Here’s a little pseudo-live wallpaper I just made. No need for extra CPU ticks; this thing moves on its own! Also tastes great over toast! ;)
End of an Alpha
Mota’s finally out of alpha development and ready for some beta polish. In the beginning, I said that alpha would comprise a story arena for each of the playable classes. I am pleased to say that with the advent of the Wizard’s Tower, alpha is now complete. With the Wizard’s Tower comes three new enemies and a new arena prop: fire golems, ice golems, [secret], and frost auras.
Fire Golems
Moving and hitting faster than their icy counterparts, the fire golems deal fire damage with standard attacks. They also take a reduced amount of damage from fire (but can still burn, oddly).
Ice Golems
The ice golems move and hit slower than fire golems, but they pack a punch and can sometimes chill on strike. The take reduced frost damage, but an obvious increase to fire damage. They also take a bit more damage from smashing weapons.
Secret
Uhm…
Frost Auras
The new frost aura prop applies the chill effect to anyone within range. They cannot be deactivated (unlike most other props), but like most others, they do affect both you and your enemies.
Full/Free Alphas
Full version alpha builds of Mota were being deployed to IndieDB regularly while that was still the active phase of development. The main reason for this was to allow the public to play Mota and provide feedback in lieu of a demo. Now that the beta phase is underway, one of my first major changes was creating a separate demo version of Mota that I could build simultaneously with the full version. As such I’ve pulled the alpha builds from IndieDB and released the first demo build in their place.
Beta Demo
The new demo of Mota plays just like the full version with the exception of only allowing you four playable classes: the adventurer, hunter, knight, and wizard. These four classes are fully implemented, however, offering their respective story arenas and items in their entirety. In fact, if you visit a shop in the demo, you will only find swords, arrows, shields, and staves. If you choose to unlock the eight additional classes, you can do so against the demo version with instructions provided after purchase. You won’t lose your current progress or anything; you’ll simply unlock the rest of the game.
With this new demo capability, an Android version of the demo is also now available on Google Play. This version differs from the Windows version only in that it is a completely separate app, so your progress will not be saved between the demo and full version.
Mota Update: Enchanted Vale and Arcane College
The .46 build of Masters of the Arena is now live on both Windows (IndieDB) and Android (Google Play). It includes two new story arenas, the Enchanted Vale (unlocks Druids) and the Arcane College (unlocks Mages). With these new arenas comes three new enemies: sprouts, treants, and demons.
Sprouts
Sprouts are a tricky little weeds. They will run away from you if you get too close, but they don’t quite run far enough to keep you out of range of their poison cloud. Getting the whole party into the middle of a couple of these is not advised.
Treants
Treants are large lumbering tree golems that hit fairly hard, have a good amount of health, and heal themselves and their allies.
Demons
Demons are a tough opponent to let linger. Like the lich and boss, they like to summon friends. However, they do it a bit differently. Demons summon portals instead of imps directly, so you’ll need to be ready to run around the room to close the portals before you’re overwhelmed. Fortunately, as well, portals are much easier to close than most items; especially if you have a priest around.
Development Progress
Mota is nearing the end of alpha. I have one more story arena (the Wizard’s Tower) to complete and then I’ll be ready to begin the beta phase of development. This is where things get pretty… hopefully. Here are a few things to look toward in beta:
- New visual effects
- New sound effects
- A bit more balance
- Achievements
- Possibly further permission removal on Android (some removed in this build)
- Additional UI elements
Mota Update: City Slums and Brothel
The .44 build of Masters of the Arena is now live on both Windows (IndieDB) and Android (Google Play). It includes two new story arenas, the Brothel (unlocks Temptresses) and the City Slums (unlocks Rogues). With these new arenas comes three new enemies: thugs, arsons, and ‘bosses’.
Thugs
Thugs are fast, nimble, but low-difficulty enemies that stab with double daggers (similar to the rogue). They’re only really a problem if you’re overwhelmed or are trying to run away.
Arsons
Similar to the goblins (but more difficult), arsons lob fire vials on the party fairly quickly. You don’t want your group to sustain hits from more than one of these guys at a time. Also, it’s best to pick them off with one or two heroes than to rush the whole party in, as you’ll take fewer party-hits per attack.
Boss
The Boss is similar to the lich in how he summons, except he summons either a thug or an arson and he calls them in from anywhere in the arena, instead of directly related to his position. He can also be tricky in that he’s a scrapper that will run away if given a chance. So get to him quick and take him down or you’ll find yourself overwhelmed by hooligans before you know it; just don’t try to kill him with party members with low health, or they’ll get walloped.
Development Progress
Mota is nearing the end of alpha. I have three more story arenas (the Enchanted Vale, the Arcane College, and the Wizard’s Tower) to complete and then I’ll be ready to begin the beta phase of development. This is where things get pretty… hopefully. Here are a few things to look toward in beta:
- New visual effects
- New sound effects
- A bit more balance
- Achievements
- Permission removal on Android (this may actually come sooner)
- Additional UI elements
Queen’s Dungeon Added!
Bug fixes, and goblins, and ogres, oh my! The .42 build of Mota is live on Google Play. It includes the Queen’s Dungeon story arena, and some bug fixes for priests, rogues, and spectres.
Bug fixes
- Priests no longer continuously overheal with Blessed Censer
- Priests now heal Knights above the 100-health mark
- Rogues with the Void Key no longer walk ridiculously slow
- Rogues with the Void Key once again walk through walls
- Spectres move again! … and they now float through walls
Additions
- Queen’s Dungeon (Alchemists)
- Doors
- Goblins
- Ogres
Here’s a bit more information on the additions.
Doors
Doors take the form of regular walls that have a yellow (reads: “usable”) outline and about twice the “use” requirement of a chest. Rogues are obviously good at opening doors, as are the adventures, temptresses, and wizards (Knock Staff is still amazing). This allows a whole new tactical consideration in both planning and playing arenas.
Goblins
Tiny like imps, the goblins aren’t beefy enough to have a lot of health. What they do have is spirit! Well, ‘spirits’, actually… lit on fire… and hurling at you. Divide and conquer; don’t clump up and get the whole party singed.
Ogres
Nothing impressive. Just a slow attack for more damage and a bunch of extra health. I may improve upon ogres in the future, as I think they should have more “umph,” you know?
Mota .41 massive bug fix
Google Play now has the .41 build of Mota. Unfortunately, this does not come equipped with the shiny, new story arena I intended. Instead, it has a game-breaking bug fix.
In the .39 build, I released an update to fix resolution scaling issues for Windows. Unfortunately, this badly broke Mota on any devices that do not run a 1280x720(L) resolution.
This has been rolled back in .41, so while Windows users can still experience odd pixel ratio scaling, Android users on other resolutions will once again be able to see the UI rendered the way it is supposed to.
Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks much for your patience.
King’s Palace added!
Mota’s .39 build includes the addition of the King’s Palace story arena. In the palace, you’ll face three new enemies: pikemen, archers, and champions; three of the queen’s soldier units. Each has their own distinct features, to add to the challenge. Oh, and ballistas. ;)
Pikemen have long spears that they can use to attack through obstacles and stay just out of the average melee range, so you need to jump on them quick; don’t let them stab you from across the room while you’re working on another opponent.
Archers fire a deadly barrage of arrows. Don’t count on obstacle cover from them, as archers’ arrows (just as the hunter item) travel over obstacles.
Champions come complete with full metal evil. As the knight’s counter, the champion has a lot of health and a vicious AoE that you do not want to contend with from more than one at best. Range and/or burn damage is a good counter for these guys.
Ballistas have now been added to Mota as well. They fire the equivalent of diamond shards (hunter arrows) at each member of the party. Keep cover close and don’t huddle with these things around. Also, while they aim for the party, they are indiscriminate on damage, so use them to your advantage.
Also, I may have broken Mota on some devices with the scaling resolution fixes recently introduced. I have altered this to exclude Android builds altogether, as this was always intended to be a Windows-only change, anyway. So this should be fixed in the next deployment. If not, I will remove the feature entirely and do whatever I can to figure out what’s causing the issue. Since it doesn’t happen on any of the devices I own or can directly test with, figuring out the issue may take some time if these new changes fail to remedy. Thanks much for your patience and all apologies for the inconvenience.
Graveyard & Coliseum Added!
Mota’s .38 build is now available. It includes the new Graveyard and Coliseum story arenas. This brings the story arena count to 5 of 12(+).
For Windows users, I’ve also implemented a scale-lock for non-fullscreen so you can now resize the game window without losing pixel perspective.
Barring any design changes that pop up in the last minute, I should have the King’s Palace and the Brothel completed fairly soon.
This is a gameplay video of the Forest (Hunter) story arena in Mota (alpha).
More information on Masters of the Arena can be found at: http://mota.nekoyoubi.com
Thanks for watching!
Forest!
Google Play now has Mota’s .36 build live. This includes the shiny, new “Forest” story arena. Personally, I think this is a much easier story than the Cathedral, but obviously more difficult than the Rat Cellar. More than likely, all story arenas will vary as far as general difficulty is concerned. I’m hoping to have the Graveyard done tonight as well, but there is a lot of work to be done yet.
Once all twelve of the classes have their story arenas complete (and then one or two super-secret story arenas that I didn’t just tell you about), I’ll attempt to finish the setup with my digital fulfillment vendor and get the Windows version ready to fly solo and DRM-free. I will probably start building regular, matching Windows builds in a day or two. If you’re interested in testing during the alpha, send me an email or a DM on Twitter and I’ll see what I can do.
As always, if there are any bugs, feature requests, complaints, etc., feel free to email me or hit me up on Twitter and I’ll do my best to accommodate.
