Curator Floor Design - Macabre Mausoleum

[Jake]

I'm also going to throw this out there, totally in your court. If you would ever need/want some help drawing up future floors so you could focus on other things, I'd be more than glad to help! Just let me know! No big deal if you'd rather handle the rest of it yourself!

I can't afford to compensate you, but once we have some more design rewards popping up on here, it might be nice to have some help . If you see a thread for something you'd like to try your hand at, you are more than welcome to post your interest and offer to take on some art. Thanks for the .xcf!

[nsweeney107]

I can't afford to compensate you

Wouldn't let you even if you tried, I don't need the money, I just like your game and want to see it succeed in any way possible. That's why I went curator, because I liked the ideas you had and the depth you wanted to create with that. I have only supported 2 games on kickstarter, yours and ConEx (don't get me started on that one). I don't just invest lightly!

That being said, backer designs or not, I'm invested in this and would like to help in any way possible! I don't have access to the internet at home, so I check this at work, but admittedly don't check it much. Feel free to email me if you have anything you'd like some help with!

I'll work on some sketches for the lich here in my free time, things tend to lull a little bit during the Christmas season, so that'll be nice!

P.S.: Love the changes in the recent patches, though I'm fearful I've exhausted my matchmaking skills in the easier rituals and may have to resort to luck to get the bigger ones and eventually unlock my floor

[Vryl]

P.S.: Love the changes in the recent patches, though I'm fearful I've exhausted my matchmaking skills in the easier rituals and may have to resort to luck to get the bigger ones and eventually unlock my floor

Just remember that you can use some items on the board to remove or convert tiles. I know that I wouldn't have gotten some of the six+ rituals without that.

[nsweeney107]

I've got some sketches of the lich I'm working on, just wanted to give you an update. Will post them here once they're finished for opinions!

[Jake]

Thanks for the heads up . No need to rush, because things are super busy on my end--I was rushing to wrap up things that I worked on over my holiday travels, but then the game got Greenlit yesterday, so now I'm taking a detour to get all of that set up !

[nsweeney107]

Ok, so here's my liches
1 [top-right] - Old Lich model, ignore
2 [middle-first] - standard lich, variation 1; for the liches, I was thinking that besides having the necromancy, could one of their other abilities be to consume and ally undead to form a bone wall boosting their own defense? Maybe also having a weaken spell to lower the heroes attack as well.
3 [middle-second] - standard lich, variation 2
4 [middle-third] - standard lich, variation 3
5 [middle-fourth] - lich champion, Death; a more offensive magic version of the lich. Instead of raise dead, bone wall, and weakness could have a melee attack with chance to insta-kill, life drain, and fear
6 [middle-last] - lich champion, Red Skull; a more offensive strength version of the lich. Still has raise dead, but can attack melee with his ax and I can't think of a 3rd ability.
7 [bottom-left] - lich champion, King Midas v1; Can petrify enemies by turning them to gold for a few turns, when he kills a hero Gold is dropped into the hoard
8 [bottom-right] - lich champion, King Midas v2; same as other guy just different look.
Let me know what you all think!

[nsweeney107]

I just saw your post, congrats on the Greenlight, that makes me very happy Well done!

[Jake]

Hey, sorry for the delay--lots going on!

I think it all looks good; I like the pose and proposed champion ideas (love the golden skeleton Midas). My only criticism is that I can't tell exactly what sinister items the first two liches are holding--at this resolution, I'm sure this happens a lot in my own art, where details that are clear to me just don't click for others. I suppose it doesn't have to be totally distinguishable, so long as they look like evil things.

I don't know about making them consume allied undead; anything that destroys minions should be really powerful, or else it's probably not worth it. Perhaps we'll give them a trait where they always gain defense when next to allied undead, without it taking an ability slot. I haven't done a lot of special traits, but it's something that will need to be more robust in the future anyway.

There is a fear mechanic on the way (in the game now, actually, but disabled due to my focus on stabilizing and polishing over introducing new things right now), which liches could use; instead of weakening heroes, they would increase their fear, when a character's fear surpasses their health, they are forced to skip their turn. I am not against weakening offense or fatiguing defense, though; I'm just throwing out an alternative.

For the standard lich, abilities could go something like this:
1. shadow magic attack? This slot is generally a melee attack, but the standard lich isn't equipped for that (Death and Redskull could do melee)
2. weakness/fear/fatigue?
3. necromancy?
4. necromancy?

I ended up making the Necromancers' necromancy ability raise both good and bad characters (living humanoids, at least--they cannot raise undead, constructs, etc.), and even then, they can only do it if there is an empty slot on their side (which means the the 4th slot necromancy can only be used on a fallen ally); this rule helps balance the ability, because free units are very valuable, and also increases the clarity of what's happening during the ability, because raising a character that isn't joining the battle would place the new character in the "background," where they aren't very visible. I do feel like the lich version should be superior, so maybe they can raise people back as ghouls, ghasts, wraiths, or something--we need to add some intermediate undead, but maybe that change can come down the road .

[nsweeney107]

Hey Jake,

For the first two liches, they're holding a crystal and tome respectively (very hard to create pixelated to say the least!). I like the tome and the skull, but the crystal was just a spitballing attempt on my part, ha.

I don't know about making them consume allied undead; anything that destroys minions should be really powerful, or else it's probably not worth it. Perhaps we'll give them a trait where they always gain defense when next to allied undead, without it taking an ability slot. I haven't done a lot of special traits, but it's something that will need to be more robust in the future anyway.

That makes sense, minions are very costly so killing one for bonus defense would be awfully underwhelming. I do like the idea of a passive defense bonus, but what about an ability that mitigates all his damage taken evenly to himself and any other undead in his party? Kind of a shared pain aspect.

The fear mechanic sounds cool, that'll be neat to see in the future.

As for the raising dead for the lich, I totally agree that it should be a higher tier minion! Maybe the champions can raise even higher level guys on top of that as they level up:
1. Skeleton Warrior/Skeleton Archer/Zombie
2. Skeleton Mage? (hitting my diablo roots here, ha)/Ghost
3. Wraith/Vampire
4. Bone Dragon?
Maybe rare chance of raising a champion minion of these???

[I feel like I just got my list from HOMM 3, geez I'm uninspired!]

[ThirdAnguis]

For the first two liches, they're holding a crystal and tome respectively (very hard to create pixelated to say the least!). I like the tome and the skull, but the crystal was just a spitballing attempt on my part, ha.

I thought the crystal was a human heart.