Inspired by Hero Quest, a game for Android and Windows Phone

[Conan]

Ditto.

Adding different map tile options and their respective furniture type, for instance, but not limited to:
Ice cave, fiery chasm, town, barbarian settlements, desert adobes, Egyptian tombs, 2 to 3 styles of dungeon tiles (ruins, regal, etc), to name a few.

[Conan]

This post is about sound:

I think the music in Arcane Quest is phenomenal! They fit the dungeon mood so well! I hope there is an option to also play the Arcane Quest 1 music in Arcane Quest 2 as well. Of course, we all long for some more atmospheric and catchy BGMs in AQ2.

In terms of sound effect, You are going to add some squeaky door-opening sounds in AQ2, right?

[Conan]

This post is about spells:

To answer your questions earlier about spells...

I tend to think about the spells as the cards provided in the Hero-Quest board game. So if you say certain spells could use more than once per dungeon, to me, is like giving me a few more of the same card to use. Or it's like the "Evanescence" card use by the Assassin, which is allowed to use more than once. Either way is fine. But naturally the challenge would be greater per dungeon - perhaps the dungeon would be bigger, or the monster tougher, since the heroes is allowed to do more things.

To recover the magic points or mind points (if it is consumable), just add MP potions or equivalent in the dungeon chest or procession of monsters to be discovered, and to be purchased between dungeons/quest.

If the spells are going to be upgraded at all, I tend to go for the "level increases directly the spell quality" idea.

All in all, whatever you do, please keep the magic system as simple and hassle-free as possible. It is the simplicity in Arcane Quest 1 that wins our hearts.

[Conan]

This post is about hero-selection:

Some ideas, don't know if someone already mentioned it:

For each class, you are allow to pick a male and female character.

The color of your characters are customizable. You can select the color of the hair, skin color, and perhaps two different color of the outfit.

Male characters and their female counterparts are basically the same, except their appearances. However, certain items are only equip-able by certain gender. For example, only a female character could carry a wand that could possibly charmed certain monsters, or purchase a "bikini" armor that is slightly weaker than the regular plate-mail, but allow the female character to move in a greater speed.

By the way, I love the ranger designs in both AQ1 and AQ2, I can't wait to see her in action in AQ2! But perhaps someone could use a male ranger, occasionally? Or a female barbarian (like the Hero-Quest Barbarian Quest)?

[Conan]

This post is about Henchmen:

In the old Hero-Quest Expansions and Advance Hero-Quest, you are allowed to hire henchmen (weaker versions of the heroes themselves) in between dungeons for future quests. These henchmen are useful in bigger dungeons, fighting monster crowds, and while dueling with big monsters. Only a handful of henchmen could be hired (definitely not an army). Have you considered this in Arcane Quest 2?

[Conan]

This post is about Customization:

I remember you said you want Arcane Quest 2 to be accessible to, not just hardcore fans of Hero-Quest, but other folks as well. So I have this idea, have you ever think about allowing the player to ADD THEIR OWN IMAGES (perhaps by means of the editor) to the game? It is almost like adding your avatar picture in this forum, but in this case, adding to the game instead.

I mean player could customize the hero and monster portraits (perhaps even the playing pieces), card pictures, dice faces, perhaps even items/treasures along with all their names, if they want to. At the very least, the heroes' images are customizable.

People could use pictures of their favorite fantasy artist, or their painted miniatures, or their own drawings to use in the game. They could even use their own mug shots, pictures of their boyfriend/girlfriend, their pets, their boss, etc. Total freedom. Perhaps player could upload images that they put together for other players to use.

Naturally, if they use their own images for the playing pieces, they may not have the walking animation that you mention earlier. But player could choose in the option menu whether they want to use their own customized pictures, or the vanilla ones that comes with the game.

[Conan]

This post is about Monsters:

1)
I recalled the Hero-Quest Adventure Design booklet once mentioned, it is good to set all the monsters of the same category together to create a unique mood. Depend on the dungeon and quest description, it may only feature all green-skins, or all undead.

To that end, it may be fun to have a few more monster of different levels in the same category. For instance, for green-skins, we may have goblin, orc, black orc, orc big boss, etc. For undead: zombie, ghoul, skeleton, armored skeleton, etc. And Chaos: marauder, chaos warrior, chaos chosen, chaos lord, etc. Or you could come up with better names than these.

That said, certain dungeon, perhaps at the climax of the quest, all of the monster categories may show up at once!

2)
Would Arcane Quest 2 feature big monster(s) that occupied four spaces (ogres, trolls, giant, dragons), instead of just one? That may call for different type of strategies, moving and combat wise!

[Conan]

This post is about "Antihero-Quest":

Strange topic? I know. But listen...

A group of anti-heroes, on the surface, it looks like as if they are trying to take over the world, but in reality, they are just to redeem themselves from their evil deeds in the past, so, they set foot on a journey...

This group of adventurers my feature:
A chaos warrior (same stats as a barbarian), a dark elf sorceress (same stats as a wizard), a goblin (same stats as a dwarf), a lich (same stats as an elf); Or any four minions that are normally monsters in the bestiary.

They would battle monsters as usual, and in some cases, human, elf and dwarf soldiers (same stats as the monsters usually for the heroes to fight against, images would be taken from the henchmen I posted earlier), as the script might required.

This could be by default included in the game as quests, or create by player by using the customization idea I posted before.

[nante]

Dear Conan,
thanks for your suggestion, I appreciate your enthusiasm.
To answer in random order:

- New tileset/environments (also suggested by sucresalesucre): I really would love to, but I'm limited to what I can find for free to use. I have this huge set of tiles some guys release for free (thanks god), but mostly are in the same kind of environment. I looked around but nobody is releasing anything free to use, so I'm stuck.
- Henchmen/Mercernaries: I thought about this (I read the whole AHQ manual 2 times), but I don't think it's suitable for this game. There are already too many characters to control (including evoked creatures, which in AQ2 will be controlled by the player), and too many dead times. I think the average user would get confused/bored by doing so many actions at each turn.
- Male/Female characters: again the problem is mostly the grahpics, each character takes a long time to be made. I think at the start the will be the classic 8 characters, and I will try to add more in the future.
- Spells system: so you suggest each spell has a "mana" cost that consumes the caster magic points, right? And he can recover using potions (or special weapons that recover MP when used).
- The music is picked from a 500 songs library which some great guys shared. There will be probably be new tracks as well as old tracks.

I really would like to make a huge and deep game, but at the moment I'm working alone and just a few hours a day (usually 9pm to 1am). The graphics designer doesn't help at all, so I have to figure out everything myself (and I can spend 2 weeks just trying to put together a user interface). Hopefully, if Arcane Quest 2 will be more successful than the first chapter, I will have more resources to invest on new graphics, quests, and other material to make another sequel.

Back to the game, I'm thinking about the equipment system. At the moment the categories are:
- Weapons (One handed, Two handed, Bows/Crossbows, Staffs) --> define the base attack
- Armors (body armors only) --> define the base defense
- Helmets, Bracers --> increase the base defense
- Amulets, Rings --> special effects or improve character stats (HP, MP, Movement)

Missing anything?

[Conan]

This post is about Tile Sets:

Dear nante,

Well, hey, thank you for making these games!! You bring back a lot of our childhood memories!!

To solve your tile/texture/environment issue, try this below, all loyalty free textures:
http://freetextures.3dtotal.com/

In order to make a game impressive like AQ1 and AQ2, I suppose you already have access to Photoshop or a Photoshop-like software. So find the texture you like in the site above (especially in the Architecture, Building and Texture sections), tweak its hue, saturation, contrast etc to your liking. Then the usual cut, crop, and paste. Adding a little creativity, you'll be amazed that there are numerous dungeons types you could come up with! (we just wish we have your talent)