Paper Sorcerer Kickstarter Campaign Nears $7000
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And the synopsis:
Paper Sorcerer is a first-person turn-based RPG with adventure game elements inspired by Wizardry, Dungeons and Dragons, and Shadowgate.
'¢ Play as a renegade sorcerer as he struggles to escape the book prison and regain his powers.
'¢ Escape a magical prison filled with heroes hunting you down at every turn.
'¢ Strategy over grinding battles, with a charge based spell system.
'¢ Create a party of summons to join you as allies in battle.
'¢ Discover open-ended puzzles and solve them with a combinations of spells, items, and your wits.
'¢ Hand-drawn high-resolution sprites inspired by the work of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century illustrators like Aubrey Beardsley and William Bradley.
'¢ DRM-free for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, and possibly Xbox Live Indie Arcade and web-browser.
'¢ All-inclusive game, promise to never make you pay for DLC content.
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First, battle mechanics: There are no to-hit rolls [all attacks always hit, except for special abilities that give a chance to dodge], instead all characters have a defense bar, which reduces incoming damage by a static number, for example, if you have a defense of 6, it'll subtract 6 from every attack that hits you, and your defense meter will go down one. Your defense is adjusted by armor and certain skills.
In addition to normal attacks, all characters have attack skills, these skill take anywhere from one to three rounds to refresh [to be usable again] and they're unique for each character, for example: one of the first summons you get, the goblin, has a stealth ability that gives him a chance to dodge attacks.
Normal attacks and skills both charge your energy meter. You use energy to execute more powerful abilities. For example: the goblin's trick attack dazes the enemy in addition to dealing a little extra damage, but using it costs energy. The main goal in a system like this is to make it so that you don't constantly use only your normal attack, you have to strategically use all of your abilities. I'm currently balancing the game to be more difficult so that it encourages the use of all your skills and powers.
Now for the summons and character customization, there's currently a total of twelve summons planned for the game. Each summon has a base class, and once each reaches a certain level, you'll have a choice of two advanced classes.
The main way you customize characters is by purchasing skills and skill upgrades in town. Each character has a predetermined start growth but you can customize the characters by purchasing passive skills and skill upgrades. Also the class determines what kind of skills you can purchase, so when you choose an advanced class, that determines what kind of mid- and late-game skills you can get. For example, the goblin is focused on disabling enemies, but if I wanted him to be more of a physical damage-dealer, I could buy him strength upgrades that would affect him permanently, or I could buy him equipment that increases his strength for now. The reasoning behind this is that money should be valuable through the whole game, not just in the beginning, and it shouldn't become useless late-game.
Next, the equipment system: all of the possible equip slots are: head, armor, weapon, off-hand, accessory one, and accessory two. However, the only character that can equip all slots is the sorcerer. Summons each get three equipment slots, varying summon to summon. For example, the goblin has weapon, armor, and one accessory slot; whereas the imp has a weapon slot and two accessories.
