Version 0.2

Original Wizard Chess 2 (now known as v0.1) was released last year, and while I was pretty proud of it, numerous playthroughs also revealed some major flaws:

• Most importantly, the game was repetitive (7 levels with 10 battles, each of them playing out more or less the same).
• Different specialties did not really offer enough gameplay variety (the optimal strategies were the same regardless of the starting state)
• And the game was incomprehensible (nobody, myself included, could tell how much damage a unit will deal because of so many rules).

I played a lot of Slay the Spire and RogueBook this year, which showed me how introducing random encounters and overpowered artifacts (aka StS relics) can diversify the experience. So I borrowed some of those ideas, and then added a bunch of original things:

• Before each bossfight, you get to choose a Relic, which alters some game mechanic significantly. (E.g., Mjolnir: you deal 50% more damage to Gigantic creatures, or Diversity: your army deals bonus damage based on the number of unique Tribes it has.) Most specialties now start with a Relic.
• Game now contains a new type of tile choice: a random encounter. These range from a Gladiator Fight where you bet on the winner, to a Mage Tower where you can buy a custom Tier 4 Golem, and some more.
• Some units now have a “skip turn skill”. Instead of merely skipping their turn in battle, they execute an untargeted action. For instance, Elf Commanders give all Elves +1 attack for the duration of the battle, Djinns apply a random buff to all allies, and Bog Creepers terraform their current tile into a Swamp.
• Some units now have an off-battle effect. Pit Fiends summon a random tier 1 Demon, Gnomes generate 5 gold, and Trolls cannot be gotten rid of (unless they die in battle).
• Battle has a “detailed mode” toggle that explains in painful detail what each tag/effect means, and how the damage for a specific attack will be calculated.
• You can now rearrange your units outside the battle.
• There are no guaranteed Transmogrifiers before the boss fight anymore. Their original purpose was to allow the player to change their army to better adjust for the boss; however they enabled an easy strategy of “upgrading” your army (let me turn these Pikemen into Angels - oh look, I guess I'm gonna win this). Instead, there are now Exchange Posts - similar idea, but they convert units based on cost, not HP.
• The number of levels was reduced to 5, and there is a bunch of new bosses. Final boss is not always Ctulhu anymore!
• There is now metaprogression in the form of a shop. Each run is scored (based on the number of completed levels, defeated opponents, your final army, resources, etc.), and this score is converted into shop credits that unlock game modifications. These modifications work similar to those in SuperGiant games: each of them increases or decreases your score multiplier for the run.

While some of these bullet point are addressed at providing clarity, the game overall stayed rather complex. I'm just hoping all these new mechanics make it worth learning :)