GODS!!...
Blog posts are the best way to procrastinate!
I’m having troubles designing these damn god statue thingies…
The design is that each player can put a little “token” at the feet of a specific god statue, and that will control both the way their monsters evolve, and what stats their hero gains when he goes up levels…
So there are four main gods- one associated with health, one with strength, one with dexterity and one with magic. Then there is a fifth which is a balanced random. So everyone’s token starts on the random. If you are a new player and you don’t know about the system, that’s fine, you’ll leave your token there and you’ll still upgrade just fine- it will choose randomly but spread them over all 4 so you don’t end up with a deficiency… but you will have no strong specialty either.
Advanced players can choose to specialize, or choose to evolve their monsters down a very specific path to get to a particular monster they really want, but the play is never halted for the hero to choose his stat in a level-up screen, or for a monster upgrade tree screen.
You can only change your token when you come across the statue you want to change to, so you don’t have 100% control if you don’t encounter the statue you want at the time you want, but they will occur regularly so it shouldn’t be frustrating…
The trouble i’m having is with what the statues should actually look like. My first try was those top ones which i like visually, but there is no iconic significance to their designs- by which i mean they don’t visually associate with the element they control (strength, magic etc)… but then i think maybe that’s good? Maybe it’s nice to have that lore of the game you have to learn… but then i think maybe that kind of thing is really only good in a single player game where you have time to immerse yourself and learn all that stuff, and in an arcadey multiplayer game, you just want things to make sense when you see them because there is a couple of guys shooting at you so you don’t have time to figure out “oh the snake arms guy means dexterity”…
So i did the bottom ones to try and make it really clear what element thy connect to…
but they seem kinda lame… i want the gods to be big horrific abominations, not athletic golden humans!
So it’s back to the drawing board i guess, trying to make “repulsive monsters” who also embody health, strength, dexterity and magic all at a first glance… hmmm
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You are simply overthinking this, I believe.
This game should appeal to players who do not want their hand held, so to speak. Learning the lore will add some depth and give players something to discuss (both online in forums and together when playing). And in the heat of battle, who cares really? Randomly choosing a deity which provides an unknown bonus will add to all the chaotic fun. Experimenting with the different god statues equals meaningful replay value.
But if you really require more constructive suggestions, it is hard to say without knowing the HUD or core mechanics. If the stats are actually visible, maybe make them color specific to match the color at the base of the statue? What about semi-cryptic clues given by the god selected, that alludes to the bonus they will grant you? Even Oedipus had to answer the riddle of the Sphinx under threat of being eaten alive.
Personally though, I love the original top designs, no explanation necessary…
thanks, i think you’re right! mystery is fun, and i can use different kinds of feedback when you interact with the statues to make the connections clear if i want… connecting colors with hud representations for the stats etc like you suggest
I’m hoping you get notified when we post things here, because this is an older post, but I just wanted to check on how your plans for god statues panned out for the first Steam Release build coming in … oh… I dunno, LESS THAN 24 HOURS FROM NOW
OH GOD
NNGGGGGGHHHH
Sorry. But yes, in the videos released thus far by the various press entities, I notice you’ve moved the god statue in with the shop keeper, and he just gives you gold for hero blood, not stat-preferences for a token. What happened to these other god statues? And, do the statues in any way correspond to the “worships deity” choice you make at the beginning of the game? Shouldn’t my character be praying to my own deity regardless (wouldn’t my deity be offended if I didn’t?)
Not sure if that was cohesive or just stream-of-consciousness babbling as I’m mostly excited to just be playing, but yeh. What of the god statues?
yep i do get notified 🙂
the idol statues are something we’re still working on the full design for, so in the current build there is just the one in the store for turning blood into money- this might seem a little unnecessary for the moment, but once we have a whole variety of other statues in there which accept blood for different rewards, that existing gold idol will be part of a broader system and will serve almost as an intro the the idol interactions, as the gold one will be the most obvious use case.
currently all the stat upgrading and leveling up is working in a fairly simple form, but when we do get a chance to get prototyping again, the statues will most likely be a key element in letting players have more control in choosing your upgrade path 🙂
cool!!!!
Super glad to hear that this still going to be implemented! I love the original four god idols, and i really do hope that they will be implemented!