v0.2 - Double the Action

Hey Deathballers!

First of all WOW, I did not expect so many of you to try out Dungeon Deathball when I released the first demo last week. Thank you all for checking it out, I hope you'll stick around for the ride up to launch. And thank you to the good folks at itch.io who featured it on the front page. Such a wonderful community. ❤️





This past week I've been updating the demo with a fairly big change: your slave players now get 2 Action Points per turn. The latest version is now live on itch.io.

So you can now move and attack in the same turn, or move twice to get some extra distance, or rest up before dodging an attack. The possibilities are endless (kinda). You're still limited by your STAMINA though, so keep an eye on the meter!

A friend of mine suggested this change and I decided to timebox it as an experiment. It worked well so I went pulled out all the stops, and did a whole bunch of balancing and adjustments to make it work.

For example, I've tweaked all the Stamina costs to make enemies more formidable. But I've also adjusted enemy behaviours back to an older system, where they proceed to step forwards if you move out of the way of their attack. This means you can lure enemies to attack each other again. Using Mad Lads against each other is a much stronger tactic now, which is what I wanted from the start.









Anyway here's the full change log from this update:

Players now get 2 Action Points to use per turn. This included a lot of smaller changes for balancing: "Wait" action replenishes *some* of your stamina, not all of it. "Attack" action costs more stamina. "Throw" action costs more stamina. Enemies recover from Stun faster. Player attacks do not stun enemies (but enemy attacks and throwing the Ball still do).

The player HUD panel has been updated to show how many Action Points are remaining, and to show the currently selected player.

If a player moves out of the way of an enemy attack, the enemy will step forwards instead of attacking the empty tile.

Added/replaced a bunch of sound effects.

The music now changes from stage to stage, with some added music jingles on victory & defeat. Plus a title screen track!

Added blood when characters take damage, and blood fountains when they die (Vandal Hearts FTW).

"Large" stages (5 and 6) are now longer, not wider (experimental change).

Reworked the player action interface. Still work in progress, but I'm trying to make it a little cleaner.





And finally, my amazing wife surprised me with a Mac Mini so I can make Mac versions and not feel like I'm just sending a buggy mess out into the ether! 😀 Keep an eye out for a Mac demo coming soon.





Thank you again for checking out my little game. It means a lot to me! If you like it please remember to Rate & Review and follow me for more updates, either right here on itch.io or over on Twitter.