Update v1.3 list of changes

[TeeGee]

MAGI 1.3 is now available! It brings many, many changes. Most are major. This is the biggest list of upgrades since the premiere!


(click the image to download)

Screenshots:


Overall improvements:
- In-game menus were reworked completely!
- Three new tracks by Rob Westwood were added!
- Intro now have some good lookin' artworks in there.
- GUI/messages graphics and layout were improved.
- Character cretion now features characters' faces.
- Many other graphical improvements to characters and spells.
- New Magical Shield sprite.
- Mages now have some casting animations.
- Things now flash on damage.
- Tutorial and spell descriptions were shortened and improved.
- You can now play MAGI in windowed mode!
- You can now use special skills by pressing 1,2,3 keys.
- Many, many bugs and other minor things were fixed or improved...

Gameplay changes:
- Two new game modes were added: Survival and Challenge. They get unlocked after beating the Death.
- Two new Grimoire insignias were added.
- Gameplay itself was rebalanced. Now it's much shorter but you get more experience per battle. It's more intense overall.
- Because of to the above, Resistance ceased to give you additional years to play. It was powerful enough .
- Spell schools selection was removed. Now you just pick additional spells as you level-up. As a limitation, you can't pick a spell from the same school on two consecutive levels.
- You can't pick the same attribute at consecutive levels too. This should make for more interesting choices and prevents overspecializing characters too quick.
- The Experience penalty for losing was lowered.
- Game itself is a bit faster now.
- The Death was rebalanced. She has somewhat weaker stats now (not on the Challenge difficulty however), but she learned three more skills of extreme power and cool factor . I'll leave discovering them to you.
- AI was improved a bit according to your suggestions. It also scales better to the player's skill.
- You can't fight against your own character's class anymore.
- AI can't use spells it wouldn't have access to now.
- You can now recast enchantments like Incantations and Healing.

Balance changes:
- All the shooting monsters were slowed down a bit.
- Golem: Health 80->65, Strength 25->30. He's more of a fighter, than a wall now. Also made him move a bit slower.
- Void Elemental: Increased Strength by 5.
- Slumber: sleeping is now interrupted when the character is taking damage.
- All curses now have +10% bigger chance of success. Should make them more attractive, even for low Communion mages.
- Enfeeble: Power increased by 10. Casting time 8->6.
- Enthropy: Lowers stat by two, not one.
- Dull: Casting time 5->4.
- Breach: Casting time 6->5.
- Dispell is now affected by the opponent's Resistance.
- Archpriest's skills were all buffed slightly.
- Spell durations in their descriptions were changed to reflect actual game's speed. No change at all... if I wouldn't took the opportunity to tweak some little things .


That's it I guess. I'm eager to hear your opinions on the improvements. This update really costed me a lot of both time and money and I'm curious as hell to hear if you like it. I would also like to thank everybody that posted great suggestions for improvements and balance changes - that really helped.

If you are an existing MAGI player and you haven't received a download link for the new version, just let me know. Same thing if you got the new version, but would like to receive the minor update I've made recently after the feedback I got (one bug fix and buff to curses).

You might also noticed that price went up to $22.95. I've spent lots of time and money on the new version, to make sure it's really better (and worth more) than the original game. As you probably noticed, the US dollar is sinking and if I'm to stay in this crazy business and be able to make more games games, I have to fund it somehow. I hope you understand that and these additional 3 bucks won't be a big deal. Of course, the existing customers still got the update for free.

[bovi]

Sounds good, and I'll end my freeloading days of running on the Giveaway-of-the-day version very soon .

[Wizard]

Sounds awesome! I'm too excited to post something constructive at the moment but I'll try to skim through the changes and share my thoughts later. Now hurry up with the email!

[TeeGee]

Email sent. Let me know if you would have any troubles of any sort.

Now it's time for me to rest a bit .

[Sardek]

And time for us to take the kid gloves off. Party time!

[TeeGee]

Received the email and downloaded the game without any troubles? If so, then I would really love to hear you comments on the new look and everything .

[Wizard]

No troubles here! Downloading right now! So who's the first to post "Tips for Completing Survival" thread in the strategy forum?

[Sardek]

The look is nice, the new music slots in very well. The gameplay is good as always. I'm uncertain how I feel about the spell learning system. It doesn't greatly affect my very centric builds, but it probably makes it harder to get spells when you're spread more out among the spellgroups. I REALLY like the way you made stats not pumpable to such a major degree as they were. After survival mode is down(or before if it's THAT hard), I'm going to try a low-level normal death run, to see how low I can get it now, since you gain spells on the level-up rather by age.

[Mischief Maker]

Oh wow. Just DL'd it. A huge improvement. I really like the faster feel of the game. And the ability to play in windowed mode is a great plus. And the new music is fantastic. And the more viceral feel of the spells connecting (even if it is just a little shaking of the sprite). I have nothing but good things to say.

[Sardek]

My prediction for lowest level on the Death is tentatively set at 20. I'm going to attempt to come up with a strategy that lets me dredge a bit lower, but I don't think it's possible.

[Zenchess]

I like the new changes.

[Wizard]

The new cosmetics are surely good. Can't dislike the new menus and improved graphics, though I was used to the old ones and I could easily live with them too. Music is awesome as you would expect it to be too.

The change I like the most is the new "less games, more exp" attitude. It really made the game more interesting. Now I can get to my build faster and then it's not that long before fighting the death. In old MAGI I usually got bored a bit on that final battles. They were somewhat grindish. Now it feels about right. You play long enough to have fun and short enough to not get bored.

[riggz666]

I just registered with this forum and I have to say that the process is more than a little annoying - I very rarely post in forums and having to keep retyping the word in the text generator is enough to put anyone off joining....I can see the word (the upper and lower case letters) after several attempts I managed to get it right but the password field was blank after the previous attempt and it took several attempts more. I'm not moaning (really I'm not) - it could just be me being dumb but if it's not then I thought someone might want to know

'Wow!' was how I intended to start this post as the sentiment was very appropriate. I bought the game sometime around May/June last year and played it for several hours a day for months, I still played the game thinking it was 'finished', well worth the money I paid for it. I downloaded the 'update' last night and have been playing all night, I feel like you could have called it Magi II It's taken me a while to get used to the faster speed of the gameplay, the graphics improvements and new menu is just brilliant. It's too early for me to talk about balance and stategy, I like to experiment alot with characters and stats so it's like having a completely new game - but now I've managed to register I will try and post something more informative and useful when I've played more and am less tired (have the day off from work today, wonder what i'll be doing lol

Sorry for (not) moaning earlier, but it was annoying.
I'm off, I have an appointment with Death

PS Nearly forgot to say, thank you to the guys who made this game

[TeeGee]

Hey, guys!

I'm back! Nice to see all your positive comments. I really wanted to make this update as good as possible and it's just great to see that you like what it brings.

So who's the first to post "Tips for Completing Survival" thread in the strategy forum?

Good idea . Post away.

I'm uncertain how I feel about the spell learning system. It doesn't greatly affect my very centric builds, but it probably makes it harder to get spells when you're spread more out among the spellgroups.

New spell system surely brings some gameplay changes, but that wasn't its main purpose. It's there mainly for "chrome" - additional polish and overall design improvements. It was not wise to ask new players for chosing spells they had no idea about. Now they can pick them as they need and character creation is simplier. It also leaves you with only most basic spells at the start, which makes for a better learning curve. And finally, don't say that you don't feel great when you click these little glowing icons and a new spell unlocks . Chrome is good.

Oh wow. Just DL'd it. A huge improvement. I really like the faster feel of the game. And the ability to play in windowed mode is a great plus. And the new music is fantastic. And the more viceral feel of the spells connecting (even if it is just a little shaking of the sprite). I have nothing but good things to say.

Thanks. Glad that you enjoyed the increaded dynamism of battles.

I like the new changes.

Great to hear that. And welcome to the forums .

having to keep retyping the word in the text generator is enough to put anyone off joining

Yes, but it puts spambots off as well. Earlier we really had a spamfest here. I'm sorry, but that's the reality of internet . I might use a simplier drawing though.

'Wow!' was how I intended to start this post as the sentiment was very appropriate. I bought the game sometime around May/June last year and played it for several hours a day for months, I still played the game thinking it was 'finished', well worth the money I paid for it. I downloaded the 'update' last night and have been playing all night, I feel like you could have called it Magi II It's taken me a while to get used to the faster speed of the gameplay, the graphics improvements and new menu is just brilliant. It's too early for me to talk about balance and stategy, I like to experiment alot with characters and stats so it's like having a completely new game - but now I've managed to register I will try and post something more informative and useful when I've played more and am less tired (have the day off from work today, wonder what i'll be doing lol

Thank you. Reading such comments is really a most pleasurable experience for any game dev out there. About the Magi II comment. I actually thought about naming this version "MAGI Deluxe" and selling it separately. It would be a good business decision probably. However, I just think it's not right. It's still the same game after all (even if upgraded) and I promised my players that they will get all the updates for free. I hate when other developers do that and I have to buy the same game twice to get some better graphics and few additional features. Getting money for doing what you love is awesome, but money is not everything.

thank you to the guys who made this game

Thanks . And welcome on the forums by the way. I hope to hear more from you in the near future.


One thing, guys. If you have any suggestions or would find any bugs, feel free to post 'em. With the public release being moved to 20th I still have the possibility to add some last tweaks in there .

[riggz666]

Hi TeeGee, I have only positive comments to make about the work you've done on Magi, a couple of comments on some things I've noticed though if that's ok:

I played most of the night so i didn't quit the game I've noticed a couple of times today that when I quit and later restart the game clicking on continue from the menu it starts the game, clicking on 'Begin' looks like the game is starting (the opponent appears) then the game shuts down. After this happened a few times, i deleted 'MagiSave' from the game folder and started a new game, played a few lvls (which is really quick now), anyway it didnt help. So i uninstalled and manually deleted the remaining folder, but the same thing keeps happening...

Another thing, this version seems to be quite heavy on system resources, but I don't think it's a prob for most people.

One last thing if I may, I'm getting used to the new speed of the game, quicker levelling up and gaining new spells quicker adds a definite new challenge to the game. It's just an observation (and prob me being a bit of a noob) but you might consider adding a difficulty setting or speed setting for new players just to help them get used to it - don't want to put people off something that is now so vital to the game (it's more of a 'skill' now knowing what order to open channels and spells and you have to be quick!). Hope that makes sense.

Anyway, if there is a Magi Deluxe or II I'm definately in, your comments about updates and paying for them or giving them free were nice to read Have to say, whatever you call it Magi with online matches....now I'd pay for that Any chance?

Edit: I'm using Vista and if I run the game by clicking'Run as Admin' the games runs perfectly, I can continue the game! Sorry if it was known, need to take the time to read the forum...

[Mischief Maker]

A note on the system resources comment:

I recently updated to the latest Nvidia drivers for my computer and suddenly the particle effects slowed ALL my game maker games into bullet time. Re-installing the old drivers fixed that problem right away.

I love how game maker opens up doors for more people to whip up games that take risky deviations from the FPS/RTS/MMORPG trifecta that has computer gaming by the throat these days, but I hate how unstable and finicky game maker games can be to play.

[Sardek]

You know, TeeGee, with respect to the design decision of "choose a spell every 2 levels"... now that you've explained it, I'm 100% behind it. Smoothing out the learning curve is never a bad design decision, and that's a great way to do it instead of some stale tutorial.

[TeeGee]

Edit: I'm using Vista and if I run the game by clicking'Run as Admin' the games runs perfectly, I can continue the game! Sorry if it was known, need to take the time to read the forum...

Yeah, few people had similiar problems. Vista doesn't allow games to write stuff in Program Files folder, unless you run it as an admin. I'm sad to hear that you lost your saved game because of that. Microsoft has to really love indie devs .

One last thing if I may, I'm getting used to the new speed of the game, quicker levelling up and gaining new spells quicker adds a definite new challenge to the game. It's just an observation (and prob me being a bit of a noob) but you might consider adding a difficulty setting or speed setting for new players just to help them get used to it - don't want to put people off something that is now so vital to the game (it's more of a 'skill' now knowing what order to open channels and spells and you have to be quick!). Hope that makes sense.

I'm against set difficulty levels in general, but I might tweak some stuff to allow newer players for easier beginning. That's something I'm trying to do since many versions anyway .

Anyway, if there is a Magi Deluxe or II I'm definately in, your comments about updates and paying for them or giving them free were nice to read Have to say, whatever you call it Magi with online matches....now I'd pay for that Any chance?

MAGI 2? Definetely. Online version? Not for MAGI probably, but I might change my mind along the way. I was thinking about hiring a felow programmer to do the online stuff, but I'm just not sure if it is worth all the hassle. Having a server up, online ladder, cheat prevention... lot's of work. Without it it wouldn't be really fun.

I love how game maker opens up doors for more people to whip up games that take risky deviations from the FPS/RTS/MMORPG trifecta that has computer gaming by the throat these days, but I hate how unstable and finicky game maker games can be to play.

Often the reason is bad (or at least: not very good) programming, not the engine itself. Mind you, I'm a designer, not a professional coder. If there was no GM, there would be no MAGI too. There are shortcoming, but I think they are outweighted by the advantages. Also situations, like the one you described, happen often in AAA world as well. When I was working on The Witcher, we had hundreds of similiar problems. This driver doesn't work, this one slows down, this makes it crash on Vista... and so on. However, we had loads of money and manpower for extensive testing and fixing. Something an indie dev has not.

You know, TeeGee, with respect to the design decision of "choose a spell every 2 levels"... now that you've explained it, I'm 100% behind it. Smoothing out the learning curve is never a bad design decision, and that's a great way to do it instead of some stale tutorial.

Thanks. Exactly, that's less numbers at the start, less explaining in the tutorial, less spells to grasp at once, nicer reward for leveling up, more "tight" overall design. And you really can't expect a new player to set the schools right. It was only confusing.

[Nightshade]

I did not receive an email (my address is nightshade8@gmail.com). But the list of changes looks good, especially the faster game play.

[TeeGee]

That's because you're not on the normal customers list . Sent you the email now. Thanks for reminding me.