Hero Items and New Visual Style

This update took especially long due to its scale and preparations for the Strategems festival. Inside you'll find an updated visual style, hero items, a reworked match pacing, abilities for high-rank creatures, a battle log, a tutorial update, and countless small fixes too numerous to remember.

Updated Interface

All menus and buttons in the game have been redesigned to better match the spirit of the game and to feel more cohesive. The interface has become both more compact and more informative. You'll notice the hero panel has changed and now appears in battle. This allows players to evaluate their knight's equipment and that of their opponent. More on that below.

All stats have been removed from the hero panel except those already used in the game. I decided that in the current game format they would be unnecessary, and chose to focus on item variety rather than +1 to hero attack or defense.

Additionally, creatures in the shop are now displayed at a larger scale, and the backgrounds behind them are colored according to their rarity. I understand that color identification can be a problem for some players, so I'll continue to refine this system going forward. Otherwise, identifying warriors should now be easier.

Several buttons have also been changed. The Community button now leads to Discord or Telegram depending on your region.

Hero Items and Match Dynamics

From now on, victories will reward you not only with new squads, but also with hero items. However, to avoid overwhelming players, I've decided that items and new squads will alternate. After odd-numbered victories you choose a new squad, and after even-numbered ones — a new artifact. The number of victories required to win has also been increased from 10 to 15, to allow the full in-match progression to unfold. These changes are not final and everything may change many more times, so I look forward to your impressions in the comments and community.

As for hero items, there are currently 18 available in eight categories, mostly two per category with the exception of rings and gloves. In the future the number of items, their balance and mechanics will also change and expand. Naturally, there will be many more items. But I again need your feedback to understand what works and what doesn't.

Abilities for High-Rank Creatures

Creatures such as the Archangel, Paladin, Bishop, Archmage and several others have received active abilities. They are all activated either by clicking on enemies, on the squad itself, or on an ally — depending on the item. In the future the descriptions and mechanics of items will be refined. For now this is more of a prototype, as most of the work on this update went into creating the items.

Battle Log

I consider the battle log to be an extremely important and useful addition. It will help you navigate the mechanics of items and abilities, and understand in general what is happening on the battlefield, whose dynamics have increased significantly over the last few updates. The log is also not in its final form, so please leave your comments on how to improve it.

Tutorial and the Squire

The tutorial has been significantly shortened and has gained a new narrator — now it's our knight's Squire. While the tutorial itself has slimmed down considerably and can now be skipped entirely, the amount of useful information in the game has noticeably increased, because the Squire — whose name I haven't thought up yet — can give you endless tips about how the game works. Simply press the "Next Tip" button under his portrait.

Other

The updated demo contains many more bug fixes and other minor changes, but there were so many that I simply can't remember them all — however some of the annoying issues that plagued you in previous versions should be gone.

You can try the new demo as always via the link below. Please add the game to your wishlists, tell your friends about it, write reviews. It helps the project enormously!

Knights Errand Demo