What is it?
Almasy Tactics is a free browser strategy game with some RPG elements. Players train and arrange multiple characters into formations and fight others. Characters can be promoted to different classes, potentially giving them the ability to increase the abilities of their neighbors.
Almasy’s battle system is similar to turn-based RPG games like Atlantica Online or some of the Final Fantasy series. However, battle is fully automated: instead of forcing players to control every single move, characters will automatically attack the enemy they can deal the most damage to (this can customized to the player’s liking, too!).
The result is that in terms of graphics and animation, it’s not a fully fledged game [plus some of our art is still being drawn], but it makes up for this with other advantages:
• Nothing to download or install: You can start playing right away + wherever you want.
• You can be successful no matter how much time you commit: Casual players that simply want to put together a formation equip them with random items, and throw them against another formation can do decently well; more serious players may enjoy the endless possibilities of formation combinations and optimizing equipment.
Classes and Formations
One of the unique features of Almasy is that each character will bestow his allies with buffs depending on how they are placed. Some examples:
The Tyrant reduces stats of his nearby allies because he’s selfish. But, he has really good growth so it might be possible to put him on his own off to one side and have a regular army outside his aoe.
There’s also the Swashbuckler, which gives +1 strikes and +4 speed to the people near him for two rounds, so he’s a rush character. You could put some heavy hitters on the front row with him and try ending the game in a few rounds.
And my favorite is the Virtuoso, which has insane stat growth and self buffs but gives himself -70% damage for 10 rounds. But if you can stall for that time using other classes, you can really unleash a ton of damage. If you’ve played Magic, it’s sort of like combo deck.
A picture of the Organize Formation screen, where players select where each character goes. Character stats are updated as characters are moved around to help players optimize stats.
Since each character levels and promotes individually, we have a large promotion tree to give players plenty of options to choose from. A full list of the classes in Almasy can be found here: http://almasytactics.com/help/class_list
Which class to choose…
Class Change screen:
Trainee Branch class promotions:
Item System
Since you’ll be managing lots of characters at once, they only have two equipment slots, weapon and armor. Equipment can be upgraded by either refining the item (classic upgrading which improves the attack or defense of an item) or imbuing (sort of like diablo2 rune words). Imbuing items is important because it can potentially change the role of characters in your formation.
An example of an imbued item:
Battle System
Like I said before, battle is fully automated. By default, characters will attack the enemy that they will deal the most raw damage to, but players that want to try specific strategies (such as attacking the opponent with the lowest health) can do so through simple Lua scripts. LUA is relatively easy to understand; those of you that don't want to bother, we have some premade scripts for use.
An example of a battle replay: people can analyze how their characters act in battle and make adjustments to their AI for future battles. We’re currently in the process of making fancy smancy flash animations to replace this, but this works for now.
Future Steps
Of course, Almasy is still far from finished. Some features that we hope to implement in the future are:
• A Friend/Rival system: Lets you know how you match up against someone (more multiplayer interactions
• Battlegrounds: Although the game is already mostly pvp, we’re planning to implement an even MORE competitive option for players. Battlegrounds lets players fight each other for bounty (sort of like onepiece… heh).
• Tactician Traits: This is a big one. Our old system for Tactician traits was fundamentally flawed, so we’re completely scrapping it for a new one. The new system allows you to equip your formations with "skills" that affect all your characters, which may change how your formation plays. Think of it as global buffs for your formation, if you will.
• Drafting events: We hope to implement some sort of drafting event in the future; sort of like picking players for a pickup basketball game.
If anything seems unclear or downright confusing, just ask away! Any questions/criticisms/comments/flames are appreciated~
http://almasytactics.com/
(Firefox/Chrome recommended)