First beta launch post-mortem

Wow, what a fun process putting out a beta can be.

I knew there were issues, of course, but thanks to you guys I have a pretty good list of things to work on.

Bugs reported and their status

• Drag and Drop does not work to equip weapons. This one took me by surprise, as it had been working just a few days before I released the beta. It turns out I introduced the error when I force equipped a default weapon in Equipment so that you can get a nice tooltip even when you have no weapon equipped. I reworked this entirely today, and added tooltips for all the slots when they are empty.
• Potion description contains strange hex code. Repeat after me: Hex Codes must be preceded by a #
• Turn camera button not working on some Android devices. Turns out some phone makers take screen real estate for the home and select buttons. It may take a few days, but I’ll switch turning to swiping.
• Some enemy attacks have double hits. Yep, I was experimenting with blending animations to make some clever variations on the small amount of attack animations that came with the models I used. Since both animations have “Hit” events, they both fire. I need to rework this so that only one animation fires even if I blend animations. That being said, the Skeleton and the Orc have special attacks that are supposed to do hit multiple times.

** Feature notes and requests**

• The Experience progression rate is unbalanced. Definitely something that needs adjusting, and that will be updated in the next version. The amount per level is calculated using an animation curve, and I messed that one up. The challenge is to get a rate that is challenging without discouraging the user.
• Damage brokering needs either a better explanation or reworking. Reworking, in this case, though I’ll be adding a help page explaining how damage is calculated. In this version, the “Base Damage” determines how many rolls will be made. For each roll, a random number is generated (Random.Range(1,AttackStat or DefenseStat)). If the Defense roll is higher than the attack roll, 1/2 point of damage is added. If it’s more than double the attack roll, no damage is added. If the Attack roll is greater than the defense roll, 1 point is added. If the attack roll is double the defense roll, then 2 points are added. In no event will the total damage fall below 1 point. This means that if the base damage is 7 points, then the actual range of damage will be between 1 and 14 points. I ran some spreadsheet data today and determined that this methodology simply won’t do enough damage at higher levels to keep battles in the ideal 2-5 hit to kill range.
• Volume Controls. Really, that’s my bad, I just didn’t get it done. It’s been on the list from the beginning of the project. There will be a link to volume controls on the main menu in the next version!
• Fog Of war. This is a fantastic idea, both to speed up the game (entities not rendered make their moves without running through the animations, so a one second move is nearly instantaneous), and to add a bit of challenge/intrigue to the game. While it won’t be in the next version, it should be soon.
• Mouse Freelook, lose the turn buttons. Another great idea. My plan is to introduce drag to turn the camera, which should actually work on both PC and Android.

Road Map - features I’m planning

• Finish sound/visual effects for all monsters.
• More weapons
• More monsters.
• Spell Advancement as you level up. Spells automatically replaced with a better spell as you level.
• Saving your progress when you reach the end of a level.
• Pinch to zoom in/out on Android
• Variation in tiles/terrain
• Vendors at level’s end.