Nodrog's Fortress Alpha
Hey everyone!
This is my first post here but I have been a longtime fan of everything this community creates!
Anyway, I am proud to announce the Alpha version of Nodrog's Fortress, sporting many OGA and specifically LPC assets. I am so excited to bring art from this community to life. If you like Turn Based/Active Time JRPG-style Combat with a dab of chess, a sliver of MTG, and a sprinkle of American football rolled in, you might like Nodrog's Fortress :) Plan your commands well! Each team's actions execute simultaneously over a 6 second round. You have to get the jump on your opponents and try to counter their actions in this epic trial of wits!
Get the free Alpha build at the link below!
https://www.bindingforcegame.com/nodrogsfortress/
Please forgive the odd crash as we sort out the bugs. Things are usually stable, but there are a lot of edge cases we are nailing down. If you get an error while playing it is reported to us through Unity services :)
Please forgive the incomplete credits scroll as we get all the attributions organized! More complete credits for all the resources used are located in the UserData folder until we get everything formatted properly. Thank you again for your patience!
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We are currently building the single player and a proper tutorial, but until then, check out this brief overview to get started!
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Jump into a Match locally with Pass and Play or Try to Defeat Shin Geometon in Survival.
If your skills are up, hop online to battle bots, the dev(me), and the other testers in Free for All and Team Battles, or Fight Together against Shin in Online Survival.
About Your Party:
When starting a match, you must select an Archmage and 3 Companions to form your Party.
There are 4 Archmages to choose from,
Cleric, Elemental Sorceress, Necromancer, and Summoner!
There are 7 Companions to choose from,
Anubic Warrior, Assassin, Apprentice Mage, Monk, Ranger, Skeleton, and Warrior
Every Archmage and Companion are different and present many ways to play. See what fits your style 🙂
Your Archmage is like the King in Chess. If they fall, you will lose. If you are allied with other players/bots, once all the Allies' Archmage's die, the team loses.
Every Archmage starts with 3 Party Members, but can gain more through summoning and other abilities... Looking at you, Necromancer.
Every Character has HP and Stamina Bars; Characters with Spells have a Mana bar as well.
Each Character with Mana can raise their Maximum Mana Pool and replenish Mana by meditating.
The Stamina bar may be the most important! If you act and move you will not regain stamina! Stamina is the vertical bar next to each character's portrait. It starts at 0 and ranges between -3 and 3! If it is negative, your character's movement will be reduced.
Some pro tips:
Actions take place all at once when each Player/Computer has entered their commands! If you only focus on your attacks and aren't trying to read your opponents intentions, you will surely fail.
Make sure you Meditate with your Spell Casters to raise their Mana pool! Do this to access their higher level Spells.
You can stack most abilities as long as you have the Stamina to do so. Unleash a flurry of abilities if your Party has enough saved up.
Stamina abilities are usually more powerful than standard attacks, or have special effects that are good in certain situations. For instance, a Monk with enough stamina for Fire Strike will make short work of a Skeleton, who is weak to Fire.
Shields will block the base Damage of an Attack up to the number of shields active, but will not block elemental effects, and any damage above the Shield amount will get through, carrying extra effects like Magic Weapon into the attack. But, if the base Damage is negated, no Bonus Damage (like Magic Weapon's boost) will get through.
Good luck!
Awesome! Any chance for a tutorial, though, I can't figure out how to move or attack.
-Sincerely
FiveBrosStopMosYT
Oh no! I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble! Regardless, thanks so much for trying it out... let me see...
We don't have a tutorial yet, but just click around in general! (Important: Leave Menus by right clicking! Pay attention to the available mouse commands that pop up next to the confirm commands bar.)
Specifically to assign commands, click your party members (alternatively, click their party slot entries on the bottom left of the screen). The Character Menu will pop up! The Button on the left with Arrows is the move button and will let you set a new destination. Basic abilities are at the top of the menu, class abilities/summons are on the right. Spells, if the character has Mana, are at the bottom. Mouse over the abilities for a description (we are still making sure they are all filled out correctly) and to see what effects it has and the elements the ability manipulates!
Stack as many moves as your stamina and round time can fill (look at the action bars as they fill at the bottom of your party slots), but be careful not to overextend (refer to the original post for some tips)! Also, all effects caused by abilities stack, you'll see them appear above the character portraits and when you mouse over the characters on the field...
When all your commands are entered, click the Confirm Commands button at the top! Then, just watch as the action plays out! Rinse and repeat. Make sure you meditate with yourspell casters to raise their mana cap!
We have focused on the Online PVP and the core game loop for the past year and are building the story mode at present. This will include a tutorial (I'm building it out today actually), and I'll probably include the first level in the next update. Sorry again for the delay! I have included some picks of the movement/ability assignment below! Notice how the assigned abilities appear next to the party slots! When the round is executing you will see these bars fill up as the characters execute the commands over time.
Thanks again!
-Chris, Lead Developer
Thanks! :)
Wow, you've been working on this for a year, that's dedication, great job!
Also, what are your plans for the future of the game? Are you planning on selling the final?
Our pleasure! Thank you so much for trying it out!
We are almost done with a quick in game tutorial that's likely gonna appear in an update within a week or so.
Yeah, for now we are trying to build our exposure and get the game in front of as many people as possible in these early stages so we can get feedback and stress our server. When I am done with the Story Mode and Tutorial we will release it first on itch.io then, hopefully before the holidays, get it on Steam. We'd like to have both PC and Mac versions with online cross-play and eventually make a version for mobile platforms.
I and testers are deeply invested in this project for the long term and hope it gets a following so Binding Force as a company can hire more talent and keep releasing games. We have a backlog of prototypes and project ideas that we want to move forward. We hope NF will be a stepping stone to enable our more ambitious dreams, namely creating Binding Force, the game/dream that started this whole thing - some concept art for it is on our website too. Unfortunately, we ran our of money to finish that project and changed course. Honestly, it was the best thing that could have happened. I think we have a more focused vision and workflow from all the lessons we learned in that "failure".
In the short term, we are going to be updating Nodrog's Fortress, at the very least, weekly. The core game is ready to go but we want a multi-faceted experience in the final form of the game, single and multiplayer options galore if all goes well.
We are always available for questions and suggestions, so to you and anyone else reading this, just let us know! This is our first commercial project and we are learning every moment as we try to get this into as many hands as possible. This is the time for literally anyone to make suggestions and requests to help us shape this to be the best chess-like rpg turn based/real-time battle simulator we can make!
Sincerely,
-Chris, Lead Developer