One of the most exciting new features in Newfound Courage - Forever Proud is its combat system.
The gameplay systems in Newfound Courage have always been diverse with plenty of challenges, puzzles, and tasks. However, the lack of direct conflict made it more difficult to tell a serious high fantasy story the way we wanted to.
As a result, in the original Newfound Courage release, a lot of the fantasy story was toned down but since then, something very important has happened.
I learned to code. That’s right. I released an entire game, across numerous platforms and stores without being able to write a lick of code. Seriously. Writing any code was utterly beyond my capability.
Now that I can code - I built a combat system for Newfound Courage. While we figured it’d almost immediately become the primary gameplay loop for Newfound Courage, we didn’t want it to take over completely.
At its core, Newfound Courage is about the story. All the gameplay I implement, is there to serve the story, and make it more compelling.
So it was important to me, that it didn’t completely drown out the rest of the game. This means that the encounters in Newfound Courage are actually pretty interesting, if only because they occur strictly to serve the story. What I mean by this is that combat isn’t constant, and it doesn’t happen immediately. It’s peppered throughout the story in a more narrative-driven way.
So, how does it work?
Well, Alex has a set of abilities in his Mechamancer toolbelt. He can:
fight with his Mechablade at a close range
shoot a Blast of Pure Flux to attack enemies at a distance
He can build up to three Magnet Sendings, which act as distractions that draw enemies away from Alex.
He can teleport
And he can heal by eating croissants, his favourte food
Throughout the game, Alex will be able to choose from six different talents to enhance his abilities. Some of those include:
Multitudes of Magnets, which increases the speed at which Alex summons Magnet Sendings
Vampiric blade, which gives Alex’s Mechablade a life steal effect
And Critical Choas, which greatly enhances the chance of a critical hit
You will be able to choose any talent, at any time talent upgrades are offered. Talents are unlocked at key story moments. You can unlock 3 in Escape to Silverpine, and 4 in Return to Otherwhere.
I’m really excited to see which talents people choose, and what combat abilities of Alex’s people prefer.
Finally, there are four difficulties. Two of the modes are standard. Classic and Harder (than classic). However, we have two other modes that are less standard. Pointlessly Hard and Peace Mode.
Peace Mode is very important to me for accessibility reasons. It didn’t seem fair to prevent OG Newfound Courage fans from experiencing the story of Newfound Courage simply because they didn’t conquer the combat system.
Then, there is Pointlessly Hard. I would personally, NEVER play in this setting. It basically is the opposite of Peace Mode. If you get hit at all, you more or less die. Don’t do it, is my advice.
In addition to the difficulty settings. Each time Alex dies or wins a battle, he gets slightly stronger. There is almost no cap on this. The more you die, hopefully, the easier the engagements will be for you. Although, we may remove this for pointlessly hard. SO that’s it! The combat system for Newfound Courage. I really hope you enjoy it.
