Archmage Rises - the play-how-you-want mage simulator - now available on Early Access

[anvi]

Crazy to be paying a team. He needs to stop that and work on it alone in his shed. Get it making profit.

 

[mediocrepoet]

If he needs tips on game development on the razor's edge, he could learn the secrets of roots from Pierre.

 

[Space Satan]

He should've listened to advice

 

[Viata]

Today I remembered about this game. And given what has been posted lately, it was better if I had forgotten about it.

 

[Tyranicon]

Well personally I was rooting for this project despite it being composed out of nothing but red flags.

Making games is hard. Business is harder. Such is life.

But $40k a month to pay your team is ridiculous for a project of this size. Wtf.

 

[Tyranicon]

Wait nvm, did this guy not pay his employees for 7 months?

Bro, wut.

And he wrote this in a public statement?!

 

[The people of Duckburg]

Many indie games fail to complete for 3 or 4 common reasons. None of those threaten this game.

I'm making this game because I want to, I'm capable of doing so, and I have the finances to see it through.
Short of me being hit by a bus, this game will come out and have all the promised features!

Reading the first page before jumping to the recent posts makes for a real plot twist.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Wait nvm, did this guy not pay his employees for 7 months?

Bro, wut.

And he wrote this in a public statement?!

Wanted to be sure that if they hired labour lawyers or made complaints to the government that he'd get turbofucked.

 

[Viata]

Many indie games fail to complete for 3 or 4 common reasons. None of those threaten this game.

I'm making this game because I want to, I'm capable of doing so, and I have the finances to see it through.
Short of me being hit by a bus, this game will come out and have all the promised features!

Reading the first page before jumping to the recent posts makes for a real plot twist.

He was ready for the 3 or 4 commons reasons. He just never expected it had far more than just 4.

 

[HoboForEternity]

The blog post sounds like the employees were so loyal they stayed 7 months unpaid, in reality he probably lied to them about the funding and keep reeling the payday.

If any of them sue, he's fucked basically

 

[Jarmaro]

As much as I want to see a solid game coming out of this, I just cannot believe in this guy's skills or bussiness acumen anymore. He supposedly's been doing it for 20 years. How can he be so bad at it? THe project was supposed to be financially secure, instead folks haven't been paid for months and he himself had to do a side-job. Well, enough time wasted following the project, will see how it turned out in a few months.

 

[Mortmal]

I never got the early access because, after playing the demo, I lost all faith in it. It’s nothing more than a roguelike with fancier graphics, lacking even a tenth of the features you’d find in free ones. Those free games are often made by a single passionate individual over decades. Yet, with an entire team working on this one, it seems like not much was achieved.

 

[Tyranicon]

Yet, with an entire team working on this one, it seems like not much was achieved.

This should be a solo game. There's no reason to hire 9+ people to work on a passion project, because for them, it's just a job that some rich guy is paying (?) them to do.

 

[Mise]

AFAIK some/most of them used to be volunteers or part-timers(at least when I saw some of this guy's devlogs, they were introduced as such) and the 40k for 14 people sort of proves that, but what I don't understand is... does anyone really believes that this can earn a 2-3 millions in revenue? Publishers, the guy running this saying he is a senior developer(with 20 years of business experience nonetheless), players, was anyone seriously believing this? Assuming these 14 people were planned to work for this and by the end of next year that is(which would cost a milion minus another million for taxes and steam/other platforms cut).

 

[Mortmal]

I guess living in a bubble leads to that—some toxic optimism too. It’s no different from those Kickstarter campaigns expecting millions to hit stretch goals. It seems strange that 14 people were working on this with so little progress. But I don’t know if any of this is true.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

ARCHMAGE... ARISE!!!!

And yeah, no FREE demo to buy er add to my list.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Fuck my shitty wifi. If i can barely post I can almost never watch vids. Here is a y/o vid I haven't seen yet? It is times like these I need a review.


I need a more current vid.

 

[quaesta]

I saw it's like Pirates!, got excited because it was one of my favorite games, now it seems like vaporwave trash made by a financial idiot.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

The video made the game look interesting enough for a very rough version. I do not know if since then it got any better. The financial issues sounds bad and will likely kill this.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.archmagerises.com/news/2025/1/10/the-game-is-alive-jan-10-dev-update

The Game is Alive: Jan 10 Dev Update

I’m here, at my desk, with Unity open to Archmage Rises.

The first thing I did was make sure it still compiles and runs so I can work on it.

It does.

From Nov 19 to Dec 31, I still kept having meetings with the potential investor/publisher and he and I both hoped that the money would come before year end, but it didn’t.

We’re moving forward on the game regardless.

Power of Two​

Some good news: I don’t have to do it alone! Michel and I have come to an arrangement where he will work full time (4 days a week) programming on Archmage. Michel has been working on Archmage since 2019, he brings a wealth of experience having worked on most of the major systems.

Where to begin?​

It’s been a while since I worked on the game. Of all the things we could work on, where to begin?

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

The first goal is to do something tangible: for you, for me.

I think putting out a small update in a short but reasonable amount of time, like about a month, will help build momentum. So that’s the goal.

But what?

In my consulting/contracting work I’ve been advising the client about game loops and how important it is to answer “why am I doing this?” every 5 seconds, minute, 10 minute, and 30 minutes. Uh… advice I need to apply to my own game! ‍

Miyamoto famously said, “Just walking around needs to be fun". (Fun is better translated “engaging” or “interesting”). So if we rephrase as “Just walking around needs to be interesting” and pull in the famous Sid Meier quote “A game is a series of interesting choices”, I think we might be onto something.

Map Events​

I have to confess something: I’ve never liked the way the game plays at the map level. The exploration, resource gathering, the tracks, tracks, and more tracks… It just never felt right.

Good news is our senior designer Mark already came up with a new design to make map exploration way more interesting with Map Events.

What’s a Map Event?

Campsite Event, Resource Event, Traveler Event, Lair Event, Quest Event, Monster Patrols, etc.

We were in the middle of implementing the first prototype of it.

After some discussion with Michel (and Mark), we think this is the best place to start. Michel was halfway through making some tooling for the feature prototype:

Internal demo of the tool for making Map Events, never intended for the public, hence the background music and bandicam logo

My goal for today was to come up with a plan and let you know what we’re doing. So far, mission accomplished!

I will write another update next week Friday.

 

[Technomancer]

I still kept having meetings with the potential investor/publisher and he and I both hoped that the money would come before year end, but it didn’t.

 

[Haba]

Yeah, I could say that I told you so... but ugh, it is still too depressing.

 

[Viata]

That china-inspired fallout mod had a better chances of being released compared to this game.

 

[Modron]

That china-inspired fallout mod had a better chances of being released compared to this game.

Static will come out first.

 

[Tyranicon]

April, 2024:

I have spent 33% of my adult life and most of my finances making Archmage Rises. I’ve poured some $1.1m USD into make the game [...] We will release 1.0 Spring 2025.

Jan, 2025:

My goal for today was to come up with a plan and let you know what we’re doing. So far, mission accomplished!