February, 2016

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Codex: Future spec

Sirlin

While the mystic historians of the purple faction look to the past, another part of the Vortoss culture is about looking to the future. The prospect of building newer and better technology drives engineers like Vir Garbarean, purple’s Future hero. Vir can see a little bit into the future by knowing the next card that you’ll draw. For just 1 gold, he can realize that future by putting the card in your hand (at the cost of losing another card).

Racing 52
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Plugins!

Mircosoft Game Dev

Let there be Plugins. For a while users have requested they can extend Godot without having to modify the core C++ codebase. We have begun implementing this in the form of plugins. Support is experimental on GitHub HEAD but there should be enough resources to get to work. EditorPlugin. Plugins are created in Godot by extending the EditorPlugin class.

Demo 52
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Solving XCOM’s Snowball Problem

Tom Francis

What’s snowballing? In XCOM, if your troops survive the mission, they get stronger, tougher and get more abilities, which makes them more likely to survive future missions and get tougher still. If they die, they’re replaced by vulnerable, weak rookies, who are likely to die and be replaced by vulnerable, weak rookies. If you’re finding the game easy, it gets easier.

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Codex: Present spec

Sirlin

Through his temporal research, Max Geiger made contact with the Vortoss race and is now their emissary. Ever since he was a boy, Geiger loved fiddling with watches and other timepieces, so it was a natural field of study for him as he grew as a scientist. While the Vortoss race has become unstuck in time and is both in our future and our past, Geiger is in the here and now.

Racing 52
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Codex: Past spec

Sirlin

There’s a myth about an ancient race that had powerful magic as well as advanced technology beyond even our own, but then they disappeared from the realm. They are called the Vortoss. While some thought it was just a story, we now know that the story is true. The Vortoss culture is fixated on time, what it means, how it flows, and how we are at its mercy.

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Codex: Strength spec

Sirlin

Garus Rook, the stone golem, is a long-time friend of the lawyer Jefferson DeGrey. A VERY long-time friend, in fact, because both of them are unnaturally long-lived. They lived through an earlier history where a totalitarian government ruled, and they see the seeds of it growing again. This time around, DeGrey urged Rook to help unite the people by inspiring them through an Olympic-style competition that we now know as Fantasy Strike.

Build 52
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Codex: Ninjutsu spec

Sirlin

Setsuki is a fast learner and she’s fast in general. She’s the hero of the Whitestar Order’s Ninjutsu spec: Her first ability reflects how nimble she is. She can jump out of the way of an attack unless the attacker is extra careful. Her middle ability can make up for her low stats. She’s fast enough to strike an enemy before it strikes her, letting her avoid taking damage.

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Codex: Discipline spec

Sirlin

Many of the strongest, most disciplined warriors of the realm have banded together to form the Whitestar Order, based at Morningstar and led by stone golem Garus Rook. Their training grounds are home to enlightened monks, mighty barbarians, and agile ninjas with their cute animal friends. Their strength comes from both their teamwork and skill in combat.

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Home, sweet home

Mircosoft Game Dev

Here it is: Godot Engine's new homepage ! Some of you might have been awaiting it for a long time, while others might have never used the previous website, so we will recap what motivated modifying the website again. Thanks enormously to Andrea Calabró, Alket Rexhepi, Hugo Locurcio (Calinou) and Rémi Verschelde (Akien) for their hard work! Note: The old forums (and rest of the OpenProject website) can still be accessed for now on op.godotengine.org.

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Codex: Necromancy spec

Sirlin

Garth Torken’s tinkering with anatomy led him to discover some disturbingly dark powers. He is now the Necromancy hero of the Blackhand Scourge. Torken’s experiments with human cadavers are where a lot of his skill comes from. Although he later moved on to raise the dead of other species, he’s most at home with an army of human skeletons. Here is his hero card: Without even spending a card, he can create a new Skeleton token every turn.

Build 52
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Codex: Disease spec

Sirlin

The Disease spec of the Blackhand Scourge faction belongs to Orpal Gloor. He’s surrounded by a creeping death, and even being near him makes most beings uneasy. The Shadow Plague in the Dreadlands is his invention. The power of Disease is to wear down your enemies. Battles against the Disease spec often involve fewer units than usual, because it’s hard to even keep things alive around the Plague Lord.

Build 52
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Codex: Truth spec

Sirlin

Sirus Quince is the Chief Magistrate of Flagstone. They say he speaks the truth and is loved by all. He’s a popular and successful politician, though all of his power is actually from lies and illusion. In his younger years, he was a lawyer who faced DeGrey in court. Now the court is in his pocket and he's taken the highest office in the land. Here is the Truth hero: Quince has a lot going on.

Build 52
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Codex: Peace spec

Sirlin

The Peace spec of the Flagstone Dominion is headed up by General Onimaru. Onimaru is a Sun Tzu-like figure—a master of military strategy. Overwhelming military might is the key to Peace, after all. Here’s General Onimaru’s hero card: Onimaru is one of the best heroes in combat. Even at level 1, he attacks as a 3/3 because of his frenzy ability. Once he reaches level 5, he can attack and STILL patrol due to his readiness ability.

Build 52
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Open source Godot gets two years old!

Mircosoft Game Dev

On a day like today, two years ago Godot was open sourced. If you compare the current version with what was available back then, the difference is like night and day. I think it's safe to say that, as an OSS project it improved several times faster (and became several times more awesome) than when it was a closed in-house engine. This is in large part because there are now several more developers working on it, but the main reason behind this large improvement is because the community feedback h

Engine 52
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Kill Zone And Bladestorm

Tom Francis

I took on a ‘Very Difficult’ mission in XCOM 2 earlier, to protect some device from attacking aliens. I was determined to do it because the reward was a Scientist, and they’ve been impossibly rare in my campaign so far. We immediately ran into two groups of very tough enemies, and though we had good position and lots of explosives, some unseen, extremely powerful enemy was attacking the objective every turn while we fought.

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Codex: Law spec

Sirlin

The Flagstone Dominion (blue) faction is part of the Codex Deluxe set. Flagstone is the realm’s capital city, and a paragon of morality, due process, and family values. It’s also a bit of a totalitarian dystopia, but let’s not get bogged down in the details. You might recognize Quince and Onimaru from my other games, but the Law hero, Bigby Hayes, is new in Codex.

Racing 52
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Codex: Finesse spec

Sirlin

River Montoya is the Finesse hero in Codex. She sees sword fighting as an elaborate dance. She loves the performing arts such as dancing, singing, and acting, and considers her fencing yet another kind of dramatic performance. Here is her hero card: When she reaches level 3, she can clear out any single early game defender from the patrol zone. That’s especially handy against specs that want to have fewer, but more powerful units on the board such as the Bashing spec.

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Codex: Bashing spec

Sirlin

The Renegades are the neutral faction in Codex. They have no allegiance to anyone, and are generally mercenaries and workers-for-hire. From lovable dancing rogues to violent lizards, they are a motley crew. There are two neutral heroes, Troq Bashar of the Bashing spec and River Montoya of the Finesse spec. The neutral cards are generally simpler than the cards of other factions because they are meant as an intro to the game.

Build 52
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Codex: Growth spec

Sirlin

Argagarg Garg is the Growth spec hero of the green faction. Outsiders stereotype Argagarg’s fish-like people as being savage and barbaric, but they have it completely backwards; the Merfolk are wise and patient. Just because they look different from humans, doesn’t make them bad! Here’s Argagarg’s hero card: He comes with a 0/1 wisp, which gives you an extra defender.

Racing 52
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Godot 2.0 RC1 released!

Mircosoft Game Dev

Finally, a couple of weeks (and hundreds of fixes) after the Beta, we are proud to present our first Release Candidate! This engine version should be much more stable and, if no serious bugs are found, will become 2.0 stable. Please download and test thoroughly!

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Codex: Feral spec

Sirlin

Introducing the Feral spec hero, Calamandra Moss of the Moss Sentinels. She has a deep connection with the forest. Animals sense this, respect her, and fight for her. She can unleash the full feral force of animals, as well as employ their cunning and stealth abilities. Here's her hero card: Her first ability is a constant threat to the opponent. Even when a level 1 Calamandra is on the board, the opponent has to factor in that at any moment they could take 4 damage to anything.

Build 52
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Codex: Balance spec

Sirlin

The Moss Sentinels (green faction) are also included in the Codex core set. Lead by Calamandra Moss, they protect the forests and natural resources. They harness the mighty power of nature itself, making them ferocious and threatening in combat. Their attunement with nature also helps them find the richest veins of gold, making them a powerhouse resource-wise as well.

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Codex: Fire spec

Sirlin

Introducing Jaina Stormborne, the Fire hero in Codex. Jaina fights with a magic bow that shoots flame arrows, and she’s reckless and aggressive despite Master Midori trying to teach her some patience. She may have fallen in with the wrong crowd by joining the Blood Anarchs, but she fits in quite well. A lot of the power in the Fire spec comes from how inherently good direct damage is.

Build 52
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Puzzle Strike on iOS

Sirlin

Puzzle Strike is now available on iPad and iPhone ! It's also on Steam and available in physical form , too. Puzzle Strike is a deckbuilding puzzle game played amongst Fantasy Strike characters. It's inspired by puzzle games such as Puzzle Fighter. Gems fall into each player's gem pile every turn, and whoever's gem pile fills up first loses. Improve your deck (of chips!

Puzzle 52
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Codex: Blood spec

Sirlin

Codex's Blood hero, Drakk Ramhorn is new to the Fantasy Strike universe. Here’s his hero card: Drakk is a little guy who rides a huge beast. He bangs on his war drums to hype up his allies for battle. The Blood spec is very much about running into battle bloodlusted, no matter what happens. Blood has more trouble than just about any other spec keeping units alive on the battlefield, but the tradeoff is that Blood is generally able to do a lot of damage in the process—damage that’s very hard to

Build 52
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Codex: Anarchy spec

Sirlin

Codex ’s core set has two factions: the (red) Blood Anarchs and the (green) Moss Sentinels. Each has 3 heroes. There are 4 expansion factions, each with 3 more heroes plus a starter set with 2 heroes. That’s 20 heroes in total across all expansions. Each hero has an associated “spec” with a fun name, meaning the type of stuff they specialize in. We’ll look at all 20 specs in this series of articles and examine how each plays, what the art looks like, and what the philosophy is for each.

Build 52
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Raw Game Design, Ep15: Quest Mode in Fantasy Strike

Sirlin

I have a free podcast series on game design, here. I also have a second podcast that's just for my Patreon supporters. I just wanted to mention the latest episode of that is up for patrons at the $10+ tier. (All previous episodes of the series are there too.) In this latest Raw Game Design episode, I discuss how we might use advanced AIs in the Fantasy Strike fighting game, if we had access to some pretty great AI tech.

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Sirlin on Game Design, Ep 14: Codex

Sirlin

We discuss the Codex card game, on Kickstarter at the time of this recording. Codex is a customizable (but not collectible) card game that has way different design goals than other CCGs. It's been in development ridiculously long, over 10 years, and we discuss the various properties it has that makes it so special. Hosts: David Sirlin, Richard "Leontes" Lopez, and Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi Also, here a Codex article index.

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Codex is on Kickstarter Now

Sirlin

The Codex Kickstarter is now live. It's a customizable (but not collectible) card game with an RTS theme. If you'd like to know more about the game design of Codex, check out these three articles: #1 Codex Design: Cards and Gold As Resources #2 Codex Design: Heroes and Tech Buildings #3 Codex Design: Combat and the Patrol Zone And also stay tuned for a new series of articles about each hero and their associated "spec".

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Codex: Demonology spec

Sirlin

North of the realm, a shadowy presence has festered and spread across the Dreadlands. The Blackhand Scourge proliferates plague and death wherever they go. They raise the bones of the dead to serve them. Their power has increased tenfold since their leader Vandy Anadrose—now known as The Queen of Demons—made a pact with nefarious, otherworldly beings who seem to serve her for the moment.