Release - v01.1 - Battle Royale

The first of 8 planned updates based on the Playtest #2 feedback is complete! This release contains a bunch of improvements to Battles. These changes are primarily focused on improving clarity, reducing randomness, and adding more strategic choice.

Game Download: https://tobiusthegrand.itch.io/merchant-of-windvale-prototype

Feedback Survey: https://forms.gle/eAgtfeun529Wz26S7

This update also introduces a new option on the main menu for testing battles! Simply choose Playgrounds, then Battle Royale to have access to all equipment, assistants, and enemies. Be sure to fill out the survey after playing a few rounds!

Making battles easier to understand and reason about was the first goal of these updates. Almost all players responded that the battles were confusing, and hard to reason about, even if they said they liked the battles! I broke this problem down into two parts: user interface design and individual card design.

Improving the user interface started with adding in some color coding and symbols to help players group similar elements more easily. Colors separated the cards into suits and icons connected bonuses to the abilities they affect. Cards also now shift slightly when you play them instead of moving into a separate row entirely. This helps the player keep track of what's going on as it prevents the cards from rearranging.

Next was actually re-designing the effects on the cards themselves. The initial idea of each card having a multiplier that affected other cards was received well, but not everyone who tried the prototype understood that, or how to use it effectively. Cards sometimes not having any effect when you played them doubled down on that confusion, leading to many players not enjoying combat at all.

To combat those two sources of confusion, I first changed the base multiplier to 1, so that all cards played will have an effect. Then I changed each card to clearly list the bonus it provides, and switched from a multiplier to a flat increase. These two changes make it significantly easier to reason about what will happen when you play a card, and makes using combinations of cards a bonus instead of a requirement.

The other change to cards was the removal of off-suit effects. These were cards that provided an effect and bonus that weren't of the same type, like an Attack card providing Armor. While I think there is a place for these types of cards, I think it was too confusing and punishing to use at this stage of the prototype. Changing the base multiplier helps a lot with this, but I'm going to hold off on re-introducing these kinds of cards until later in the game. This will allows players to better master the core mechanics before introducing exceptions to all of the rules.

The second major change to Battles was in how cards are drawn each turn. Changing how players got cards each turn was the best way I could think of to both give them more control and introduce more opportunities for strategic decision making. Instead of always drawing 3 random cards each turn, players now have a choice between drawing 2 cards from random suits or 1 card from a specific suit instead.

Allowing players to decide whether to gain more random cards or fewer specific cards means there's always a strategic decision made every turn. Do I need more cards to replenish my options, or do I need something specific to finish a combo I'm planning for? This is the biggest functional change to Battles in this update, so I'm interested in hearing what people think of it!

That's all for this release! I hope you all enjoy the changes I've made to Battles. My plan is for each release to contain smaller, more focused, groups of changes targeting a specific area of the game. The next area of the game I'm improving is Shop Management, so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks.