Before the adventure begins you need to do two things: create a party and choose a difficulty.
Creating an adventuring party
A standard party is formed by 4 adventurers. You are allowed to make a smaller party, but be warned... you'll get beaten. Badly. Later on, up to two companions can join your party. It doesn't matter if you have a smaller base party; you can never have more than 2 companions joining you.
The proccess of creating a character is straightforward. I don't like the games where you are forced to make a lot of uninformed decisions at the beginning, but of course this is still an RPG with a lot of depth, and some choices must be made. The good news is most of the choices will come later on, as you level up. And in character creation you can know how everything works by just hovering over stats.
If you're in a hurry to get into the game you might just create a random party with one click, which will automatically create a reasonably balanced party of four with at least one decent fighter, one decent healer and one spellcaster (other roles may vary). By "reasonably balanced" I mean exactly that: it can face the dangers ahead, but as you learn the ropes of the game you might probably do much better.
A good thing about random parties is they can be edited. You can go through the characters one by one and adjust some details, or completely redesign the characters.
First choice: race
In this version of EA, you can choose among five races to create your characters. (Two more races will be added in future versions, and it's also planned to add separate human cultures). The race selection screen displays all the information you need to make a choice.
I'll post here the game information about the non-human races, so you can get a little familiar with them.
Varannari
Tall and athletic natives from the primeval forests of Varannar are easily recognizable by their green skin and strong, long limbs. Varannari are brave, likeable and loyal, but prideful and temperamental.
In Archaelund: some Varannari were brought to Archaelund by the Mercians as slaves, but escaped into the forests to form nomadic clans and live once more according to their ancient ways. Most of them, however, are part of human society and have come as colonists or adventurers.
Trait bonuses: +1 Strength, +1 Endurance
Trait penalties: -1 Intellect, -1 Self-Control
Special abilities: Varannari gain a +15 bonus to the Survival and Athletic skills.
Goblin
In the civilized Exiled Kingdoms, goblins are considered monsters due to their renowned wickedness, and attacked on sight. The Archaelund Marches, however, can’t afford any available force to go to waste, and some goblins a tad less psychotic than their brethren can make a career as scouts and archers. Some of them become jesters for one of the Lords of the Marches, although their awful jokes are often more painful than their dented blades.
In Archaelund: Goblins are a common sight in the largest cities, where they live assimilated into human society. But many others are dangerous outlaws, sometimes led by shamans of their dark religion.
Trait bonuses: +1 Dexterity, +1 Awareness
Trait penalties: -1 Strength, -1 Self-Control
Special abilities: +1 Movement Point. They have innate resistance to fire (+25%) but are vulnerable to cold and shock damage (-25%)
Minotaur
In ancient times a wise and prosper people, nowadays turned into bloodthirsty monsters, roaming ancient mazes built by their ancestors while oblivious to their meaning. A few of them, however, are intelligent enough to become civilized (under a very generous use of the term) and make a living through their fighting abilities. Minotaurs are large, incredibly strong and aggressive, but often simple-minded and fearful of sorcery or the undead.
In Archaelund: Minotaurs are rare, and sometimes frowned upon. They are often front-line fighters in adventuring parties, or lead bandit groups. However there are exceptions and a small number of Minotaurs insist upon unveiling their ancient past and recover the wisdom of their ancestors.
Special abilities: Minotaurs need two rations per rest. They don't have a 'Feet' slot, and can't wear boots or shoes. They are also unable to wear most helms.
Batrax
Batrax are small amphibious humanoids, nimble and dexterous, intelligent and innately adept in the magical arts. Unpredictable in the extreme, they can be equally violent or sociable when met in the wildlands.
In Archaelund: wild Batrax are feared in the coastlands, where they often ambush their victims with sharp harpoons and deadly magic. Some of them, however, claim human ancestry and wish to live among humans and learn their ways, citing a fabulous tale about a human adventurer who spent a night of passion with a Batrax princess. Unlikely as this tale may be, their abilities as scouts or sorcerers are undisputed and has earned them a place in Archaelund.
Special abilities: Batrax can hold their breath longer than other races. Vulnerable to fire (-50% to resistance). Batrax don't have a 'feet' slot and can't wear boots or shoes.
About game difficulties
After your party is created, and before you can begin your adventure, you must select a difficulty for the game. This can't be changed later. Once again, hovering over each difficulty will give you all the details, but it might be hard for you to determine how relevant are the listed changes.
My advice would be to go with New School difficulty, unless you truly enjoy challenges. As in many RPGs, the game becomes easier as you learn the ropes. For people with experience in old RPGs, Old School might be more enjoyable. It will force you to be more careful. The other two available difficulties (Explorer and Cruel) are for people that want a more gentle or an extremely ungentle experience. Iron Man mode is not available yet.
That's all for this write-up, in the next one I'll explain some aspects of the rest of character creation aspects (careers, skills, magic)
When cut, onions release a chemical called lachymatory factor, which contains sulphur! If you’re like me, this makes me cry my eyes out to a gross extent – even after years of chopping. This was our first design touchstone when it came to designing the GladiEATers roster – crying.
Root Motiff
We think the best roster designs are formed around a central image. For onions, we reinterpreted the Eye of Horus into a simplified crying eye. Blue is a colour that seemed to be associated with the eye in culture and jewllery, which made the blue tear association feel very natural.
Eyes on eyes (on eyes)
Our Raw Onion GladiEATer starts the roster with the motiff strong. Being a bulb with eyes crying all around. It also sets the stage with the most simple cry inducing ability:
Tear Up: - Enemy Cries. Being a weak, low time to cook, Raw creature, two of Raw Onion’s abilities are sacrificial/ make Raw Onion into more of a consumable, like the Raw Egg.
Peel Feel: - Makes an ally’s next attack inflict crying. - But destroys the Onion in the process.
Stembutt: - Deals a small amount of damage. - Takes a small amount of damage.
How good does this make Raw Onion? I wish there was some explanation of what crying does…
...What crying used to do
Originally, crying made all your abilities target enemies and allies randomly. This was a natural first iteration of the mechanic, but after a few months of testing, we realised this wasn’t the sort of "wow that’s fun" randomness. Instead ,it was the type of randomness that either:
Feels mediocre if a crying enemy hits another, less optimal, target on your team. OR
Feels bad if it hits an equally optimal target on your team (you’d ask, what was the point of me making them cry). OR EVEN WORSE
Feels terrible if your enemy casts an area of effect ability that targets your entire team - making your random targeting debuff completely irrelevant.
What crying does
Instead, we saw crying as an opportunity to partly fix another problem. We were worried that some players would decide on 1 ability of the 3 a GladiEATer has to be the best and continue casting that on repeat - without getting to have a strategic decision every turn. To prevent this, we changed the crying debuff to stop the player from casting the same ability twice. Now the player has the interesting situation where they are forced to change up their strategy, picking the best of now two of their abilities. This felt like a step in the right direction. However, with so many tear inducing abilities and a relatively minor effect that does not stack - what gave players a reason to make a GladiEATer cry twice? Blocking more abilities felt too limiting for the enemy. So, what about an explosion. Everyone loves explosions. Now, when a crying GladiEATer is made to cry again – the tear explodes - dealing significant damage. Thematically, this could be interpreted as the GladiEATer having a tantrum, or getting so sad that they take damage. Poor things ☹ GladiEATers crying is represented by a tear drop under the GladiEATer’s eye, which we’ve set on every single sprite (even those with no eyes!). Additionally, the 2nd time a GladiEATer is made to cry, the tear explodes as the damage activates and the crying stops.
More Onions!
Diane’s onion creations involve chopped Raw Onion Slices. These hover around melancholically, with occasional woeful outbursts:
Projection: -Deal damage randomly, 3 times! [Nothing like taking your sadness out on someone random]
Teary Gaze: -Enemy Cries.
Peeling Bad: -Lose 25% Max Health. –Gain 25% Power. [Keeping in-line with the peeling punnage]
The Grilled Onion Slice has honed its tear powers, developing… arms! This groundbreaking adaptation allows it to hone its tears into targeted balls of sad power.
Teary Touch: -Deal Damage and make an enemy cry [Not a tear Hadouken]
Spreading Sulphide: -Ally’s next attack makes targets cry .
Regretful Vanquish: -Charge Up. -Deal Damage equal to ½ of target’s missing health.
Regretful Vanquish has the Grilled Onion rubbing its eyes to form a massive scounrful tear. It is great for taking down high health enemies. Spreading Sulphide also synergises powerfully with abilities that target multiple enemies, such as Raw Onion Slice’s Projection or even Tomato Spit which Diane’s Tomato Slices have access too!
Too Sad, Too Furious
Fried Onion Rings. They’re onions, they cry, and they’re fast. The Fried Onion Ring shaped like a literal tire and greased up by never ending tears, this sad speed demon only knows get fast or cry trying:
Greasy Steer: -Deal damage and get faster.
Battery Burnout: -Lose life and get faster.
Tear Streaks: –Draw a tear line, [[i]similar to how tire marks burn rubber on the ground]
[/i] - Enemies that attack allies with this line begin to cry.
Diane's Design Link
We linked Diane’s design to the onion’s by putting our augmented Eyes of Horus on her as a sleeve of tattoos. Diane’s ability of pushing her already low health (and therefore sad) GladiEATers made thematic sense with her crying creatures being sad to work for her. Finally, Diane makes other chefs cry due to her meanness, much like her onions.
Oni-off
Saying goodbye always makes me sad ;( Thank you for reading a bit more about our crying onion buddies. There’s even more GladiEATers to talk about, perhaps even onion based GladiEATers yet to be announced?? Consider joining our Discord or leaving a comment – that would bring a tear to my eye.
● Improved Main Menu UI ● Included the "Power Selection Screen" directly in the Main Menu ● Removed the requirement of selecting at least 3 Powers ● Fixed minor UI Bugs
Improved companion AI: Companions now attack enemies faster after spawn which makes companions more responsive also if they repawn in case they move to far away from the player position
Cyclic Might [Melee Attack Replacer Skill] now has much smoother swirl animation and melee weapons now do not jump to new aimed enemy position anymore
Balancing:
Taurus enemy at caves map has been slowed down and added variance to attack pattern to prevent those enemies charge attacking to frequently
Fixes:
Fixed wrong achievement images for courtyard of ankerath
Report bugs & crashes
If you encountered a crash and your game keeps crashing when restarting and loading the active run please also attach your save file located at: %appdata%\Godot\app_userdata\StrivingForLight-Survival\ save.json for offline play public-season-X.json for online play.
This update includes new Relics, a new dungeon trap type, more dungeon rooms and improvements to the Warrior including a new 'critical hit builder' mod. Multiplayer has also received polish, with different colour characters to help readability.
3D Camera View
Replaced the old 2D, orthographic camera with a 3d perspective view, which really brings the dungeon alive! Corridors now feel claustrophobic, and I can add proper lighting for more mood and visual effects. Have already started on this work, but a lot more polish and effects to come! YouTube 3D gameplay
Hero Attack Animations
Previously the player characters didn't animation when attacking, showing an overlaid sprite. I've had a number of comments this should be improved - and now it has! Really adds to the impact of the combat, so really pleased with this. Here's the Warrior:
Monster Crawl Demo
I'll be updating the demo and Monster Crawl: Warrior in January once a few more kinks are worked out and the polish pass is completed.
Other Updates
Continuing to work on many areas including map generation, performance, player abilities and modifications.
