Posted March 21, 2024 by Badlek
Hello from the Magengaard Team! It has been two days since the release of our "beta" version and we are excited to share our progress. We have conductded numerous playtests in the past few weeks and made some core changes from our previous version, in addition to adding new level content. Let's get into it!
We conducted numerous playtests accumulating data from over 30 individual players. This gave us a number of key insights to improve our game. These are outlined in detail in the Playtesting Report which can be downloaded from the main game itch page.
The biggest change from the alpha is the magic system rework. We found that most people felt unsatisfied when failing to cast a spell.
To solve this, we replaced threshold-based casting with power-scaling. In simpler terms, spells are now incredibly easy to cast, but their strength scales significantly with how well you drew the gesture.
Additionally, to ease combat, users get multiple charges of a spell each time they cast a gesture.
Lastly, aiming is now done via swiping for all spells, creating consistency and maximizing the use of the drawing system.
Step 1: Draw the gesture
Step 2: See success feedback
Step 3: UI appears showing charges and their strength
Step 4: Swipe to shoot
Step 5: Spell is fired
JJ's adventure finally continue into the Ruins of the First Settlement, getting him closer to the goal of reaching the Academy. In the Ruins, JJ encounters many more obstacles in his path. He must unlock a magical spell barrier which requires him to first traverse through two underground side areas: the cisterns and the mechanical sector.
Freeze water to proceed
Fight fire sprites
Fight water sprites
Open the magical barrier
With one week until the presentation with Zynga, and three four weeks to levelup, we are working hard to finish the remainder of the ruins level and polish existing content according to playtesting feedback. In the next devlog, we hope to present a finished game demo!