Castle Age: Heart of Darkness

Castle Age: Heart of Darkness is a new game by Phoenix Age that takes from the original Castle Age game with a Flash layout.

It was launched initially as a Festival Game in the Castle Age Festival but was later pulled out and made into an independent game.

The game is a pre-release according to the developers.

= Sanctum =

Home
Contains game news, Battle News (or Battle Feed) and a monthly FP offer.

News
Contains more detailed updates on the game. It may be additional content, bug fixes or outage and other announcements.

Battle News
Contains the battle log of players challenging you in PvP duels. It displays how much damage you've took and gold you won or lost. You also gain experience points should you be victorious. Although it is not shown here, battle points are also won or lost should you and your challenger be near in rank.



Revenge button was added and will allow you to challenge back those who have challenged you in an attempt to claim back your honor, lost gold and battle points. See if their defense is as good as their attack!

Player Stats
Contains the Player's name, battle rank and stats (Attack, Defense, Energy, Stamina, Health). Players can allocate their stat points here. This is also where players can heal their health with gold. The currently equipped guardian is the one who will offer to heal the player.

Treasury
Players can stash their gold here for a 10% tax fee. Guardian Persephone will help reduce the tax fee (upto -40% at level 4).

In case a player wish to use cash for either purchasing or healing, the game will not recognized any amount of cash stashed in the treasury, it will only recognized cash on hand rather.

The player's owned items, heroes/guardians and alchemy ingredients are also listed here.

Battle Rank
Displays the player's battle rank as well as all available ranks and corresponding rewards. It also shows the player's completed quests, battles won and lost as well as times eliminated and the number of enemies eliminated.

Town
''Buy the finest item to fill your inventory! Items help you fill the requirements needed to complete quests. Additionally, items also increase your strength in battle skill''

The Town displays items you can buy with gold as well as other items that you own. You can see the stats of the items here. The guardian at the top is the one who is currently equipped.

Guardians
''Gather powerful guardians to join your forces! Each guardian has a different special ability to help you along with your journey!''

Guardians are heroes in Heart of Darkness. Those who can be recruited by gold are listed in the Recruit Guardians tab. All guardians owned can be found and equipped in the Equip Guardians tab as well as the Treasury tab in the Keep. Guardians can level up to increase their stats and abilities. The maximum level a guardian can power up to is level 4.

Guardians also have 6 Equipment Slots that can boost their abilities and stats. Equipment must be specific to the guardian.Equipted Guardians are also known as generals.

List of Available Guardians

 * Zelfik
 * Vargas
 * Gareth
 * Saika
 * Torran
 * Krovax
 * Aroldir
 * Raazel
 * Persephone
 * Virgil
 * Ayana
 * Faust
 * Voltair

See Guardians page for more info.

Alchemy
Here you can perform alchemy to create equipment or summon monsters which you can fight for loot. Alchemy page has two tabs: Ingredients and Recipes.

Ingredients lists all the alchemical components that you own while the Recipe page shows the list of items or summons that you can make from your alchemy ingredients.

List of Currently Available Ingredients

 * Orb of Acheron
 * Orb of Carmilla
 * Orb of Belial
 * Orb of Faust
 * Armor of the Undead
 * Nightstalker Armor
 * Rune of Mists
 * Rune of Leaves
 * Rune of Embers
 * Armor of the Depths
 * Decimation Sword
 * Amulet of Betrayal
 * Blood of the Betrayer

Summons

 * Summon Acheron, the Wraith of Despair
 * Summon Carmilla, Princess of Darkness
 * Summon Belial, Enslaver of Souls
 * Summon Faust, Betrayer of Light

Recipes

 * Armor of the Depths
 * Armor of the Burning Depths
 * Faust

See the Ingredients and Recipes page for more info.

Quest
Immerse in the game's story by expending energy in your Journey. Earn gold, experience and skill points to strengthen your character as well as items that will unravel the game mysteries. Each quest has 5 levels. Completing 1 level earns 1 Skill Point. The quest's flame will also change color according to it's level:
 * Level 1: Golden Flame
 * Level 2: Red Flame
 * Level 3: Blue Flame
 * Level 4: Purple Flame
 * Level 5: White Flame

Higher level questing is only unlocked once you have completed the Land's special quest.

Notes: 
 * Questing is based on Lands/Regions and each Land have quests that the player must complete sequentially within each land.
 * Progress in questing is halted until you finish quests in propers sequesnce i.e. Solace/Edge of Town is locked untill you finish Solace/Through the Town Gates (at least first round - level 0)
 * Unlike the original CA questing, each quest have 5 levels insted of 4 (flame color change is the indicator) with the exception of a non-skill point giving mission: Abandoned Mine.
 * It is considered a very good opportunity to collect as much skill points as you can in case you finished almost all activities, and left with Dueling only!

Upon finishing each Milestone, there will an assured drop of an orb for a special monster:


 * Solace - Darkest Hour : Orb of Acheron
 * Catalyst - Portside Tavern : Orb of Camilla
 * Provacation - Demonic Circle : Orb of Belial
 * Awakening - Castle Throne Room : Orb of Faust

Select Stage
= Monster =

Summon Monster
This is where you can summon monsters to fight. It requires a specific ingredient to be able to summon a monster. This page also records your best time and damage against specific monsters.

When battling monsters, players use stamina to hit and chip away at a monster's health. For every hit, they will be able to log damage done depending on their attack power. The higher the attack, the higher the number damage (though irrelevant against stamina-based monsters). Players will also earn experience, gold and demi points for each click as well as lose some health. A minimum health of 10 is needed.

The monster must be defeated within the designated time limit in order to be eligible collect equipment loot from the monster. The higher the damage logged (or stamina invested) on the monster, the higher the chance to collect more rewards although there is a maximum limit to the number of loot that can be obtained per monster.

Monster List
This lists all the active monsters that the player is involved in. The red battle button will change into a blue collect button once the monster has been defeated. It will change to a blue view button once the player has collected loot from it or if it fled. The player can remove the monster from the list using the red X mark that will appear on the upper left corner of the monster image once loot has been collected.

If the monster is not removed from the list after 72 hours of the monster being defeated, the monster code will change to N/A and will be removed automatically once the player leaves the monster page. If the player decides to view the elapsed battle, the game will say "You do not have such monster" and automatically remove the monster from the page. If the summoner summoned another monster before this happens, the player can access the new monster fight using the old link.

Public List
Public List contains summoned monsters that are declared public. Players who have few friends playing Heart of Darkness can turn to public monsters to look for monster fights as well as recruit people to aid in taking down a summoned monster. Only the summoner is allowed to declare the monster public.

Be warned that even by making a monster public, it does not guarantee of hitters coming in to help. Likewise, it does not guarantee that players who will join in will help kill the monster or respect other people who also joined. Example: there can be 10 people who will join but only tag (i.e. hit once then leave) which can compromise a kill especially against harder monsters. Another is when reaching a certain damage threshold. There is a certain amount of damage needed to have a chance at an epic loot or to get into gold medal position. Players joining may not respect the efforts of other attackers and kill the monster single-handedly, hogging all the health and depriving others of a chance to obtain epic loot or get a gold medal. Be prepared for a "free-for-all" kill if you decide to make it public.

CALL TO ARMS: HoD Monsters

 * Acheron,The Wraith of Despair


 * Carmilla


 * Belial


 * Faust

= Battle = In this page, players engage other players in a one-on-one duel to see who is stronger. Players use stamina to attack. The winner of the duel can gain experience, gold and battle points. The loser may have gold deducted (if it has not been stashed in the treasury) and battle points. Both players lose health per attack. The winner will lose 1-6 health while the loser will lose 6-12. A player whose health is below 10 is not allowed to engage in a duel.



Players must click the Duel button and then Attack button in the new page in order to initiate attacks. If they are not confident about battling a chosen opponent, they can still back off by not clicking the Attack button in the Duel Page. This gives the attacker the chance to see the level of the enemies and their equipped guardian and gear, allowing them to 'scout' and decide if they want to battle or not.

Battle Rank
Battle Rank is a ranking system based on the number of Battle Points accumulated through PvP Battle.

There are currently 9 different battle ranks, and the 9 ranks are divided into 3 different tiers.

Notes
 * As a player reaches certain amounts of Battle points, they will be awarded an increased rank, a new title and a reward.
 * Once a Battle point amount is hit, a player will maintain the best TIER (NOT Rank) achieved, even if their battle points fall below the threshold.
 * Players that have not engaged in "Battle Rank" will have a rank of zero with the title "Minion".

Avatar
Customize your battle character from the Avatar screen. This page allows you to change the color palette of your characters hair and clothing. You can also change your character's gender in this page. Customizing is free and can be done multiple times any time.

Guilds
So far Guild funciton is enabled in this version of CA game. However, not that many of sub-functionalities are working (or enabled) at this time.

Working funtions: Not Working Functions:
 * Guild Creation
 * Guild Naming (once only)
 * Guild Emblem selection
 * Guild Mastership (usually creator)
 * Guild Officers Designations/Assignment
 * Guild Members promotions and demotions
 * Guild invites
 * Guild membership lock (must exit before enrolling in another Guild - Was not active upon launch!)
 * Member's Monster CTA-ed Battles listing
 * Each member is able to view accumulated Score Points from Monster Battles of all Guild Members
 * Guild Players' (ID) verification (i.e. Click to view profile)
 * Other Players Guild Identification
 * Guild-to-Guild fights
 * Guild specific monster summoning/battles
 * Overall Guild Scores (Tallying all guild members scores);
 * Subsequently no Ranking Ranking (Tallies comparisments!)
 * No Guild Rewards and/or Trophies
 * Guild members' Rank / Level

New Features not available in original CA: As of 7/24/11, none of the guild features seem to be working. As mentioned above there are features that are still in the works, it's possible the Dev's have de-activated the guild section in order to work on it.
 * Ability to expel a guild membership (kick out of the Guild!)
 * Awkward in-Guild Chat (still buggy; session-based; chat will disapear if session ends!)
 * Guild Creation Date (Guild birthday!!)

= Oracle =

The Oracle
The Oracle page is where players can use Favor Points and redeem various perks like refills and buying special FP-only gear. They can also buy FP with real money in this page.

Demi-Gods
The Demi Gods grant blessings to the faithful. These deities offer permanent stat point increases, depending on what the demi god specializes in, to players who choose to pray to them. They also give demi points on their own alignment. Special items are also awarded to those who have accumulated a certain number of their demi points.

= Army Bonus = Gain stat bonuses simply by inviting other players to join your army. The stat increases are permanent once you have fulfilled the condition for the bonus.

You can still add more players to your army even if you have obtained all the army bonus stat ups. It's good to see how they are progressing in the game and also grant easy access to their keeps for friendly duel sparring!

= Notes =