Dark Magic

A new ability for Bopl Battle: Dark Magic. Hold the ability button to gather dark magic. The longer you hold, the stronger the spell. Let go whenever you want, and the last spell you unlocked is cast.

Made by Poyraz Acarbaş, a modder from Turkey.

How it works

• You can only start it while you're standing on a platform (like spike). While you charge you can't move.
• While you charge, a magic circle spins under your feet, dark smoke swirls around you, and time slows down around you: enemies, bombs and bullets near you move slower and slower.
• Every few seconds a new spell unlocks: a magic symbol appears above your head with a flash, and 4 small dots show how far you are.

The spells

Dark fireballs

Fireballs with a pitch black core and purple flames fly where you aim. One from a tap, three in a fan after 3 seconds. They hit enemies and respect protective shields. If they hit a platform they explode and leave dark fire burning there for 4.5 seconds. Enemies who walk into it take the same lethal hit. Your fireballs and fire spare you, your teammates and allied shadow clones. They fizzle out in water.

Thorn platform

The platform you're standing on gets covered in small dark thorns for 9 seconds. They grow out from your feet and spread all around it. You, your teammates and allied shadow clones can walk on it safely. Enemies touching it take a lethal hit unless protected by a shield. Enemies already on it have a moment to jump off.

Void orb

A slow black orb flies where you aim. It pulls in enemies, bombs and bullets around it, and after 4 seconds it explodes. The blast spares allies and respects protective shields.

Shadow clones

Two dark copies of you come out on both sides. They have your other abilities (not Dark Magic) and they are real bots that play the game on their own:

• They hunt the closest enemy, and an enemy near you comes first.
• They use each ability the right way: they lead their shots, charge the bow, aim bombs in an arc, follow their target with the beam, and so on.
• They recognize abilities picked up during the round too. They never cast Dark Magic themselves, and deliberately avoid using Seppuku.
• They walk, jump between platforms, don't walk off edges, dodge incoming bullets, stay away from danger, find their way out of tight spots, and jump up to shoot over walls.
• They cannot deal lethal friendly damage to you, your teammates or each other. Before starting a straight shot, they check for friends in the firing line. Their kills count as yours.
• They don't take up a player slot, so they work in a full 4 player lobby too.
• After 20 seconds they fly back into you as spirits, and all of your abilities are ready again.
• If you die, they die with you. You can only have one pair of clones at a time.

Possession

After 15 seconds your body collapses, your ghost comes out and time stops.

• Fly your ghost around with WASD (or the stick) for up to 7 seconds. Whoever you can possess glows. Click (or press the ability button) to jump into them.
• Time starts again and you control them for 20 seconds: their movement, their jumps, their abilities. Their eyes glow in your color and your ghost hangs above them like a puppeteer. Your mouse aim works from their body.
• While you possess someone, two dark pillars rise from the platform on both sides of your empty body. You can stand on them.
• Hold jump for 6 seconds to let go early.
• You can't kill the person you're possessing. If they die because of you, themselves or the water (while you control them, or in the first 3 seconds after you let go), they get a shield and are sent to the middle of the map instead, and everyone sees a message about it. They also can't use abilities that kill themselves.
• But if someone else kills them, you die too. And if your empty body dies, they die too.
• When it ends, both of you are dizzy for a while: left and right are swapped.
• If you don't jump into anyone within 7 seconds, your ghost flies back and the spell is wasted.

With our other mods

Dark Magic works on its own. It also works together with Freeze Ray Plus, Seppuku and Cancerous Beam. Shadow clones can use Freeze Ray and Cancerous Beam; they copy Seppuku but do not activate it. A clone's Freeze Ray does not freeze allies.

Online play

Gameplay runs inside the game's simulation, but synchronization between separate computers has not been tested yet. Online compatibility is unverified. Everyone in the lobby should have the same mods and versions installed.

Notes

• The ability icon can be replaced: put your own DarkMagic.png (340 x 292 works best) into the mod's icons folder.
• All sounds are made by the mod itself. You can replace any of them: put a 16-bit WAV file with the right name into a sounds folder next to the mod's DLL. The names start with kara_ (spells) and ruh_ (possession), for example kara_ates_atis.wav (fireball cast), kara_diken.wav (thorns), kara_klon.wav (clones) and ruh_sarj.wav (charging).

Credits

Created by Poyraz Acarbaş (Turkey).