Master of Magic Dev Diary #8 February 2022
The Magic of Master of Magic
This month we decided to go back to the beginning as it were and talk about what exactly makes Master of Magic magical? And the answer of course is spellcasting.
Over 200 Spells
Firstly, there are so many different types of spells. There are resistance spells, buffing spells, battle spells and global spells that can affect the whole world, terrain changing spells, curses, damage dealing blasts, crowd control, transforming spells, creating objects, summoning creatures and/or heroes, buffing the Wizards themselves, making your towns more efficient/or making your enemies towns suffer - the list goes on. And even within these types of spells, there are unique characteristics and effects. For example, while some spells share a simple and common mechanic, like summoning spells - they pretty much do what they say on the can, they summon things, but even they can sometimes surprise you.
Summoning spells call upon a creature of magic to serve your will. Those creatures are governed by their own set of rules, and are typically split into two types: battle only summons and world summons: that become part of your army both overland and in combat. But then, even here, you get Torin, the extra special champion that can only be recruited via a Life summoning spell. He is an exception to the summoned units and to heroes because his 'tags' are both "fantastic units" and "hero". For the purpose of game mechanics then, Torin is classified as fantastic (mostly... ), so that all spells and skills that affect fantastic units can also affect him - although he has kick ass immunities, so you are not likely to affect him at all!. But, as a hero he becomes a more complex and unique case. He is presented in-game as a hero - so he is listed as one in our army, and so gets the hero equipment screen where he can be equipped with items. His presence in a town will stop it from rebelling and so on. But, he cannot be resurrected, only summoned again, and none of the spells that work on normal units (therefore also on other heroes) will work on Torin.
