Land of Legends (early beta)

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hi all,

We are currently working on a turn-based strategy game called "Land of Legends".

The final release of the game will have hotseat, internet multiplayer (we run the matchmaking lobby and game server), and campaign mode. Right now, the hotseat and multi-player portions are basically done and ready to go, while the campaign is under heavy development.

Description:
Land of Legends is a cartoonish-fantasy turn-based-strategy game for Windows. Player take turns building and moving units, with the goal of taking over neutral and enemy cities, and fighting enemy units in the process.

The entire board always fits on one screen, on a 15x15 grid. There is no randomness in the game, other than some minor game setup options, when chosen by players.

There are 8 races in Land of Legends, each with 4 units. While this may not sound like much, nobody who has played the game has ever said 4 units per race is too few. This is because each unit has a strong and distinct personality created by their stats and abilities, and each race has their own strengths and weaknesses that require players to play them in different ways to be successful. Players can build units of other races by taking over races' cities.

The closest game to compare Land of Legends to (in terms of gameplay) is Advance Wars for GBA. However there are several significant gameplay differences between the two games, with my goal being that LOL is as easy to learn as Advance Wars, but with more depth of gameplay. (One of the strongest differences is that units in LOL have much more personality and diversity than Advance Wars.)

I'm interested in hearing if you think I accomplished this goal. =)

Screenshots:
-Setup Screen (http://www.TinyHero.com/images/ss10_1.gif)
-Plaguebearer vs Vampire (http://www.TinyHero.com/images/ss10_2.gif)
-Deep in the heart of a game (http://www.TinyHero.com/images/ss10_3.gif)
-Skeleton vs Missionary (http://www.TinyHero.com/images/ss10_4.gif)
-Campaign Mission (http://www.TinyHero.com/images/ss10_5.gif)
-Undead Buy Menu (examining Infectious Claw) (http://www.TinyHero.com/images/ss10_6.gif)
-Human Buy Menu (http://www.TinyHero.com/images/ss10_7.gif)

Installing Land of Legends:
Because this version of the game is coded in C#/.NET, you must first install the .NET pre-requisites. In order to do this, follow these instructions very carefully. This should take less than 5 minutes of your attention, plus some download time:
http://www.tinyhero.com/lol/forum/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=builds;action=display;num=109424123 2
(NOTE: We're in the process of porting the game to C++, so we will offer another beta once the port is complete. Once the port is done, users will not be required to install these pre-requisites, so if you don't want to bother with these additional steps, just wait for our next beta.)

Once you have installed those pre-requisites, you can find download instructions and release notes at:
http://www.tinyhero.com/lol/forum/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=builds;action=display;num=109781811 2

User's Guide:
The User's Guide for the game will show up in the Start Menu after you install, but you can also find a copy at:
http://www.tinyhero.com/preview/lol.doc

I strongly recommend that you play through the tutorials before trying to play the game in any other mode. We have 3 campaign missions finished in the current build, but they're not quite as exciting as most of the campaign missions will be, because those missions were built to not use the AI (which is still in development.)

Right now, the best way to play the game is in hotseat or internet multiplayer modes. Our testers so far have all very much enjoyed playing the game in multi-player mode. We're working extra hard to make the campaign experience every bit as compelling as the multi-player mode, but the campaign content and AI are still under development.

I look forward to hearing what you think!

-Hiro_Antagonist

[tolik]

(oops)
Are you positioning this game as "Magic" Advance Wars?

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Are you positioning this game as "Magic" Advance Wars?

Well, I'm exactly not sure if you're saying 'Magic' to refer to our setting (which is archetypal fantasy) or the Magic: the Gathering, the CCG.

If you're referring to the CCG (collectable card game), then yes, there are some (minor) similarities, but it's not meant to be a true hybrid by any means.

I chose to use a card metaphor for displaying information about various 'things' (terrain squares, units, abilities, etc.) because I was trying to create a board game feel with my UI.

I'm a big fan of the card metaphor because, like in a board game or CCG, a card shows all information about a given 'thing'. I tend to get very frustrated by games where some of the information about a unit is obfuscated, partially or entirely, from the player. After all, how can you play a game if you don't even understand what you're working with?

In LOL, each 'card' that you see shows *all* relevant information about that 'thing', be it a unit, terrain square, ability or stat.

Another minor link between LOL and CCG's is the idea of having distinct game elements, each of which has a strong individual personality. The game then becomes deeper because the player isn't just trying to play according to some static rules set (like checkers or backgammon), but instead they're learning to play within a set of meta rules while also looking for strategic synergy between elements in the game (like Chess or CCG's.) The more permutations of those elements that exist in a game, the 'deeper' the game often becomes.

In LOL, each race is balanced to be equal with every other race. So one race in LOL may have individually weaker units, but if used together, their synergy potential balances them out. In order to create as much synergy as possible (which is often the key to winning), players should strive to control cities of other races, so that they can build those races' units as well. Cross-racial combinations of units can often have very powerful effects, and allow for a player to successfully deal with a greater range of situations.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[whisperstorm]

I've been playing this game a bit - had it on my laptop and gave it a try on the train. I must say I like it quite a bit. It appears that this is the second "advance wars" style web game I've seen in the past few months. The first being http://www.urbansquall.com/battalion_site/battalion_site.php (Battalion)

This also reminds me alot of http://www.battleon.com (Adventure Quest)


I blogged about this game a few days ago even :)

http://www.andrewwooldridge.com/blog/2004/11/new-game-land-of-legends.html





If I had one comment - the large versions of characters - when they are fighting seem to be in need of some visual improvements - the outlines are too thin and very jaggy, and the shading seems to be a bit flat. There seem to be some visual artifacts as well.


Anyway - I look forward to seeing more of your game. Can you tell me how to become a beta tester for the networked version?

[Rainer Deyke]

I think I'll wait for the C++ version, but one comment on the screenshots: those scaled images on those cards are eye-gougingly ugly. If you can't be bothered to draw the big images by hand, there are numerous 2D scaling algorithms available, ranging from lowly point sampling to hq2x (http://www.hiend3d.com/hq2x.html), all of them sharing one property: they look better than bilinear filtering for hand-pixeled art.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Can you tell me how to become a beta tester for the networked version?

If you go to http://www.tinyhero.com/th/NewUser.asp, you can sign up for an online account. After that, it's just a matter of finding another beta tester to play with...

-Hiro_Antagonist

[tolik]

Actually I was referring to Phantasy world by word "Magic" and the game called "Advance Wars" on GBA.