Game News Solasta: Crown of the Magister now on Kickstarter, pre-alpha demo available on Steam

[Infinitron]

Tags: Mathieu Girard; Solasta: Crown of the Magister; Tactical Adventures

There are a lot of promising RPGs in development these days, but right now the one that has the Codex most excited is Solasta: Crown of the Magister, the 5th Edition OGL-based RPG from Paris-based studio Tactical Adventures. Since Solasta was announced back in June, Tactical Adventures have published a number of meaty development updates on the game's official website, and two weeks ago they announced that the Kickstarter was set to launch today, along with a free pre-alpha demo. The Kickstarter campaign is live now. I'll post the pitch video along with a 55 minute gameplay video from IGN, whose editors got an early look at the Solasta demo and found it to be extremely good. You should also check out the gameplay and lore trailers Tactical Adventures published yesterday.

Created and written by lifelong fans of Pen & Paper RPGs, Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a Turn-Based Tactical RPG heavily influenced by Tabletop RPGs.

• An Epic Team Adventure - Create your very own party of adventurers with our Character Creation Tool in the classic tabletop RPG tradition. Breathe life into your heroes, and see their personalities reflected in their dialogue.
• Discover a Mysterious & Dynamic World - Delve into long forgotten dungeons to unearth ancient artifacts, but stay watchful of light and darkness: many dangers hide in the dark, but a light can attract monsters.
• Prepare to Think in Three Dimensions - The dungeons in Solasta are more than flat game-boards. Climb, jump, or fly around obstacles. Evade or surprise foes from above or below. Watch out, though - the monsters are also thinking vertically.
• True to Tabletop - Solasta: Crown of the Magister brings back the thrill, tactics, and deep storytelling of tabletop games. As you play, you'll feel yourself reaching for your dice and miniatures; Roll for initiative!
• A Team of Passionate Veterans - Led by Mathieu Girard, co-Founder of Amplitude Studios (Endless Space...), Tactical Adventures is a small studio of experienced developers with many projects under their belt.

Fact Sheet:

• Deep & tactical gameplay using a Turn-based, Grid-based fighting system, and built around core pillars such as Dynamic Lighting, Vertical exploration & combat, and Interactive environment.
• Written by Antoine Guillaud and Graeme Davis, Solasta is a fascinating High Fantasy World with centuries of complex history & lore to explore. Watch our Lore Trailer here!
• An epic single-player campaign that will take your party from level 1 to level 10.
• A fully-customizable party of 4 characters, each of them as important as the others.
• Building the game hand-in-hand with the community, with Communication & Transparency as core values.
• Current Platform: PC Windows
• Current Languages: English (Voiced), French & German (Interface & Subtitles)

Tactical Adventures are looking to raise €180k for Solasta, an ambitious sum nowadays, although it will get made no matter what. Right now you can secure a copy of the game for just €18. We're told that the developers haven't decided yet whether to do an Early Access release so there are no alpha or beta tiers, but you get three exclusive in-game items if you pledge €58 or more. As for the demo, it's available free for everyone on the game's Steam page. The estimated final release date for Solasta is January 2021.

 

[ozymandiusz]

that gameplay... it is not on pc but on console. turn based rpg on console. fuck this. 0/10.

 

[LESS T_T]

that gameplay... it is not on pc but on console. turn based rpg on console. fuck this. 0/10.

The game is (currently) only for PC and I'm pretty sure they're using keyboard and mouse in that video. Looks like IGN couldn't capture the mouse cursor for some reason.

 

[Myzzrym]

PC only for now, consoles not planned but who knows depending on sales and all.

 

[Haba]

Not bad.

 

[Diggfinger]

"You are all hard, aren't you?"

Love the dialogue in this game.

Reminds me of Avellone's penis-jokes in Old World Blues. Ach, die süßen Erinnerungen

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

The demo is a lot of fun.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

IGN, whose editors got an early look at the Solasta demo and found it to be extremely good

Early bad signs.

 

[Caca from Neketaka]

It's kind of underwhelming. The camera controls seem off, the tilt/zoom and rotate doesn't look/feel right. Just got to the spiders though, maybe gets better.

 

[Dorateen]

Perhaps relevant, Realms Beyond (the other faithful D&D turn-based project) raised just under 20K Euro in the first day of their kickstarter. Then pledges proceeded on a consistent steady incline throughout the 30 day cycle from mid-October to mid-November.

 

[Alpan]

Digging that sleek UI look, adapted straight from the Endless games. It's definitely a style of UI I wish more RPGs would implement in place of skeuomorphic designs.

 

[Morality Games]

Playing the demo right now. Key observations:

(a) you don't just fight on a tile set, you move on it too. Camera is always centered on whatever character(s) you have toggled, and you don't seem able to move it otherwise. So, scouting would be entirely dependent on stealthing ahead with a rogue, for example.

(b) Like the F-35 of D&D games. Some D&D games have chat logs where you can see dice rolls, but the game seems determined to make the dice rolling aspect of D&D an aesthetic motif that is embedded in everything. For example, when I hit a melee attack with Cleric the game paused a countdown box (30 secs) showed up and asked me whether I wanted to roll a dice for Channel Divinity. As another example, spells have descriptions that appear when you hover over them that tell you exactly what dice you will roll when you click on the spell (with a picture of the dice). This game wants to put numerical information in reach.

(c) evidently rations and other obscure D&D mechanics that are usually excluded will feature prominently. This is very much a dungeon crawling simulator.

 

[Fenix]

Nausea from the look of their faces... they are repulsive? Unpleasant.
Impression they made for me isn't good.

 

[Badmojo]

I see stuff I like and stuff I do not like. Will have to check the demo later in the week when I have more time. I skimmed through it, did they say anything about EGS or Steam? My interest ends the moment they even hint at EGS, or refuse to commit to releasing it on steam day 1.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Digging that sleek UI look, adapted straight from the Endless games. It's definitely a style of UI I wish more RPGs would implement in place of skeuomorphic designs.

I feel the opposite. I dislike it here as I disliked it in Endless Legend.
I don't find it particularly "sleek" either. It's basic and minimalist, sure. But to the point of being lacking, in fact.

P.S. Man, the movement feels weird in this game. It's almost like playing an isometric blobber, if that makes any sense.

P.P.S. The overall impression from playing the demo is good anyway. Not ecstatic, but decent.

 

[frajaq]

Looks promising but a lot of work/polishing needs to be done still

 

[deuxhero]

Well DLed the demo, but don't have time tonight. If I have power tomorrow I'll give it a try.

 

[Elhoim]

I'm enjoying the demo. Love the reaction pop-ups for casting! Both in combat (put up a shield spell) and outside (falling due to a trap, cast feather fall).

I can't stand the camera, though, it's really a chore. At least add keyboard rotation, but even then... Rotating cameras that follow your party and tilt automatically are quite annoying.

 

[Ismaul]

Hmm so this is TB. Will watch.

 

[Lady_Error]

Contrary to what you would expect after seeing the gameplay video, you will be able to create your own characters:

Create your very own party of adventurers with our Character Creation Tool in the classic tabletop RPG tradition. Breathe life into your heroes, and see their personalities reflected in their dialogue.

The camera sounds like a headache though. Was also my biggest gripe with Age of Decadence.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I gave them some money

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Eh, sod you all. This looks fine to me. Writing isn't offensively bad like Bioware's recent stuff. If you create your own party you can fill it up with all the aryan ubermenches you want. The only concern I have is standard Kickstarter concerns. Will this game even come out? And will it drastically change direction after a mysterious injection of cash from the western branch of the CCP?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

• Written by Antoine Guillaud and Graeme Davis, Solasta is a fascinating High Fantasy World with centuries of complex history & lore to explore. Watch our Lore Trailer here!
• An epic single-player campaign that will take your party from level 1 to level 10.

I get the feeling this is intended to be a start of many more modules to come if it gets wings and off the ground. Interesting banter amongst pcs & npcs.

 

[Myzzrym]

Camera is a hot topic even within the team, so don't worry your feedbacks are being heard.

 

[thesheeep]

No Linux? Meh.
Good luck anyway, and may it run well via Proton once it comes out.