This week we will start with an ongoing series about heroes in Okhlos.
What are the heroes?
The heroes are special unit, that are going to be scattered all over the game but that you will also be able to buy with different units.
Originally, the heroes were only going to be available for purchase with slaves. The goal was to use slaves as coins, a kind of critic to the class system in ancient Greece, and the slaves would also have another function, to carry items. We realized that those two functionalities were too important in the game, and that putting that much into a single unit type would make the others less relevant. If the players wanted to buy items, they couldn´t buy heroes. And when they bought heroes, they lost all items they were carrying.
The system was unbalanced, giving too much importance to the slaves. The best strategy was simply to gather as much slaves as possible, forgetting about the rest of the units. That is why we decided that is was best for the slaves to keep the item-carrying functionality, but that the hero-buying part would be something that could be done with any kind on unit. Now each hero costs a certain amount of units, depending on what it does. For instance, Leonidas, king of the Spartans, is going to be able to be purchased with warrior units.
Each hero is going to have special stats and characteristics.
OEDIPUS
Oedipus is based on the hero of the same name, but we took some liberties translating him into the game. Basically he is the king that blinded himself after he realized the great sin he had committed, which made family dinners really awkward, and made Freud rich. However, in Okhlos, his power doesn’t come from the myth, Oedipus doubles the number of people that are added to the mob. If you add a slave, you will get two slaves instead.
This is pretty useful, but is also makes it very easy to reach the mob limit fast.
Even though this seems like a non-sequitur between the myth and the in-game ability, we justify it with a Borges quote: “Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it” (“Los espejos y la paternidad son abominables, porque multiplican al hombre al infinito“).
HERACLES
In Okhlos we are constantly lobbying to get this hero called like he should be. It’s Heracles, not Hercules.
He is the son of a god and a mortal (remember that if something moved, it was very likely that Zeus would want to bang it). Heracles possess and incredible strength and can resist almost any impact. He would the archetypical tank unit, if not for the fact that each of his blows deals more than the rest of the mob combined (not true).
SPARTACUS
The Roman slave, turned leader of a popular uprising. Kind of a classical Che Guevara. Spartacus role is basically to make the slaves stronger. Each slave will be stronger and tougher if Spartacus is in the mob.
Spartacus is like getting all your slaves on steroids. However, we condemn the use of non-virtual steroids.
ASCLEPIUS
Asclepius heals units. He is also Apollo’s son, which makes him a demigod. It’s always useful to have a healer in the mob. We still have some fine tuning to do, to see how much he will heal, and how close the other units need to be to be healed. As it is now, he is terribly unbalanced, but it’s a matter of fiddling a little until it’s right.
