Hello everyone! How you doin’? 😀
I’m very excited about today’s post: First, I’ll be showing you the last major God that will be featured on the Early Access version of Anthropomachy. Second, we have new power icons being made for all Gods and some will be displayed here for your appreciation. And third, I’m going to talk a bit more about how we’ve been developing these Greek Deities to offer you a fun gameplay, but instead of focusing just on their abilities as we did in Shaping Greek Gods pt. 1, we’ll expose a little bit more about their traits. I know I said this post would be about the ability tree, but I felt we should explain more about traits before moving on.
With all that out of the way, let’s go!
The Spring Goddess and Underworld Queen
The one who reigns in the Underworld and flourishes in the Olympus. The daughter of Zeus and Demeter and wife of Hades. Goddess of herbs, flowers, fruits and spring. Loved and dreaded by man. Always offers a hand to distressed souls, but it is also her responsibility to cut the strand of hair that sustains a person’s life.
For those who still don’t know, Anthropomachy is inspired on a dream I had where gods attempted to invade and conquer earth. And do you know who was the only deity I knew was there? Persephone! So even though she’s just the fourth being presented, she was the first to be featured in the game – and not just for the dream. Even though she has multiple fantastic tales about her deeds we don’t remember seeing her in any other mythological game we’ve played. We hope to repair such a great injustice committed to such a marvelous Goddess!
Persephone’s abilities and the new icons design
We decided to reshape our ability’s icons after realizing the old design was kinda confusing. It was a great piece of illustration for sure, but there was too many details in something expected to be simple and intuitive. To tell apart whether a power was a blessing or a curse was not easy as well. With this new style I hope we solved all this matters: let’s check it out!
Blessings x Curses
Can you spot the difference? When you need to quickly find that ability that you need to increase a country’s attribute, just go for the brighter icons! But if you need to deteriorate its condition, go for the darker ones. Simple enough, right?
A predominant color
Each God will now have its own color that won’t be present in any other deities’ pack of abilities. It’s a smart thing to do if you think of minor Gods! When you have gained enough Faith to summon one of them, their abilities will get mixed and you must know which one belongs to whom. See how Persephone got everything so magenta? We think this is a great color for someone so close to the Underworld and the matters of death but also responsible for soil fertility and spring blossom. And if you choose a minor God like Hecate that has teal icons, the contrast in color alone you show you where that power came from!
Traits of a Deity
One of the features of our game is the possibility of shaping a Divinity’s personality. When you buy an ability you’re also choosing a trait you will be able to evolve. Evolving a trait means increasing the impact of any ability that uses it and changing how the population looks and reacts to you. Remember events and how it can change all the player’s strategy? Well, the occurrence of events are also related to your preferences in shaping a deity’s nature.
A snippet from Persephone’s ability tree
Greek mythology x present times
As we’ve said many times, each ability of each god is based on something they did in mythological tales. But of course, that are some exceptions. It’s essential that a game that uses characters based on ancient stories to follow the existing legends but it is also primordial to let you decide how you think your favorite God would behave in the XXI century. Let’s go with Persephone for a better explanation!
Most powers of Persephone are about harvesting, climate and personal security. But we added some powers linked to botany, immigration and relationship abuses. Why wouldn’t she know more about soil cultivation? Her mother Demeter knows all about it! And after so many centuries since her abduction by Hades she might have became bitter about it and makes human lovers go through something similar. Or she might be benevolent and help these in the same situation she faced herself. Furthermore, she lives half of the year in Olympus and the other half in Hades reign. Doesn’t it resemble immigration somehow? That’s the logic we applied to making every single God updated and playable in our current times.
Good x Bad
There are 9 traits: 4 of them are considered good (Benevolence, Arts, Wisdom, Bravery) and 4 bad (Cruelty, Egocentrism, Violence and Intrigue) and one neutral (Impulsiveness). Depending on how you evolve these traits and how many abilities you’ve acquired from them, the game reacts in a certain way. There are different levels on the behavior scale and based on that scale certain events may happen. But hey, that does not mean if you choose to be evil the game will be tougher nor will you be benefited by being nice. Just relax and enjoy who you wish your deity to be.
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See you soon!
