're fun but at some point you feel it's pointless and wish you had that plot string to follow. So an open world you can roam around in, but several characters/plot lines with choices that affect things including the ending

Excellent! Glad to hear that!

And maybe a *slight* amount of pressure/urgency to progress so it's more of a strategy game you can lose in. It's something I feel lost without... but this is still under discussion as it stands in opposition to the open world game idea

I don't typically enjoy time limits in video games, but it can be done decently - so long as the pressure/time limit isn't arbitrary i'm not really opposed to it either.

A recent example of such pressures/time limits that i thought worked reasonably(though not directly translatable to this game) would be the system in Wildermyth - In that game, you were often presented with a reasonable amount of freedom and options - but due to the crisis occurring in the story, the longer you dally about conquering territory from monsters, leveling up, and in general making yourself stronger, the more dangerous too your enemies would become.

I found it required myself to put some thought in how i went about exploring the map without feeling unfair or senseless.

So if you think it'll add to your game, feel free - i could see it adding a reasonable amount of value, though i wouldnt be very sad if you didnt, either.

This is one that seems to work in my head -

There's a game called Curse of the Dead Gods, it has a corruption system where as you play through you inevitably gain corruption which gives you debuffs. The debuffs range from some that are very bad and others you can live with. And you can clear them occasionally
but most importantly - you have opportunities to gain a big advantage at the cost of gaining corruption. for example often you can pay to buy a weapon with increasing corruption instead of gold. And you learn to make that tradeoff because it's often worth it

How does that sound?

It sounds like a reasonably interesting method - although since it is (At the very least primarily) a corruption system for the daughter, it'd certainly need to be carefully balanced, so as to not be unfun (or as you say below, objectively wrong or suboptimal)

Regardless of that I think in any system it has to be shown that this corruption is a legitimate, not necessarily evil choice, or maybe inevitable. Otherwise no players will choose to use it. It's your daughter, not many will choose to poison her
)

A possibility here for the debuffs to tie in somewhat in the games morality system - depending on how indepth it is/is planned to be. For instance, if the daughter has her own personal 'morality bar' or what have you, higher levels of corruption could give - among other things, enticements for having the daughter perform darker deeds in combat (a bonus to hit or damage for using poisoning magic, for instance.)

That said, such benefits could end up making darker play throughs the 'optimal' path for gameplay - not necessarily a problem, but possibly not what you'd want.

The game is now showing up as Witch Hunter, presumably because Valve updated the catalog for the Winter sales.

That said, be careful not to follow the system in Curse of the Dead Gods too closely - it's a roguelite, so restarting a run because you've made a poor corruption choice isn't too much of a hassle (an average run is listed as between 20-40 minutes). In a story based strategy game like this, restarting is a lot more of a hassle.

Probably unnecessary to state, but i also see it as Witch Hunter now.

I completely agree to treat the system a touch cautiously, having to restart playthroughs of this kind of game due to it would likely get old very quickly.




EDIT: Managed to play for a little bit today (though not incredibly long) Initial (and short) Impressions:

I rather like the tooltip implementation so far, seems reasonably comprehensive - i didnt see anything that would strongly benefit from a tooltip missing one.

The tutorial holds your hand the entire way, but is short, and does a pretty decent job at introducing your combat mechanics, so i have no real complaints here. - Though, i did find a Wytch spelling you missed, about halfway through the tutorial, immediately after clearing the first three enemies and moving Dorian forward, Dorian starts to refer to the witch he spots as a 'Wytch' but is fortuitously interrupted by his daughter, only letting him get out 'Wy' as the only hint of his error. ;P

Only did a few battles, but the combat already feels reasonably decent, especially for how early the game is in development - though it does feel somewhat jarring to have violet off the map serving as magical artillery.

The models for your units do look considerably better in game, no complaints.

Unfortunately, thats about all i have time for now, i'll be able to play more and give more detailed opinions most probably on monday.

[adamzeira]

Hey, new update up with all sorts of fixes and general clarity issues. There are some keys left up there, if anyone wants to grab one go for it

Thanks again for all the feedback


It feels like the game's start is getting to a reasonable point, but the story/motivation can be improved

Right now it's

Spoiler: start v1

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1. Pre-Tutorial dialogue (establishing characters) (big downside that it's too long)
2. Tutorial
3. Post-Tutorial dialogue (let's go to town)
[And presumably/soon]
4. Violet is kidnapped by witches
5. On the rescue mission have a crisis, Violet's powers unlock and save the day

But it feels that it's too slow/uninteresting in the beginning of the game and doesn't give enough motivation

An alternative was suggested of

Spoiler: start v2

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1. Pre-tutorial dialogue - "I'm scared, what if I'm not ready?" "don't be scared. we're going to the obelisk up ahead to find if you have witch powers", "tell me again what happened at the obelisk"
2. Tutorial
3. Post-tutorial dialogue - "anyway let's go to the obelisk"
4. At the obelisk reveal she has witch powers

It's much faster and gives clear/interesting motivation. But on the other hand the witch reveal happens so quickly and with no return on it, and after that we're back to needing a different method of motivation


Still thinking it over. Ideas are very welcome, been stuck on this for a while