I think this change make the game much more interesting to play, adding more value to the high level monsters and also to the spells and special attacks. To try the new BETA version follow the links below:

Pc version:
http://www.didone.com/games/MagicStonesTrial.exe

Mac version:
http://www.didone.com/games/MagicStonesTrial.zip

Please report any bug you find on the forums or privately using the contact form at my site.

To celebrate it, I’m preparing a small surprise: a mini quest for Magic Stones free of course. Don’t expect a full quest like the previous one, but hey, it’s free, so don’t complain!

On other news, I’ve started working on 5 more projects! 8| crazy I know, but since now I have decided not to use Poser art anymore, I depend on artists. And usually they’re slow or disappear… so to prevent long pauses, I have started many project, so hopefully at least one artist manages to finish his job in time

Stay tuned for the announcement of the new miniquest for Magic Stones in the next few days.

It is a bit sad to announce the last expansion for this game, but 2 years have passed since the initial release date (version 1.0, 4th October 2005) and I feel I need to finish this experience. I’ll still be updating the game from time to time like I do with my other titles, but I won’t be releasing free quests anymore. I’ll try to release an editor or a PDF guide on how to create your own though!

Downloads:
http://www.didone.com/games/MagicStonesTrial.exe
http://www.didone.com/games/MagicStonesTrial.zip

What’s New in 1.2.5

- added the last free quest “Lost Temples Island”, introducing the fifth avatars for life and spirit magic schools: the Angel and the Rhino
- fixed a bug that was displaying wrong attack and defense values when right-clicking on neutral avatars if you had any perk active
- now the artifacts damage amount received per battle is determined by the general game difficulty level
- fixed a minor cosmetic bug that was displaying the skills bar too long, causing a small graphic garbage
- increased effectiveness of charm attack/spell: now the charmed avatars will always to damage to their own allies
- fixed a wrong message window that was appearing when browsing avatars during a battle in character screen
- fixed a bug that was causing avatars to skip their turn if their speed was higher than 9

Here it goes – enjoy it!

Overview

I always liked the idea of making a fantasy-card game, so I started to outline the basic idea on a piece of paper. Yes planning was essential in this kind of game, I knew it from the start (and luckily I did it).

I decided to base everything on celtic mythology, so I first started to do some research both in local library and also on the net. Found the celtic runes and thought to assign to each one of them a spell or a summoned avatar in the game. I divided the runes into 4 elements (the classic air, water, fire and earth) even if their original meaning is a bit different (but hey is just a game!).

So after sketching out the general features, statistics, skills, creatures, background story, etc of the game, I put all those numbers together in a spreadsheet page.

Then had to solve a big problem, to make the graphic of such a game, and found in Poser a very good solution. Bought several ready-made 3d models, and after several weeks spent on various renderings, I had the basic 48 avatars ready (20 avatars for the 4 elements plus many neutral/evil ones).

I added a roleplaying element to the game, so that in addition to your “deck of card” you had also an in-game alter-ego, with an inventory of items that could affect your power and a set of basic skills that would influence the game in general.

Tools used

I used xCode and a very simple but really powerful 2d programming API called PTK (website http://www.phelios.com/ptk) that I had already used in all my previous games with great success.

As I already said, for graphics I used mostly Poser 5/6 for the monsters, characters, etc and photoshop to design the interface of the game.

For the music I just bought royalty-free music from one of the many online stores.

What went right

The game had since its launch a good group of loyal followers. This maybe also because I decided, shortly after I released version 1.0, to add “bonus pack” or “expansion packs” with new game features and new avatars/quests, completely free for registered users. This was both a hard move (once I had announced it, I couldn’t change my mind) but also a winning one because it helped greatly to improve customers loyalty and is keeping my game always “on the news” thanks to those frequent updates (about every 2-3 months usually).

What went wrong

Despite I had planned everything, as always happens in this sort of games, you’ll need to TEST TEST and TEST. When you make a simple match3 game, is hard to have bugs after hours of playing (because game mechanic is always the same). With this kind of game instead, I had many bugs in the initial version 1.0 because I didn’t took the time to test it properly since was too eager to release it (a mistake I will never repeat in any future games!).

Conclusion

I can say that it was both a very rewarding experience (got so many enthusiast email feedbacks!) but also very stressing. The day after release was working 10hours a day to fix all the bug and I had also a tight deadline to deliver the first expansion “The Bone Lord” in time for Christmas 2005. Keeping the game updated also is not so simple, since need to add more content like new art/sounds, and new gameplay elements. But overall I like this kind of games so in this case the passion plays an important role.

My sincere apologies for this problem, hope not many people were affected. This update is one of the biggest ever made to the game, but I should have tested the mac version more accurately!

Of course report any bug you find in my forums or with email. I’ve also finished the “Magic Shop” add-on, which can be bought separately for only $5 (you need a valid Magic Stones license to use it). It adds a shop where you can spend experience and prestige points to buy upgrades for your druid, in particular “perks” that are special skills your druid can use through the whole game making the battles a bit easier to win!

Download the beta versions here:

http://www.didone.com/games/MagicStonesTrial.exe
http://www.didone.com/games/MagicStonesTrial.zip

Since this new update will cost $5, I’m now thinking what to do to make it worthwhile, even if lot of people already said that I had already given away so much free content, that I could just release a new quest and nothing else.

But no, I’m thinking to add the new quest and something more also. I’m still evaluating some ideas:

1. Very simple: release TWO quest at once instead of one. Probably the most expensive one in term of graphics, but easier since I don’t have to write lot of new code except the new avatars and special attacks.
2. Improve greatly the Wilderness zone. Adding really tough battles only for specific higher druid levels (so the druid level must increase too).
3. Revamp the druid system. Add some new skills, like “perks” of Fallout. For example everytime you level, you could choose a new skill. The skills could be anything, from higher mana regeneration, or more powerful avatar of a specific element, etc.

So as you see I have only to choose. I’m thinking to do point 2 right now, even if point 3 isn’t bad. Keep looking the blog and the forums, I’ll post new info soon!

So remember, always buy on Winter Wolves site, if you want to get the full version of Magic Stones, with quest and updates!