I can't lie it's been tough making progress on a game like this when you have a job, family, and stories to write. But I have kept a weekly forward movement that is getting me close to being able to write some exciting game engine code. Here is a brief update.

Professions

This is where I started digging a hole--a hole that almost swallowed me and the project. For the game it is essential to have a good range of character cards to keep the game interesting. These cards will be arranged in profession chains: Here are the card list for the prototype game: 

Level 1: 
    Klankr (Clankin) represented by the glyph ┃

Level 2:
   Jagr (Hunter)  ┓
   Aklit (Acolyte) ┏
   Viccn (Wiccan)┣
   Learling (Apprentice)  ┯

Level 3: 
  Stridr (Warrior) 
  Drudr (Druid)
  Kunnig (Adept)
  Hekse (Witch) 

This is all fine, but the hole started to get deeper when I extended the list to what the final game might look like...around one hundred character cards later, I became worried that I would need a great UI info graphic to display the cards and their levels. Also, keeping with the fantasy world that the game is based that has a old Germanic nomenclature so that the cards each had an interesting name. The glyph idea was an extension of that so that there was a simple mark for each card that would help in the diagram and eventually the game UI and card design. 

At some point with my head in some dart code that would render a chart of all of the cards at each level I realised that my hole was getting very, very deep. This is the kind of activity that drags you away from what it important in the development of a prototype; a basic working game!

Resolution Tree

I was now out of my hole, but soon became at the risk of a new pit. But this case was slightly different, because here I am looking at a method to resolve battle damage in such a way that can be published so that players are fully aware of the order in which a modification can be applied. It is important to go fairly deep here from the start because you don't want to under-cook your game engine.  

To show a basic example of what I mean here, if you have a card with a base attack of 1 and an item bonus of +1, if a fellow card placed a battle spell on that card to provide a double attack bonus. The result attack strength could be: base x spell + item = 1*2+1 = 3 or, (base + item) x spell =  (1+1)*2 = 4 . You can see that the order has a potentially big affect on the end result.

To this end, I now have a tree that will spell out the exact order of modifiers that will apply to all cards in all situations. In the above example I will be sure that the total attack value for this card will be 4 because the track down the tree will always be Base -> Item Mods -> Spell Mods. 

Note: This mechanism will also allow for a spell to expressly modify a base value only, but such will need to be outlined specifically in the text of the card.

The hole started to get deeper again when I started to grow the tree for other type of modifiers like events etc. But I can stop now because I have enough design down to start coding this aspect of the game.

Character Design

If you have read any of my 'AI for Writers' story you would know that I'm a huge fan of Midjouney image generation. I have been working through a list of creatures that will hopefully make for a fun game, here is a small selection of my current favourites:

above is an Uberkin (think troll crossed with an giant), they will always be found with a number of their lesser kin. 

 A typical warrior or, Stridr to give the proper term to be used in the game. 

The Mystik is a level up from a Priest (some words you shouldn't mess with) and is a profession that holds a profound connection to the divine and the ability to foresee events.

By the blue cloak we can tell the above character is a Tovare, one on the path of the Magi. 

For the game I'm shooting for a range of art styles, everything from Anime, to photorealism and to classic fantasy illustration in the style of old greats such as Arthur Rackham and NC Wyeth. 

BTW, did you notice the ancient forest theme?

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