Script for the tutorial

1. player learns how to equip an attack spell
2. player kills some non-aggressive, they drop a piece of equipment
3. player learns about equipment
4. player fights some aggressive enemies
5. player gets a healing spell and is instructed to heal to full hp
6. player learns about trading by selling the loot of the monster they just fought and buying a barrier spell
7. player is instructed to use the barrier spell to survive a gauntlet-like scenario

Some new spell icons

Here are the icons for the fire spells.

Tooltips

An essential user interface feature I overlooked for too long:

Procedural spells part 2 (gallery)

Here are some procedurally generated spells:

This is a common firebolt of rarity level 0. Its MP cost is slightly lower and its damage and range are a tiny bit above normal. But it's still pretty average. It serves as a baseline for the more interesting, rarer, spells below.

Here is a rarity 2 Fire Blast spell. Blasts are deluxe-bolts. They are more powerful, but harder to cast. This one has a whooping 60% more damage without even costing more mana, but pays for it with a longer casting time. A great combat opener.

This Fire Trick spell has reduced range, but a very short casting time. This makes it possible to spam it in close combat. A good damage dealer.

The higher the rarity, the more interesting do the spells become. This rare-grade (rarity 4) fire strike got the "ethereal" modifier. That means that it reduces the targets MP instead of HP. It won't kill the enemy, but it will prevent it from casting spells. It also comes with a great range and good damage. And it's also pretty low-cost. This makes it even better suited for MP warfare. Too bad that it has such a long casting time.

I used to be a wizard like you, but then I got a fire arrow to the knee. Pretty great range and spam-able. Unfortunately it's very mana-hungry.

Rare means "interesting", but not necessarily "good". This rarity 5 spell has great damage and is really cheap to cast. But it has a very long casting time and a low range. Any smart enemy will be out of its range when it's finished. Still, a very economical way to get rid of dumb enemies.

Now this one is cool: A splash damage spell. It damages enemies in a radius of 2 tiles. And it has a great range to boot.

Spells can have more than one special ability, like this rarity 6 spell. The combination of ethereal and vampiric is special: It doesn't destroy MP, it steals MP. You've spotted a target, but you are too low on MP to engage it? No problem, with the reduced casting time and godly range of this spell, you can steal all MP from an enemy before it even notices you. And then you can kill your helpless victim with its own MP.

And that was just the very first version of my spell generator. A lot more special abilities will be added for even more interesting strategies.

Procedural spells part 1

I made the first step of procedurally generated spells.

There is no longer a list of learned spells. Instead of that, the player drags spell scrolls directly into the quick bar. Each spell scroll is now an individual item. The attributes of the action it performs are now stored in the database.

Now I just need the code to generate spell scrolls with randomized action attributes. This is going to be interesting...

The client still needs work. Dragging scrolls into the quickbar and using them is technically functional, but the spells in the quick bar don't have icons yet.

Get rid of accounts?

After I moved into my new apartment I again have some spare time for my game. I wonder if I should maybe get rid of accounts and instead have passwords for the characters themselves. Really, what do I need accounts for? I don't plan to bill by account, and when a player wants more than one character, they can just register a second one. Having accounts just adds a whole lot more complexity without actually adding much value.

Any per-account limitations I could enforce would just cause people to register multiple accounts to circumvent them. Any per-account perks for players, like easier item exchange or easy switching between characters, could be substituted by adding a "link character" feature. You log into characer A, click on "link account" and enter the name and password of character B. Now the two characters - as well as any characters already linked to them, are then considered to be owned by the same player. The player can then switch between them without needing a password and can easily exchange items between them.

This would allow to have "lazy registration" like, for example, in forumwarz. The player can play the tutorial without registration and is prompted to register after completing it. This results in a really low entry barrier.