Dark Envoy - guns n' sorcery RTwP RPG by Tower of Time developer

[LESS T_T]

https://evehor.com




https://af.gog.com/game/dark_envoy?as=1649904300

Spoiler

From the Polish developers of well-received real-time dungeon crawler Tower of Time, this time it's turn-based, world exploration, non-linear narrative, and additional muliplayer modes.

“What do you see when you look in the mirror, Kiros?”

“I see a world where the strong prey on the weak, where virtues like honor and justice are just a myth. I see our world but it is a bad place, Kaela… and we are part of it now.”

Dark Envoy is a non-linear RPG inspired by the likes of the Divinity series, XCOM, FTL, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age to offer free world exploration with an emphasis on tactical combat layered with lore and strategy. A continuation of Event Horizon’s attempt, which began with the studio’s debut title Tower of Time, to shatter long-standing RPG tropes and to create something unique in the process.

Explore the world using your Skyship, it is your base of operations after all. Hunt for mythical locations, and procedurally generated dungeons with optional tactical objectives. Choose wisely where to travel however, as the world map adjusts with the passing of in-game time. Locations will randomly respawn, becoming progressively more challenging to travel for you and your party.

Story

As the Human Empire fights for dominance against the remnants of the Old Races, Dark Technology clashes against Magic — neither side is good and just. The strong prey on the weak taking whatever they please. This is total war, where the defeated will be entirely wiped from the pages of history.

Against this backdrop, Kaela and Kiros aspire to repair their parents’ broken airship in order to travel the world, seeking to face whatever dungeons, challenges, and riches may come their way. They are hungry to learn how to fight, build, and forge alliances and friendships across the known lands. Together, they search for ancient relics and forgotten places. Together, they look to leave a legacy in their wake…

Yet, their journey begins in blood and tragedy.

Your choices are everything and they can reshape your life in this place, even the world around you. Will you become strong enough to survive the journey and reach the end? Will you find the power to change this grim reflection of our own world? Will your legacy be one of peace and honor, or stained by bloodshed and destruction?

When you look in the mirror at the end, what reflection will you see there?

Features

• Non-linear RPG with turn-based combat accompanied by a real time pre-combat phase where tactics and party power are equally important.
• Player choices impact the world: it can be destroyed or saved, and the stories that unfold will lead to multiple endings reflecting the characters’ personalities and decisions.
• Co-written by Michael Chatfield, an Amazon Top 100 Science Fiction / Fantasy writer (specializing in litRPG genre).
• 15 unique character classes to discover - with the ability to mix skill trees - including some rare classes which can only be found in remote locations or through chained quests.
• New RPG system, promoting experimentation and requiring frequent adaptation to the new challenges.
• Can be played solo, two player co-op, as well as a unique mode called Player vs World where Player 2 acts as the final boss seeking to destroy Player 1 before he/she becomes too powerful.
• High-replayability factor due to large pool of quests, local, and world events. One cannot uncover all of the content in a single playthrough.

 

[Jimmious]

It's so cool that turn-based became a thing again

 

[luj1]

I missed the Disciples/Etherlords perspective. Refreshing.

Upon closer inspection however, game is absolutely devoid of style, combat looks bare bones and the trailer is cringe. Also, the titles they listed as sources of inspiration = lol.

 

[Solfear]

Tower of Time was my 2018 favorite game, this one is now clearly in my Top 3 most anticipated games with Bannerlord and Realms Beyond.

 

[vortex]

I like it's combining tech with magic.

But do iron golems run on electricity or on soul?

 

[Infinitron]

LESS T_T Looks like this game was accidentally leaked back in March and only somebody on Reddit noticed: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/b3i2v7/dark_envoy_announcement_trailer/

 

[Saduj]

Sounds cool. Only thing I don’t like is fixed protagonists.

 

[LESS T_T]

http://darkenvoy.com/progress/

Dev Blog #1 (08.2019)
The Announcement

Tower of Time was our debut title. Now, we embark on a more challenging journey. Our aim is to create a better and bigger RPG game, that would stand out in terms of quality of graphics, story depth, gameplay and replayability. After 9 months of setting up the project, prototyping, drawing up new mechanics (and then scraping them and starting fresh) – we are finally ready to announce our next project – DARK ENVOY – a non-linear RPG with turn-based combat, free world exploration, engaging story and with multiplayer modes, including one unique PvP (that we called “Player vs World” for now).

In this BLOG, we intend to share our experiences from the development, writing about our successes and failures, showcasing new and interesting game mechanics, showing off classes and skills and many more, whatever we think would be interesting to share. So, check in from time to time if you are interested.

The game is slated to be released in Q3/Q4 2020 so there is still a bit of time, but we plan to share the news about the game frequently with the gaming community. As a starting point, we will exhibit the demo at this year’s Gamescom in Cologne, showcasing a combat part of the game, where you can play against A.I. or in PvP mode. If you are around, come and visit us (Hall 10.1, A71).
K.M.

SO HERE WE COME.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/06/...-rpg-from-tower-of-time-studio-event-horizon/

Dark Envoy is the next RPG from Tower of Time studio Event Horizon

Event Horizon’s sophomore effort looks like it’s combining the tactical gameplay from Tower of Time with cowpoke steampunk stylings for Dark Envoy, an upcoming role-playing game for PC.

Dark Envoy is a nonlinear RPG that Event Horizon says take inspiration from Divinity, XCOM, FTL, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age (that’s a lot of inspirations). It focuses on exploration and tactical combat in procedurally generated dungeons. It builds on the real-time combat from Tower of Time, which at times felt more like a strategy game than an RPG. It will have a real-time “pre-combat” phase, and the studio promises the choices you make will matter to the story.

And you fly around in an airship, toting magic and firearms and practicing technomancy.

“We think it is an interesting premise, where two opposing forces collide in a fight for total supremacy. The technology part is not limited to guns, but [it] also involves a mixture of technology and magic, where the magic component is forcefully combined through technomancy,” Event Horizon founder Krzysztof Monkiewicz said over email. “Humans harvest magic/mana from the native people of the world [the Old Races]. Some players may find similarities to the various colonization periods in our own history, e.g., bloody conquests of South America during the XV and XIV centuries or the settling of North America. This mix also gives us a lot of freedom with classes, skills and equipment, as we are not limited to only typical fantasy or D&D-style classes.

“This was core to our first game as well, and based on the feedback from players it was well liked.”

Colonial aims
Tower of Time was a story about exploring a postapocalyptic fantasy world. In Dark Envoy, you’re newcomers to a land with long-lived, powerful cultures — the Old Races.

“Tower of Time had a bit of a post-apocalyptic vibe, where the player was discovering the grim history of the world throughout the game. Dark Envoy is more approachable, as it puts the player in the shoes of two people who are quite average and unremarkable in the beginning. As the story confronts them with a world of mystery and conspiracy, a world we want to portray as the shadow of our own world, or the alternate Earth, their characters and attitude toward the events around them change,” Monkiewicz said. “The player can decide to take an easier path, at least in the beginning, of being ‘bad’ and following their desires by taking whatever they want, even from the poor and innocent. However, small evil steps would over time lead to greater evil and at the end it can turn out that, while they may have reached the final objective and won, it is not the ending they like.

“The world setting in Dark Envoy should be interesting, as it depicts a fight between Humans, newcomers to the land, and Old Races, where the human empire is the aggressor. We feel it’s a refreshing change from a typical Human vs Others conflict. As the story unfolds we find out that not everything is as black/white as it seemed and that something — or someone — might be manipulating us.”

Time for class
The story puts siblings Kaela and Kiros in a world where the Human Empire is fighting what’s left of the Old Races for supremacy in the world. Technology takes on magic. Here, the siblings seek to fix their parents’ airship to travel the world, delving into ancient dungeons searching for relics and magic.

“You start as a party of two – a brother and a sister and create two starting characters/classes,” he said. “Then, as you explore the world, you can recruit more champions along the way, some of them with unique skill sets — rare and legendary classes. As we progress in the game, we will collect a larger team of characters that we could rotate at will in our Battle Party. The maximum team size for the Battle Party is four. Characters that remain on the ship, depending on their non-combat skill set, will perform ship upgrades, do research, or craft new items. It is not required to take the main characters into combat and some missions could require a specific main character/side character to participate.”

It has 15 character classes, and you can mix skill trees. The studio’s says its mo-cap team used a martial arts master to capture some of the combat animations. You can play it as a single-player game or add in another for co-op — and it has a nice twist as well. Its Players vs. World mode pits one player against another, who takes on the role of the final boss, trying to destroy the first player.

Steampunk and skyships
Dark Envoy mixes magic with tech, which can be a fun aesthetic to play with. Event Horizon has some reasons for this setting that go beyond the ol’ “rule of cool.”

“The intent here is to create a vast world with various and unique biomes, something that the player would love to explore themselves and not feel constrained by the story development. That requires a faster travel speed to make it feel more realistic. Between ground travel and air travel, we think air travel is much more exciting,” Monkiewicz said. Also, since you cannot go back to your starting town, due to story development, you need to carry your base of operations with you. Our Skyship serves as the training ground and hub for research, crafting, blacksmithing, and runecrafting.”

So, I wondered what makes steampunk so appealing for game design?

“Well, it is not really a typical Victorian steampunk as we’re mixing technology and magic. But why is this style so appealing to us? It gives us tremendous flexibility in designing practically every single element of the game – most importantly, perhaps, the locations where the game takes place,” he said.

We’ll learn more about Dark Envoy at Gamescom.

 

[LESS T_T]

Sounds cool. Only thing I don’t like is fixed protagonists.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/945770/discussions/0/1640918469770233532/

You will start with two main characters, that you can create from the scratch. Over the course of the game your can recruit more characters, some will join you for a cause, some for money.

Party limit in combat would be 4 characters, selecteable from a rooster of 6 or 8 characters that will accompany you -- and you will be able to fully customize all of them to your liking.

Also I noticed this supports Steam Workshop.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Damn. Looks cool as hell.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Tower of Time was my 2018 favorite game, this one is now clearly in my Top 3 most anticipated games with Bannerlord and Realms Beyond.

Tower of Time was incredibly underrated, looking forward to this.

 

[Harry Easter]

Airships. I love airships :D. But the idea for the story does sound good, a bit like Expeditions: Conquistador with more BOOM :D.

 

[Doktor Best]

It's so cool that turn-based became a thing again

Thank the Sven for that.

 

[Jimmious]

It's so cool that turn-based became a thing again

Thank the Sven for that.

Admittedly FiraXCOM also did its part

 

[Brainlet2]

Turn based, steampunk with airships? Shit's amazing

 

[vortex]

 

[Infinitron]

I'm beginning to see how this game is inspired by Dragon Age. The non-steampunk stuff has very similar art style. It's how I imagine a turn-based tactical Dragon Age spinoff would look like.

 

[vortex]

 

[Infinitron]

On German IGN also:

 

[Infinitron]

Finally:

 

[Infinitron]

Latest from RPGWatch: https://www.rpgwatch.com/articles/dark-envoy-gamescom-review-481.html

Dark Envoy Gamescom Review
by Joost "Myrthos" Mans, 2019-08-28

Dark Envoy is a game that mixes real-time exploration with turn-based tactical combat. By itself that is nothing special, but they have added some extras to this mix. The setting of the game is a combination of magic and technology, which the developers have labeled as Technomancy and to help with the story they work together with Michael Chatfield, an American author of Sci-fi, fantasy and LitRPG books.

You start the game with two characters, a brother and a sister. They want to fix a sky ship and travel the world. But unwillingly they are pulled into something that is much bigger than they are. As they go along, they will meet other NPCs that they can recruit, each of which has their own side story. At the moment there are 15 NPCs designed using different classes. Some of them are very rare special NPCs that are hard to find, but that players probably will want to have in their team. Next to the NPCs, mercenaries can be recruited, who have no story and will fight for a share of the loot.

At the start you get to create the two starting characters. For that you get to choose from the four basic classes: a warrior, a ranger, an engineer and a magic user. Each of these will have five specializations to choose from. You can specialize in one of them and become very good in that or you can mix specializations and have a more diverse character, but a bit weaker in each of the specializations.


Dark Envoy can be played with a party of 4 characters. You can recruit more than 4 characters, but at any given time you can only play with 4. The sky ship your team is in, moves over a world where you can decide to inspect a location on the map more closely. Once you do that you start the exploration of the location and try not to be detected, so that you can find out what type of enemies you encounter, in order to optimize your party for that encounter and lay some traps for those enemies.

Time in the game is a precious resource, while you are exploring a location, time elapses and if you take too much time exploring, the next location you visit might become more difficult as the level of all the enemies in that location have increased too much. So the best approach is to not take too much time exploring a location, but also not to stay in a location that is not that interesting and where the rewards are low. However, you do need to fight in order to gain experience and level up your party, so you do have to fight at some point.

Spoiler

Dark Envoy is an open world game, so you are in theory able to fly your ship directly to the end location, but you are not able to end the game that quickly, as you will need some items that you don't have yet and which you'll need to find.

I was told the game is also a full RPG, with a main story and side stories. It is non-linear and your choices matter. It wasn't shown in the demo, but I was given the example that you could play the game as a bad person and rob the merchants, but at some point they start to know you and you will no longer be able to rob them, but you can still kill the merchants, which will have effects as well. On the other side, if you are playing as a good person, the game will throw moral choices at you.

Based on the way the player goes through the game, there is a different ending. You could for example finish the game in a very bad way. Like you defeat the end boss, but you are leaving a ravaged land behind you.


Dialogs consist of a cut-scene which is then followed by dialog options that allows the player to select one of the options. The dialogs aren't text heavy, they are actually quite light in that area, which is intentional as they don't want the players to spent their time reading a lot of information.

As mentioned before, when your party is exploring a location, the goal is to gain a tactical advantage over the enemies in that location by scouting the area. In order to avoid being detected a circle is being shown around each of the characters, indicating when your enemies will detect you. If they are inside that circle you are detected and the fight will start. To reduce the radius of the detection circle it is possible to sneak.


Combat is turn-based and if you are smart you will make sure to position your party before the combat starts, so that the combat can start on your terms. During combat, moving will require 1 action point, regardless of how much the character moves. As damage that is dealt reduces when a character is behind a cover or far away you could decide to place your weaker characters, like the mage, behind a cover and the engineer, who is shooting guns, further away. Each party member has combat abilities and 2 action points. The abilities are depending on the class and they have a range. A melee ability for a fighter usually has a short range, whereas the dash ability has a medium range and an ability involving a gun usually has a longer range. Using such an ability comes at the cost of one action point.

Participants in combat also have statuses, like burning, poisoned, stunned, etc. The damage done is relative to the level of the character that initiated the status. A high level gives a high damage.

There is quite some information that can be shown about each of the characters during combat, but if you don't like that, you can turn it off to reduce the amount of information shown. Although it wasn't really shown in the demo, certain elements of the environment that play a tactical role during combat are destructible.


Dark Envoy has item sets, including legendary sets that you can try to find during your exploration of the world. The legendary sets will give quite some bonus to whomever wears it. Next to finding items, you can also perform research in your sky ship. You can research weapons, but also skills and items. You could research for a weapon with a longer reach like a spear that is able to reach more than one grid and gives an advantage in combat. Or research very long ranged rifles. Or a short range AOE weapon, like a blunderbuss.

However during your research time passes and the enemies in the world are becoming stronger, so you have to make wise choices on how much time you are willing to spent on research. Research is performed by means of a research tree. You can only research that what you currently know. You will gain knowledge on research items during the game, but certain elements of the research tree will only become available when you have recruited a special NPC. As an example I was told that if you have recruited the mad scientist, you can create special grenades. A gunsmith NPC would allow you to research a special type of gun. But if you have both of them, a very unique item can be researched. That such a thing is possible will not be shown in any way to the player. People need to find this out themselves.


Dark Envoy supports a co-op mode for two players, where each of them will control two characters. In the real-time mode this can be much more efficient, as it is possible to explore more area and laying more traps by splitting up.

Next to that there is also a Player vs. World mode. In this mode, one player controls the party and the other is the end boss who doesn't move, but who controls a lot of opponents for the party. The goal of the player controlling the end boss is to find the party and to kill them before they come for you, as that is the goal of the player controlling the party.

Dark Envoy is scheduled for release near the end of 2020.

 

[Event Horizon]

Hello,

I am one of the developers of Dark Envoy - happy to join the discussion on our new (and very ambitious game).
If you are interested, I would be happy to share updates from time to time on all game features and mechanics.

We would also love to get engaged in a discussion if something sounds/looks good or not. We really listen to all the feedback and incorporate it, if possible.
Also, once we are ready with closed beta - we'd be happy to invite you to participate.

cheers,
KM

One of the locations ingame - Bloodsand Arena.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.shacknews.com/article/1...s-gameplay-is-pushed-by-the-players-decisions

Interview: Dark Envoy's gameplay is pushed by the player's decisions
We spoke with the developers behind this western steampunk inspired world and got a peek behind the curtain to their creative process.

Developed by Event Horizon, Dark Envoy is a brand new RPG IP that likens itself to notable titles such as XCOM, Divinity, and Dragon Age. The non-linear story sees players sailing across the skies, in search of powerful relics. We interviewed the founder of Event Horizon about the process of creating this game from the ground up.

In the video below, our interview with Event Horizon is coupled with gameplay from Dark Envoy. Something players will immediately be taken by is Dark Envoy’s unique setting. What was described to us as a mixture of a steampunk victorian with fantasy elements really opens up gameplay decisions from a creative standpoint. “We’re not limited in anyway when we create locations, when we think about the quests.” having such a mashup setting allows for a wide range of variety when designing characters, weapons, cities, etc.

As for lore, Dark Envoy envisions a world of the old races, beings akin to elves, fairies, and your classic fantasy creatures. Humans later came to this world and began to conquer the land. The old races represent the magic and fantastical elements of Dark Envoy, while the humans represent technology. The story will be paved by the decisions of the player. When progressing through Dark Envoy, you’ll have the option to side with the humans, or with the old races. The path you take will influence quest outcomes and narrative structures.

Dark Envoy features a combination of real-time and turn-based combat. As players maneuver throughout the world, they will do so in real time. Once engaged with an enemy, the two parties will take turns moving and attacking. Event Horizon hopes that this will add an extra layer of strategy and force players to think harder about how they approach different combat scenarios.

If Dark Envoy seems up your alley, you can play it when it launches in 2020 on Steam, Xbox One, and PS4. Subscribe to Shacknews and GamerHubTV’s Youtube channels for more exclusive gameplay and interviews.

https://www.criticalhit.net/gaming/dark-envoy-preview-dungeons-and-bandits-and-maybe-dragons/

Dark Envoy Preview: Dungeons and Bandits (and maybe Dragons)

I’ve spent a good portion of my adult life playing Dungeons and Dragons. A past-time that even I (as hypocritical as it sounds) once deemed “too nerdy” to grace the top of my dining room table, I eventually realised what a jack ass I have been and welcomed the ever-loving but equally as harsh D20 into my life. I dedicate Monday nights are set aside for DnD now, playing with friends all over the country using the Internet (keep your eyes on that, it’s gonna be big) and it’s one of the highlights of the week.

Not only is DnD a great way to socialise with friends, it’s also a really, really well-designed game that’s actually super tricky to translate into any other kind of medium. It’s the unexpected highs and lows of a system that revolves around quick thinking and chance with some of the most memorable stories coming from pulling off a seemingly impossible feat when the odds were so stacked against you. As much as many games have tried to emulate the individual, character-centric turn-based action of Dungeons and Dragons, I think most of them just don’t capture that feeling of staring down insurmountable odds and coming out victorious. Which is what initially drew my attention to Dark Envoy.

Starting off, I’ll admit that nothing really stood out to me about Dark Envoy. It was a dark fantasy world with the usual fair of trolls, goblins and all kinds of rebellious rapscallions. I was waiting for something unique to jump out at me, something to convince me that this was a game I could really get stuck into. I’ve played my fair share of CRPG’s and, honestly, this just didn’t really strike me as being one that stood out from the crowd. “What’s the hook?”, I asked, controller ready in my hands. “What’s special about Dark Envoy? Why should I play this game?”. The developer sitting next to me clicked on the “Start combat” button the screen. “Ever played X-COM? It’s like that with swords. And magic instead of guns”.”

Yep, that’ll do it.

I went into Dark Envoy expecting a typical CRPG. The kind where you design your characters upfront and role-play them throughout the game and while I do adore those kinds of games for the in-depth writing and stories, I often struggle through the combat largely because I find it to be exceptionally tedious. If I wanted to click on abilities and wait for cool downs to drop off, I’d go play an MMO. The lack of punchy, satisfying combat is nearly always I try to blitz through especially enemy filled areas to get to that sweet, sweet story. Dark Envoy tackles its combat much differently though, placing much more of an emphasis on strategy, placement and outwitting the enemy over min-maxing characters. The time I spent with the game was nearly all dedicated to the combat system and quite frankly I wouldn’t have had it any other way because I’m itching to get back into it and play more.

I’m a recent convert to turn-based strategy; games like X-COM and Fire Emblem used to bore my small mind but in my old age I’ve come to enjoy the slower, far more intellectual style of gameplay they bring to the table. Dark Envoy is the marriage of classic CRPG’s with turn-based strategy games, providing players with characters that start off as blank slates that eventually level up and grow into fierce combatants of death and destruction. The usual mix of fantasy classes is on offer here: Rogue, Paladin, Mage, Engineer for those of you who want a bit more steam in your punk. Characters have AP that determines what actions they can take in combat and limit their movement to specific ranges on the grid. There’s cover, destructible environments and enemies that are not only tough to injure but smart too; more than once was I outmanoeuvred by the AI (I don’t know if that says more about Dark Envoy or me).

Dark Envoy solves the problem of lack-lustre combat in most top-down fantasy games. Having your party’s rogue activate stealth, sneak all the way behind enemy lines (while your paladin taunts the damage from everyone one else) and eventually execute a swift backstab was never not satisfying. While the system itself may not be ground-breaking in its design it’s built very well and in a world were the turn-based strategy game is no-where near as prevalent as one would like Dark Envoy promises to fill a void that I think many fans of the genre have had in their hearts for a while. Perhaps my one big critique of the game would be that the UI can be especially fiddly, with a lot of very important information not displayed in the easiest to observe places. On more than one occasion I was confused as to why my mage couldn’t shoot a fireball only to realise I didn’t have the Action Points needed for it. The in-game combat UI is very in-depth, trying to communicate a lot of very important information to the player, yet often fails at doing that because I was never sure where the most relevant information was. It’s a case of streamlining the process to make combat flow far better because at present the combat is satisfying but needlessly drawn out due to a clunky user interface.

That being said I’m excited to see where developer Event Horizon takes Dark Envoy. There’s a lot of potential in the combat and the accompanying world and while I talk really speak of the story as yet I’m intrigued to see how to pairs with a system that emphasises player choice and consequences it seems to be the kind of game that’s going to tick a lot of boxes for plenty of plenty. I’m excited to see the game develop further because this is definitely one for fans of strategy and RPG’s to keep their eyes on.

 

[Infinitron]

Perhaps it is an overkill for an RPG game to have hundreds of motion capture animations, but we do not compromise on anything. After all:

"He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks."
Sun Tzu