"Has the Harmonic Song absorbed all your attention, leaving my words to bounce off your enthralled shell? Listen to me carefully this time around - valuable loot is at stake. Something you will actually find important, unlike the ascension of all souls into objective perfection. Hmph!"

- the Serene Harmonizers offering a valuable trinket in exchange for surrender

The Games Foxes Play (github | original post | play online in browser on itch.io!)

All my focus has now diverted to the game's other branches. This week, I added some life into the Serene Spire. That means, a single enemy type. And there won't be any others, either.

Populated by a narcissistic hivemind that despises violence, it is absolutely impossible to take any damage in the Serene Spire. Instead, each strike assaults one's ferocity and urge to fight, slowly increasing the knockback taken on each hit as one lowers their defensive guard.

Yeah. It's literally SMASH, but turn-based. If you get knocked out of the screen, you instantly lose the fight (and your Ipseity points, which are basically extra lives).

Coupled with a gravity mechanic (that only affects the player, as Serene Harmonizers are basically air elementals) and plentiful platforms, prepare to eat the biggest uppercuts of peace and kindness you've ever seen.

Of course, my horrible roguelike-platformer-fighting-game frankenstein aberration would not be complete without some special moves. Right now, these are only usable by the enemies.

Cumulus Cascade - Drop down on the platform underneath the caster, then unleash a shockwave across its entire surface that knocks everyone on it upwards.

Bashful Repulsion - Grab an adjacent enemy, then push them in a random direction. The caster dashes in the opposite direction. Totally didn't steal this one from a certain video game about a blind forest.

Video example!

For some reason, I haven't been able to pick up the audio of my computer in recordings, so here is the Spire music theme. It's called "Fly on the Wall", because that is what you are to its inhabitants. An intruder. That deserves to learn some manners and go splat. Credits to Zenith, my composer.

I am totally going to be giving these to the player as well, in addition to 4 other planned moves - my plan is to replace the effect of all 6 basic Souls (spells) with these Spire-exclusive abilities, much more applicable to the terrain.

I will have to make sure everything becomes clear and fair to the player - right now, the enemies occasionally orchestrate ridiculous combos (enemy #1 basic attacks you onto the platform, enemy #2 smashes it and knocks you up right into the range of enemy #3 who bashes you into the stratosphere and instakills you in one turn), but I want to leave some of this stuff in since it's exactly what I had in mind. And besides, "dying" in my game is pretty much the equivalent of eating a fat damage hit in a other roguelikes.

I also wrote a whole bunch of lore/dialogue for the Last Saint, who oversees the Circus branch of the game, and got a much clearer idea of what I want to do with that one so it still feels distinct from Faith (slow-paced, strategic gameplay in claustrophobic spaces) and Spire (chaotic, aerial combat with ways to win/lose in less than 3 turns). My thoughts are orbiting around a kind of protect-the-flag/tower-defence type of deal (wide open, summon-oriented playstyle).

Next time, I'll probably be adding in the aforementioned bonus abilities. I'm thinking more ways to get around the level, with dashes and teleports!