Hearthpwn

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/

Hey, Kenshin here-

Just some things...

This is pretty solid; was it just you making this? Did you have a team? Do you need more  help w/ musical things (a friend of mine makes AMAZING movie-soundtrack quality stuff)? Did you make the music yourself?

^If you wanna PM me that's cool, but this is a pretty cool game :D

Adding in a hotkey for the RESET on each character would be nice, like X or something.

Also, some help understanding each stat, maybe (in tutorial, cuz it's scroll-overable from the character create menu)

Description on Sentinel class is likely incorrect.

"You can unlock three more classes" followed by being unable to unlock any classes (I just finished tutorial, is there something more to this?)

Same with purchasing skills; anything I buy subsequently doesn't purchase.

Other than these, this game is so far awesome!

Keep it up!

-Kenshin

Subsequently, joining a campaign mission didn't work, followed by a re-log attempt not working.

Probably a server issue; I shot you an email.

-Kenshin

Hey Kenshin, thanks a ton for bringing this up!

Anything you see in the game that isn't art (characters, skill animations, music) is me. For art, I've been commissioning artists with money I get from my job.

There's actually a reset button already for each character! It's the triangle thing at the bottom right of the command circle when you first click on it.

As for unlocking stuff: looks likes you logged on as the server was dying, so the things were actually unlocked but the server didn't tell you. Sorry about that, I'll look into it!

Right; I see the reset button, but just how move has a hotkey, it'd be neat for that to have a reset button as well.

I'm checking back to see what was purchased.

The music is pretty damn cool, and I hope you get good funding for the art in-game; looks like there's potential here!

Good luck dude!

-Kenshin

Ah, yea! I can definitely implement a hotkey for the reset button.

Thanks for the feedback! There's actually more music that I can put in, but the file is already kinda bloated, so I'm trying to figure out a different way to load the music before putting them in.

I'd potentially be interested in testing it, though I wouldn't expect mountains of feedback since I'd gadually be playing it. I am a fan of the genre though.

Quote from Palaxar »

I'd potentially be interested in testing it, though I wouldn't expect mountains of feedback since I'd gadually be playing it. I am a fan of the genre though.

Yay! Thanks for at least giving it a chance; I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on it (especially what confused you)!

Hey, I've made a pretty big update.

There's a robust campaign with character dialogue:

There's some new skills to play with:
e.g. 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.

I wish I had more time to help you out!

School's a little interfering, but when summer rolls around I'll try to contribute more.

FF tactics was my favorite game (besides ff8) when I was a kid and I'm very excited to test more.

Heya :DI've been making a lot of improvements on almasy's UI. It's still not quite where I want it yet, but I'd love if anyone could give it a try! I'm holding a playtest in a bit - 2PM PDT, so if you'd like to swap team ideas/play others, now's a great time to do it!

http://www.almasytactics.net/

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:

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!

Hi! I'm still working on this. I've updated the OP to reflect what it looks likes nowadays. If you're bored I'd appreciate it if you took a look and told me your thoughts!