Happy Halloween Gladiators!

Over the last two weeks, we’ve focused heavily on improving the enemy characters and their AI. Imperial enemies received a massive overhaul in their attributes, equipment and tactics, and will now fight as what they are: a professional, military unit. We created 2 brand new imperial enemies: The Imperial Auxiliary and The Imperial Triarii. Imperial enemies almost always use shields, and will huddle together in tight formations. 

Lunker enemies also received some programmatic/design love from the team. The little green beasts have gained the ability to leap far and over your characters into your backline. We also toned down their aggression levels and taught them how to identify and gang up on your weakest characters. 

We’re also thrilled to introduce the game’s first boss: Imperial Captain Uku’ Toa, an exceptionally dangerous melee fighter. No more spoilers on him for now: you’ll have to face him on day 5 to see what awaits you!

For the next week's sprint, we’ll continue to add new enemies and improve old ones. Our backlog of UX/QoL feature requests from play testers is growing steadily larger, so we’ll take the time to implement some of these for everyone (for example, fast mode setting, auto-turn end, reorderable character panels, etc).

Changes List

1. Populated the Breedmarsh town environment with procedurally generated characters that will move around and interact with each other. Hopefully this brings a bit of life to the swampy hell hole!
2. Added two new imperial enemies: Imperial Auxiliary and Imperial Triarii
3. Added the game’s first boss enemy + encounter: Captain Uku’ Toa and his Triarri guards.
4. Improved the AI of all enemies. Enemies will be more measured in their aggression, work together as a team, delay their turns where tactically beneficial, seek high ground during engagements and closing the distance, and avoid engaging on water and mud.
5. Lunker Younglings gained the ability “Leap”.
6. Imperial Veterans gained the ability “Charge”.
7. Added more tips to the loading screen (some of them are actually helpful and not bad jokes!)
8. On turn start, characters will play a ‘roar’ or ‘boast’ animation depending on what kind of character they are.

Bug Fixes

1. Fixed a bug that caused the ‘The Kid’ to start with more health than max health.
2. Fixed a bug that allowed users to change items and use skill books mid combat and break the game.
3. The origin screen now displays your starting gold amount correctly.

Wishing you all good fortune in the arena!

The Viking Roo Team