The Grand Design Sphere II: Magecraft

Quick Dev Update

Yesterday I got a world spell casting and a resource “source” location of a Rose Bush to appear on the map and save and load. These are the fundamentals necessary to fix the resources feature of Hex Events.

But while we wait for that, let’s continue with the second part of the Core Loop refinement

What is Archmage Rises? Managing the three spheres of life: Self, Magecraft, and Realm.
You could think of it as Self, Work, and Society.

Magecraft

The Art. The Craft. The Power. What is it really like to be a mage in a medieval fantasy world? That’s what this game is about and what differentiates it from other games like Dwarf Fortress, Rim World, Guild 2.

I’ve thought for a long time about this and I’ve boiled down the ‘mage fantasy’ to these three areas to manage: Experience, Spells, and Tower

Experience (XP)

This represents the biggest departure from how the game plays now because there will be a new Spell Progression system.

What I’m Aiming For

Theory and Practice. These two principles are in tension. I have struggled for years, but I think I found a solution on how to implement:

1.      You get better at magical knowledge by researching it.

2.      You get better at spells by using it.

Two analogies to help describe what I’m aiming for.

I’ve been programming most of my life. The way I have really grown, to actually BE a better programmer, to reach new levels of understanding and approach to what I program is by reading theory based programming books, like Design Patterns, Game Design Patterns, Refactoring, or Debugging Applications (I doubt anyone has read this last one, it taught me how to program defensively and avoid bugs in the first place).

But just reading the book doesn’t achieve anything. Some neat ideas, but theory without practice quickly fades and the lessons are lost.

I’ve been trying to learn the piano. No amount of watching youtube videos of people playing, or reading music theory will improve my piano playing. Yes, being able to read the notes is important (I want to play classical not just chords), but practicing the songs is the only way to learn and master it.

So theory helps: but is useless without practice. Yet, I’ve met programmers who have been programming for 5 years and never ‘leveled up’. Meaning, they have 1 year of experience 5x, instead of 5 years of growth. Seeing each problem not as unique and you are the first person to ever encounter it, but as a version of just a few core problems, radically improves your ability to solve it well. For instance, in game AI many problems can be solved with a version of Dijkstra (or A* which is just Dijkstra with a heuristic). I’m not talking about pathfinding – where they excel at, I’m talking about goal setting, future planning, resource management, and long term strategy of the AI.

If one didn’t know the Dijkstra or A* algorithms, they’d think “unit purchasing” was a unique problem that required a unique solution.

The image in my head of a wizard studying in a fully stocked library with tomes piled around: I want that core to the game.

But getting out there and practicing the spells, I want that core to the game as well.

Actions

Adventure

  • Adventuring is an ideal way to build up your School XP

 

Spells (Spell Progression)

XP is earned in Spell Schools Arcane, Fire, Ice, Storm, Earth. Think of it like science beakers in Civ, but across 5 vectors. You manage your growth in each through Adventure, Study, and Experiments to make Discoveries.

  • Casting a spell earns you experience in that School – Adventuring, Events, Traps, etc.

  • School XP is spent on a spell school Research Tree.

  • Experiments

Actions:

Study

Predictable progression across plays.

  • Almost all spells and some spell upgrades are visible on the tree. This creates predictable unlocks across plays, just like the skill trees or tech trees we see in the games we love

  • Spell Knowledge is grouped into Tiers. I’ve tried, and failed, for years to figure out how to make “all spells equal”. I just can’t get a single damage fire spell like Fire Bolt to be equally awesome as Fireball which does AOE and leaves residual burn. I’ve given up on making all spells equal, they will be tiered with the best ones earned at the top of the chart.

  • The XP cost of a spell or spell upgrade in a Tier increases as you buy them, so each choice in Tier 2 may be 1,000xp, but once you make it, the other Tier 2 choices are 1,500xp.

  • Spending XP on Spell Knowledge earns you the ‘design’ of the spell, you have the general idea of it, but you don’t actually know how to cast it until you Discover it in an Experiment.

Experiment

Turn theory into useful outcomes like Spell Upgrades. Provides variability across plays, push your luck mechanic, allows specialization per play. Experiments cost you, but they always result in something good.

Here is an example chart I made of possible Fireball Upgrades. You will see they have rarity:

 

  • Experiments lead to discoveries – of Spells and spell Upgrades

  • Experiments require: Reagents, some xp, and a Blast Chamber (Conclave or Tower)

  • XP cost is modified by the magical affinity of the region you are doing it in

  • If you have unlocked a spell design, your next experiment in that school learns the spell with one upgrade making the base version different in every play.

  • You choose the scale of Experiment to perform which affects the rarity (result table) of the result. Solo (standard), Collaborative - requires 1 friend, Grand - 3+ and large room size

  • Relationship with collaborators

  • Experiments always succeed – failure is only introduced by bad relationship, low wellbeing, and high fatigue

  • A discovery pop up shows 2-3 Refinement options; player picks one. Sometimes a common option has a bonus Mastery point on it. Mastery points reduce the cost of unlocks in Study

  • This system allows you to go deep on a few spells with lots of upgrades, or know lots of spells with just a few upgrades

  • It also gets pretty close to the feel of custom spells without all the trouble of custom spells

 

Tower

The physical manifestation of your awesomeness. And totally 100% not phallic!

I’m keeping the general UI of what we have, but I think what we have right now of just gold is too simplistic. I’m changing the design to something I like more.

  • Rooms of your tower provide gameplay features. You need somewhere to take the Sleep action, and the quality of your Sleep results will be affected by the room. Want a hireling? Build them a bedroom. Want to do an experiment? Built a Blast Chamber.

  • Rooms are built with base resources (wood, stone, gold) and special resources (glass, gems, etc). I think this will make people happy.

  • Because of regional elemental affinity, it is worthwhile to be picky where you build your first tower, and eventually you will want one in 5 different regions for your Experiments

Actions

Build Room

  • Gold--, Resources—

  • Output: New Room

Decorate

  • Gold--, Possession—

  • Output: Better room stats

 

There is obviously more that can be said, but I think this is a good summary of where I’m headed. Next time I’ll conclude with design thinking in Realm in part III!