Hi everyone! 👋 It’s Cesar Torres back with another update on my journey as a beginner game developer working on Legions Survivor. 🎮 Over the past week, I’ve been diving deep into one of the most exciting and central aspects of the game: the spell system! This update is all about giving players more tools, choices and control over how they tackle the legions of enemies. Let’s get into it!

Spell System Expansion 🚀

One of my main goals for this phase was to introduce three new spells that bring fresh dynamics and strategies to gameplay.

Here’s what’s new:

• Rotating Orb 🌀: Summons an orb that orbits around the player, dealing damage to any enemies it touches. It’s a great option for keeping nearby enemies at bay.
• Arcane Aura 🔮✨: Surrounds the player with a damaging aura that deals damage over time to all enemies within its radius. It’s perfect for controlling groups of enemies up close.
• Arcane Fire 🔥: Leaves a trail of arcane fire behind the player, dealing damage over time to any enemies that step on it. Enemies will regret chasing you!

Each of these spells introduces new possibilities for how players approach different situations, and they’re already making gameplay more exciting and tactical!

Spell Upgrade System 🛠️✨

To complement the expanded spell roster, I’ve also made significant progress on the spell upgrade system, a key feature of Legions Survivor.

This system lets players customize their spells through a pool of upgrades, offering two main types:

1. UnlockSpell: Adds a completely new spell to the player’s arsenal, letting them mix and match abilities.
2. SpellUpgrade: Modifies existing spells by enhancing their stats, such as:
   • Cooldown Reduction: Cast spells more often.
   • Damage Increase: Hit harder and clear enemies faster.
   • Additional Projectile: Increase the amount of projectiles +1 (For now only available for Arcane Missile)

The upgrade system is all about giving players freedom and replayability, making each run unique and tailored to their playstyle.

Lessons Learned 🛠️📚

Working on these systems taught me about a powerful Unity feature that has already transformed how I approach game development: ScriptableObjects.

Here’s why I’m excited about them:

• Reusable Data: ScriptableObjects allow me to create and store data (like spell stats) separately from scripts, making it easy to tweak and reuse values across different parts of the game.
• Organization: They’ve helped me keep the project more organized by separating logic from data.
• Efficiency: Updating spells and upgrades is now faster because I can make changes directly in the ScriptableObject without touching the code.
• Customization: It’s been much easier to prototype new spells and upgrades thanks to how flexible ScriptableObjects are!

Learning about this feature has been a game-changer for me, and I’m excited to keep exploring their potential in Legions Survivor.

What’s Next? 🚀

As always, there’s still more to build and refine. Here’s what I’m focusing on next:

• Enemy Variety: Adding new enemy types to keep gameplay fresh. 🧟👾
• EnemySpawner Optimization: Tweaking spell effectiveness and upgrade impact to keep the game challenging and fun. ⚖️
• Balancing Gameplay: adjust the way the waves of enemies are spawned.
• Scaling Difficulty: implement a scale factor that modifies the enemy stats as time progresses. 📈
• Spell Upgrade system optimization: Change the way the sorting on the spells pools is done so that there are upgrades that can be obtained only once and make sure that when upgrades are offered there are no upgrade duplicates!🎰🎲

Follow Along! 

It’s been an exciting journey expanding the spell system, and I’m eager to hear your thoughts! Which spell or upgrade would you love to see in Legions Survivor? Let me know in the comments! 💬