Telepath Tactics - opinions

[billy]

Hey Craig,

I just wanted to say that I just downloaded and played the demo after seeing the booth at PAX Prime yesterday. I really wanted to stop and find out more about it, but my son is just not into strategy games like I am.  I love it!  I've been desperately searching for a game like this since Numbunga's Ambition on NES years and years ago (yeah, I know I'm dating myself a bit).

Great job! I can't wait for the entire version to come out.

Billy

[CraigStern]

Thanks Billy! I'm glad you liked it. ;)

[JeenLeen]

I don't know if this would be good or not, but should area attacks damage the terrain?  Or an ice blast against an enemy in water also turn the water to ice?  (Although the latter raises questions of if the person is now just on ice or if they should have some sort of 'stuck' status.)

For example, in the local match map where the majority of the map is wooden (damagable) panels, it makes sense to me that some of the psi attacks that hit an area should damage the panels people are on as well as those that they are not on.  I could see the question of whether it's worth damaging panels in order to hit an enemy as an interesting tactical aspect, as I could cut myself off from a path if I hit a given foe.  I'm not sure if non-area psi attacks should also damage the ground (could see it either way, depending on how you want to make the 'fluff' of the power).

Also, if it would be possible to target terrain someone is on instead of the person, that could be nice.  (Break the ice or a floor someone is on, even with a sword, and send them into water or lava.) I could see it being too annoying to be worth it, though, either on the coding end or from a player perspective, depending on how we choose which to hit.

---
Overall, great game and I'm enjoying seeing the tactical aspects come to light. 

[CraigStern]

Thanks!

Explosive element attacks damage both the person and any destructible objects they happen to be standing on; the others do not. As of right now, I'm pretty happy with that setup.

[bugfartboy]

we'll have orb graphics available as well.

You mean I spent forever on my own orb graphics, only to have official models released?

[CraigStern]

Maybe? I bet your orb graphics will look different, though; that'll just mean more options for different types of orbs. :)

[SmartyPants]

Hopefully all of bfb's orb colors don't overlap with the ones CraigStern is having made.  Even if there is overlap, at least bfb has gotten some practice making graphics.  When it comes to computer games, experience always helps (if you don't believe me, then you need to take a look at Telepath RPG 1).

[bugfartboy]

Actually, they're the orb colors from TPA1. (Example attached) Still, it's nice to get new item graphics.

[bugfartboy]

Also, I noticed today that the new red spriggat portrait doesn't have it's sash showing.

[CraigStern]

Yes; that was intentional. The sash is just a functional thing to help distinguish the character sprites of different teams on the battlefield.

[SmartyPants]

How do I make an attack strike behind the character like Griffin did with his backhander attack?

[bugfartboy]

As of right now, you can't. There is currently no way to, and using a negative minimum range just results in very strange behavior. I've been trying that one for months now.

[Ertxiem]

Two new script actions: SpawnFloatingText and SpawnFloatingTextAt, both of which create your own little text pop-ups on the screen[...]
Note: do not use commas in the first parameter or bad things will happen.

Comas may be useful when writing text...
May I suggest the use of something like quotation marks as limiters of the text to use?
Of course that forgetting about the quotation marks may also make bad things to happen.

[CraigStern]

You really shouldn't need commas with the floating text fields; they're really quite small. We're talking four or five words max (for reference, these are the text things that say "Burning!" or "Grabbed item sack!")

[bugfartboy]

I like the new orb graphics. Mine are much different I suppose.