Almasy Tactics - Simultaneous-Turn Class-Based Tactics

[conix]

Heya!

I'm working on a strategy game called Almasy Tactics. I've been working on it for awhile, and am looking for some feedback from people other than the couple regulars I have.


Almasy's a blind turn SRPG with ACTUAL skill builds and skill-based combat. Turns are double-blind, so each player first sends out their commands, and then the turn plays out. There's currently 40ish different classes with different playstyles, and upwards of 80 selectable skills. If you enjoy making ridiculous Johnny combos in MTG or even just liked making Pokemon skill builds, I think this game might be up your alley.



Almasy has blind turns, because of two main reasons: it speeds games up, and allows for mindgames. Most of the tactics games I've played take FOREVER to get through one turn cycle, and games take at least 30 minutes, if not hours. Almasy battles are typically 8-12 minutes of difficult decision making, and 20 minutes if people are being slow.

Since turns are double-blind, you're not always going to want to attack your opponent, especially if you're slower. How the speed system works is that each skill costs a certain amount of speed, and if your character doesn't move/attack, he gains speed. This is where mindgames come into play. More than often, the basic strategy is to attack when you're ahead on speed, and stay still when you're behind. Crazy plays begin to appear when people try to predict the other person's movements and attacking seemingly empty spots.


A dragoon predicts his enemy movements and stuns him for his allies, while simulatneously dodging enemy attacks


My favorite part of rpg-ish games is to find synergies/skill builds and try to break the game. Almasy is almost entirely focused around this - there's a ton of different classes and skills, and they can be unlocked at a brisk pace in any order you choose. If you see a character/team that you'd like to make, you probably have enough gold to try out at least some of it, and complete the team within a couple of battles. No need to grind a whole character up just to see if something works. There's no "endgame" per say - the stuff that's unlocked immediately for new players is just as potent as any other unlockable.


An exorcist triggers debuff early by dispelling it, killing his target immediately


Some feedback I've received before is that the skills might be a bit daunting - all the skills are incomparable have have their own niche. I'm still trying to work out a good balance of presenting how much stuff is available to new players to reduce overwhelm.

The skill list page

So yea, I'd really appreciate any feedback you can give me, if you think this game looks cool and want to give it a try! It's flash, so you can play it in your browser at http://almasytactics.net/

Edited February 1, 2015 by conix

[conix]

Heya, I made some huge improvements to the game! I'm holding a playtest right now, so if you're free, I'd love to get your opinion!

[Myke]

first some small errors and the like that I caught:

after registering it auto-filled my username but didn't clear the 'Username' ghost text

can only*?

selecting the loadouts button leaves the characters button highlighted, also it killed the little scroll buttons until I relaunched the game

okay now the other stuff:

• aesthetics are top tier, I was instantly grabbed by the personality and character of the art design. the interface is solid and easy enough to navigate after some poking around, both on the menu and in battle
• sound design is also solid, though the main menu music didn't come back after my tutorial battle
• the diversity of abilities and classes implies a lot of game depth, I look forward to actually getting into this when I have more time

consider me won over

[conix]

Awesome, good catches. I'll go fix those. Thanks for playing!

[IceBrand]

Looks interesting. I'll try it out. I can see you spent a lot of time on this.

Edited October 5, 2013 by AllAroundGamer9

[IGdood]

Wow, looks like an online version of FFTA 2 ;D

Nice job. Will play when I have time.

[conix]

Hiya! I've still been working on this.

Since I've last posted here, I've made a TON of polish.

Here's a couple changes that I've made, but pretty much everything has been revamped.

• Battlefield UI has been rehauled, and doesn't look like you're fighting in a grey void
• Battle music! Here's one of the songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLxmmHBBSC4.
• Tutorial redone - the previous one wasn't very descriptive, so I've split it into a couple, each focusing on one concept.
• AI is a bit smarter and actually provides a challenge (sometimes!) That being said, PvP is still way more fun.

You can play at almasytactics.net, if you're interested! If you have questions or criticisms, I'll be happy to hear them!

Edited February 8, 2014 by conix

[conix]

Hi, I'm back! I'm running a playtest right now! It'd mean a lot to me if any of you could give me your thoughts on it :D

Some screenshots:

Battle scene:

Skill scene:

Edited April 6, 2014 by conix

[conix]

Hey, I've made a pretty big update.

There's a robust campaign with character dialogue:


There's some new skills to play with:
Shield Slam: deals damage based on the user's defense, and pushes its target back.


I've also made a big change on the speed system - fastest characters no longer gain speed! So far, playtesting has shown that it speeds up the very beginning and end of matches, which sometimes were just pass and go.

There's a playtest running right now, so there's more people on than usual~ Any feedback that people can provide helps me a ton!

[conix]

I've made a ton of UI improvements since last time. I'm actually holding a playtest soon - 2PM PST! I'd appreciate any feedback/impressions! http://www.almasytactics.net/

[conix]

Hey, I'm going to be running a playtest today, in about 20 minutes!

There's been some skill changes made; here the ones I think are most interesting:
- Armor Break (Mastersmith class skill): Instead of reducing the target's defense by a flat percentage, Armor Break now removes all Defense/Resistance the target has, and decreases the Defense/Resistance permanently by 15%. This defines his role more as a "wallbreaker".
- Thunderbolt: Instead of % chance to paralyze, which relied too much on RNG to dictate how the match pace went, it now paralyzes 100% if it hits someone faster than the target. So, it's now more of a combo piece (stun someone, then paralyze) or single targeted damage from afar.
- Sharpshooting: This used to only increase the damage of physical ranged attacks. In addition to that, now it increases all ranged skills' max range by 1. I'm hoping this will make for some interesting sniping plays.
Also, I've been slowly improving the UI bit by bit - biggest change is the character creation:

Also, I've been slowly improving the UI bit by bit - biggest change is the character creation:

Edited June 21, 2014 by conix

[conix]

I've made a big big update today! There's a ton of new stuff/polished up old stuff here and there, but most importantly there are new skills and classes!
The Pilgrim is a mobile healing class. Support/Mobile typing is pretty tricky to work offensively, but the main draw of the class is his Rescue skill, which can pull an ally from pretty much across the map, while healing him. Perfect for hit and run attacks, or if you get caught in binding glyph, or even starting a flank!


And the other one is for people who love breaking the game even more than it's broken - Druid. His class skill is proliferate, which copies target's statuses to the characters around him! Hello, meditating Witchdoctor! Hello, Phoenix Spirited Cleric! Hello, Bloodthirsted Dragon Knight!


There's going to be a playtest today, in about 3.5 hours (2 PM PST). Hope to see you there!

[conix]

Hi! It's been awhile. Since last time, I've polished up a lot of things, and implemented a ton of new skills! Here's a couple:

Novablast AKA solar beam: User has to charge up for one turn, and then deals huge damage in a straight line the next turn (if he uses it again). It does a TON of damage and has great range with a low cost, but since it's used over two turns, it's easy to predict.

Tenacity: This is one of the first "anti-status" skills that I'll be implementing. This is a Melee-category skill, meant for close range fighters to easily fight through statuses. Tenacity dispels all statuses on the character, and heals him for an amount based on how many statuses he ate.

Petrify: Petrified is a new status effect. It stuns a character, but protects him slightly. You can use it to take an enemy out of a fight at the right moment, or protect one of your own characters from damage if they're taking heat and you want him to gain speed. This combos pretty well with Death Knight's Dark Pact, which makes it so he can move/attack even while stunned.

There's also going to be another tournament/playtest session this weekend at 5PM! The starting map is Lightacre:

Lightacre is a longer-ranged map. I've had moderate success with this team:

Cannoneer is the main damage dealer of this team, while the Death Knight and Arbiter to try to force enemies into the cannoneer's range. When an enemy is caught in 2-3 turns of cannon barrage, he's pretty much dead. Haven, which blocks enemy movement, is great on this map since there's a ton of chokepoints - it's awesome on Cannoneer since she really shines when she has some breathing room.

The arbiter is there for support. He uses a lance in case if you need to inflict poison, but more than often he's just there to put Enchant Poison on your other guys, Critical Weakness on enemies, and then just block people in the front lines since he's so beefy.

Death Knight is the secondary damage dealer of the team. Usually during the early phases of battle, he's there to inflict statuses to try to stop enemies from getting into good positions. Binding Glyph can trap someone in a cannon barrage, while Cleave can either 1. Injure enemies to discourage them from moving, or 2. reduce their defense for more beefy Cannon Barrages.

For the ruleset, I've gone back to the counterpicking choices of the first tournament - only the losing player can change his classes, but the winning player can switch up the stats/skill of his current classes.

Anyways, I'm currently working on 2 things: Guilds and an actual website. I think I need a "landing page" thingie because otherwise, people have no idea what the game is about when they just visit the site. Here is a page of what I have so far.

Guilds are in preparation for this feature that I want to make, where players can fight over territory in the map. I think it'll be cool, since it gives some context for battles.

Anyways! If you're interested in the tournament/playtest session, I've got a thread here!

http://forums.almasytactics.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&p=1736

Edited November 13, 2014 by conix

[conix]

Hey, I've made huge updates to this game! I also updated the OP accordingly.

The tutorial has a little guide that guides you through stuff if you're new, and there are voice effects to make battle a little more cool. As always, there's a ton of new skills implemented as well!

[conix]

Hello hello! It's been awhile. I've been working at trying to revamp the UI - making it easier to understand what options you have, and how to teach players how to play. As such, the UI has been nearly completely rehauled and hopefully not a huge eyesore.
The icons also have been redone because the pixely look didn't really fit with the rest of the game. Here's how they look now:

The other main upgrade that's happened is that I've made a bunch of single-turn "challenges" that serve as both puzzles to solve and a way to introduce new concepts to the game! I think they're pretty fun because while some of them teach you ways to combo skills, others have solutions that require out-of-the-box thinking.

If you have a chance to try it out, I really appreciate any honest feedback you can give me!

[Irony]

Sweet! This looks interesting!

Sadly, I cannot play it ATM, as I don't have a computer (I have an iPad, you see) and I'll probably not be able to test the game until December. :( I wanna play it though!

[Radiant head]

This looks really cool.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Radiant head

[conix]

Thanks! Lemme know if you have any questions or run into problems!