Welcome to the first of our Dev Diaries for Master of Magic. Seeing as this one is the first in the ‘series’ we will offer a quick recap of the development info so far, but perhaps offering a few more details.
Who is MuHa Games?
We’re an indie studio based in Poland. Our previous two games are called Thea: The Awakening, and Thea 2: The Shattering, and they are best described as a: gritty, dark fantasy, survival games set within a post apocalyptic world, inhabited by a combination of classical fantasy critters and an abundance of mythical and folkloric influences. So, while MoM is a very different game in its core, we certainly have experience with the 4x/strategy genre. As such, when we were approached by Slitherine about remaking such a beloved classic of the genre, we were very excited to say yes. Our design ideology is simple, we try to make games that we’d want to play ourselves and we do our best to communicate with our fans and thus make the best product we can.
The old and the new.
Our design philosophy is to attempt to recreate the mechanics and gameplay of MoM as faithfully as we can, while also making an awesome game for new fans. So, with that in mind, here are a few things we already have that you may recognise from the original. Now, these things may return with some changes, all the features that are visual will of course have new graphics, and some mechanics may be altered if we were unable to recreate them.
- All of the wizards will make a return in MoM (Most however, got a strong makeover from our wonderful artist.So while we hope you will still recognise your favourites, they did change in the thirty years…)
- All of the champions and heroes are coming back(As with the wizards, although perhaps less drastically, many of the heroes got a facelift. But they are all back with their own 2D art and 3D model and even a little back story for those who will bother reading it somewhere…)
- All of the races and their units (Given a new lease of artistic life, but kept their core skills and attributes. Of course tweaks may be necessary once we get to balancing, but for now, we are painstakingly recreating them all)
- All of the spells and skills (As with everything else, we are recreating them as best we can for now, then we may need to tweak them later.)
- All traits (formerly known as retorts)
- All basic events, and possibly some additional ones (with the option to turn them off as it was in the original)
- Arcanus and Myrror as playable planes
- All building types
- Mana management system (so you will be able to distribute your power to go into research/casting skill/mana points)
- Strategy vs tactical map – battles will take place on a tactical map, like in the original
- Familiars – they’re back, and we have an extra one for those who choose mixed magic books
This list is not an exhaustive list, but should give you an idea of where we’re going with it.
The new: Areas that warranted some change so far.
- Hexes (we decided they made more sense in terms of gameplay, as well as our own experience with them)
- AI (the original was, well, you know… so yes, the AI is being built from the grounds up and will hopefully be a more robust and fun experience – this does not mean we intend for the game to be harder, we will have difficulty settings)
- Complex difficulty settings (we want the game to be very customizable)
- QOL improvements, so far we’ve added things like production ques; more MP; pathfinding that doesn’t split your group when some units have MP left and others don’t (pet hate of mine in original!); starting the game with a settler unit;
- Auto combat function that will show you the range of outcomes possible and give you the option to either auto resolve, accepting these estimates, or resolve the fight manually;
- Extensive modding tools
- Tooltips
- Fog of war
That’s it for this month, but here’s a sneak peak at what’s coming next…
For a discussion of the dev diary, please join us on our MuHa Discord channel, or join the official MoM Discord HERE! You can also wishlist MoM on Steam.