DEVLOG 1 - Runeforged: Monolith

First, I'd like to say thank you to all who played my demo! I got a ton of feedback on all sorts of things from balancing, core mechanics, various cards here and there, it was awesome to read them all. I made many changes to the game since then following said feedback and I hope you all enjoy it!

So, without further ado, lets dive in and talk about Runeforged: Monolith!

New Changes

Let's start with the exciting stuff! I won't talk about various class balancing or what not, though there was a decent amount of that.

Achievements

I was able to add achievements! There are currently 16 but I will definitely be adding more over time. I also made it so you can finish achievements online or offline. When you open steam next, steam will update itself with any new achievements you've obtained.

Elite Enemies

There are now Elite enemies! These are stronger and faster enemies that has ~50% more health, more damage, and more movement speed than their normal counterparts. Every enemy has a small chance of becoming an elite (not in normal mode). Defeating them will drop 3x gold.

This is part of the way that I am trying to add to the game's overall difficulty without simply adjusting numbers. Elites are meant to be scary, especially later in the game.

The picture showcases an Elite Crewmate next to a couple normal ones. Their healthbar has a yellow border with a Crown icon.

Refreshes

You can now refresh chests and shops! Each refresh requires a refresh charge. You start with one charge.

Elites have a 5% to drop a refresh charge. Bosses have a 25% chance.

The picture shows a Ranger able to refresh this chest. The Ranger has 1 Refresh Charge, meaning it could only refresh one time.

Feedback

In this section, I'd like to discuss the feedback that I've gotten and where I went with it. There were a few themes that I noticed with just about everyone. They are...

• Tutorial

  1. The tutorial is very...very...very wordy. It is overwhelming for a new player

• Game is too hard for new players

  1. The game is not friendly to newer players. That includes those who are not used to the deckbuilder or tower defense genres.

• Game is too easy for veteran players

  1. For those who play enough, the game is not challenging, doesn't pressure them, and is rather easy to replicate a win.

In regard to the Tutorial, I condensed it, added gif examples for when I want you to perform a task, and I removed a few unnecessary sections.

I'll be the first to say that I am not that great at balancing. It is a crucial part of the game that I will only be able to perfect overtime with your feedback (and I thank you for it!).

In the past (and in the demo), the difficulties scaled just with the enemy health only. One thing that I learned is that buffing enemy health doesn't really increase the game difficulty. Not much, at least.

Here is what I ended up doing:

• Mini bosses now spawn earlier depending on difficulty (Wave 13 on master mode)

• Enemy Movement speed now increases over time

• Elite spawn rate increases over time.

• Some boss abilities now scale with difficulty.

• And like before, enemy health increases over time. I increased the scaling by 10%

Lastly, none of the above changes the normal mode. I want normal mode to remain the entry level game difficulty for newer players. It seems the main problem is that players tend to try and defeat the end boss too early while they aren't prepared enough for it. This is a design of the game; players need to learn when to enter the dungeon and when to wait for it, but I can always lower the difficulty more should you all feel that I need to. I am hoping with my new tutorial changes that it will be easier to understand how to play the game.

As always, I appreciate your feedback!

Upcoming Plans

• I am in the works of adding two new classes.

  1. Necromancer - The graveyard class. This is the class that will utilize its graveyard as a secondary hand. Expect to see reanimation, more Units, and of course your typical graveyard shenanigans that we all know and love. Or maybe that I just love...eh.

  2. Rogue - The high-risk high reward class. This class will be all about risking it all, a large amount of RNG, sneaky mechanics, gold making (or stealing rather). Its main resource will be gold.

• New Enemies

• New Game Modes

  1. Nightmare Mode - A new difficulty for the base game. This will go above and beyond Master Mode (the current highest difficulty). Random events will occur during your exploration. Light Towers may flicker or go out completely. Corruption will grow rapidly. Your chests and shops may be taken away! Who knows, could all be a nightmare.

  2. True Endless Mode - A new way to play! The base game is technically already endless mode (hence why I'm currently calling this "True Endless" (name will change I promise). Rather than defeating the end boss, instead you will delve lower and lower into new floors. Each floor becomes increasingly stronger. How far will you go?

• Challenges/Quests

  1. These will be similar to achievements or perhaps be tied to them. These may provide XP, unlock new cards, maybe the new classes.

Once again, thank you all for trying my demo. Hearing all of your feedback has been such a massive help for the development of my game. I can't wait to see what you guys think for what's to come!

Runeforged Monolith