I’m having fun adding all the avatar special attack moves to Magic Stones. Since there are about 45 different avatars (including the neutral ones) and almost everyone has a unique special attack, this will take some time 🙂
So far I’ve added Draconian defence, Succubus life steal, and some more Fire Avatar special attacks. Read below a complete description of fire avatars and their special powers:

Draconian– This race is often used in Aravorn’s affairs, since they are tireless, extremely resilient creatures (gifted with a thick natural armor). They are skillful in both offense and defense, have good technique in their use of weapons, and are fairly fast.
Reach: can do only melee attacks
Special move(Defend): increases avatar’s defence value by 2 points for 3 turns.

Succubus – These creatures are half-woman, half-demon, of great beauty but also singular wickedness, which makes them an adversary not to be underestimated. They are very fragile and weak in defense, but their ferocity and speed makes their attacks frightening and effective. An old legend says “never turn your back on a Succubus”.
Reach: can do only melee attacks
Special move(Vampiric Bite): transfers 2-5 hit points from target to the succubus. The amount of hp the succubus gains that way can’t exceed her maximum HP (15).

Firemaster – Firemasters are magicians who have renounced traditional fire magic, since it has diminished so much compared to its original ferocity. They have studied in the most remote libraries in the kingdom, and are always in search of new runes and magical artifacts to increase fire’s destructive power. Gifted with excellent offensive abilities, they use their magic to empower their allies.
Reach: can do both melee and ranged attacks
Special move(Fire Attack): selected friendly avatar gains a fire damage bonus of 1-3 points

Hell Hounds – Hell hounds are ferocious creatures that inhabit the hottest and most wicked lands of Aravorn, the so-called Fiery Plains. About the size of a horse, they are trained from early on to keep going at the victim until they are destroyed. They are gifted with powerful muscles and the sharpest of teeth, capable of breaking up armors and shields forged with the most resistant metals.
Reach: can do only melee attacks
Special move(Fire Breath): Hits a single melee target with fire attack for 3-5 damage. Target can’t counter-attack.

Fire Drake– These fire dragons are enormous beasts, gifted not only with extraordinary strength, but also an uncommon intelligence. Able to charge at entire armies, these marvelous creatures have always been feared by all inhabitants of Aravorn. Fortunately, they have reduced greatly in numbers because they have been ruthlessly hunted, especially for their eggs, which are in greatly sought after by nobles everywhere.
Reach: can do both melee and ranged attacks
Special move(Fireball): Hits all enemy targets with fire-based attack for 5-10 damage which can be resisted (doing no damage)

Yes!! let’s destroy everything!! today I am very pissed because my town just finished destroying completely a public garden that was behind my house to build a parking. Good move!
Bah…

I finished to program the summoning phase of the game, in which each druid summons up to 5 avatars on the battlefield. I am quite proud of it, now it’s time to start some fighting programming so I can see if I did balance the various avatars well on the paper… (usually not!).

Here’s a small screenshot of battle screen:

And here you can read the basic rules of the fight:

The basic rules of the fight itself are the same in both modes (Gather Artifacts and Challenge Druid). The big difference will be that when dueling another druid in the tournament, he will be able to summon new creatures and cast spells: while in the Gather Artifacts mode, the creatures are only the starting ones and there won’t be any magic user able to cast spells against you.
The first phase is the summoning phase. You can summon a maximum of 5 creatures during this phase, and place them on the battlefield. Each summoned creature will cost you mana, and if you summon very powerful creatures you may run out of mana early, so be careful. After this phase, if you’re fighting against another druid, he’ll summon his creatures too. If you’re exploring a place instead, the creatures are already placed. Then there will be a turn in which you attack, and a turn in which the opponent attacks, and so on until you win, lose or flee/surrender from battle.
The order in which the avatars can move when it’s their attack turn, is based on their speed value. If you have very fast avatars and the opponent has slow ones, you might be able to do two or more moves during your turn. You won’t be able to cast more than one spell or summon more than one new avatar during each turn.
The battlefield is divided into 2 zones: the 1st line (you can place up to 3 avatars here) and the 2nd line (place 2 avatars only). The avatars in the 1st line are those that are in direct contact with the enemy, and can attack and be attacked by anyone, by ranged or melee attacks. On the other hand, the avatars on the 2nd line, can attack only using ranged (or magical) attacks, but they can’t be attacked using melee combat, only ranged attacks.
Once all the avatars in the 1st line are killed, the avatars in the 2nd line can be attacked by normal melee attacks too.
Remember that not all the avatars can attack with both melee and ranged attacks, some will be able to engage the enemies only at close range, so be careful where you place them in the battlefield!
If two avatars engage in melee combat, first the attacker strikes his blow, then the defender will counter-attack unless he is killed with the first blow. That doesn’t happen with ranged attacks as the defender cannot counter-attack.
Below each avatar portrait there is a red bar showing his remaining hit-points. Once they get to zero, the avatar is killed. Each avatar regenerates hit points each turn if they are put into defend mode (see below). On the right side, there are also 2 numbers: the first one from the top is the attack value, the 2nd is the defend value. An avatar with a high defend value will be difficult to hit, since he will be able to avoid or block the attack.
The fight itself is played in turns: each turn, both sides can do their moves, and choose which avatar to use to attack, cast a spell, or summon a new one (if you have enough mana left).

My friend cliffsky who made the good simulation game Democracy, complained in forums that there are very few indie simulation games. That’s true, I can remember only a few more, and I talk about real simulation games and not sim games for kids like Lemonade Tycoon 😉
Who knows… maybe is more profitable to do easier simulation games, or simply other kind of games that require less time to program and test!
Surely is easier to make a “match 3 color game” than a complex military/strategic simulation… 😉

Woah what a match! really incredible… I thought that Milan would lose, and it came pretty close indeed 🙂
The 3-1 goal was absolutely unbeliveable! 30 seconds after Ambrosini scored for Milan, they took another goal! Stam and Nesta were really in bad form.
Anyway now I’m really curious to see the final. I am not a big fan of Milan by the way, but since it’s the last italian team left in the competition… 😉