Adventure Tactics - Alpha Release

Hi all! 

I want to share a major update on Adventure Tactics, a roguelike game which allows you to creatively combine skill effects. It's a quick follow-up to last week's launch, but I did work on the project a lot.

What's new

Character selection - You can now select what to play as.  Currently, there are four playable characters (which I will try to balance for optimum experience). But you can also try to struggle through as some of the relatively weaker mobs, ranging from your run-on-the-mill Beholders to Snails.

New skills - I implemented a couple more skills with unique feels and rebalanced several existing ones to feel simpler yet functionally unique. While on the subject, I also made shield effects go away at the end of turn because they created repetitive gameplay.

Good AI - Enemies will now do actual attacks instead of durdling with random choices. I worked hard on not letting AI cheat and just implemented a genetic algorithm for it to find good skill combinations to hit you with.

Visuals - I added skill animations (as per with other artwork, these are licensed from third parties mentioned at the credits) to get a feel of actions taking place. More polishing is needed for all those animations, perhaps with hovering messages indicating effects taking place. I also tried to create book-like page flipping in character creation menus, though this is in large part incomplete.

Content

• 6 terrains with distinct gameplay, mob types, and rewards
• 4 playable characters
• 10 mob monster types (you can also play with these)
• 25 acquirable skills, each with a unique feel
• 3 types of skill upgrades (stronger, easier to use, longer duration)

Status

The game is in an alpha stage, meaning that the gameplay loop is in large part set in stone. Some of the content I have added aims to check that everything works well. I have a ton of ideas, but, having learned from past projects, I will not start implementing all of them before mechanics are firmly in place. Moving forward, the important things that are still missing are; a) selecting which mob to hit (currently you hit the top-most one) and b) a story-like progression system - nothing too fancy but some narration that will help with engagement and hopefully let you experience some satisfying moments aside from the mixing skills.

I hope you have fun playing, even these early versions I have been posting. Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are more than welcome.