CJHello again! It’s CJ. This week I wanted to talk a bit more about ANOTHER part of our battle system, Relics! I know my last few posts have been about battle stuff, but honestly that’s the majority of what I’ve been working on recently (and probably will be for a good bit longer). Hopefully this just means that our battle system is gonna have lots of fun parts at play to keep it interesting!
So, what are Relics? Well, in a story sense, we’re not exactly sure yet – the idea is that they were items left behind by the living that somehow made it into Akeron. All we know is that they can be pretty useful, and pretty powerful!
But in a gameplay sense, they’re one of the major ways that players will be able to customize both their Keeper and their Phantoms! Each Relic has a different effect, and that effect can be applied by equipping it to either yourself or your Phantoms. If you’re familiar with the held items in Pokémon or badges in Paper Mario, it’s a similar idea – each Relic gives a unique benefit.
So how do they work?
Each Relic will have both an effect when equipped, and an equip cost. These equip costs will range from very expensive for powerful Relics, to cheap or free for ones with minor effects. Both the Player and their Phantoms also have a set amount of ‘Relic Points’ which can increase as they level up. The amount of Relic Points that the Player or Phantoms have is the limit of Relic equip points they can take. Basically, if the Player has 5 Relic Points, they can either equip 1 Relic with an equip cost of 5, or 2 Relics with an equip cost of 2 and 3, or even 5 Relics each with an equip cost of 1!
Also, equipping Relics doesn’t use them up – you are free to unequip them at any time, and rearrange them as needed! (Except during battles.) Sorry if the explanation was a bit complicated, but for anyone familiar with the Badge system in Paper Mario, it’s almost exactly like that, with the addition equipping them to your phantoms.
In terms of what the Relics actually do when equipped, there’s going to be lots of options! We still need to play around with the different effects, but to list a few different types of relics we have planned:
- Stat buffs! (Increase things like max HP, attack, defense, etc.)
- New moves! (Unlock new abilities that can be used in battles)
- Status Effects, both good for you and bad for your enemies! (Things like a slow HP heal every turn, or starting with your opponents being de-buffed!)
- And more! A good bunch of Relics we have planned don’t fit in a particular category, as they do very unique things – like improve your chance to catch a phantom, or increase the rewards from fighting.
So yeah! By adding Relics into the mix, this opens up a lot of possibilities for customization and optimization when playing the game, with the freedom to change up your playstyle whenever a new idea hits you. We’re going to be spending a lot of time making different Relics and balancing them around, just to make sure that each Relic has a use. Next time I blog I promise I’ll try to come up with something different to talk about than more battle stuff (but no promises).