CoK

Heya readers :)

Thanks to all the readers still having a look at this blog every now and then.
In the meantime a lot has changed and a lot was done for CoK (that’s the abbreviation for the game name ;) ).
Most mentionable would be that we have a new member. She’s called Linda and is responsible for all sorts of things, including the board, bugfinding, game design, and so forth.

Further I’m once again busy searching a creature artist. Therefore I created a deviantart account, http://onyxagargaryll.deviantart.com. Didn’t tell anybody of my team yet, so keep it secret please ;)

Right now I’m about to design game logics and balance. Didn’t expect it to be that hard oO I tried to create some sort of “item calculater” where you can create items which have a certain value indicating whether it’s a good or a bad item. But it’s nearly impossible, ’cause there are so much abilities and attributes to add which have different and unpredictable impacts…

That’s all so far. I hope next time I’ll be able to present you a milestone or something alike :)

All the best
Lorb

map system

Heya readers

Today’s topic is simple. I completed the browsergame’s basic map system, so that creating quests & stuff is possible now.
So have a look at the first demo quest (I recommend to watch the video in HD):

For those who have problems seeing it, here’s the link

What can we see?
The character starts at the gate’s entrance. He’s surrounded by coloured tiles, while green means passable and red unpassable. To move him, I use the numpad (1-9 except 5).
First I move down and try to get to the other map. The dwarfy won’t let me pass, so I must search for a solution. Fortunately one is quickly found by the river :)
I visit the dwarf again, and due to my VIP card he will let me pass. The beady-eyed may have noticed that the tiles turned blue. Blue stands for exits or teleports, e.g. wenn you go on to the next map.

What do you think?
Questions and comments (all sorts of ‘em) are more than welcome :)

all the best
Lorb

Potions?

Hello folks

Today I was working on the inventory, something like a backpack for your items. And while redesigning and reviewing it I asked myself how it would be best to implement the (acutally already existing) heal pots. That’s what I need your help for :)

First of all I give you an idea of what is already existing. Below you see an image of the heal functionality, where you click on the heal button, your mouse turns into a “heal-icon” and then you click on an injured unit to restore its life.

Then there’s the inventory, where the pots are placed (usually, I guess). A screenshot can be found below.

Now what I thought about were two things: Either again a drag&drop, where you drop the pot over an injured unit (or maybe later in case of “buffs” over the unit you want to strengthen).
Or a custom right click could be implemented, where a context menu would indicate the actions which can be done with the pot. But I picked up that there are people which are bothered by a custom context menu. Are they just a small minority or does somebody maybe know more detailed figures?

Best regards
Lorb

New layout

Hello readers

I must say – I’m impressed. Until yesterday the design of the game was horrifying. But four weeks ago my brother came up with the idea of creating an automatic script in Photoshop, with which I’d be able to create a game panel in less than 5 minutes. Of course I had my doubts first, but the result is overwhelming.
First of all I redesigned the auction house layout, take a look:

Of course it is still improvable, especially the title color. But I didn’t find a good one yet…
But now have a guess how long it took me to create the background panel, including the inner border…

… 10 minutes! This is just great :)
I take the opportunity and post a big “Tank you!” for my brother and his great work.

Still, the panel does not yet satisfy me a 100%. But I have no idea what I could change :)
What I already did (and that unfortunately isn’t visible in this gif) is when you hover over a button, the font color gets black.

Well then, I’d love to hear some comments, positive as well as negative, and especially graphical suggestions would be great!

Thanks, best regards
Lorbiyanor

New Title

Hello Folks
Referring to a reader’s comment a “title bar” was added to the auction panel. I must say, I really like it :) Have a look:

Thanks for the good suggesion, best regards
Lorb

Units & fights 2

Hi again

There was quite a good comment about the last topic, concerning improvements and suggestions for the Korganar’s units & fighting system. As a blogger-newb I had to realize that things can only be discussed when the required information is accessible, what would be the Korganar game mechanics in this case. So here’s the second post about the “Units & fights”:

First of all I’d like to introduce you to the fight with a video how the user will see it:
Korganar Fight Scene
I know the quality is horrible and my video editing skills equal null, still I try to give an explanation about the actions which take place.

First of all…
… you see my six units on the left, and on the right the units I fight against (I know I have quite a weird cohort, but they are just test units). On the bottom you see the unit’s icons, while the attacking unit is bordered blue and the selected/attacked unit is bordered red.

At 00:08…
… my unit misses. (Still the attacked unit gets “hit” – a little bug I haven’t fixed yet)

At 00:15…
… I critted :) What would be double damage.

At 00:20…
… an enemy dies

At 00:31…
… a mage attacks. Mages hit all units on the opposite field, so they all get “hit”.

At 00:39…
… I am a dork and attack the melee unit instead of the ranged unit in the back (ranged units have better attack but less health), what I regret…

At 00:51

At 01:15…
… I win and gain 1.58 experience per unit , one gold and an additional 9 as bonus (what is way too much. The “additional gold loot” will be removed as soon as possible…)

The entire layout, including background, border, and so forth will be replaced some day. Just the functionality will mainly stay as it is. (But all the bugs you’ve seen will be removed ofc ;) )

Hope you liked my short introduction. Questions will of course be answered, and comments are more than welcome.

Units & fights

Hello regular guests (if existing ;P )

In this post I describe the system behind your hero’s group and how to fight with it.
Each player of Korganar selects a hero at the beginning, while he can choose between Warrior, Archer or Mage. All the units in Korganar are separated by these classes. Here’s a short summary of these classes’ differences:

Warrior	melee fighter very good health good armor weak attack targets in range target: 1
Archer	ranged fighter weak health average armor strong attack all targets target:1
Mage	ranged fighter average health weak armor very weak attack all targets targets: 6

Your hero is usually the strongest and the main part of your group.
In Korganar, a group consists of one to six units. They all fight together. So a fight will be minimum 1v1 and 6v6 maximum. The order the units attack is calculated by a value called “Initiative”. Wether you hit, crit and how much dmg you do is defined randomly (and of course dependant on your stats & values).

With each hostile group you kill you gain experience, gold and you have a chance of gaining one or more items. The experience you gain is shared between your group’s units.
How to gain levels and which restrictions & conditions/terms exist for that you can level up with your unit or hero is even more complicated ^^

Now I’d like to know from you: Is this too complicated? Will new players have troubles to get along with the system? Or do you see other difficulties or improvements?
And Questions will of course be answered :)

First detail

As the attentive visitors probably have already seen, I replaced the default header of this blog with a small extract of the city. I know it’s not much, but somehow I must keep the thrill ;)

But before I lose some words about the browsergame, let’s invent a name. Why? Well, I have a little, slightly uncomfortable problem. (Non-webmasters should skip this part) I replaced the robots.txt too late with one that disallows robots to list the page. So now it’s listed in Search Engines, what makes it hard to keep visitors away from the game x/.
But as soon as it disappears I can use the real name, so this one’s just temporary.

So let’s call the browsergame… Kargonor!
I love my village. It looks so cute! In this picture, I’m about to build a fancy house at the edge of the city. It has no use yet, but it looks very nice :)
The player has… (have to count)… 16 spots he can build houses. 4 small ones, 12 big ones. These buildings have different purposes, but most of them will be built for your group’s units (further explanation will follow later).
In my opinion, the special thing about the village is that each player has it’s own. So he’s able to design and form it however he wants to. Further you drag&drop them into the slots, and per AJAX* your order is sent to the server.
Might be, in a later post, I could provide an example video, so you can better imagine what I’m trying to explain :)

I’d love to get some feedback on one of the articles!
greetings
Lorb