Topics

Greetings Hero Mages fans!

I'm excited to announce that GameSpot, one of the largest and most popular sites for video game related news, has created an official page for Hero Mages on their website.  This is a major milestone for our game, and I'm willing to bet that some good reviews on our page will likely enourage more people to check out our game and expand our playing community.

If you haven't already, I highly encourage all Hero Mages fans to check out our GameSpot page and review our game.  May many new friends and gamers to play with in our lobbies be your reward!

Our GameSpot website url is: https://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/heromagesv14/index.html

[eGame Arena HQ]

I am pleased to announced that D20Studios will be attending GenCon Indy 2010 as a game events host. 

Last year, we had a booth setup in the exhibit hall and had an absolute blast meeting new players from all over the country and playing games.  Check out photos and stories from our GenCon 2009 experience on our forums (https://heromages.com/forums/index.php?topic=8.0) and our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hero-Mages/126810461284).

This year, Kelly and I will be running game sessions all day Saturday in the eGame Arena HQ.  Come check us out, chat with the creator, and sign up to play some games with us!

Event Title: Hero Mages - Miniature Strategy Game

Description: Join us for fantasy inspired battles in a game that blends the best elements of your favorite miniature and card based strategy games. Each player chooses a team of heroes and pits them against their opponents' teams taking turns commanding their forces, attacking with dice, and casting powerful magic spells. Meet the game's creator, learn how to play, and compete to win Hero Mages prizes!

Players: 4 (We’ll have 4 laptops setup and ready to play.  If you bring your own computer, we can try to connect it our network for larger games).

You can preregister for Hero Mages game events on the GenCon website.  Our event IDs are:
EGM1011344 8:00AM   â€" 9:00AM
EGM1011345 9:00AM   â€" 10:00AM
EGM1011346 10:00AM â€" 11:00AM
EGM1011347 11:00AM â€" 12:00PM
EGM1011348 12:00PM â€" 1:00PM
EGM1011349 1:00PM   â€" 2:00PM
EGM1011350 2:00PM   â€" 3:00PM
EGM1011351 3:00PM   â€" 4:00PM
EGM1011352 4:00PM   â€" 5:00PM

We discovered a new bug playing tonight where a player joined the game lobby but it didn't show their name to the other players.  When the game started, they couldn't perform any actions and upon disconnect/rejoin, they were unable to resume control of their units (the game treated them as spectator instead of player since it checks by player name).

Please keep an eye out for this bug.  If you notice your name isn't showing in game lobby, quit/rejoin before game starts to avoid problems commanding units until we uncover the cause of this issue and post a fix.

If anyone uncovers the exact steps to reproduce the "no name appearing in game lobby" bug, I would be greatly appreciative if you would post your findings here.

[Makings a Better FFA Rating System]

A number of players have suggested improving the way player rating is determined for FFA games.  So, I thought I would take a moment to offer up some thoughts on the system as a whole to give players some perspective on the challenges of rating FFA games in hopes of enticing some conversation and debate.

If you haven't done so already, I recommend reading how our current FFA rating system works: https://www.heromages.com/gameInfo/howToPlay/ratingSystem.html

Makings a Better FFA Rating System

In the Elo system, rating adjustments are dependent on wins and losses.  Other factors, such as in-game performance, do not factor since the win ultimately determines if a particular strategy was successful.

This is Mr. Elo's justification anyway, which applies directly to the game of chess for which the rating system was originally designed for, particularly since many strategies in chess involve the sacrifice of pieces to ultimately trap the opponent's king and win the game.

That being said, Hero Mages is not chess, and the principles of Elo don't necessarily carry over to a Free-For-All environment where it's possible for multiple opponents to team up against one player.  I think our Valor system is a step in the right direction towards mitigating the nuisances of FFA, but what can we do to improve how FFA games are rated?

Since our rating system strictly judges performance based on wins and losses, I believe the key lies in questioning: What determines a win in FFA?

At the core, I believe that, regardless of other factors, the last team standing has achieved the ultimate objective of survival and is thus rightly entitled to first place.  But what about the runner ups?

In our current system, your finishing place (which determines who you are rated as winning/losing against) is based on the order in which players are eliminated. So, in a 4 player game, first player to be eliminated automatically gets fourth place, second player eliminated gets third place, and third/final player eliminated gets second place.  I suspect it is within this realm of "runner ups" that we may find a better solution to FFA rating.  Here's my reasoning:

1) It doesn't necessarily follow that the second to last player left standing deserves second place since, regardless of the fact that they out survived the other players, they did not achieve the ultimate goal of being last player left standing.  One could rightfully argue, in fact, that all eliminated players have equal standing as loser and that only the last standing player can rightfully claim winner. In this case, we might resolve rating by only adjusting rating scores of the winning player against each losing player instead of adjusting ratings based on finishing place.  In other words, only the ultimate winner stands to gain points, while all eliminated players stand only to lose points.

2) While the proposed rating change in #1 might be more technically correct than our current system, it carries with it various psychological factors that could deter fun and engaging game play.  If the only goal of FFA is survival, players might be more likely to camp to avoid confrontation and more likely to quit after losing a mage (since there is nothing to gain if you feel your team is too weak to outlast the remaining players).  Also, #1 doesn't solve the problem of gaining up on the highest rated player, since it is still to the advantage of the other players to defeat this person so as to gain the most possible points in victory.

3) What if runner-up finishing places were determined by a points system that evaluated how much impact you had on the game before being eliminated?  A simple system might look like this:

A) Defeated a Guardian = X Points
B) Defeated a Mage = Y Points
C) Out lived Z Players = Z Points

In this case, we take from #1 that runner-up placing need not follow directly from survival order and take from #2 that motivation to continue fighting is needed to promote exciting game play.  Should we also factor Valor into the mix, we might also help alleviate the problem of ganging up on players, since a lone player fighting against a team will likely kill more units and accumulate more Valor.

So, there you have it- some thoughts to consider.  Ratings are important to many players, so I won't change the system lightly.  As game designer, my goal is to satisfy you- the players.  So I now open the floor to you.  What are your thoughts on FFA rating?  How can we make the system better?

Thanks to everyone who made it to our launch party!  So, now that we've been rolling for a few days here, what does everyone think of the additions in v1.4?

Greetings Hero Mages fans!

I'm launching v1.4 of the Hero Mages client this Thursday night (July 1st) to bring you a bunch of the new features you've been requesting.  In order to update the game databases, I will need to shut down the servers to work on them, so the game AND forum servers will be down starting Wednesday 7:00PMCDT until Thursday 7:00PMCDT.  Once the server is up and running again, come and join me in the game lobby for the first games!  If you don't make it in time before the first game starts, don't worry- with the new rejoin feature you can jump and watch the battles and stake your claims on the next match!

Full details on the new features here: https://www.heromages.com/news/announcements/v1.4Launch.html

If you need to contact me while the forums are down, feel free to email admin@heromages.com or just go ahead and post on our facebook page.

~Ross

BBGSite is celebrating a year of delivering the best in browser based games. D20Studios, LLC is proud to support them by offering Hero Mages prizes for the event.  Join in the celebration at: https://contest.bbgsite.com/anniversary/

Dear Hero Mages Fans,

I thought it would be fun to share with everyone some of my latest technical achievements for the upcoming 1.4 release of Hero Mages.  As if the title didn’t give anything way…

The past couple weeks I’ve been rewriting the entire command system to use a custom raw string protocol vs. XML based objects.  For the nontechnical crowd, this boils down to eliminating large bandwidth data objects in favor of very efficiently coded text strings to represent everything that is happening in a game of Hero Mages.  So how does this benefit you, the player?

For starters, a game of Hero Mages can now be recorded as a very small text file (we’re talking only 15kb for a massive game with over 700 log entries).  This command log can then be sent by the game host to any new spectators that wish to watch a game in progress OR to any player that was disconnected from a game and wishes to rejoin.  And, in my working version prototype, this feature is already working!  Later, I plan to expand upon it, allowing game records to be stored in the database so you can go back and watch replays of any Hero Mages match that’s been played on our servers.  How’s that for record keeping?!

Also, I’ve had several requests for 8 player support, and, being that I run 6+ gamers at my weekly game night, I too felt it was time to implement this feature so we could all play together.  There was never any technical reason the game couldn’t support that many players; rather, it was a design decision to go with 4 players max and an interface problem to add the additional 4.  With a little retooling, though, I think the new game options screen and in-game player status turn out pretty good, what do you think?

So, tonight was the first alpha test of the new features.  There were 5 of us at game night, so we had to throw in a bot (computer opponent) to sub for a human teammate. The bots don’t use spells or special abilities yet, and their behavior is a bit chaotic, but they’re nonetheless smart enough to find their way through the maze and hack you to pieces, like this Barbarian who chopped my poor Soul Reaver in two.

It was an interesting experience; there were some game ending glitches and a few odd occurrences (like the computer randomly deciding to take over one of my friends’ turns), but it was an overall good sign of things soon to come in the world of Hero Mages.  Enjoy the teaser screens I’ve attached below.

Sincerely,
Ross Przybylski, Game Creator

Hello All!

My deepest apologies- it seems we had a server crash a few minutes ago.  Fortunately, I was monitoring and caught the problem.  The good news is we're up and running again.  Sorry for any inconvenience or lost games.

~Ross

D20Studios and BBGSite want to know what you think about Hero Mages. So speak your mind for a chance to win a FREE Arcane Disciples character pack so you can control the minds of your enemies!

https://www.heromages.com/news/announcements/speakYourMind.html

D20Studios and BBGSite have teamed up to bring you MINOTAUR MADNESS.  This is your chance to unlock this exclusive character.  Full details at:

https://www.heromages.com/news/announcements/minotaurMadness.html

Join fellow Hero Mages fans and game creator Ross Przybylski online for the launch event Thursday, April 8th at 8:00PM CDT.

Full details on the included changes with screenshots included here:
https://www.heromages.com/news/announcements/v1.3Launch.html

CODCON is the annual convention and fundraiser to the College of DuPage Sci-fi/Fantasy Club. This will be the club's 15th convention.

Events include Board Games, Miniature & Tabletop, Collectible Card, and Video Games.  The convention runs Friday April 9th through Sunday April 11th and will be held at the college's Student Resource Center in Glen Elyn, IL.

D20Studios will be there Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.  We'll have a table setup with four laptops ready to play Hero Mages.  This is your chance to meet me in person, share your thoughts, and walk away with some free characters for stopping by and playing a game with us!

It's going to be a blast, and 3 Day Badge Preregistration Prices are only $8!  For more information, visit their website at: https://www.codcon.com

Gamer's Reunion is an annual, volunteer-based gaming convention organized in the spirit of uniting like-minded gamers and giving them a positive environment and outlet for their gaming hobby.

D20Studios is supporting the event by providing free Hero Mages character packs to all attendees.

For more information:
https://www.heromages.com/news/announcements/gamersReunion2010.html

Gamer's Reunion website: https://www.gamersreunion.com

Greetings everyone-

I wanted to apologize for anyone trying to login to the game tonight that found themselves waiting at the "Connect" screen without being able to get into the game lobby.  One of our hosting services was temporarily disrupted, but the good news is that we have identified and corrected the issue, and Hero Mages is back online for your enjoyment!

~Ross Przybylski, D20Studios

Check out this extensive list of proposed balance changes inspired by the Independent Games Festival judges feedback:

https://heromages.com/forums/index.php?topic=217.0

[Destruction Spell Changes]

IGF Balance Changes
Two excellent callouts from the IGF judges regarding the balance of game play were:

• Too Defensive- entire turns would pass with every attack blocked (I find this especially evident in games littered with high Defense units like Warriors and Paladins
• Too easy to deal a lot of damage in a short time (I suspect Destruction spell barrages are culprit)

What I feel this boils down to is a need to adjust the range of values so that there is a higher probability to cause consistent damage overall but less likelihood to cause lethal damage all at once in such a way that it can’t be anticipated or defended against.  In other words, strategically positioning your units to surround and attack a single enemy is an acceptable form of pummeling since the opponent can see it coming and defend against it.  Teleporting next to and disintegrating an enemy mage or casting a succession of low-cost destruction spells are unfair forms of lethal damage, since the opponent has no opportunity to react or recover with healing spells.

With these proposed changes, I hope to resolve these issues and further develop the characters to make the game even more enjoyable.  The following generalizations summarize the changes overall:
1)   Increased mana cost for all Destruction spells
2)   Creatures may no longer attack the first turn they come into play
3)   Defense values have been reduced for most characters
4)   Increased count of certain spells in deck
5)   Revised abilities to make characters more exciting and attuned to their roles

SPELL CHANGES

Destruction Spell Changes
Blizzard- decrease dice rolled to 2
Demonic Lash- increase cost to 2 mana, allow any visible target, roll 3 dice with exact damage of 2
Disintegrate- roll 4 dice with exact damage of 4
Fireball- increase cost to 3 mana
Ice Shards- decrease dice rolled to 2
Lightning Bolt- increase cost to 1 mana
Meteor Shower- increase cost to 3 mana
Seeker Missile- increase cost to 2 mana
x2 Demonic Lash in deck
x2 Lightning Bolt in deck

I want to reduce the max damage per turn players can achieve through spells.  Keep in mind that with reduced Defense values across the board, we should expect to see more consistent damage in lower amounts.  The intent is to offer players the chance to react to attacks and expose units in order to close distance without the fear of annihilation from Destruction spells in a single turn.

Summons Spell Changes
New Summoning Rule: Creatures are placed according to their specific card.  Creatures may not use actions until their next turn unless they have an ability stating otherwise.

Air Elemental- increase cost to 3 mana, reduce Defense to 13, gains ability Haste: Air Elemental can move and attack the first turn it comes into play.
Earth Elemental- reduce Defense to 14, change Crushing Blow: Earth Elemental’s attack dice results of 15 or more are converted to 20’s.
Flesh Golem- reduce Defense to 12, increase Strength to 3
Iron Golem â€" reduce Defense to 17
x2 Air Elemental in Deck
x2 Earth Elemental in Deck

With the increased the cost of Destruction spells, it was necessary to adjust the summoning rule to maintain the balance of the spell schools.   By eliminating the first turn attack, Summon spells no longer act like Destruction spells and the two schools are more distinct.  It also opens up fun possibilities for “rule breaking abilities”, like the Air Elemental’s new Haste ability.

Manipulation Spell Changes
Imprison- increase cost to 2 mana
Gateway (2): Remove a wall from any space on the board.  Return the wall at the end of the first turn its space is unoccupied.
Sleep (1): Roll a 7 or higher to stun target unit.
Crumble (3): Permanently remove a wall from any space on the board.
Silence (3): Target unit may not cast spells or use special abilities until the start of your next turn.

Gateway was too inexpensive at only 1 mana, allowing for non-Wizards to combine it with Destruction or Summon spells for early game hero kills.  I’ve increased the cost, but also changed the way it works to make the spell more flexible and easier to understand.  Since there’re so many possibilities for Manipulation spells, I decided to add some new ones rather than increase the count of existing ones.  Silence should prove to be exceptionally good at fulfilling the Wizard’s “disruptive” role, while Crumble should help open up defensive maps for more exciting end game brawls.

Augmentation Spell Changes (Will be called Attribute Spells)
Replace Cripple with Sunder Armor (1): Target unit with Defense of 15 or greater gets -4 Defense until the end of your turn.
Replace Dragon’s Fury with Hex (1): Target unit gets Defense -1 until defeated.
Battle Horn (2): All visible allies get Strength +2 until the start of your next turn. (Useful in team games)
x1 Sunder Armor in deck (formerly there were 2 Cripple spells)
x2 Bloodlust in deck
x2 Armor of Aegis in deck
x2 Archon’s Might in deck

Cripple, for its cost, was far too disabling for the already vulnerable mages.  Splitting the spell into an anti-armor and weaker, permanent Defense penalty provides some variation while helping to discourage over-reliance on heavy units (which was the original intent for these spells).  The inclusion of more unit buffs in the deck should also see magic playing a more important role in combat.

Recovery Spell Changes
Revive â€" No longer restricts unit movement- revived unit can use all actions immediately.
Mana Surge- Will only generate 1 mana instead of 2
Full Heal becomes Heal: Target unit recovers 4 life.
Group Heal- increase cost to 3 mana.
Healing Touch- Target adjacent ally recovers 2 life.
x2 Dispel Magic in deck
x2 Heal in deck

The reduced damage-per-turn caused by the increase in Destruction spell mana costs merits a small reduction in healing capability.  Group heal was too beneficial to cost only 2 mana, especially when used in team games.  Mana Surge was overpowered- not only did it grant the ability to form some unfair combos, but it also resulted in the generation of an additional card for nothing.  With the adjustment, you’re now sacrificing a card for a mana.

UNIT CHANGES

Summoner  2S 12D 6L
Skeleton Warrior (1 | 5 Valor): Place a skeleton warrior on target space.  (Cannot be used if Summoner controls 5 or more Skeleton Warriors)
Sacrifice (1 | 10 Valor): Destroy one of your visible creatures.  Summoner recovers 3 lost life.
Summoning Mastery (Passive | 15 Valor): Player’s creatures get +1 Strength +1 Defense.

The Summoner’s army building power is brought to the extreme while the new “creatures cannot attack first turn” rule keeps it balanced.  The value of her Sacrifice ability should not be overlooked; if used every turn, it substantially increases her chance of survival (as seen in the Battle Simulator).  Summoning Mastery is now her ultimate in order to really push players to score that 15 valor.

Sorceress 2S 13D 6L
Fire Rain (2 | 10 Valor): Roll 3 attack dice against all visible enemies. (Replaces Meteor Shower)
Natures Wraith (Passive | 15 Valor): Sorceress can cast Destructions spells for 1 less mana but gets Defense -1 until the start of her next turn for each one cast.

Her previous Damage Bonus allowed ordinary Destruction spells to become devastating without any strategy or risk.  It didn’t serve well to capture the Sorceress’s strategic role.  With the revised Nature’s Wraith ability, she has the potential to annihilate her enemies in a carefully coordinated strike or risk total vulnerability.

Fighter Mage 4S 14D 6L
Dragon’s Fury (2): Fighter Mage gets Strength +3, Defense +3 until the start of your next turn.

A minor reduction has been applied to his Defense (which should be expected as Defenses have been lowered across the board).  In addition, Dragon’s Fury has become a unique spell to the Fighter Mage, and as such, may no longer be cast on other units (it was far too advantageous to combo him with the Warrior and use this ability every turn).  As compensation, however, 6 additional buff spells have been added to the deck, making his Augment Superior much more valuable.

Soul Reaver 4S 15D 5L
Taunt (1): Force an adjacent enemy to attack Soul Reaver.  This enemy may not attack on their next turn.  (Replaces Duel)

The Soul Reaver delights in teasing her enemies, coercing them to attack and then exploiting their weakness.  The intent of the Duel power was to trap her enemy in order to encourage a fight.  However, it’s clear that it didn’t create the psychological effect I wanted and was used by players primarily to sprint towards enemies (mages usually) and pin them on the board.  Her new power better captures the attitude of her character and should make her much more fun to field in battle.

Samurai 2S 15D 5L
Critical Strike (1): If at least one of Samurai’s attack dice hits, his opponent loses exactly 3 life.
Eviscerate (2): Target adjacent unit loses 1 life.

The Samurai is meant to inspire awe and fear from opponents; yet, at the same time, his damage bonus coupled with his high Defense was so good that it trumped the value of other characters.  I’ve recognized players’ need to adjust his power, and while the change may seem a bit extreme, consider that he still beats most units in combat and doesn’t require the expenditure of cards to do so.  Additionally, Eviscerate can now be used regardless of the opponent’s remaining life, adding invaluable offensive capability.

Bard 3S 14D 6L
Inspire (1): Add 4 to target ally’s attack dice with results of 11 or more until the start of your next turn.  (Does not apply to spells or abilities)
Song of Valor (2): All visible allies get Strength +1 until the start of your next turn. (Replaces Precision Strike)

My goal is to further reinforce the Bard’s supporting role and make her an exceptional choice for team games.  Additionally, her Inspire ability is balanced to only take full effect against higher Defense units (it was far too deadly against mages before).

Psionist 2S 12D 6L
Mind Control (1): Roll a 7 or higher to move target enemy up to 5 spaces.  (May not be used on units that are immobilized or sprinted last turn)

I feel what made Mind Control too powerful was the 100% certainty that a Psionist could pull an enemy unit into a vulnerable position every time.  This change adds a 30% chance of failure, giving opponents of the Psionist a reasonable defense against her power while not taking too much away from what makes the Psionist awesome.

Warrior S2 D17 L6
Dual Wield (Passive): Warrior may attack twice per turn, but gets Defense -2 until the start of your next turn if he does.

I’ve maintained the Warrior’s high Defense, but also made it a resource to power his abilities.  This gives players some interesting tactical choices, allowing them to use the Warrior in different ways depending on the situation.  The increased number of buffs in the deck should also make the Warrior more appealing.

Barbarian S5 D12 L7
The lower Defense and higher life pushes the Barbarian further towards the ideal of a hardened, brute fighter capable of dealing more damage and taking more punishment than the average man.

Paladin S3 D16 L5
Paladin gets 1 point deduction in Defense to reduce some of the dice slugging typical of attacks made against her.

Rogue and Wizard
These two already fit well in the rebalanced version and thus have no changes planned.

[Access the Battle Simulator at:]

In an effort to more effectively balance the game play of Hero Mages, I’ve created this handy tool that allows you to simulate mock battles between the game’s characters.

Access the Battle Simulator at:
https://heromages.com/forums/index.php?topic=213.0

[Instructions:]

https://www.heromages.com/battleSimulator/BattleSimulator.swf

In an effort to more effectively balance the game play of Hero Mages, I’ve created this handy tool that allows you to simulate mock battles between the game’s characters.

Instructions:
1.  Select Heroes from the two combo boxes to populate the unit data cards on the left and right side OR type in your own unit name and tweak the unit’s attributes and abilities accordingly. 

2.  Click [Fight] to have the computer run 10,000 battle simulations between the units and report average wins and damage.

3.  You can set the unit presets between v1.2.1 (current game rules) and the tentatively titled future release v1.5 to see how I’ve already started rebalancing many of the units.

4.  Report your findings here in this forum post so the community can discuss and debate new ideas.

Things to Keep In Mind:

• This tool is intended for veteran Hero Mages players with good knowledge of the game’s combat system and various unit abilities.  It is recommended players familiarize themselves with the game characters and rules found on this website before interpreting the results of the Battle Simulator.


• The Battle Simulator v1.0 only supports 1vs1 battles between two units.  As such, any statistical results are meant to serve as a guide only.  Various other factors including unit combination, position, map layout, and spells will vastly affect the outcome of battle.  Take this Simulator for what it is- a tool- not a definitive reference of the most powerful or weakest units.


• The Battle Simulator factors in several unit abilities directly related to combat (such as inspire, combat healing, damage bonus, etc.).  The simulator assumes that units will use their fixed special abilities each turn if applicable (for instance, the Paladin will heal herself each turn if she is wounded, the Bard will always inspire herself).


• Experiment with Valor abilities by adjusting the units’ stats accordingly.  For example, a fully powered Fighter Mage would have 7 Strength and 18 Defense.  A fully powered Summoner might have 5 Strength (her own 2 plus 3 of her minion) and heal 3 life each turn (sacrifice ability).


• Have some fun creating your own custom units and test how well they fare in battle!


• The Psionist is intentionally not included in this release.  Presently, her Mind Control ability will guarantee her 100% victory outcome in any battle with non-range capable units.  This ability is being reassessed for the next release of Hero Mages.  You may try to approximate her combat effectiveness by adjusting unit defenses to 14 (to account for psychic attack) and giving her various levels of preemptive strikes.

Attributes and Abilities Explained:

• Strength: The number of twenty sided dice this unit rolls when attacking.
• Defense: The amount a dice result must equal or beat to cause a unit damage.
• Life: The amount of damage a unit can sustain before they are defeated.
• Precision Bonus: In v1.2.1, the amount added to each dice result.  In v1.5, the precision bonus is only added to dice with a result of 11 or more (Represents Bard’s Inspire ability).
• Preemptive Strike: The number of times this unit gets to attack before its opponent.  The actual number of preemptive strikes is the difference between both units.  So, if Unit A has 3 preemptive strikes and Unit B has 1 preemptive strike, unit A will attack twice before unit B attacks.  Afterwards, units alternate attacking each turn as normal.  If both units have an equal amount of preemptive strikes, the simulator alternates who attacks first each round.  This ability is meant to factor in the advantage of a ranged attack or a charge ability (which in many game situations would naturally give this unit opportunities to attack first before the opponent can react).  As such, consider this ability as having a great deal of flexibility.
• Heals Each Turn: The amount of lost life this unit recovers each turn.
• Damage Bonus: If at least one of this unit’s dice equals or beats opponent’s Defense, the victim loses this much additional life.  However, total damage cannot exceed the strength of the attacker.
• Exact Damage: If any of this units attack dice equal or beat the opponent’s Defense, the victim loses exactly this amount of life (regardless of the number of hits or damage bonus).
• Bleed Damage: If at least one of this unit’s dice equals or beats opponent’s Defense, the victim loses this much life at the end of their next turn.
• Counter Attack: If this unit is attacked and the attack misses, this unit immediately attacks its attacker.
• Eviscerate: If this unit’s opponent is reduced to 1 remaining life, that opponent is automatically defeated.
• Finishing Shot: If this unit’s opponent is reduced to 1 remaining life, they suffer an additional 3 dice attack.
• Attacks Twice: This unit will attack twice each turn.

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Greetings Hero Mages fans!

The Independent Games Festival is an organization created by Think Services (producer of Game Developer Magazine, Gamasutra.com, and the Game Developers Conference) to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers.

Hero Mages was an official entry of the 2010 12th Annual IGF.  While my game did not make finalist in the contest, the game received very positive feedback and, more importantly, some excellent ideas on how to improve the game, which I personally consider the greatest reward of all.

Below I have posted the judges complete evaluation for your reading pleasure.  My hope is that this will encourage discussion in the community â€" What are your own likes/dislikes?  What can I do to make the game better for you?

As an indie developer, I take player feedback very seriously.  My goal is to hone Hero Mages to perfection so that it offers you, our players, the most satisfying and enjoyable gaming experience possible!  So please, speak your minds.  I can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

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Hero Mages scored best in:    Technical
Hero Mages scored worst in:  Visual Art
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This game is right up my alley. Turn-based, cards, great stuff. I love the idea of paying cards in order to use guardian abilities! That's a great idea.

The UI is really impressive. The tooltips work well to explain the game and the functions of things. The help web pages are some of the best I've seen for an indie game.

The biggest stumbling blocks for this game will be the art and the critical mass of players. I hate to say it, but the art is just adequate. New players to the game will have to get past the art.

Some minor suggestions:

• Assign hot keys to the different actions, like 'm' for Move.
• Make passive abilities round instead of square? Distinguishes vs. active-but-unearned. Or draw the "Passive" text in a slightly different color.
• Dice that hit could glow--either the number or the entire die.
• Assign different colors or icons to the different factions during the selection phase, so that when I'm choosing a hero mage & guardians I get an idea of which sets are of the same ilk. I realize they're ordered right now, but this isn't obvious to first-time players.
• Make the not-yet-purchased heroes & champions visible but grayed out on the hero selection screen. That could encourage drooling.
• It would be nice to know what the hero mage & champion abilities are while I'm choosing them in the setup. There isn't much screen real estate for this, but maybe a tooltip could show something--even just seeing their headshots would help.
• The units could move a lot faster. Maybe I'm supposed to enjoy the line-of-sight subtleties with slow unit movement, but it just seems like they're dragging. Maybe make it a user setting?

I really hope this game takes off!

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The implementation of Hero Mages is impressive. I was delighted to see how nicely put together the user experience is.

The game itself was a bit too slow for me. In a four player game I could wait up to 6 minutes between being able to make a decision. Watching the other players move and attack wasn't particularly exciting.

I also felt that the game was tuned to be too defensive. At times entire turns would pass with every attack blocked (without the use of any additional defensive spells even). It made for a game that felt less exciting and moved the strategy to trying to stay away and hit the opponents units with the big spells.

My overall experience with the game was definitely positive but something is still missing to take it from its current level to the "oh my god this is awesome" point.

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This is a nice modern board game implemented coherently.

I like that the design is simplified from what could have been a very complicated D&D-style RPG to something that is easy to pick up and play. It is fairly straightforward but the abilities and cards allow for some amazing tide-turning gambits. It was fun.

What was frustrating was the speed of the movement animations and spell casting animations. It was nice to see them - I didn't want to disable them - but it would be cool if they could be sped up.

The music became repetitive - it could be good to have the music selector somewhere more prominent, or randomly switch it if that's not already happening. If so, more tracks would be cool. Games can take a long time even with a two minute timer.

Use of popups and tooltips was really well done, I never had to wonder what was going on or why something had happened. The logging was great too. There were no connection issues that I could see, but I Was sorely disappointed when my connection was interrupted, and I dropped out of the game I was winning. I was not allowed to reconnect - it would be marvellous if a way around this could be found. This was my main problem with the game. People tend to have erratic internet connections.

The eyesight tool was very useful - how about making it so that you don't have to place the eye icon but the game just shows you visibility from wherever the mouse cursor is?

All in all it's fun and a good implementation of board game rules in an easy to use web interface. Good work, I say.

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Alright, this was a fun one to test.  On the surface, the game is very promising.  I am a pen-and-paper RPG enthusiast, so you can imagine my excitement at hearing about this game!  However, several problems with the game kept me from enjoying it to the degree to which I wanted to.

First of all, let's talk about the good.  First and foremost is your tech, polish, and attention to detail.  The menus are well-organized (very Warcraft III), clear, and well-implemented.  Match-making was painless and straightforward.  My friend and I got into a game with little trouble.  The UI was straightforward and relatively self-explanatory.  The tooltips were clear and I was rarely left wondering how something worked.  All-in-all, this has been the most polished game I've played in the IGF this year, and it's clear you had to work hard to smooth out all the edges.

The music and sound were effective and suitable to the milieu.  The music controls were hidden in a menu, which was generally unfortunate, but not a big deal.  Overall good audio work.

The map editor was a nice touch, and easy-to-use and well-implemented.

Some aspects were passable, but not great.  I liked your character art, and (again) the polish you put into them was not missed.  The way they look up at you when you highlight them, the idle animations, etc... all add to the immersion factor.  The world art also was effective.  I think that both of them felt lower-fidelity than the rest of the game, and might have benefitted from more detail.  Still, they served their purposes and did no detract from the game experience noticeably.

So, getting down to what I did not like.  First of all, the game advertises itself as being fast.  Yes, it is faster than your average D&D session (4-12 hours), but it still takes a lot of time to do simple things.  While technically far more complicated, it would be wonderful to be able to do multiple actions at once.  Also, walking animations, attack animations, etc... each add more and more time to the play time.  Most of these took about twice as long as I would have liked.

The time investment issue would not have been as big a deal, though, if I had more fun with the game.  To start with, the mana/cards system was hard to understand and work with.  A tutorial might have helped, but also an ability to discard cards at will (which I was not able to find, though perhaps I just missed it).  Otherwise, you waste your surplus mana (casting no spells and cycling no cards).  I found myself casting heal spells on myself that I didn't need, just to cycle for cards that gave me permanent stat boosts.  Part of this might be that I wasn't able to customize my deck (that I could find), which I found myself wanting to do.  The core mechanic of D&D + M:tG is cool, and I think could be a lot of fun.  However, as it was, I felt like I was playing a sealed deck game.

The biggest problem I had with the game, though, is balance.  It's easy to deal a lot of damage in a very short time, such that the Assassin game was generally a letdown because you would lose suddenly in a single round if you strayed even slightly into a dangerous position.  Healing didn't really work, because the players tended to get killed in single rounds, before I could even get a chance to heal them.  The rogue, in particular, was this way.  So, elimination was the only place we had much fun.  And, even then, the games played slower than we wanted.  There was a lot of waiting for animations to complete while we hovered over the thing we wanted to do next.  The truth is that the game involved too much waiting, not enough doing, and then dying in ways that have little to do with your careful planning.  It might be enough to give each player more life, or more guardians, but the crux of it is that I felt the balance of the game wasn't close to optimal.  Some spells seemed to cost too much, others too little, etc...

Regarding the mana/cards system, I suspect it would be more fun and clear if you just had a "draw cards" button that let you draw cards at a mana cost when you clicked it.  Add in a discard button as well, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't more fun.  Also, it would then allow you to do things like give the players 6 mana a turn and draw cards for 2.  This would give more resolution of costing with which you could balance the spells.  Obviously, you are the expert on the design of this game, but my experience playing it was hampered by balance, and I wasn't having fun when everything indicated that I should be.

I think you have a great product here, and I have given you high marks in most categories.  I also think, however, that you need to take a hard look at what is and is not fun, and work hard at optimizing it along the axis of fun and replayability.  Get some in-person testing going on, and watch new players play.  Carefully note where they are confused and frustrated after 5 or so games.  After 3-4 people have tested it in this way, I bet you'll see a pattern or two, and that you will be able to fix it appropriately.

Great work on the game, and I wish you the best of luck!

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Game actions are executed with too many clicks. Makes it frustrating as time limit (although adjustable) is there to help players not wait too long but is not enough to execute actions. The animations are too slow in my opinion and it should be easier to perform actions with less clicks.

Overall design is good with the spells but is flawed once hero mage dies. Maybe the game should end if hero mage dies as there is not much point playing further.

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As a turn-based strategy card/dice game, this performs adequately. The art in the game is just okay and the game design feels very straight forward and doesn't seem to push the genre forward. While this doesn't make it a bad game, it does make it feel fairly unremarkable.

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For more information on the Independent Games Festival and a list of the 2010 finalists, visit their website at www.igf.com.