Circuits and Shields - The Modern Gamer's MOBA

What is Circuits and Shields?

Circuits and Shields is the modern gamer’s MOBA. It is a new take in a world of MOBA clones and generic gameplay, taking the knowledge gained from over a decade of MOBA design and improving it in every aspect. Circuits takes familiar concepts like items or stats and both simplifies and deepens them, making it a great fit for both new players and MOBA veterans alike. Players choose from a colorful cast of champions, each with their own unique play style, and battle it out in a variety of unique arenas where no game is like the last.

Why are we special?

The number one question always asked is “What makes us different from every other MOBA?” and the honest answer is there’s no big characteristic like some crazy new feature. Our goal is to make the smartest MOBA, that is, keeping things familiar, but also utilize 10 years of lessons learned from MOBAs to make a better game experience. Here’s just a few things we’ve targeted:

  • Items: Forced item recipes means new players are forced to memorize an entire new shop (even MOBA veterans) and learn build paths, starting items, etc. We’ve fixed that by making a more guided, yet more flexible tiered approach. There’s only a handful a base items and those base items are upgraded based on your choices, not forced ones.
  • Spell Levels: Spell levels are a non interactive experience where each champion has some spell that you should “Max” first because that’s what gives you the most damage. We’ve fixed that by introducing the Augment Tree. A simple to use, but powerful tool that allows you to customize the way each of your champion abilities work. Because this introduces so much variety per champion, it also reduces the burden of knowledge of new players. One champion played three different ways is much easier to learn than three separate champions.
  • Gameplay Some MOBA matches drone on in PvE simulator mode where player’s are farming non-stop until one big thing happens, then it goes back to farming. We’ve fixed that through a bunch of methods. First, we’ve introduced the idea of Favor, or “Team Gold”, a shared resource that allows each team to collaborate on some major Arena-wide event, like dropping a Meteor on them so you can finally break the boring wave-clear phase. We’ve introduced objective-based events in certain arenas, such as the Carnage Event, which teleports both teams into an ever-shrinking Arena, forcing that 5v5 team fight you’ve been dreaming of.
  • Varied Arenas: We fully realize we’ll never be able to break into, nor do we want to, the fully defined metas of the 3 lane/towers/main base style MOBA maps, they are old at this point. We’ve fixed that by creating completely new game types such as Circuitball, a no-minion Arena focusing on throwing/carrying a ball into an endzone, and Siege, a round-based mode that’s the Helm’s Deep of MOBAs. We’ll also have your typical minion-push style map, but don’t worry, we have some really neat plans in store for that to go beyond towers and a big jungle minion.
  • It’s the Little Things: Lastly, we’re doing a bunch of little things to create a better play experience. We’ve simplified several stats and formulas, you don’t need to pull out a calculator to figure out how much damage you’re doing. We’ve got some absolutely awesome champions with never before seen mechanics like projectile portals, reflectors, or even one based on weapon switching and balancing an equilibrium meter. We promise once you play Circuits and Shields, everything else will feel outdated.

What’s next?

Our website and wiki are finally (mostly) ready, so it’s time to reveal to the world what we’ve been working on! Circuits has been in development for about 8 months now. While we’ve had some hiccups along the way (Not planning well enough on Art Direction!), we’re in great shape heading into our Kickstarter which is expected around Q4 of 2016. All our work, especially programming, has been done with the future in mind, allowing us to modularly add all sorts of content, such as new champions, quickly and efficiently (Provided we have art assets, we can code an entire new champion and have him in-game in about 10 hours, including all spells).

Circuits is really aiming to blur the line between AAA and indie. We have some absolutely incredibly talented people on our team with experience at companies like Riot, Blizzard, and Naughty Dog, so you can expect the quality of our work to be top-notch.

Help Support Us

As mentioned, the primary goal for us right now is to prepare for Kickstarter, so the goal is to have as many people watching us as possible. We’ll be releasing content through our website: http://circuitsandshields. and Twitter: http://twitter./CircuitsGame, so be sure to follow us to keep track of our progress. You can also head to our forums and start getting involved, we’d love to have fans contribute what they want to see in the game.

We look forward to showing you our vision for Circuits! Thanks!

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Just put up a new post on our main HUD, which you can find here: http://circuitsandshields./dev-ui-and-hud/

Or you can skip the reading and just view the pretty picture here!

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Bump for new post about Toro, the Not-So Grim Reaper: http://circuitsandshields./champion-reveal-toro/

New post about Hamon, Heaven’s Butcher: http://circuitsandshields./champion-reveal-hamon/

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New post on Ink, the Kinetic Painter: http://circuitsandshields./champions-ink-kinetic-painter/

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Wow, it looks impressive. And I’ve clicked few of your links and you seem to have a small (for now) but efficient machinery going on.

I can provide you an in-depth feedback about your game mechanics, art direction and your game in general (for free of course, I’m not “advertising” here, I’m just interested).

I’m what I call a “mobatologist”. If you want more information and/or are interested, feel free to private message me so we can talk somewhere else more privately. If you’re not I don’t mind.

I wish you good luck and have fun in your project, you chose the hard way and you have all my respect for that.

New progress update, including screenshots! http://circuitsandshields./first-screenshots/

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New post on Vexa, the Eternal Conservator! http://circuitsandshields./champion-reveal-vexa-eternal-conservator/

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Sorry for lack of updates. Be sure to follow us on Twitter in case we don’t (re: forget) to post here!

New poll up for our newest map: “Standoff”!

http://circuitsandshields./standoff-announcement/

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Quick screenshot of Vexa inside the Circuitball Arena!

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That’s looking pretty sweet, keep it up

This is looking fabulous. Agreed with , above; keep it up!

VFX Concept artist got a little weird with the posing for Hamon’s abilities:

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Quick render of two of our champions:

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Jan Itor’s Wiki page is fully done including his abilities and backstory. Check it out: https://circuitsandshields.gamepedia./Jan_Itor

New post up on VFX concepts for Vexa: http://circuitsandshields./vfx-concepts-vexa/

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Going to try harder to update here more often (follow us on Twitter: http://twitter./CircuitsGame)

Happy to announce our main music theme, “The Path to Paradise”. Really excited about this as it ties into the world lore and really sets players up for what to expect going into such a massive world. Hope you enjoy it!

https://www.youtube./watch?v=tNxB0cS-Pt8

Quick WIP shot of our Circuitball level. Check out that water!

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Some UI prototyping. Let us know your favorite!

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Some VFX testing for Ink.