Game News Archmage Rises, a mage simulator sandbox RPG, now on Steam Greenlight

[Infinitron]

Tags: Archmage Rises; Defiance Game Studio

Archmage Rises is a slick-looking and unique RPG by Thomas Henshell of Defiance Game Studio that has been quietly in development since early 2014, but which only came to our full attention yesterday. Taking influence from titles such as Dwarf Fortress, Sid Meier's Pirates! and FTL, as well as the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons, the game takes place in an exhaustively detailed sandbox fantasy world in which you take the role of a renegade mage who must seek his fortune. In order to achieve that Dwarf Fortress level of complexity, Archmage Rising's gameplay is primarily menu-based, with 2D artwork and a blobber-like turn-based combat system. The official website promises an experience akin to being "Rastlin, Pug, Merlin, or Gandalf", but after watching the game's Steam Greenlight trailer, the first thing that came to my mind was "Rance". See for yourself:

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Yes, yes, I think the Codex might end up enjoying this game. The website has lots of details about it, and if you'd like to see more, there are a whole bunch of gameplay videos on its YouTube channel. Archmage Rises will be available for preorder starting from August 4th, and is scheduled for release in Q1 2017. If you're interested, be sure to vote for it on Steam Greenlight.

 

[karnak]

Every RPG which has an option to "Fornicate" something is worthy of respect.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Hahah! This looks great!

 

[Andhaira]

Funniest part was the 'Plays best on Alienware' logo at the end.

 

[BobtheTree]

I brought something to the attention of the Codex.

*beams with pride*

 

[SerratedBiz]

Well in Archmage Rises, you get no experience for combat.
You also don't get any loot from combat.

What do you get for winning a victory?
You get to keep living! You get to continue your story!

By moving the power curve off of combat, suddenly it makes for A NO GRINDING RPG.
The player can gain power through NPCs interaction, quests, crafting, and solving world problems.

So combat is MUCH less frequent in Archmage Rises than in other games. This has forced us, in a good way, to come up with tons of interesting things to do besides combat.

Do not read this to mean combat isn't a core feature or fun! We've poured a ton of time into making it strategic, thoughtful, fast, and entertaining.

But you can win the game without a single battle.

That, to me, is an interesting proposition in an RPG.

 

[thesheeep]

Finally a game where you can just fuck around.

 

[Mustawd]

 

[Moink]

I was sold at "Fornicate"

 

[daveyd]

I hope it's possible to contract gonorrhea or syphilis. Then you'll have to use your alchemy skills to concoct a cure.

 

[flabbyjack]

We need more games like this. Too bad it's not inspired by King of Dragon Pass too.

 

[Space Satan]

I am mildly optimistic. Because that's exactly how That Which Sleeps started.

 

[Jrpgfan]

I hope it's possible to contract gonorrhea or syphilis. Then you'll have to use your alchemy skills to concoct a cure.

RoA taken to another level.

This looks good as fuck btw.

 

[Space Satan]

Asked about liches. No liches so far. I have a sweet spot for M&M7 for being able to transform to lichdom

 

[flabbyjack]

In case you missed it above -- Pre-orders start August 4th. Release is Q1 2017.

Any word on a summonable army of skeletons?

 

[set]

The hex overworld map looks incredibly cheaply done, like $20 unity store assets. Battle for Wesnoth looks gorgeous in comparison.
I nearly thought this was a parody on Greenlight games, Unity games, or the state of RPGs in general, when I saw the "works best on alienware" logo at the end. (Similar to Barkley's NVIDIA joke)
It honestly looks like a game meant for a phone. A funny tone definitely can't redeem it for me.

 

[Ninjerk]

Looks like That Which Vapours level of fun.

 

[daveyd]

If nothing else, I feel like the developer's heart is in the right place; he wants to capture the spirit of a tabletop role-playing game. However, I remain very skeptical about the procedural generated content. I've never seen this done well, but then I generally don't play rougelikes. I'm anticipating a lot of bland, generic quests or possibly some nonsensical mad-libs stuff. I'd rather have a short RPG with complex handcrafted quests than a game with theoretically infinite replay opportunities that in practice feel repetitive and unmemorable. But I hope I'm wrong and will definitely try the demo (assuming I don't have to pay for it).

 

[epeli]

Looks like an attempt to distill the essence of dwarf fortress into a flash/mobile game. Who knows, maybe the game is mechanically solid but just suffers from poor presentation.

 

[Ninjerk]

Zorba the Hutt

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

Asked about liches. No liches so far. I have a sweet spot for M&M7 for being able to transform to lichdom

read that as 'inches'

 

[SuperSonicGd]

I will have to show this to a friend who keeps trying to get me to download Wurm Unlimited. This looks like it has many of the same components but more action oriented. I like the potential of randomly generated missions, NPCs, and even the entire world. Which Wurm does do that but is very resource and crafting based with no real goal.

So basically what I'm saying is this looks like it'll be Wurm but better.