This was the best blog post I’ve read so far. It clearly lays out your vision and I agree with everything that’s written in it. Even though Keeper mode is the main mode, I’ve found adventurer mode to be more fun because it forces you to carefully choose your targets to level up, and I think that acquiring mana only through combat will impart the same sort of thought processes for Keeper mode.

A couple of thoughts about this mana mechanic:

1. While you posit that limiting research through successful conquest might make the game too linear, I think this can be mitigated if there is always a choice of which enemy to attack.

2. The total amount of mana available will have to be carefully regulated. There should probably be some prevention mechanism in place so that players can’t farm individual tribe members for mana. Either mana should only be generated by killing the entire tribe, or the rate of recruitment by foreign tribe leaders should be limited if farming a tribe is an acknowledged tactic. There are also edge cases to consider, like if elementals, buzzards, or other summoned things should give mana.

I did like if you expand the “floor” mechanics, and let we place biomes with it: Arctic, Desert, Jungle, Water/lake, Lava, etc…
Some minions that live in that biomes: Yuki-onna(“snow woman” Japanese folklore), Yetis; Sandpit Bug, Sand-Worms (like Dune); Arachnid in jungle with Web between trees; water Mermaids, lava Red Dragon, etc…

Also did like if there was more variation of equipment, like Leather Armor, Chitin Armor, Dragon Scale Armor, Bone Spear, Fang Daggers, Spider Silk Bow, “Magic Wood Staff”, etc… so corpse would not just be used to make undead.
That would incentive player to to the world-map to hunt.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by Fortaleza. Reason: more itens ideas
• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by Fortaleza.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by Fortaleza.