Runemaster - New Diary & Twitch.tv

 Developer Diary 17 - Upgradeable Units & Abilities

As you know, a war is coming and no one knows what the outcome will be. Every soul will have to choose side before the end and when the Gods are going to war, you don't want to be the ones caught in the middle – rather be a strong force on the side you choose to support. So how do you make yourself an invincible force? You make sure the men and women in your army are the best that can be found. If they are scrawny and weak when you recruit them, then you need to make sure they become experienced and skilled before Ragnarök.

Therefore, this week I'll talk some about how unit upgrades work in Runemaster. Some of the details of what I tell you may change before the release, since this is still very much a work in progress, but I can at least give you the gist of the basic design

All of the units in your army have a level, from one to eight. Most units are recruited at level one and will then gain experience from taking actions in combat. When enough experience has been accumulated, it gains a level and will be ready for upgrading. The unit can then be taken to a "training ground" location where you pay gold to upgrade the unit to the next level. For each level gained, the unit will gain some basic stats depending on the unit and you get to choose between two different bonuses. These bonuses can either be an additional stat increase, a new ability, an upgrade to an existing ability or an increase of sub-unit count.

This gives you the opportunity to tailor your units to match your play style, while still keeping the micromanagement under control. If you never replace units and get 15 units up to level eight you'll have made 105 upgrade choices which is a lot, but still manageable over the course of a long game.

And that's not all the developers will be hosting a new Twitch.tv stream on Thursday the 12th at 15:15 CEST.

Last January we announced Paradox Development Studio latest game; Runemaster. Now, several months down the line it's time to sit down with the team to discuss how development is going and what the guys & girls from the team feel the game should look and feel like. You'll be able to catch a broadcast on our Twitch channel this Thursday.