v2 released!

March 1, 2023

(Read the original on itch here!)

ANOINTED23 Month 2 roundup: The Eternal Battlefield of Karus

February 28, 2023

Valiant Horizon dev: what even are basic actions anyway?

February 25, 2023

So some of my early playtest feedback is that melee feels less good than range which...yeah, tactics games are sure like that, huh! I'm fixing to handle this in a few ways right now.

The obvious moves first:

• Lower the utility of Far range attacks. (This is even more pronounced because 3/6 of my players have abilities that hit to Far - basically almost all of the ones in the book. It's a good stress test at least!) Far range support is probably fine.
• Add movement to a lot of powers. I'd done this with some of the later classes I designed (self-buff powers, for example, are usually move + buff) but the older ones could stand to have that energy too.

Now for the weird moves.

v0.1.4 release!

February 22, 2023

End of week 6

February 14, 2023

Feb 6-12 continued this trajectory.

• Monday, 2/6: Point 5, the Camp A siege engine. If you get here, you can use it on any adjacent point - 4, 6, 7, or 9 - to (hopefully) instantly kill several enemies there. If you get a direct hit on the ballista at Point 7 (we'll get to it in a few days, but it prevents travel to/from point 7 except via point 9), it's destroyed. You can use this to soften up a few difficult fights.
• Tuesday, 2/7: Wrote up a Holy Knight, a variant on the standard Knight enemy in ANOINTED, to differentiate Camp B a little bit. It has a single-strike attack instead of a combo and uses Invocation of Vigilance to add stagger resist instead of having a Guard ability.
• Wednesday, 2/8: Point 6, midfield skirmish. A Knight and some Spearmen are squaring off against a Holy Knight and some Spearmen. Disposition by default is that they attack you, but a good roll can make half or all of them keep fighting among themselves instead of you. There's a Bonfire here, so you can reset the freeze clock without taking Harm if you clear the point.
• Thursday, 2/9: Herald's Flagpole. A heavier than usual polearm, it has a Stance move that allows the user and nearby allies to regain Health and shake off Stagger.
• Friday, 2/10: Point 9, Camp B forward command. A Holy Knight and some archers are picking off a few spearmen and guard dogs here. Once the dust clears, you can get that Flagpole here.
• Saturday, 2/11: Point 7, the Ballista and crew. As noted, this makes travel very difficult between 7 and any point other than 9 (it's a "roll and if you don't get a 6 you die" situation). Two Holy Knights and some archers are here. Once combat is done, you can permanently destroy the Ballista.
• Sunday, 2/12: Point 10, the far sanctuary. Very similar to Point 1's, and it bears the same exact inscription: A stone altar sits here, largely untouched with time, with the inscription: "Pray for these warriors, that they may achieve victory over their foes for the cause of righteousness." I like parallelism.

This week I'm tackling the area boss (General Ingrid, Camp B leader) as well as the remaining Point 8, and then doing cleanup for the rest of the month.

v1.0.2 is out! And a little something extra!

February 9, 2023

ANOINTED23, 2/5 (end of week 5)

February 7, 2023

February 1-5 brought us the start of the Eternal Battlefield of Karus.

• Wednesday, 2/1: Point 1, the Sanctuary. I didn't fuck up this time so it's first day. A stone altar sits here, largely untouched with time, with the inscription: "Pray for these warriors, that they may achieve victory over their foes for the cause of righteousness." (This is obviously talking about the eternal battle but also I'm doing a thing. Get back to me at Point 10.)
• Thursday, 2/2: Point 2, the southern gate of Camp A. (I'll come up with some names later.) The flank of this camp has not been guarded strongly in quite some time. This has an intro fight: 1 + #Anointed Spearmen/Archers, split half and half. Disposition is Default Aggressive, 5-6 Distracted: as mentioned, it's not very well guarded.
• Friday, 2/3: Point 4, Camp A's center. The narrow camp is heavily guarded. A catapult is visible to the north. There's a fight here with 1 + #Anointed Spearmen and 1 + #Anointed Knights: Knights are tough, so this one's pretty rough, especially solo; however, there's an "escape" hex on the far end of the camp. Disposition is Default Defensive, 4-5 Aggressive, 6 Unaware: each Unaware gives you an opportunity to either launch a surprise attack or move up 2 hexes towards that "escape" and ticks the area clock once. (If you make it to the catapult at Point 5, you'll have a better shot at defeating this group.)
• Saturday, 2/4: Wrote up a Guard Dog. It's similar to a Dreg but a little stronger and more aggressive at range 1, but similarly frail.
  • Health 4, no defenses/Poise
  • Leap: Rng 0, Phys 2, Advance 3, Quick 1
  • Bite: Rng 0, Phys 2, Advance 1, Combo 2
  • Savage: Rng 0, Phys 2, Combo 3
  • Prioritizes least armored.
• Sunday, 2/5: Point 3, the far end of Camp A with kennels. It takes 4 ticks to travel to or from here from Point 2, 2 ticks from anywhere else. (Might make this 2 across the board, it's an 8-tick clock so 4 might be a bit much.) 2 Archers + #Anointed guard dogs are here: the dogs are in kennels until they take their turn, which makes it harder to attack them directly.

So far so good! (And I've done two since then, obviously, but we'll get there next week.)

ANOINTED23, 1/31, week 4 + January wrapup

January 31, 2023

Week 1, 2, 3

So this week, I pretty much just did cleanup.

• Tweaked Saint Gratien a bit: reduced MD to 1 and Poise to 4, and changed Invocation of Sanctity (spell parry) to Invocation of Vigilance (can't be staggered). This makes him a much more approachable threat as a mage while still being dangerous.
• Added Dispositions to Points 5, 6, and 9.
• Added more formal descriptions to every point (except 1, which was pretty good).

And on the 28th I decided month 1 is wrapped! Got The Delta Sinkhole, a nasty little swamp region with 9 points, two new enemy types, some nasty ambush stuff, an optional boss, and an NPC! Makes a nice transition area.

v1.0 release! (v1.0.1 patch.)

January 27, 2023

ANOINTED23, 1/22 (end of full week 3)

January 22, 2023

Week 1, 2

Day 22! At the end of this week, it's mostly all sketched out.

• Monday, 1/16: Point (7), the shallows. Last week we defined Saint Gratien, the Major Threat of the area. This is where he is, shuffling around mindlessly. He can be attacked here, or potentially bypassed (Default Aggressive, 5-6 Occupied).

• Tuesday, 1/17, Point (8), the detritus pile. A mountain of materiel and bodies, piled into the back corner of this area. You can grab a Poleaxe here...however, it's harder to sneak back, because approaching the pile makes it shuffle around - meaning Gratien is more likely to be disturbed (Default Aggressive, 6 Occupied).

  ...