HTD Day 30

Ok, we're back with another HTD release! We ran into a few issues last week which is why there was no update. If things aren't ready then we don't release an update, we'd rather take our time to make them good instead of rushing things out.

So then, we've introduced some Water Skills. Since Water is the more defensive element you'll notice that these act a bit differently. For example the T1 Physical and Magical Water Skills still do damage like the Fire and Shadow skills but also give you a buff that increases either your Physical or Magical Defense respectively.

These buffs only last a few seconds but but they are easy to keep going since it is triggered every time you use the skill which has a lower cooldown than the buff duration. So essentially you can keep them up forever if you only use those skills. You'll only see the buff effect if it is a fresh buff. In other words if you aren't renewing the duration of a prior application of the buff then you won't see the effect. This is to prevent it from spamming.

You'll notice there aren't any buff icons to go with the buff themselves, these will be added soon. They just require another system that we don't have yet but it's high on the list. With the buff icons you'll be able to see which buffs/debuffs you have on each character.

We've made it so you can change the Native Skill of each hero. Go to the Skills Screen and click the Native Skill Icon (The big middle one) to toggle through the current (3) Native Elemental Skills. This is just temporary for testing purposes because in the actual game you won't be able to change this on a whim, you'll have to do something in order to change your Native Element.

The Water Native Skill is the first skill where the primary targets will be your own characters and not the enemies. This is because it is a healing spell which, like the other Natives, stacks up to 5. So since this would mainly be used on your own guys we had to make the heroes and the civilian target-able as well, which they weren't before. Also, we had to make the AI a bit better so as to heal your weakest guys first which helps a lot. The Heroes should also now prioritize their target selection to the lowest HP enemy within range for damage skills.

So now you get to play around with some defensive and utility skills and see how that'll work. As I've said before these Tier 1 skills are very basic because there is no plain generic attack to use. You will always be using a skill of some kind so the first skills had to fulfill that requirement for each elemental type. Light Skills are up next so expect to see those soon!

What's New:

-Added Water Skills

-Added Hair Customization Toggle Graphic

-Made Native Skills temporarily changeable (click the Native Skill icon in the Skills Screen to toggle through the current (3) Native Element Skills)

-Improved Sound Quality

-Added Character Name Plates (Changes to the names themselves still don't work yet though, we'll implement that soon)

-Dragging a character to any side of the screen now scrolls the map

-Added restrictions for how far you can scroll over the map

In the Works:


 * Design
 * Hero Stats and Points (50%)
 * Story: Intro (20%)
 * Story: Intro Scene 1 (0%)
 * Class Skills: Tier 1 (50%)


 * Graphics
 * User/Profiles Screen Graphics (75%)
 * Inventory Screen Graphics (0%)
 * Light Skill: Radiate (Native) (0%)
 * Light Skill: Shinning Strike(T1 Physical) (0%)
 * Light Skill: Fleeting Light (T1 Magical) (0%)


 * Programming
 * Buff/Debuff Icon System (0%)
 * Inventory System (0%)
 * Saving Character Names (0%)

Also check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for HTD art-related concepts, WIPs, polls, and more!

Let us know what you think in the comments and as always any feedback is welcome, thanks!

-Dan