Nekoyoubi Games

  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.

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)

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)

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Cathedral is now complete... finally. It took me quite a while to get around to rebuilding Mota's story engine, but I'm pleased to say that I've finally got it working, and story arenas are back on the menu. The Rat cellar has also been remade using the new engine and now has some platform-specific content (e.g. letting players know about hotkeys over clicking for Windows version).

Here are some things you'll find in the new story arenas:

Payout: Arenas will now pay level-based mob payouts like a standard arena.

Unlocks: Story arenas will now unlock their appropriate class upon completion. Note: This also means you can no longer pay to unlock classes with completed story content.

Contextual dialog: Having certain classes or items in your party will create different or additional dialog.

Oh, and there's a new overworld map. ;)

I will try to start updating on Mota's progress here more often, but I'm sure I'll miss a few things.

Jason: sense

Kris: since

Jason: sense

Kris: since

Jason: sense

Kris: since

Jason: since makes no sense since that isn't the write word.

Kris: O my...look out....we got a gramer bad ass on our hands

Jason: *grammar

Kris: bam

O crap...i just realized

your also a spelling bad ass

Hey guys, I've finally gone and done it... again.

Over the years I've created so many damned communities around different games. Some stayed beyond the games; some didn't. Either way, with everything sort of falling in line with the whole "Nekoyoubi Games" being official and whatnot, I decided it was high time to lay down what will hopefully be the final gaming (and game development) community I put together for quite a while.

I've got a fairly fresh forum up at http://forum.nekoyoubi.com (there's also a link on the side over there) and encourage you all to sign up and help draw more of our community into it. I will be integrating my current and future game projects and prototypes into it as well, so it would be nice to get some early participation and feedback.