Came for the nostalgia and stayed for the story . The story is just so good that I played for 2 hours just to see the most amount of ending possible . The only thing I would have to say is that after 2 to 4 games playing become a chore to obtain the the story as you've discovered every possibilities of units and pretty much only have to wait for each of your run to end (10 to 15 min per run) in order to obtain the uniques ends . The game lack a "story mode" in wich you could obtain the story much faster or gameplay-wise replayability (right now you can win every ending with almost only spells) for those that want to read every single endings like me . Each of yours endings are incredibly unique and enjoyable so I find it sad that it require a total of 240 minutes (= 4h) on a games that has around 20 minutes of gameplay in order to see all of them (I given up after 2h).
Ironically, the gameplay was supposed to be the main appeal. And all the different endings were supposed to make replaying it fun. But, I guess, there's indeed not enough variety. Or it's just not for everyone. Either way, I just added "Story Mode" which takes less than a minute to get through. So you can now see all the endings much more easily.
This was definitely a fun, albeit short, game! There isn't much to criticize here! The multiple endings does give the game plenty of replayability, which aids in making this very short game much longer and enjoyable!
Playing this makes me wish there were more "Age of War" like games, or more simulation-like games with armies!... Moving on though, having sound effects or "attack sounds" for units when they swing their weapon or something would've been nice. Amongst other sound effects for abilities and whatnot. Not much to complain about for a free game tho :P
The bone spikes and turning dead enemies into skeletons are essential abilities for beating the game by the way!
Thanks for covering it. The replayability is indeed supposed to be the main appeal. I based a lot of this on my experience with Age of War and it was fun to try out different strategies in that game. I thought a branching story could enchance it, so that in addition to different strategies, you could also see different endings.
And you may have a point about ability sounds, but the lack of "attack sounds" is intentional. Listening to a cacophony of a million slashes would not be a fun experience. And, in my opinion, in Age of War the attack sounds only distracted from the glorious soundtrack. I did add the essential ones thought - to let the player know when an enemy gets through and when a story event pops up.
Either way, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Also, I fixed one bug that caused the story events to progress when they are not supposed to. So you shouldn't experience them popping up so fast if you choose to replay it.
No problem! And I understand, it definitely allows one to appreciate the music more! However, I do like the hear the sounds of fighting!... Or perhaps that is just my nostalgia for Age of War kicking in? Anywho, I'll definitely play it more in my leisure time to get the other endings!
First impressions feedback on the UI, there seem to be a couple of bugs, and some non-obvious things:
The pause button doesn't work very well with the touchpad on my laptop. It often immediately resumes after pausing - maybe a bug in touch/pointer event handling vs click? I'm not sure what events the browser receives on a touchpad tap. (edit: actually, seems like if I hold the click just a bit too long, it resumes as well)
It's not obvious that you must click exactly on the icon in the purchase buttons. I spent a long time trying to buy things unsuccessfully until I finally realized that.
The layout of the menu draws attention to the bottom buttons (exit/restart), since it kind of has the layout of a dialog, which means the "start" button isn't necessarily immediately obvious, even though it's at the top, as the eye isn't really drawn to it).
The "restart" button only resetting the state and waiting for you to start again makes it look like the restart does nothing (even though it does) if you don't happen to notice the silent reset of the map (exacerbated by the start button being easily overlooked, so you try to restart and it doesn't restart, because it's really a "clear progress" or a virtual "refresh page".
I've changed how it functions now, so it should work correctly. You can also use Spacebar to pause now. It used to be tied to a timer. Now it's a more proper toggle.
The buttons are now bigger. The whole frame acts as a button. I just didn't think of that earlier, so thanks for pointing this out.
I rearranged the menu for the Start to be on top. So it should be pretty easy to spot now.
The Restart button now won't show up until the game actually starts. This should eliminate any confusion. And yes, it's essentially a "clear progress" button indeed. One playthrough is just 10 minutes and there's absolutely nothing that needs to be saved. So that solution seems to be optimal.
Yup, that seems much better behaved. Spacebar to pause is a nice touch too, I hadn't thought of it, but it really helps since the enemies move so fast that makes it easier to pause and queue up a starting army before they close in.
And yeah, I have no issue with the "Restart" being a "clear progress", just found the behaviour slightly confusing with the layout of the buttons and it kind of looking like it was the start button (since it was kind of paired with "exit"). It not being there does mean I no longer want to click it to start the game lol. Although for some reason I still found myself spending several seconds trying to figure out how to start the game when I loaded up the page again today. If I can figure out why, I'll let you know. (Maybe it was the "Made with Gdevelop" banner darkening the top of the menu, so drawing attention away from the start button, or maybe "start" looks too much like part of the menu title... I'm not sure yet).
UX is both an interesting and irritating field eh?
Yeah, I thought of it when testing but didn't know how to implement it. Then a few people asked for it as well and after some trial and error, I managed to do it.
And it was confusing indeed, I agree. I mean, the "Exit" button does nothing for obvious reasons. The logo up there indeed darkens the button too. But I want to leave it up there in case the game ever gets translated to other languages. Then the language choice would be neatly under the start button.
I was certain the bright buttons below would be self-explanatory. In the sense you're supposed to pause and read everything. But, turns out, it's not that intuitive for everyone. That's why there's an instructions pop up now. So I certainly agree it's both interesting and irritating. And sometimes confusing. Still, the most interesting part about it was optimising it to be used with just a click/touch. I could make the info pop up when hovering over a button. But on tablets and such you can't exactly hover over anything. So that's why there are buttons with question marks.
This game is awesome! It's so much more interesting and unique than it first appears, and different than what I thought it would be. The writing is very fun too.
Going skeleton only conquest felt the hardest path to take. I didn't even use the bone spell for the good path which is what I played first, it wasn't necessary.
I think there is a bug where the text progresses automatically after some time, maybe if there is another text after it.
The difficulty indeed depends on the path you take. But if you know what you're doing, you end up with plenty of resources to spare no matter what.
And I looked through all the events again and found one thing that caused the text to progress when it shouldn't. On the "continue" screens. It should be fixed now. Thanks for pointing this out.
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LOL somehow bugged the game and won instantly
my game is so bugged...
Can you elaborate? What exactly did you do?
:p my bad I didn't read the description of story mode, thought it was just a difficulty thing. good game though!
Lmao. Yes, the difficulty options are "yes" or "no" essentially. And it happens. Glad you enjoyed the game.
Came for the nostalgia and stayed for the story . The story is just so good that I played for 2 hours just to see the most amount of ending possible .
The only thing I would have to say is that after 2 to 4 games playing become a chore to obtain the the story as you've discovered every possibilities of units and pretty much only have to wait for each of your run to end (10 to 15 min per run) in order to obtain the uniques ends .
The game lack a "story mode" in wich you could obtain the story much faster or gameplay-wise replayability (right now you can win every ending with almost only spells) for those that want to read every single endings like me .
Each of yours endings are incredibly unique and enjoyable so I find it sad that it require a total of 240 minutes (= 4h) on a games that has around 20 minutes of gameplay in order to see all of them (I given up after 2h).
Ironically, the gameplay was supposed to be the main appeal. And all the different endings were supposed to make replaying it fun. But, I guess, there's indeed not enough variety. Or it's just not for everyone. Either way, I just added "Story Mode" which takes less than a minute to get through. So you can now see all the endings much more easily.
Thank you verry much !
Now I will be able to see the full adventures of the all-powerfull Lich and it's humans !
This was definitely a fun, albeit short, game! There isn't much to criticize here! The multiple endings does give the game plenty of replayability, which aids in making this very short game much longer and enjoyable!
Playing this makes me wish there were more "Age of War" like games, or more simulation-like games with armies!... Moving on though, having sound effects or "attack sounds" for units when they swing their weapon or something would've been nice. Amongst other sound effects for abilities and whatnot. Not much to complain about for a free game tho :P
Thanks for covering it. The replayability is indeed supposed to be the main appeal. I based a lot of this on my experience with Age of War and it was fun to try out different strategies in that game. I thought a branching story could enchance it, so that in addition to different strategies, you could also see different endings.
And you may have a point about ability sounds, but the lack of "attack sounds" is intentional. Listening to a cacophony of a million slashes would not be a fun experience. And, in my opinion, in Age of War the attack sounds only distracted from the glorious soundtrack. I did add the essential ones thought - to let the player know when an enemy gets through and when a story event pops up.
Either way, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Also, I fixed one bug that caused the story events to progress when they are not supposed to. So you shouldn't experience them popping up so fast if you choose to replay it.
No problem! And I understand, it definitely allows one to appreciate the music more! However, I do like the hear the sounds of fighting!... Or perhaps that is just my nostalgia for Age of War kicking in? Anywho, I'll definitely play it more in my leisure time to get the other endings!
First impressions feedback on the UI, there seem to be a couple of bugs, and some non-obvious things:
Thanks for the detailed feedback.
Yup, that seems much better behaved. Spacebar to pause is a nice touch too, I hadn't thought of it, but it really helps since the enemies move so fast that makes it easier to pause and queue up a starting army before they close in.
And yeah, I have no issue with the "Restart" being a "clear progress", just found the behaviour slightly confusing with the layout of the buttons and it kind of looking like it was the start button (since it was kind of paired with "exit"). It not being there does mean I no longer want to click it to start the game lol. Although for some reason I still found myself spending several seconds trying to figure out how to start the game when I loaded up the page again today. If I can figure out why, I'll let you know. (Maybe it was the "Made with Gdevelop" banner darkening the top of the menu, so drawing attention away from the start button, or maybe "start" looks too much like part of the menu title... I'm not sure yet).
UX is both an interesting and irritating field eh?
Yeah, I thought of it when testing but didn't know how to implement it. Then a few people asked for it as well and after some trial and error, I managed to do it.
And it was confusing indeed, I agree. I mean, the "Exit" button does nothing for obvious reasons. The logo up there indeed darkens the button too. But I want to leave it up there in case the game ever gets translated to other languages. Then the language choice would be neatly under the start button.
I was certain the bright buttons below would be self-explanatory. In the sense you're supposed to pause and read everything. But, turns out, it's not that intuitive for everyone. That's why there's an instructions pop up now. So I certainly agree it's both interesting and irritating. And sometimes confusing. Still, the most interesting part about it was optimising it to be used with just a click/touch. I could make the info pop up when hovering over a button. But on tablets and such you can't exactly hover over anything. So that's why there are buttons with question marks.
This game is awesome! It's so much more interesting and unique than it first appears, and different than what I thought it would be. The writing is very fun too.
Going skeleton only conquest felt the hardest path to take. I didn't even use the bone spell for the good path which is what I played first, it wasn't necessary.
I think there is a bug where the text progresses automatically after some time, maybe if there is another text after it.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
The difficulty indeed depends on the path you take. But if you know what you're doing, you end up with plenty of resources to spare no matter what.
And I looked through all the events again and found one thing that caused the text to progress when it shouldn't. On the "continue" screens. It should be fixed now. Thanks for pointing this out.