Orb Ball Devlog 3

Exciting news: Find a friend and play the latest build right now. Just promise me you’ll leave feedback, as it’s still early days. There’s a built-in feedback form, but you can also email or message me on Discord.

Lords overhaul

Before a match begins, both players are offered 3 Lords (from a pool of 7) and must choose one. Each Lord has a special starting power called a decree.

Before this week, Lord decrees were pretty tame: gain a shop reroll, gain one bonus spell, etc. After this week, Lord decrees all fundamentally change your gameplan.

Some Lords are further along than others. They’re not very balanced. I wouldn’t be surprised if some get scrapped. They are designed with three goals in mind:

1. Take a fun and interesting aspect of the game and push it as far as I can.
2. Fulfill the fantasy of playing a powerful wizard.
3. Add variety and replayability.

Taos updated all the visuals this week. Here are my old designs:

Early Lord sketches:

Work in progress for the new Lord portraits:

Scavenger

The Scavenger indulges players’ urge to put all their resources into one super unit. It gets one discounted talisman per round and has an automaton, a unique unit that starts weak but can equip unlimited talismans rather than the normal max of three.

Automaton art is still placeholder.

Build up your Scavenger over the match, from the weakest unit on the field to the strongest.

Rogue

The Rogue’s smoke bomb gives creatures fog-of-war-style invisibility. This unlocks a lot of creative plays. Rogue has no raw power bonuses, so pick him if you want to win with style. He’s definitely my favorite to play right now:

Geomancer

The Geomancer cultivates the field as much as he builds a team: he gets magic seeds that spread terrain more widely each round, and can summon rocks that block creatures’ paths. Terrain affects both players’ creatures equally, so plans can backfire.

Mage

The Mage has been in the game a long time as a basic Lord with a free damage spell. The new Mage can customize her spells through a dedicated spell research system. Use her to craft spells at the start of a match that shift the board in your favor.

Lich

Lich uses cursed talismans – right now we just have one: a Ritual Blade that lets you sacrifice creatures and deal damage equal to their HP to the nearest enemy. This leads to interesting back-and-forth as both players try to influence who gets hit by the sacrifice damage.

Alien

Aliens are your friends. Only this Lord can add items and beacon neutral creeps. They’re unique in that they attack creatures from both teams, but can be placed anywhere on the field.

Emissary

This is the degenerate gambler character. You get a giant magical die that applies status effects during the match. Spend anima on positive sides, or risk it and gain money to add negative sides.

What’s next?

I tend to work in a cycle: spend a few weeks adding things, then a few weeks paring down. I’m about to enter pare-down mode. The game is way too esoteric right now.

I need to playtest and absorb feedback. So again, go play the game. If you haven’t played before, it’s going to be overwhelming. I want to remove features, clarify, and simplify, but I need your help deciding where to focus.

Taos and I are going to put some serious effort into making the simulation read clearly, with better animation, effects, and sound. I also plan to work on improving simulation movement so it’s more predictable.

Changes

Mechanics

• Redesigned all the game’s Lords and their decrees.
• The Stalker (formerly the Panther) now turns invisible to threats while standing in tall grass.
• Ranged attackers now pursue nearby orbs and will play like a quarterback if they hold the orb.
• Repositioning is now a localized move rather than a full-board move, with the distance a creature can travel driven by its Agility stat. Think Final Fantasy Tactics.
• The simulation is faster-paced: melee and ranged attacks both fire faster, ranged attackers lock onto new targets sooner, tackles initiate with collision damage, and creatures move at a higher base pace.
• Creatures that spawn something when they faint (like a Sludge splitting into Mini Sludges) now do so a brief beat after they fall, rather than instantly.

Balance

• Fanatic: gains the bloodlust modifier, like Brute and Berserker.
• Status-zone spells (Curse, Enchant, Blizzard, Meteor, and Bless): now cheaper, but only last a single turn.
• Stat-boost talismans (Tusk, Feather, etc.): a creature can now hold multiple copies.
• Sludge: now a Blocker rather than passer, is no longer Slippery, and splits into two Mini Sludges on faint.
• Slipper talisman (goo immunity): removed from the shop.
• King Sludge: when it faints it bursts into an AOE attack that deals 2 damage to nearby enemies and infects them, and each infected enemy births a Mini Sludge when knocked out. No longer leaves a goo trail.
• Queen, Vespiary, and Apiary: summon their units in bursts of three with a proportionally longer wait between summons.
• Bat, Vampire, and Ghost: −1 max health.
• Recluse, Stalker, and Phantom: all have the pounce ability.
• Tortoise: +1 base speed and a wider swamp trail.
• Sylph: loses Ethereal and instead radiates a Blessing aura to nearby allies.
• Blessed status: now grants +1 to every stat, up from +1 to a single random stat.
• Imp’s War Drums: now give nearby allies +2 attack, up from +1.
• Push spells: removed.

Visual / Audio

• The economy bar is redesigned: anima, moves, and unsummons each get their own cell with a large icon and clear count, plus bold new move and unsummon icons.
• A lord’s health hearts now stack vertically as heart-shaped pools of rippling, dithered team-color liquid; when the lord takes damage the top heart pops off in a burst of sparks, leaving a gray shadow behind.
• Creatures now cast a dithered shadow tinted with their owner’s team color (neutral creatures keep a plain shadow), anchored to the ground so its stipple lights up and fades in place as the creature moves over it.
• The Gambler’s Die now renders as a real 3D cube that tumbles around the board, each face colored to its status effect and marked + (buff) or − (debuff).
• Creatures now skid when changing direction quickly.
• Tackling creatures now “square up”, easing apart to line up side-by-side so fights read clearly instead of overlapping.

Usability

• Picking an obelisk now happens in the sidebar, so you can inspect the field while deciding.
• Repositions are now a resource shown in the bottom-left bar, and the interaction has been simplified: while you have one, any locked creature can be selected and dragged. No more ‘reposition’ section in the shop.

Notable bug fixes

• Improved ball-carrier pathing around obstacles.
• Fixed bugs with charmed creatures not switching allegiance in some situations.
• Fixed a bug with Leaper’s leap resetting the scoring timer.

Interested in trying Orb Ball?

Join the discord – I’ll be organizing test matches.