Qvintvs: Endless Winter progress

Stages: 4 (of 29)

Enemies: 4 (of 30)

Spells: 20 (of 30)

Weapons: 3 (of 3)

Items: 0 (of several dozen)

Below: Call down lightning from heaven with this powerful spell.

How deep can 2-button combat be?

You have two buttons. You can strike, and you can block. Simple, right? Boring, right?

Wrong.

You have three different weapons (besides spells)

These are the Sword, Spear, and Bow.

The Sword is a fast weapon with short range and long charge times.

The Spear is a slower weapon with fast charge times and a long range.

The Bow is a ranged weapon with very powerful arrows - but limited ammunition. Plus, you have to know how to aim.

You have two general forms of attacks: Cycle attacks and charged attacks.

Cycle attacks do 1 damage; however, they can be strung together endlessly for maximum effect.

Charged attacks take a while to prepare; however, once launched, they can do up to 4 times the normal damage.

In addition to all this, you have the blocking mechanism.

When standing still doing nothing, you automatically parry. This blocks a small part of your enemies' damage.

When attacking, you have no defense, and take full damage.

When blocking, you can't move or attack; however, you take no damage from enemy attacks.

Blocking is extremely important due to the fact that the player can only ever have three hit points (plus three shield points). If you let your guard down… you die.

So in sum, players can choose one of several combat styles. They can be magic users, choosing a combination of defensive and offensive spells; close-ranged fast fighters, "clicking" their way through combat; spearmen who rely on power attacks and their ability to direct attacks behind themselves when fleeing; archers, who attack at range; or a combination thereof. If they don't use magic offensively, they can rely on the buff school, artificially inflating their combat prowess to unheard-of levels.

And this whole affair - attack, block, switch weapons, aim - is all controlled by one hand - the mouse hand.

Left mouse strikes.

Left mouse hold charges.

Right mouse blocks.

Middle mouse up switches between melee weapons.

Middle mouse down switches between prepared spells.

One thing I'm aiming for here is simplicity of operation. You don't have a visible inventory; instead, new armor/weapons are automatically equipped and unusable ones converted into gold. There's a simple hotkey for using health items; one for mana; and one for temperature regulators. Your interface is constrained to the panels you can see on the screenshots - a temperature gauge, a health gauge, and an ammo gauge. Currently-selected spells are visible in the center of the screen, above the player's head. The spell-choosing window - arguably the most complicated portion of the game - includes a handy tutorial.

In other words… I plan to win this contest.