I started with two things that bothered me in Chromancers: the 3D gems looked bad, and winning or losing made the combat scene disappear. Results now sit above the frozen board, keeping the gems and characters visible. Antialiasing and higher-resolution rendering helped the edges, but the gems still look bad to me. Good enough to leave alone for now. It still looks bad but less so.
I also added a debug cheat menu, available over the game with Ctrl+Alt+9 (🤫) or through the pause menu. I can force a win or loss, adjust health, and test run outcomes without playing through every setup. The result overlays and cheat menu passed build and graphical checks. That makes iteration easier; it doesn't settle the visual direction.
The bigger decision was about what the party actually does. I'm moving Heal and Guard out of the board's selected actions and into character skills. The starting party will be a Warrior tank, a Mage damage dealer, and a Cleric healer.
Every gem color should offer some form of attack. Yellow will no longer be the only route to damage; the enemy's type will change how effective an attack is. Shadow enemies, for example, will be weak to Light and immune to Shadow. The full matchup rules and balance still need work and exploration.
I've been playing a lot of Slice & Dice lately - the joys of travelling and being addicted to a game - and its pacing is a useful reference. I want multiple enemies in each fight as well as multiple encounters in a run. That direction is decided; implementation is underway. Character customization also needs a place in the documentation, with stats and skills kept distinct from whatever temporary numbers we use to test them.
Much smaller contribution today as I'm still recuperating from my recent business trips. Oh and Vancouver is absolutely gorgeous.
