Update 01 // Puppet Masters - Combat Overview
Full Combat Video: Blog Post Combat Video 1 - YouTube
Puppet Masters (working title) is the first Nuldrums mini-MMO that is being developed in CORE. The game is centered around players battling with puppets that are controlled with a deck of cards. The flow of combat is a hybrid between turn based and realtime. Inspiration for the mechanics was drawn from a couple of my favorite childhood games mainly, Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories, Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga. This game will be a mini-MMO (functions the same as an MMO but servers are limited to 10 players at a time for now) and an invite-only alpha test will launch on Friday November 13th to friends and family as well as Nuldrums discord members. Lets press on and breakdown what's happening in the combat video!
The game world will function similar to a traditional MMO and consist of different zones full of mobs that can be fought. Combat begins when a player is attacked by an enemy in the field. Once a player enters into a fight the Battle Platform rises out of the ground setting the stage for the encounter. Right now the player goes first no matter what but in a future update there are plans to give players the ability to hit the enemies first in order to gain the initiative and attack first!
When combat begins the first thing you'll notice is a turn timer ticking down. The maximum amount of time that players or enemies have to make a decision on their move is 5 seconds. This ensures that combat feels fast paced and cannot be put on hold indefinitely from indecisive opponents. Players start with a hand of 5 cards from the top of their "Deck Ring". Th maximum deck size is 16 cards and their order is represented in a ring, more on this will be revealed in the next post. Pressing the action button will always play the middle card in a player's hand and the deck can be scrolled through clockwise / counter clockwise.
When defending player's have the capability of reacting to the attacks in realtime with the dodge system! The puppet is capable of moving, up, right, left, down and diagonally from their starting position. All attacks will telegraph what areas they can hit in, right now blue represents a No Damage zone so if the attack starts and the puppet is in a blue area the attack will be dodged avoiding damage. There are plans for adding many different types of indicators for damage types, for example purple squares will represent zones of 'Splash Damage' meaning the puppet will take 50% of the damage.
3 test cards have been implemented, a Frostbolt spell, a Fireball spell and a basic Healing spell. The ability system has been designed in a very scalable way so there are some big plans for a wide variety of cards and status effects. Standard debuffs such as, burn, poison, bleed, and freeze will all be present but some crazier ones such as confuse (reverses the telegraph indicators) will be created in the future. For now the Vanilla card set in the closed Alpha will consist of 10 cards and 3 status effects.
Thats everything so far but there is much more to come! There are plans for more enemies, more cards, a town, players being able to group up in parties of 3, PvP, mounts and more! Initially it will be launching with just a few features as an invite-only closed Alpha on Friday November 13th. Invite codes will be handed to friends and family as well as any members of the Nuldrums discord that provide a react to the alpha post!
Thanks for reading this! I stream EVERYDAY of development so if you're ever curious about how things are made or want to get a preview of progress before it's posted about come swing by my Twitch channel and say whatsup! Links to all the socials are down below!
- Trikeri
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