Greetings,

We at Fowl Machinations have been hard at work preparing Monolithic for it’s Steam release. Follow the link below to get to our store page!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382160/Monolithic/

With it comes a host of improvements, reworks, new mechanics, and a new monolith. This blog will go over the major changes and additions we have made to the game! 

Before we get started, the team at Fowl Machinations had to make the difficult decision of dropping the single player portion of the game. We decided that a focus on polishing the multiplayer experience, adding new characters, and designing new mechanics would bring more value to the project. Players looking to learn the game outside of a multiplayer match can still do so in our new tutorial!

Now, on to the new features!

New Features

City Defenses

We’ve given cities a new resource to aid their survivability and to make spawning followers more mechanically interesting. As your city grows it will construct walls and generate defenders. Defenders and walls act to mitigate the damage of abilities and followers. As a city becomes damaged it will lose defenders. When it runs out, the walls crumble and any further damage is done straight to the city’s population.

Spawning followers also utilizes this new system. A nearby Monolith can command a city’s defenders to sally out and become followers. This leads us to our next feature.

Commanding Followers

Followers can now be commanded using the Monolith. Upon summoning, followers attach themselves to the monolith that summoned them and will follow them until they have been given a command. Monoliths can now gather followers in large numbers over time, and then give their army to attack a settlement all at once. This can be used to bring down the enemy’s walls, paving the way for a devastating strike from the monolith.

Monolith Changes

Each deity in Monolithic represents certain ideas and traits that define their character. The abilities of that Monolith also supports the themes of the character and define the Monolith’s playstyle. We have made some refinements to many of the Monoliths to improve gameplay and to allow the abilities to better support the identity of each Monolith. 

Arat - The Lion that Swallows the Sun

Arat harnesses the power and radiance of the sun. The destruction they wreak is horrifying and awe inspiring in equal measure. Arat stands proudly on the front lines, leveraging the terrible power of the sun against the foe while providing a bright beacon for followers to rally behind. In terms of gameplay, Arat is very easy to understand and utilize to devastating effect.

New Passive Ability: Blessed Light

• Arat’s power wreaks destruction upon her enemies while inspiring awe in her followers. Half of the damage dealt by Arat’s abilities is returned as devotion. When attacking Monoliths, 75% of damage dealt returns as devotion.

Vactul - The Winged Bull of  Heaven

Vactul; god of the skies, and of vengeance. Wind, weather, and storms bend to her will and are used as weapons against her foes. Vactul specializes in control, slowing down and weakening enemy advances as well as restricting the movement of Monoliths.

New Passive Ability: Judgement

• Vactul’s rage is like an approaching storm. When moving toward enemy Monoliths, Vactul’s movement speed increases as that rage carries her forward. This increased movement speed grants Vactul greater map control and allows her to become a greater offensive force.

Yurisar - The Gatekeeper of the Desert

Yurisar is the god of the desert and lies. He commands the sands themselves, as well as the secrets they hold. He entices mortals to wander out into the wastes with the promise of wealth and prosperity, only for them to find naught but endless sand and a slow demise. Yurisar focuses on disruption, leading enemy followers away from their objective and eliminating them. 

 New Passive: False Idol

• Yurisar’s lies and false promises sway nearby enemy followers to instead follow him as if they were on his side. Yurisar cannot lead allied followers.

Bimirabar - The Eight Faces of Creation

From the ashes of destruction, Bimirabar creates new life and possibilities. Bimirabar creates momentum from losses in battle by resurrecting fallen allies. With the new changes to city defences, Bimirabar will have a harder time attacking cities. His movement speed has been slowed and he can only revive fallen allies. Before this update, we found Bimirabar tipped the balance of power too far in one player’s favor. Now he helps level the playing field for the losing side and can no longer destroy entire settlements on his own.

New Passive: Rebirth Through Flame

A new strength is found in the wake of destruction. Up to 8 allied followers leave graves when they perish on the battlefield. Bimirabar’s W, Rekindle, will revive these fallen warriors from their graves to fight again!

W - Rekindle
Bimirabar undertakes a cycle of rebirth, extinguishing their own flames and reigniting them in a fiery explosion. Upon reignition, fallen warriors are revived from their graves to fight again! All affected graves also cast this same ability causing a chain effect.

Lo Ziana - The Mother of Civilization

Lo Ziana brings health and healing in a world fraught with conflict and death. This god focuses on supporting settlement growth, protecting allies from harm, and aiding attacks indirectly through her own creations.

New Passive: Guarding Presence

• Lo Ziana’s healing presence guides, nurtures, and protects. Lo Ziana grants a monolith growth bonus to nearby settlements as if she were present in the city.

Q - Sculpt from clay
Lo Ziana's creations no longer grant movement bonuses to followers since Lo Ziana herself grants this bonus. Instead, her creations deal greater damage when attacking settlements.

E - Well of Life
This ability has been completely reworked. Previously, it granted one settlement growth bonuses for the duration of the ability. Now, the ability is constant and grants a growth bonus as if Lo Ziana were always in the settlement. Followers can even be summoned from afar. Only one city can have this blessing at a time.

General Changes

In addition to what has been listed above, many changes have been made to abilities. Too many to list here. On the whole, ranges of many abilities have been increased to allow Monoliths to apply pressure on the enemy from further away and be able to remain closer to their source of devotion. Additionally, cool down timers and damage numbers have been adjusted for balance.

New Monolith

Myrigmir - The Old One

Blight and disease, anguish and death, rot and decay, all follow in the wake of The Old One. Myrigmir, god of death and disease, has arrived to Monolithic! He specializes in sabotage through the disease he spreads. He does so by infecting both enemy followers, as well as his own. Myrigmir does not strike directly, but his diseased victims are the tools of the destruction he will bring.

Passive: Myrigmir’s abilities apply plague to followers and settlements that are hit. The affected target will be diseased for 60 seconds, slowing its movement speed. When an infected follower dies, it spreads its disease to others nearby.

Q - Eclipse: Myrigmir curses an area of land, spreading his disease to any that enter, including allies.

W - Ritual: The diseased become the weapons of The Old One. Myrigmir selects an infected target and its disease becomes deadly and infectious. After a few seconds, the target explodes, damaging, stunning, and infecting all enemies within range.

E - The Great Dying: The disease, undetectable and asymptomatic, suddenly and quickly brings death. Myrigmir’s disease can change at his will and without warning. With The Great Dying, all infected targets are weakened, losing 25% of their maximum health and 50% of their maximum devotion. All infected followers are killed immediately.

Environmental Changes

The Steam version of the game will also feature a greatly improved environment. No longer is the world of Monolithic set in an entirely barren desert. The map now features a greatly improved river with shrubs and trees growing at its edges. New ruins and objects can be found lying in the desert sands. Perhaps they are relics from an older ancient war. Additionally, changes have been made to lighting to bring out the new vibrant colors of the desert.

Sound and Visual Effects

Most audio effects in the game have been overhauled to better suit the ability/effect that is occurring. In addition, some abilities have had some tweaks made to their visuals to better communicate their function and power!

(Link for high quality gif https://gph.is/g/E0pY65m)

Networking

Monolithic now uses Steam’s matchmaking solution which replaces our old structure. This means that, with Steam, you will no longer need to portforward or use third party software to matchmake. This also enables you to play directly with your friends on steam!