Thanks for trying my game!
I found the combat-UI somewhat unintuitive at first. Each time I want to attack I need to click on the enemy and select attack from the context-menu. Then after the attack I can't do anything but I still need to click on the "wait" hourglass or press space to advance to the next party member. After playing for a bit all this clicking gets a bit cumbersome.
Well, you CAN still move after an attack, which is why you don't automatically end your round. So hit and run strategies are possible. The reason everything requires a confirmation click is that I hate games that let you do really stupid things by accident. You know, accidentally moving your mage into the middle of a huge melee, or targetting an ally with a magic missile or something. I also hate it when you can't do something that you want to. So for instance if a party member has been bitten by a werewolf, you may really want to target them with a hostile spell. I try to keep the click count down as low as possible (no submenus) but I figure that if starcraft needs a hundred a minute then I can get away with twenty a minute.
Some oddities I came across:
* if I double-click on a different party member it selects them but the previous selected party member moves which is unexpected
Yeah, the follow code is not entirely smooth right now. I'm working on that!
* if my party is killed, I see the death message but then I'm controlling the monster!
I think that's a fun way to explore the game! If you get killed by a demon lord you start out with some crazy items and 4 or 5 'blast' spells memorized. It's fun to smash your enemies!
* Are there any major differences between the different races apart from stats?
The races are really unbalanced now and will get an overhaul soon. Halfogre is overpowered and humans are nerfed.
* How often can I cast spells? Is it mana or memorization based?
Oh man! You missed one of the best parts of the game! If you press the right arrow key -> outside of battle then a spellbook will show up. For non spellcasters it will be empty. For characters with a spell you'll see it's icon/name. When you click the spell icon once a description will show up, and if you look closely at the mushroom bar then you'll see the cost to memorize it. If you have the necessary mushrooms then a second click will memorize it. In battle the spellcaster can press the 'cast' icon or a SHIFT key to show the memorized spells that are available to cast (if you have moved too far then you won't have enough time to cast a spell and the spells won't show, now that I think about it that's bad interface design, they should still show but be greyed out... another TODO!).
* Is this game primarily targeted for the iPad?
Yes. Hence all the clicking. I've kept key bindings to a minimum but some more will seep
into the design as I progress.
Overall it started without any problems on my MacBook Pro and has some really interesting concepts. Thanks for sharing and I'll definitely track this game!
Awesome! I'm glad you had some fun with it! Right now I'm doing some serious work on the AI. Races now have enemies that they hate more than you. So if you're getting slammed by a party of elves and manage to stumble upon a party of orcs while making your escape... you can watch while the parties rip each other apart!
