So I have gotten to play a little TT! I'm still not going past floor 1 because the general fighting mechanics still aren't there all the way, but as I work and test, I have leveled up and collected some new skills. I thought I'd share the stuff I'm excited about with you, the secret insider gang, because let's face it, the general public is never going to see this stuff, so hey, secret insider tips from Nintendo Power!
First off, the class you start with is surprisingly enough the Woodsman, which is a hybrid melee/nature magic class. How does it enforce that? Well, classes have a primary skill tree (Nature Magic), a secondary skill tree (Melee), usually 2 unavailable skill trees (Death and Arcane Magic), a starting skill (Lifeberries), a primary talent (Chopping), a secondary talent (Green Thumb), and a special power which is designed to encourage the intended playstyle. Woodsman's power is "Melee hits grant +10% Nature Power (up to 100%) for 10s, and Nature casts restore Stamina equal to their Magic cost". So you can see how it encourages you to mix melee and nature.
Notes: Your starting skill is provided when you start the game, so you don't have to start out just chopping with no skills. Your primary skill tree grants +2 to all its skills (so your starting skill starts at 2). Your secondary skill tree grants +1 to all its skills. You start with your primary talent at level 2, and your secondary talent at level 1. Also, when you find Skill Scrolls, every other scroll you find will be a primary skill (until you have them all!), and every
other other scroll has 50% chance to be either secondary, or completely random. So you tend to find the things that will help you go toward the class fantasy, but there are some surprises you might consider.
So, with that said, my Woodsman adventure of course began with Lifeberries, since you start with it. LL2 has a very unforgiving beginning so I thought having the starting skill be a heal could be very nice. Definitely won't make this the strongest class, but the most survivable early-game which is a good thing for your first run. I have tweaked Lifeberries quite a bit (I intend to make major changes to everything!): the berries no longer heal you instantly. Instead, you swallow them and they sit in your stomach for up to 30s before being digested. As long as you have berries in your stomach, once per second, you will digest one if needed to heal a smallish amount. So they store their healing up for future damage like a protective shield (of course you can only have a few in your stomach). And yes, they still do that for enemies too so you might not want to cast them mid-battle. Another thing I like about them, which is not new, is how they synergize with summon builds. Your minions can eat berries too! Lifeberry bushes also spew out a lot more berries than they used to, part of a general smoothing of the game to make it feel nicer.
When I am setting up each skill, I also implement the item powers which relate to that skill (the random magic properties you can find on items). For every skill, that of course includes +X points to the skill, but then there are fun ones. For Lifeberries, the most important one is "lifeberries are now poisonous to enemies" - suddenly it's very useful in combat instead of only usable outside of it! Then there's "lifeberries restore X magic but don't heal anymore" which completely changes their purpose (you can turn yourself into a magic-slinging turret by surrounding yourself with bushes that fuel your spells!). Then a few generic buffs: bushes stick around longer, berries have a chance to not be digested when you digest them (you get it! It makes sense!). Then finally there are 2 very interesting ones: Lifeberries pop out of poisoned enemies every so often (bad idea if you don't have poisonous lifeberries...), and the real game-changer which may or may not be useful, "Casting lifeberries grows 3-7 bushes all in a row (but they have the combined berry output of a single bush)" so you can make barriers out of the bushes to trap enemies in place. Complete change of purpose really, and possibly game-breaking in the right tunnel layout against enemies that don't shoot. So yeah, lots of crazy possibilities. I don't know if I can always make so many interesting tweaks to every skill, but this is the first one, so options galore!
Making skills and skill modifiers is my whole brain's purpose, so this is where I am happiest. It's just so fun how I can make a little modifier in about 10 minutes and then see it in action right away. The design problem of coming up with skills and modifiers that interact well with each other in terms of creating cool builds and innovative possibilities is really my jam. My sweet raspberry jam. When I realized that lifeberry bushes block enemies and that you could use that as a tool if they weren't randomly placed, it just sparked my brain. I'm trying really hard with this game to make a great toolset for players to go nuts and theorycraft possibilities. Lifeberries is never going to be your main attack, but I sure want it to have interesting possibilities as a support to whatever else you're doing.
I have already received my second primary skill (I ignored the off-class skill I got for now, I forget what it even was - wait I checked, it was Cryozoid), and it's a completely new skill to the game, which I will be sure to share in my next adventure blog! Spoiler:
