Creating Boards in Visions of Zosimos

Inside look at the Brighted Mire and Onyx Slick Maps

As mentioned in the previous post, being able to test our boards on paper was one of the best perks of working on a game like Visions of Zosimos. However, before anything is tested, we need to design the boards that players move around on. There are many factors that go into creating a board, but let’s go over some of the key components. The first factor is whether it is a PvP (Player Vs. Player) or PvPvE (Player Vs. Player Vs. Enemy). This determines the amount of hexes each map will contain. A PvP is meant to be small enough for players to engage quickly, but large enough to build their arsenal of physical, magical, astral and terrain tiles. On the other hand, PvPvE maps primarily depend on the amount of bosses and monsters that will need to be placed.

Our Blighted Mire map is currently undergoing a redesign based on player feedback. The goal is to create environments that our consumers want to play and feel they have greatly influenced. We have decided to make the Blighted Mire smaller so that players can engage the bosses and opposing players at a much faster rate. These adjustments have tremendously sped up the momentum of games on this map. It currently has a total of two bosses and six wandering monsters. Players will truly appreciate the adjustments we have made since early alpha and advise you to experience it for yourself. Another major focus has been on landmarks for boss spawns and making sure that they are unique to this specific map. We will continue to test and improve the Blighted Mire, along with all maps, through prototyping on paper and using our unique board creation tool created by Forever Interactive’s Programmers.

Our Onyx Slick is one of the most recently designed maps. We are very pleased with the production thus. This map is much larger than the Blighted Mire and has multiple choke points covering the left and right sides of the board. The bosses are designed around the map, opposed to the Blighted Mire, where the map is designed around the bosses. It is evident as you play because the Fallen Celestial patrols most of the top region of the map and Grendel patrols the bog. The Void Spider stays at the bottom of the map where players fear to go, but with the right incentive, you may take the risk.

Thanks for reading the latest post! Check out the improvements in the next alpha update and be sure to send your feedback. We are listening and fully support early customer engagement!

For more Information on the Midwest Gaming Classic, check out the link here:

https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/

Designing Boss Mechanics

Back in 2012, we discussed the process of creating lore for our big boss, Grendel. The lore behind the boss as well as its physical appearance has helped our mechanics designers create unique and interesting boss battles. Once we know who the boss is and what they might look like, designers can decide where the boss may be placed on the map and how they react to decisions players will make and how they prioritize their decisions. At this point, we can also decide what special abilities our bosses have and how they react offensively and defensively.

One of the easiest examples of creating mechanics based off physical appearance comes from our Fallen Celestial. The Fallen Celestial can use its wings to fly over occupied tiles due to player minions or even wandering monsters. We made this decision because we made the Fallen Celestial prioritize the player Homunculus if it is within attack range. Otherwise, the Fallen Celestial will attack the strongest minion closest to it.  The wings make it possible for our boss to prioritize targets with ease.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="346"] Early Fallen Celestial Concept Art[/caption]

The Void Spider is another boss that we based its special abilities on appearance.  However, we also used the environment to enhance its mechanics making it one of our most unique boss encounters. The idea of the Void Spider was all about striking fear into our players.  Within its lair lies ambush tiles randomly placed triggering webs that halt minion and Homunculus movement. Once caught, the Void Spider will spawn and attack its captured prey. Around the time of creating the Void Spider, we also created the back attack mechanic. Due to the size and appearance, we made it so you can not back attack it and the Void Spider will always counter attack.

As fun as designing out the big baddies are, it tends to be a lot of work.  Once you have the basic mechanics down and paper prototyped, it needs to be detailed out extensively for our programmers. The game engine needs to know every little detail for the boss to works which programmers relay to the game engine. The only way programmers know this is through the designers documentation which needs to be thoroughly detailed.

Remember to join our Facebook Alpha Community if you have or need a key! Every Saturday nights at 8:00pm CST we hold a play night with developers so if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask us!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/652653378128073/

Claiming the Afterlife

In this blog, we have covered a number of subjects. We’ve described dice mechanics, the four elements, both realms, and delved into some deep lore for Visions of Zosimos. Today, however, we will be telling you about one of the most important aspects of the game - how to win!

In every game, victory is achieved by defeating any opposing homunculi on the game board. However, depending on which game board you choose, there may be other objectives as well. On a PvEvP board, you must not only defeat enemy homunculi, but also powerful monsters appropriate to the board. Defeating these monsters help advance the story and reveal the mystery and lore of the Afterlife in Visions of Zosimos.

Currently, there are three types of monsters on a given game board. They are Wandering Monsters, Bosses, and the Final Boss. All of them are considered adversaries, and they grant bonus dice to the homunculus of the player that defeats them. This bonus applies until the end of the current game. Bosses and Final Bosses may also give various other rewards, such as cards to add to your collection, as well as other surprises planned down the line.
[caption id="attachment_174" align="alignnone" width="2048"] The Bog Slave is a Boss Monster. He won't go down easily![/caption]
Wandering Monsters are free roaming monsters that make their way around the board until they get close enough to a homunculus or its minions - then attack, doing their best to wound or destroy any they can. There are several kinds of Wandering Monster per game board, and each are specific to their realm. The number of Wandering Monsters increases the more players there are per team.

Boss monsters are considerably stronger than Wandering Monsters and possess special abilities. Unlike their wandering counterparts, they do not change in number based on the number of players, rather they gain strength as their opposition becomes more numerous, forcing a team to work together to defeat them. The number of Bosses varies from board to board, but there is one of each kind available to each team on the field. Boss Monsters are generally not visible on the game board until they are drawn out from specific lairs, marked on the board by specific tiles.

Once a team defeats all of its Bosses, it may draw out a board’s Final Boss. Between its raw power and potent abilities, a Final Boss will take a considerable amount of effort to defeat, but unlike normal Bosses, there is but a single Final Boss per board. It is only once the Final Boss and all opposing homunculi have been defeated that a winner can be declared.
[caption id="attachment_175" align="alignnone" width="2048"] As a Final Boss, the Spawn of Fenris may take several players' concerted efforts to defeat.[/caption]
It is here a decision must be made. The Final Boss grants bonus dice as well, but only to the team that has defeated him first. However, any other rewards are split amongst any teams still on the board. This means you must find a way to handle both the powerful Final Boss, and any opponents that seek to defeat both it and you.

This confrontation is inevitable, but how will you handle it? Will you work together with your opponent to try to take the advantage before destroying them, or will you attempt to bring them down first to gain all the rewards? The choice, as they say, is yours.

Lore Delving: The Process

"In off the moors, down through the mist bands,
God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.
The bane of the race of men roamed forth,
hunting for prey in the high hall."

Demon-spawn. God-cursed. Descendant of Cain. Whatever the truth may be, the lust for blood and flesh defines this monster's existence, to the anguish of the Danes. Ascending from the darkness of his waterlogged lair, Grendel assaulted Heorot - the mead hall of Hrothgar - tearing men asunder, gnawing their flesh and drinking their life-blood. Their only crime against him being the making of joy and merriment, he terrorized Hrothgar and his Danes until the intervention of brave Beowulf, who tore his arm from its socket. Only then did Grendel - great and terrible - succumb to his wounds.

He awoke here, and now terrorizes the Forest of Decay. A realm without merriment. A forest who has never known the sounds of joy.

A veritable paradise for a being who lives only to cause pain.
[caption id="attachment_69" align="alignnone" width="600"] Grendel is a fierce opponent, not to be crossed lightly.[/caption]
In Visions of Zosimos, many aspects of the game draw upon real world history and mythology, with a bit of our own spin added in. The Alchemists and the Ego essences one uses to construct a homunculus all pull from these sources, as do many of our boss monsters, such as Grendel. Even broader elements come from actual history; Visions of Zosimos is the name of an actual book detailing alchemical lore.

With this being the case, we take great care to ensure that our sources are accurate, and strive to remain as faithful to the source material as we can while still bringing it into the mythos of our own universe. To that end, we employ research methods, normally looking at the earliest known translations of foreign texts. In addition, when using multiple sources we try to remain true to them by seeking out the commonalities between these myriad sources and using this information as the core of the game element we are creating.

But how does this all come together? When designing a boss monster, the first step is to answer a simple question - is this Boss going to be historical, or completely original? Grendel is certainly the former, being drawn from the epic poem Beowulf.

The next step is the research. This helps determine how much of our own creativity gets added to the base source. The only known manuscript of Beowulf was written in roughly 1000 AD, and (despite the best efforts of historians and librarians of the time) has suffered through the ages, the most notable being the Cotton Library fire at Ashburnham House in 1731. This means that, though there may have been a detailed physical description of Grendel at one time, the only surviving original copy of Beowulf contains very little. In later sources, Grendel’s qualities vary considerably, but the one commonality was simple: an ogreish being who devours men.
[caption id="attachment_70" align="alignnone" width="380"] Grendel has come a long way since this early concept.[/caption]
Originally, we designed Grendel as something radically different from previous representations. He was a thin, amphibious creature as seen above. However, while this was an interesting direction to take, it was not true enough to the original source, so he has since been altered to the form you saw earlier in this post. We did, however, keep some of the original reptilian feel, but stayed closer to the original vision of Grendel’s savage brutality.

Even here, though, the process was not complete. In deciding to use Grendel as a Boss Monster in the Forest of Decay board, it helped push us to make that board more influenced by Norse mythology and history, and several other Bosses have been included to enhance this feel. The mere act of including these Bosses together has helped us define the feel for one of our most major areas.

Finding and creating the lore for this game is a delicate balancing act. Applying our own spin and perspective is one of the most rewarding parts of pulling it all together, but our desire to keep close to the source means we must take care in deciding what we change, and how much. However, we are confident that the end result of this painstaking process is a great game backed up by fascinating lore.