Iron Blessings — Update Preview

What do neighbours, blessings and new horizons have in common? No, it’s not about Christmas — it’s about our upcoming update Iron Blessings! As always, don't forget that you can click on the headers to listen the songs they reference.

Just like we’ve discussed in our previous devlog, ORX is going to get new features in the upcoming update. However, we’ve focused them around existing systems. Some of them should help with randomness and adaptability, while others just make the game feel more fun and fresh.

[h2]The Book of Heavy Metal[/h2]
First up are the basics, of course. Even though we’ve tried to cover every important mechanic with the tutorial windows — through the years this system started to show it’s cracks. The tutorials are bound to certain triggers as to not overwhelm the player with information. However, this also means, that the tutorials might come in later than the player would need them. And, in general, there were just too many windows. With even more on the horizon. As such, we’re introducing a proper tutorial campaign, with guided scenarios, decks and a new, more organic type of tutorial hints.



[h2]My Land[/h2]
Now let’s get to the foundation. Or should we say the tiles? Regardless, we’ve completely rewrote map generation in ORX. Now, instead one single 32x32 landscape, the game generates chunks. Right now this means that we can experiment with the map’s shape. When you start a new campaign, you will see that maps in Act I not only vary wildly in size depending on the mission’s difficulty — but also notice that the maps in later acts have unique shapes too.



In the future, there will be two more new features taking advantage of chunk generation. First one is the Memory Zone, which we’ve talked about in our recent devlog. The second one — unique sub-biomes. We’re still thinking how sub-biomes could affect gameplay, so initially they might be there just to enhance the scenery.

[h2]I'll Be Your Hero[/h2]
We felt like there wasn’t enough initiative for the player to strategize how they build their Kingdom. Of course, we’ve had auras in the game. But then it hit us: “What if aura, but reverse?”. What? Well yes, it’s pretty much how the system works internally. We call it “Neighbour effects” — it provides a building or a unit you’re currently placing with hefty bonuses, when there are other specific buildings or units are present in their vicinity. Let us demonstrate.



As you can see, when the Militia is placed near farms or villages, they get a bonus to their Strength. Which might come in very handy, considering the next feature.

[h2]Venerate Me[/h2]
In ORX you are deliberately limited in your tools due to randomness of rewards and your deck’s shuffle. However, we wouldn’t want the players to become hard stuck. You should be able to progress the game even if you don’t have the exact cards for one specific case. To help this, we’re introducing the Blessings — passive abilities granted after raising one of your core attributes to a certain amount. You get to pick one of the three random blessings each time. For now they provide simple, but substantial stat bonuses. For example, if you level up Strength a couple times with the Rune of Embers, you can pick a blessing which would give you a flat damage boost, extra damage against armor or defence ignore.



In the future, we plan to add more gameplay-changing Blessings for the Legendary tier, and maybe introduce some trade-offs to all of them. This way you will specialize into a specific role instead of eating all the pies at once.

[h2]Looking Glass[/h2]
We continue working on the various user interfaces for ORX. In the upcoming update we are going to update the health bars, greatly improve the clarity and design of the information window, plus redesign a bunch of icons. You know what they say: “Great design is invisible”. And we hope that after all the work is done, you won’t have to fight both the ORX and the UI at the same time.



We’ve also updated some of the ORX types to be bulkier and larger in size. Specifically ORX Tanks, Mega ORX and Trebuchet ORX. The idea is they should look heavier to communicate the amount of defences they have. And, coincidentally, the amount of threat they pose. Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t have bran new ORX in production. But those are coming later.



[h2]OUTRO[/h2]
This covers most of the stuff coming in Iron Blessings early next year. Of course, we didn’t cover the balancing changes and some smaller things — but those will be included in the patch notes.

As always, thank you for your support, and for tuning in to read this devlog. Wishing you happy Holidays and a stellar New Year. Next time, after the upcoming update, we will bring an updated Roadmap and more teasers for the future features.

Johnbell and Critical Reflex