Squeaking Flute - requires a flute which burns after the spell duration runs out - makes all monsters in a radius dance in place (which could be represented by moving sideways back and forth). Constantly drains mana if sustained. If sustained to the point of exausting the mana pool, the character suffers fire damage due to the flute burning his lips/face.

Wall Breaker - makes the nearest (or targeted) wall erect a fist that punches an enemy. While sustained makes the fist longer, allowing it to squash a monster against the oposite wall. If the monster in question is stronger or too big to be squashed, it is being held in place and dealt minor damage. If the fist is not sustained/stops being sustained, it will just relocate the monster (distance travelled dependant on how long the spell was sustained, ie. 2 seconds = 2 tiles). It may be so that the wall is too far away and the fist won't reach the monster at all. Could also be used to some tricky relocation puzzles when the player can't use telepathy or whatnot

Eyes of shadow - requires a blindfold - allow the player to invert his eyes' light sensitivity. The player is blind in the light but sees very well in dark places. Fiery monsters or those that emit light may blind the player.

Parlay - not exactly a spell, more of a mind trick. If there is any gold or currency in the game, the player may persuade the monster to be reasonable and pay him money in exchange for this life. Trolls and Ogres, being ancient bridge guards in all fantasy settings, are immune to this.

Dungeon Rulette - requires a coin that has 2 heads or 2 tails - the enemy monster is unable to move until this spell finishes. The magician spawns 6 magic sigils that float in the air. Once they stop, the monster and player take turns to touch the sigil. 1 out of those 6 sigils deals significant damage capable of killing a medium to hard monster. The cycle of spinning/touching sigils is repeated until one of the parties die. The player may sacrifice his whole mana and some HP to throw all (or all the remaining ) sigils at the monster for some minor damage and cancell the spell.

Go-lem - requires an absurd amount of rocks - spawns a monstrous golem that fights for the player. The golem is very thick however - the player must use mana to spawn readable signs for it to perform actions. This could be represented as arrows to show him where to go or an animation of a fist to make him attack something. Each such order has a 25% chance to be ignored by the dumb golem. This spell may be aquired from a damaged scroll, some broken magic device or whatnot

Blackfire Snake - requires skin dropped by a snake - turns the player into a firey snake with X segments. Each segment deals fire damage to flamable items/mosnters adjacent to the segment. While sustaining the spell, each tick a segment is removed. After all segments are removed, the player reverts to normal. If mana runs out while sustaining the spell, the snake coughts up the player and carries on as it wishes, being a passive mob moving until all segments vanish. If the player stops sustaining the spell of his own will, the segments start dissapearing from the head to the tail, still dealing damage to adjacent tiles (including the player)

What about some utilities as well?
Those are not very imaginative, but I hope somebody will like them!

Clear Path: for N seconds, you'll be able to see the path to the exit. It could be the shortest, or the less dangerous. Rationale: good to have at least an idea of where you're going. Useful when low on life to try escaping for example.

Rebouncer: a more limited form of Wormhole, useful to bounce your projectiles around corners. Rebouncers can bounce on already cast rebouncers, albeit the cost accumulates for each currently active bounce. Rationale: avoid getting stuck in corners by too powerful monsters or flocks.

Danger senses: gives an estimate of how many monsters and "monster levels" you're going to face when approaching unexplored corridors. Estimation is always accurate but limited in range, the range extends with mana cost/level/whatever. If a monster can be reached by multiple corridors, it will be counted in both (you also get a hint when corridors do connect). Rationale: support survival play mode.

Pecunia olet: similar to danger senses, but senses the awards associated with a path. Rationale: gives player an hint on where to search for treasures.

Not quite the same thing: changes a monster's abilities. In general, the abilities will be more or less on the same level of power (so one cannot, in general, reduce the danger involved). However, in a case by case basis, this might give an advantage. For example, a monster with a skill to have extra range could have the skill changed to extra damage, but hopefully this gives the player tactical advantage. Can also change a monster's equipment but at a very high cost. Once cast, a change must be performed. It is possible - although rare - that a monster can only be "generally improved" by this. Rationale: allows the player some chance to avoid adapting to the challenges. While this could be considered bad, there's some good feeling in knowing you don't need to drop your "Staff of thermonuclear blast" because you have found a monster that has resistance to explosion(666) and fire(999).

The other way around: allows the player to mirror a NxM box of tiles around box' middle axis. Boxes larger than 3x3 are expensive and some tiles cannot be moved at all. Maximum box size is mana-based, range is level-based. Rationale: create shortcuts to avoid massive amounts of enemies, just in case something in generation goes horribly wrong. Eventually require this to reach secret areas.

Dice of DOOM: (joke spell) just pretend a whole fight can be solved by throwing a huge dice in a room. The dice is realistically rendered and stands out (it is a joke spell). Most of the time, the player gets a huge temporary bonus but can screw you big way. On the worse case breaks the floor, letting terrible monsters to appear. Small monsters are always squished (no real benefit anyway). The power involved in bonuses reads incredible (+100 damage for 2 seconds!) but running the numbers, other spells provide higher better mana utilization. Rationale: there is none. Mock rpgs.

New day, new ideas!

Manup - requires an ultra-large health potion - changes the wizard into a giant muscled man. Smaller creatures will flee in terror, larger ones will feel challenged and will pursue the player more ferociously. If the spell burns out all of the players mana, he deflates rapidly, his floppy skin all over the place slowing the PC for X seconds until the spell totally wears off. If he stops sustaining the spell of his own will, he retracts to normal within 1-2 seconds without penalty.

Onion-knight - requires an unspoiled onion (most likelly hard to find in a dungeon) - casting the spell once creates a weak, invisible barrier around the player. Each next cast of the spell requires more mana and procures a larger shield that envelops the previous one (note that as long as there is at least one layer of the shield, the player does not need a new onion). Gradually the bubble formed from the layers of shields becomes visible in a shade of blue, from dark to light. Each shield layer can absord the same amount of damage. Damage that overkills a shield does not damage the next layer. The player's volume increases with the amount of shields, which may make moving through tight corridors impossible. The player may at will rip any amount of shields without penalty. The spell requires channeling as oxygen inside the bubble does not circulate, requiring magical exchange with the outside. More shields require a higher channeling cost due to the thickness of the barrier. If the player runs out of mana, he has 1-2 seconds to rip his shields apart before he faints. If he faints, he has a 25% chance to wake up dead, or at least eaten.

Heaven's Reach - requires a silver pendant - I presume the maze is deep underground. Should you make it so that each level is deeper than the last one, this spell takes some time to take effect. A giant bolt of lightinng swoops from the air and approaches the target location - it has to break through all the layers of the maze though, so the bolt will arrive after X time. Upon arrival, depending on the depth of the maze, it has a chance to break through X more layers, creating interesting difficulties on the next levels. The bolt does lighting damage in a medium area -- if it breaks through to the next level, all creeps (and even the player) in the area of effect suffer damage from falling.

Spirits of the Fallen - requires a skull with emeralds in its eye sockets - the player calls upon those that have died in this maze. They may offer advice where to find treasure on this level, warn of dangers or go batsh*t on the player, requiring some mana to exorcise the spirit. A spirit that went bonkers flies around the player, annoys him, draws monsters to the player or hides treasures by siting on top of them.

Illuminati Companion Light - requires some fairy dust - the player breathes life into the fairy dust, making it shine. It then flies around the player acting like a friendly pet. It can be ordered to illuminate a certain area, scare away monsters, look for treasure and such. Normally it emits white or light blue light. When it is atacking, it shines red. When it has found something, it blinks blue. When it has found danger, it blinks yellow. The dust dies after X time unless a higher mana cost is being payed again. Each iteration that prolongs the dust's life costs more. If the player sustains the spell in that way more than 3 iterations, when the Illuminati die, the wizards receives a temporary debuff due to the sorrow of loosing the only true friend he had in this place...



An idea that just occured to me - I know you are making this game with minimum graphics - still, you could consider having a pixel artist or someone capable of drawing simple art to animate some more powerfull spells - just like in Golden Axe II. Such animations would add to the epicness of the stronger spells, making them feel really important.

Thanks for the cool spells guys; the more the better!
A couple of things about the game;

First; obviously it's early days and this is just a hobby; I'm an experienced developer so I have no illusions as to this taking quite a lot of time (think months or never)

What I'm focusing on now is the engine, which needs thought so I can easily do things such as create portals and mess with time.

The engine will decide the limits of the spells are; currently my engine design has a couple of properties:

1) Everything is destructible.
2) The Game is fundamentally 2d at the moment, and that is unlikely to change (mainly because it makes development so much faster)

@Zetharial: As soon as I have a working alpha I'll put in a tile set and contact artists, but I think it's unfair to get artists in earlier than I have something I can release. That said, I will be programming in some spell effects.

I expect the game to be free and will post a link to it here as soon as I have something worth beta-testing.

Will spells be able to be combined. For example a bomb spell could be combined with a Chrystal Ball spell could equal suicide bomber.

Some Spell Ideas:
Trojan Horse: you cast this spell onto an enemy and then choose another spell/effect to go with it. At any time you can activate the spell from the victims area.
Bone Spear: you cast this one a corpse and it creates a controllable spear*

Also i think some general necromancy spells like revive and that kind of stuff should be included and also maybe some shape shifting spells.




*I admit I kinda stole this from Diablo 2, But come on.... the game had awesome necromancer spells.