Hi all,

I know I didn't get too much interest from this forum but here's an update for you:

My work sent me to Asia for a couple months and so I had to halt development for a bit. When I get home I'm going to rework the game to focus more on the single player experience by fleshing out the AI. The multiplayer queue will still be there if you want to play against your friends but going multi-player only was a bit of a mistake.

Big thanks to everyone who gave the game a go over its demo weekend!

We're back up! I haven't had much luck getting the Scirra Arcade to do my bidding so I've reverted hosting back to my site. It can be found at: http://wrathinc.com/play-now/ (no ads)

Recall that if you're getting a black box or an old version that's still in maintenance you likely need to refresh your browsers cache.

mannygill99 The server costs were actually very cheap! The trick was finding a shared hosting provider that didn't ban game hosting. I ended up with Veerotech after shopping around for quite a while and including a domain name (which I bought from a separate provider) it totaled around $30 for 3 months or so of hosting. Setting up the pages themselves was a bit of a learning experience, even with a CMS. Honestly though I think the Scirra Arcade would probably be a very good substitute most of the time, and for no cost.

A final note to those that squeeze in a game tonight, I don't recommend tabbing out of the game while in Hero Select. Besides, the game is better in full screen anyway.

EDIT: I'm off to bed. Evil Voulk will be back with his bag of quest rewards in the morning. Don't have too much fun without me.

So sorry about the delays. Today I've learned that I should always keep my PHP version up to date, and that I never have as much time as I think I do!

The demo is now live on the Scirra Arcade! https://www.scirra.com/arcade/multiplay ... hroud-4154

I'm going to be around throughout the day playing matches with whoever is around. I am a one man operation so I sadly will need to sleep at some point.

I mentioned some prizes so here goes:

Quest One

Evil Voulk has taken over the forest! I have $20 steam gift cards up for grabs for the first three people to meet him in a match and defeat him. He'll be playing a game about every three hours. Are you up to the challenge??

Quest Two

Revealed in 24 hours...

To brush up on how to play, see the quick-start guide at: http://wrathinc.com/learn-to-play/

I also have a Google Forms active for anyone who wants to submit feedback in a less public place: http://goo.gl/forms/oHflbwfS1N

A quick tip: If you get stuck at the hero select at any point, give it a refresh. It happens when one of the players doesn't select all three heroes.

EDIT: Just did a quick re-upload to fix a few graphical bugs.

EDIT2: Going down for a quick maintenance. Hero select still throwing up some issues. Back soon.

Hey guys,

I'm just playing with a few export settings now. The demo should be live within the next 30-40 minutes if any of you are keen to give it a try. I'll update this post in just a little bit.

In the meantime, the website is now live: http://wrathinc.com/

EDIT: Just having a database issue. Will be up as quickly as I can fix it. Won't be long!

I'd break your testing into three steps:

1. Planning and deciding what data you want to end up with post-testing.

2. Perform the tests, using data collection methods to make sure you're capturing what you wanted in step 1.

3. Deciding how you'll interpret the data, and any changes you'll make to the game as a result.

I think it's useful to consider first the end result that you want. Why are you doing the tests? Are you hoping to find a bunch of bugs? Maybe you want to test to see if your game has that 'fun factor'? Are you looking to start them from the beginning like an ordinary player would, or would you rather they focus test a specific level or game mechanic? In most cases it's probably all of the above, but I think there's still a lot of value in knowing what you hope to end up with at the end of the testing.

These questions all help you develop a testing structure. If you're looking to see how easy the game is to pick up for a beginner, then don't tell them anything and let them loose. In fact you probably don't want to tell them much in general unless you have a reason for doing so. The less preconceptions they have the better they can judge your game on its own merits. Maybe it's just a preliminary round of bug testing you're after, in this case I might just tell the players to go nuts, and to break the game if they can.

All of this could be a poor use of time though if you don't make sure you have some way to capture what they're doing whether it's watching over their shoulder and taking notes, screen capping them, or recording what actions they take from within the game itself. Just remember that your small number of testers aren't necessarily indicative of your playerbase at large, and that they are there to help you, not to design your game. Don't feel like you have to implement all of the changes they might suggest.

K1ra Yeah, a hard one to categorize for sure. I picked MOBA because 'Multiplayer Online Battle Arena' fits pretty well, even if it's a bit of a different kind.

Oh, I should mention that the demo this weekend is for the PC version! Mobile still needs a little bit of work. I'll update the main post.

Big thanks to those that helped me run tests last weekend. I have sent small gift cards to your email addresses as a 'thanks'.

To everyone else: Demo this weekend! The game will be up from 9pm GMT this coming Saturday. This converts to 1pm PST, 4pm EST & 8am AEDT (Sunday). I'll be leaving it up for about 48 hours. Hopefully packing anyone who wants to play it into a compressed time frame will keep the multiplayer queue's from taking too long. There will be spot prizes!

For now, have a gif.

Buwei self-destructs, hoping to take the enemy Buddy with him, but doesn't quite deal enough damage. Poor Buwei.

You need a way to differentiate the two buildings. I'd recommend an instance variable for each spot or building. Then, when a building is clicked, you can tell which has been selected. Hopefully this simplistic example helps:

There may also be a solution that uses the buildings UID's, but I don't have much experience there.

You should consider adding a password / secret passage / save mechanism to get straight to the later levels. I want to try out level four but don't have time to get through the first three again.

I am looking for 2-3 people to help me with a few play tests this weekend so that I can make sure the multiplayer holds up when the ping is high. If you're interested, send an email to , or PM me here. Happy to play-test whatever you're working on in return.

Have some work-in-progress art also:

I've spent most of the past few days on the networking side of things. Even though stuff like matchmaking is usually unnecessary in small indie games, I wanted to add it purely to see if I could (and it didn't end up being too difficult!). I'm kind of lucky that my game is turn based (and so ping between host and peer isn't so important), but I'm curious to see how people are handling shooters / platformers where you really want the two players to come from the same region.

Would anyone be interested in a tutorial covering these more outside-the-game-itself multiplayer concepts? (Matchmaking, player ratings, reconnecting to games, friends lists, lobbies etc). I couldn't find any when I was looking.

Oh, here, have some more characters (art still in progress for these two):

Yu is not an exceptional man. On a battlefield of champions he is not strong, or intelligent, or even particularly good looking. Lucky for him then, that he one day came across the Enchanted Sword, Duren.

Throw Sword tosses Duren across the battlefield, but Yu must retrieve it or will suffer a large ATTACK loss while without his treasured prize. This gives the enemy an opportunity to counter, blocking Yu from the source of his power. Sekai Swing throws Duren around the entire world, hitting enemies across the map. Lastly, Enchant Sword unlocks Duren's full power, causing Yu's next three attacks, or skills, to deal damage in 3x the area.

Nobody knows who The Necromancer is. In fact, nobody is even quite sure what side of the war he is on. He seems to show up on the battlefield almost at random, harvesting dead bodies for his rituals, no doubt. Each side is happy to greet him of course, such is his power.

The Necromancer is himself weak, but he commands legions of minions who can keep him well guarded. He can be played in a variety of ways: stay at the back, summoning a small army then using Unstoppable Dead and Toxic Draught to power them up before unleashing them on poorly prepared opponents. Alternatively, champion the mid game with the raw power of Summon Goliath, using your minions as pet food to keep him alive and strong. Just take care, if found exposed The Necromancer can be killed in just a few hits and when he dies, so does his entire army.

I have an alternative that might work for you. Let's take your example and say you want to search from position 12 to 18 until you find <NP>:

Remember you can right click the image and click 'view image' if it doesn't fit your screen.