How We Crafted Our Character Classes

Back with some development talk about how Descent of Lunaris came to be and how our character classes were created and evolved over time.

(Read on for some cool concept art images and some scribbled notes too)

To start, lets go back a couple years, near the end of 2023. Originally the plan was to use RPG Maker to make a short dungeon crawler with visual novel elements, harkening back to old school tabletop games from the 80s and 90s. The idea of a highly customizable group of diverse characters was a part of that design since day one, and has remained a core pillar that we have built around as the project has grown.

Despite Lunaris' small team and scope, complex character classes were immediately drafted. Medic, Gunner, and Shielder were created as our three archetypes of "damage, healing, and survivability". Blademaster, Inventor, and Cyber Surgeon were created as hybrids, offering a mix of two archetypes. Fighter was a jack-of-all trades, and Nanomage was the classic Wizard.

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Despite a small shakeup in the roster in early 2024 (Hacker added, Cyber Surgeon Cut, Gunner split), most of these early class identities have remained true to their original designs. Some classes, such as Blademaster, are almost unchanged from our initial drafts. The scope of this game grew very quickly once we realized the potential of what we were doing. A few classes were completely reworked (Inventor was reworked twice) and many new skills and passives were added.

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Eventually, we decided to push ourselves even further, and designed two unique subclasses for each class. These subclasses unlock part-way through the story, and give even more flexibility for the player to build a roster that will suit any playstyle.

It's been quite a journey getting to this point, and it has been wonderful seeing you all start to explore these classes during our playtest and see how you take on the digsite with your teams. You can still jump into our playtest and our discord.