"But... what IS this game?"
Okay, a bit of insight to the actual gameplay. The game is a 2D side-scrolling action adventure game, but players can move in three parallel lanes (as opposed to a single lane in most 2D games). That's why the camera is supposed to be a bit tilted (and sliiightly isometric) to show all three lanes properly. I didn't draw the map below like that because... well, I'm not a very patient man. Teen. Lad. Whatever.
One day, armageddon begins. The god that represents humans' evil intentions finally kills his opposite brother and rains his demon minions onto the world. So a seventeen years old prince who, as one of the few mages on the planet, had been confined to his father's castle until he escaped on that fateful day; a seasoned adventurer with little concern for self-safety who doesn't age for some reason and an orphaned acrobat-alchemist-medic hybrid young lady who might be the only person on the planet with red hair set out to stop the god, Ummal, before it's too late for any living thing on the planet.
Fernakk the unfortunate prince, as a mage, uses telekinesis to overcome hardships. Over the course of the game, (now that he isn't under constant watch) he slowly develops his magical abilities. So in his first adventures, he uses a rusty piece of chain to bash his enemies, but as time goes on, he learns techniques like channeling electrons through his chain to electrocute whatever is at the other end of the chain or telekinethically attacking the demons with their own weapons.
Vali has been a swordsman for as long as he can remember, and that's quite a lot (though "quite a lot" isn't enough for him). He's recovering from a 71-year-old sentence of hanging upside down from a tree, but appearently he's well enough to fight demons with his weird sword that also doesn't show any rust. His personality hangs in the extremes: it takes a substantial amount of effort to get him mad, but when that happens, things get... interesting. Vali, as an ex-soldier, knows how to hold a line, and doesn't let enemies pass by him as long as he's in stance. Oh, and he has a throwing axe that always homes back to him.
Fernakk and Vali's attacks are mostly controlled by mouse movements. For example, pushing the mouse swiftly to the right while holding down the attack button results with Vali doing a thrust-attack to the right. Or a high-to-low quarter-circle motion with the mouse (with the attack button of course) would have Fernakk lash with his chain.
Nâr'jan the alchemist was in a wagon ride when the demons started raining down, and it's no surprise that the wagon crashed. The rest of the passengers didn't survive the incident, but she was found unconscious by Fernakk and Vali before more bad things happened. She eventually decided to remain in the company of the duo to provide medical assistance.
Nâr'jan's gameplay centers around assisting Fernakk and Vali and not getting hit. In fact, the only way for her to harm enemies, besides her finite exploding flasks, is for her to dodge out of an attack's way to make it hit another enemy. But she's very agile, so doing this is much, much easier than it is with the rest of the team. She's also the fastest runner among the three, but can't sprint for long.
Multiplayer gameplay
The multiplayer mode is set a few centuries prior to the singleplayer campaign's story, where a bloody and unusual war is raging between the common folk and extremist mages who think those inferiors who don't have their talents are rightfully their slaves. While their view on the value of human life is quite skewed, it's caused by them being feared and excluded by the rest of humanity over generations. The talent of magic was a very rare one even in those times, but it is such a powerful one that it cancelled out the fact of them being far, far outnumbered by the army of the folk. The non-mages won, and only a handful mages worldwide escaped the mageslaughter that followed. Among them were even most mages who fought alongside the common folk. But still, the "curse" wasn't completely erased. It continued to silently live on in their blood, so there was always a few mages alive at any given time.
Some maps, like Beacon down there, is about the army trying to eliminate a mage without running out of reinforcement tickets. The mage is in a defensible position and has some soldiers of his own (non-mages who thought being slaves to mages is better than possibly being killed by them. Due to superstition, they are called thralls by their enemies.), but they aren't as numerous or swiftly-replacing as the army's. I'm planning other maps such as open field battles, hostage situations etc. with different gameplay elements.
Anyway, the players pick one of the classes below:
Hammerer: Relatively nimble, hard-hitting soldier with medium vitality. They are effective against both armoured and non-armoured opponents, but are vulnerable against ranged attacks due to their lack of shields. The ticket cost of calling one to battle is medium.
Vanguard: Plate-armour wearing guards wielding spears and large shields. These soldiers are difficult to kill with daggers and arrows, but they aren't cost-effective if they pick a hammerer's or the mage's attention. Their damage output is also nothing to bat an eye at. They are best used as situational units to lead the middle lane while the mage is occupied, as they don't let enemy players walk by them through an adjacent lane. Their ticket cost is very high.
Rogue: Fast-moving and agile units who use daggers and throwing knives to fight. They can bypass armour if their opponent can't fight back (stunned, fallen to the ground, turned their back etc.) and the damage they inflict in such cases is nothing to joke with. As it is usual with classes such as these, a skilled rogue can turn the tide of a match with an unexpected killstreak. But novice players will likely achieve little because the rouge's unremarkable vitality is quite unforgiving. Their ticket cost is medium-high.
Archer: Slow and fragile units that are the backbone of a good team: they can take out or seriously wound all units but vanguards if they are not careful. Other archers can shoot suppressing arrows to protect themselves and rogues with good timing can dodge the missiles, but both are quite difficult tasks. Still, the most vulnerable units against these dangerous projectiles are the hammerers, as mentioned before. That's why archers can save their vanguards from enemy hammerers and push their team as attackers OR take out a vanguard's supporters and leave the lone brute to be outnumbered by your melee fighters as defenders, THUS becoming an integral part of any team. Their ticket cost is medium.
Philosopher: The least durable of all units, these knowledge-loving people use their inventions to assist their comrades from behind. They have stun flasks that disorient enemies, they have smoke and incendiary flasks that respectively rain vision-obscuring smog or fire and brimstone AND they have a limited medical kit that can be used to slowly heal idle allies, but the kits can only be replenished in bases. Finally, they carry wooden bucklers that give a small protection from enemy projectiles. Of course, THEY of all people should know that they can't be depended on for long, and if broken, will have to be replaced like their med kits. Their loadout is dependent on the map: they shouldn't have access to stun flasks in small maps, for example. The ticket cost of philosophers is medium, but their respawn time is relatively long.
The Mage: Boss unit of the rebels, they have the deadly power of telekinesis at their side. This occult talent is most effective when moving metals, and to a lesser extent, minerals. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your side) it hardly affects organic materials. They use it to stop and redirect projectiles, disarm, lift and toss armoured enemies (or if their kinesis meter is full enough, simply crush them with their armour) and alter the map (as in jarring doors or activating traps etc.). There is a passive telekinethic field around them that slows down enemy projectiles and units. If this unit dies, the rebels lose.
The Commander: Boss unit of the army, they are elite soldiers that can be described as a mixture of hammerers and vanguards. They are very hard to kill, can deal high damage but have very limited mobility: if he gets too far away from his soldiers, the damage they deal gets lower and lower. Likewise, if they are at the front line, defending their soldiers, the troops' damaging ability exceeds their usual values. The army players can vote to decide whether or not they should have a commander.
The mage and the commander can control their respective teams' class distribution (with respect to the server admin's pre-set limits, of course) and have special tools to direct their troops, such as highlighting important spots in the map, telling which classes should follow which routes and which areas house what kinds of dangers. If the mage dies, the rebels lose. However, if the commander dies, the player enters spectating mode and his team loses all effects (positive or negative) of his leadership. Needless to say, players don't casually pick these two classes. They play them in turns, or are voted to them, depending on the server.
Map description
(right-click and choose "show picture" or whatever if it appears clipped)
"Ferssi scouts have spotted Fauraz the mage and his thralls headed towards one of the lighthouses on the eastern shores of the country. Having cornered the rebel, the army must slay the mage or destroy the lighthouse with him there, while the rebels must defend the mage and the tanker of whale oil until the army gives up."
The 1s mean that the players are forced to a single-file in that area. All ladders and stairs are single lanes. Some points in the map can be "activated" by the attacking team (the army in this case) to ease the assault, such as putting up and rolling down ladders. "Periodic spawn" means that the players spawn in waves in that site. The drawing is... probably not to scale.
Those are supposed to be date palms, but I'm not sure that's how they actually look. By the way, I hope you're not assuming that east equals right.
Phew!
I'd better save this somewhere! Didn't think it would get this long. If you endured until here without skipping a bit, I take my helmet off to you. Let me know what you think!
