As mentioned previously, Arctimicia, our player character, will use ice and thunder magick to fend off enemies. I touched on this a little before, but this time around, I want to give you a more distinct image of this important facet of the game. And by “image”, I mean “images”. I have GIFs now, is what I’m saying.
Thunder Magick
One of Arc’s two attacks is a strike of her Thunder Wand. This is a close-range melee attack which is generally the much weaker of her two abilities, but is nonetheless very important. Arc can slash left, right, and upward, and while in the air, she can commence a downward strike that creates a small thunder wave upon landing.
Using the Thunder Wand.
Most enemies will not take damage from a simple thunder strike. Some enemies may be knocked back a bit or stunned, while others will feel no effects at all. Because a direct attack with the Thunder Wand is risky, requiring Arc to get up close and personal with her adversaries, it will require some strategy and testing on the player’s part to determine if it’s even worth trying.
Thunder magick is primarily a force ability.
More often than not, thunder magick will be used in cohesion with…
Ice Magick
Channeling her power through the Thunder Wand, Arc can fire a shot of pure ice magick. The attack flies in a straight line and can be fired in four directions. Some enemies will take direct damage from ice magick. Particularly in the beginning of the game, some enemies will even go down in one shot.
The weakest foes fall in one hit.
Many other enemies, however, will merely be frozen. Frozen enemies are encased in blocks of ice which act as both obstacles and platforms. The effectiveness of this chilly prison is determined both by Arc’s magick level and the stats of the afflicted foe.
Once frozen, enemies become solid obstacles.
Once frozen, an enemy can be batted away with a thunder strike. Smacked enemies soar through the air, crashing upon impact with solid stuff. This will be a key element of the game.
No snappy one-liners, though. That’s Sarabelle’s job.
Frozen enemies can also be weaponized! Smacking one frigid baddie into another will take them both down – provided that the other doesn’t have any sort of defensive capability, that is. The resulting burst of XP orbs is often glorious to behold.
It’s almost therapeutic.
Oh yes, I should probably mention…
Magick Levels
Ice and Thunder XP Bars.
Both thunder and ice magick have experience bars tied to them. Each type of magick starts out at level 1 and caps out at level 4 (this may be subject to change later on). When enemies are defeated, or when certain chests are opened, a bunch of blue and/or gold XP Orbs will fly out in many directions. Collecting them before they vanish will boost the experience (XP) of the respective magick type – blue for ice and gold for thunder. At higher levels, ice magick will fly farther and freeze enemies longer, while thunder magick will provide greater knockback force against both frozen enemies and enemies’ blocking techniques (i.e. they fly further and faster when hit).
Some side notes:
- XP resets at the onset of each world. Think of it more as an adrenaline rush than anything else.
- As with most leveling systems, Arc will need to collect more and more XP to reach higher levels.
- If Arc takes damage, she will also lose some XP, so maintaining XP is important.
- Leveling up isn’t strictly necessary, but it will certainly make things go a lot smoother. Without sufficient ice range, for example, some boss battles will certainly become very brutal.
Other Uses of Magick
Magick won’t be used for the sole purpose of picking off scoundrels. As mentioned earlier, and as seen in a GIF I posted some days ago, chests can be opened with a strike of the Thunder Wand (the nature of chests will be discussed later on). Additionally, each world will contain a variety of traps and obstacles, some of which may require one or both types of magick to interact with them. I’ll save that discussion for another time as well, though.
Chests contain XP or other goodies.
This pretty much showcases what I’ve been working on lately, so I’ll wrap this up for now. If you have any questions, please leave them below in the comments, or get in touch via our social media accounts:
I may address your queries in the next devblog post.
Thanks for reading!
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