Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo - Old school RPG inspired by W7 and EoB

[TwoEdge]

This looks absolutely fantastic, day one purchase for sure!

Can you preview the races and classes for us? Also, how does the magic system work?

 

[SirBlabsAlot]

This looks absolutely fantastic, day one purchase for sure!

Can you preview the races and classes for us? Also, how does the magic system work?

Races:
Human, Voolk, Giant, Melnar, Nerkai, Mrmmuck, Koranum, Kehk-Grawur and Himsha.

Professions (classes):
Fighter, Knight, Ninja, Samurai, Archer, Thief, Mage, Priest, Alchemist, Jester, Pikeman and Bard

Magic system:
Basically, each "magician wannabe" must have at least 1 point in the skill "magic casting" (Physical skills) and then he/she combines this with additional (knowledge) skills like "Magic", "Divine Magic" and "Black Magic". Additionally, through playing the game, spell casters can also unlock the "Shozumu" and "Nah'Zar" skills that open up even more powerful spells to the caster.
But the most sought after skill amongst the spell casters is "Ancient Higher Magic" - considered an Ancient skill, the path to unlock it is long and difficult. But most definitely worth it
As per usual - Mana points are needed in order to cast spells. These are recovered gradually over time, or more quickly with resting. Of course, certain potions do the trick as well

Note: Resting will be faster than in Wiz7 where you needed to wait a long time to recover spell points (esp. when characters are high level).

OK, that's the basics.

You guys want me to write a bit more lore about races, classes... here? Not all at once of course, as I don't have that much time to write posts here on forum (I'd rather develop the game ), but I can reveal a bit more information and lore gradually here. If you want me to of course.

Ah, and you will need to excuse the typos and errors in grammar as we are not native english speakers and the documentation was not yet sent to the person that will check it and fix errors (we will do that before we complete the manual for the game).

 

[ManaJunkie]

i assume that some here will consider your game a highlight if not THE HIGHLIGHT of upcoming games (hopefully). yes, tell us more. let us drool.

 

[Dorateen]

Races:
Human, Voolk, Giant, Melnar, Nerkai, Mrmmuck, Koranum, Kehk-Grawur and Himsha.

So this guy is a Kehk-Grawur

I don't mind if you rename dwarves, as long as the game has them.

 

[Lady Error]

I think Voolk are elves and Melnar are dwarves, or the other way around.

 

[SirBlabsAlot]

I think Voolk are elves and Melnar are dwarves, or the other way around.

Here is 1 portrait from the game for each race (so you can visualise what's what )

Human

Koranum

Giant

Melnar

Nerkai

Himsha

Kehk-Grawur

Mrmmuck

Voolk

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

hmm...how long until it is determined to be a vapourware?

it looks good and will be interesting, but let's be honest, most two man projects take forever and have a higher possibility of burnout. my hopes aren't very high.

It's actually 5 people working on it.

Do your 2D animations with a component editor and not frame-by-frame. That's the most important advice I could possibly give. The tools are there to cut the work down from the 100% we did in Grimoire to just 1% of that work using 2D animation tools. I prefer Spriter but Spine is also good if you can afford it. Dragonbones was free but vanished. Spriter is pretty good and I have a good import package for Unity.

Thanks. Will check these tools out.

Don't do everything the hard way or at the end of the project you'll end up like me. I don't wish that on anyone. A tool like Spriter can be used by anybody on the team and they don't have to be experts to add new ones themselves. If someone says "We need a magic casting animation for that dwarf, it looks like we only have melee attacks right now," somebody on the team should be able to load up the body parts of the dwarf and whip something together in a few minutes. If you do a reasonable number of animations frame-by-frame you'll find the work just keeps mushrooming and adding a new animation is a minor ordeal that can take a week on it's own to test and get straightened out so it looks right. Using the 2D animation tools that did not really exist when I wrote Grimoire, you can cut the total work down to a very reasonable size.

Writing this from inside Arkham Asylum in my own blood with a fingernail on stolen stationary because they won't let me have a pencil anymore after what I did with it last Halloween. The penisaurus is outside. I can hear him coming for me.

 

[udm]

This looks incredible! Eagerly awaiting the release of the demo

By the way are you guys planning to have a Steam page? Would make it easier to keep track of release.

 

[SirBlabsAlot]

This looks incredible! Eagerly awaiting the release of the demo

By the way are you guys planning to have a Steam page? Would make it easier to keep track of release.

Steam page in a week or two.
Already approved account on Steam so we just need to create a small trailer and setup the page.

You can also subscribe to news on our web site. I promise we don't spam and we will send only bigger announcements to your email

Edit: forgot to include website URL: https://www.megavision-software.com

 

[SirBlabsAlot]

We are making good progress, so I decided to post a few screenshots from the game here, for those that don't follow us on Twitter, FB or Instagram...
These are all early areas that will be included in demo as well.

And of course, these are all early pre-alpha and everything will go through at least one more "polish" round.

 

[Dorateen]

Like Crusaders' Guardia or Grimoire's Hyperborea, your images invite one to explore the wonders, dangers and mysteries of this new world. Fantastic!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Oh Ho Ho! I had not heard.

 

[ManaJunkie]

Looks very good. A recognizable own style.
Will steam be the only way to buy the game? Have you considered any alternatives? I don't mind buying the game a second time later without drm.

 

[SirBlabsAlot]

Looks very good. A recognizable own style.
Will steam be the only way to buy the game? Have you considered any alternatives? I don't mind buying the game a second time later without drm.

We are planning to release on Steam first. Then we also plan to release it (if possible and if there won't be any problems from the platforms) on GOG, Epic and itch

We could be doing a kickstarter for boxed - DRM free version in the future, but that's still not 100% decided on as we are not sure, that we would hit the "critical mass" of old school RPG enthusiasts. It would certainly help though, as currently, 100% of the game's development is financed by us (well, mostly me ). No publisher or anything similar - 100% indie style

Would you guys be interested in such boxed version?

 

[covr]

Yes, my wee wee is hard

 

[ManaJunkie]

Absolutely! Personally, I would be willing to pay a hundred bucks for a game in a box with instructions, map, etc..

 

[SirBlabsAlot]

Absolutely! Personally, I would be willing to pay a hundred bucks for a game in a box with instructions, map, etc..

There will be a PDF of the full manual included with digital versions too. Even the "notes.txt" file in the game dir (those that played games in the 80s and 90s will know what I'm talking about )
We want this game to really capture the 90s gaming feeling.

We did discuss boxed version too, but for it to happen there would need to be either a publisher involved, or a kickstarter.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

GOG and/or itchio… haha AWESOME! Thnx

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Awesome. That cottage is straight out of a fairytale children's book, looks beautiful. This is full of win.

If the story and combat matches this, I reckon Grimoire is about to get BTFO by this game as a Wiz 7 clone.

I have not looked forward to anything in a while but I am now eagerly anticipating this game.

Any chance of it having a smooth-scrolling option?

 

[Orud]

I don't think artist who drew this ever played Legend Of Grimrock to be honest
We gave the artist the options we need and general placement of the "modules" (so equiped items top-right, backpack botom right, crafting between stats and backpack, and so on).
We never intended to "copy" LoG.

Even if it was inspired by another game, who gives a hoot. We've had 30+ years now of graphic 2D UI design, sticking with what works should not be a point of contention.

Anyway, looking forward to the final product. Will be a day 1 purchase from me.

 

[Shadenuat]

House is like first person kyrandia

 

[SirBlabsAlot]

Awesome. That cottage is straight out of a fairytale children's book, looks beautiful. This is full of win.

If the story and combat matches this, I reckon Grimoire is about to get BTFO by this game as a Wiz 7 clone.

I have not looked forward to anything in a while but I am now eagerly anticipating this game.

Any chance of it having a smooth-scrolling option?

Thanks. I'm glad you like the what you see. I hope the game (when released) matches your expectations.

As for smooth-scrolling.
It was meant to be "grid-based movement only" at the start (as a homage to Wiz 7 and EOB/M&M series).
To tell you the truth, the "simulated" smooth grid-based movement like LoL never did it for me. I just don't like the feeling of "zoomed in" transition (you can clearly see it's "fake") and panning 2 images when turning to left/right. I do like true 3d grid-based movement (the one you can easily do in UE/Unity/Godot...) - but...
I was investigating the option of including the real 3d objects of walls, trees with these 2d "textures" from my artists... and then have grid based movement with smooth transition in true 3d. It's doable, it would probably look great, I have a working prototype made (just FYI - I'm working with my own engine in C/C++), but... it would meant creating all 2d assets of walls, trees, the hut... to 3d and I just don't think there will be time to do this (and to tell you the truth, I'm not "financially strong enough" to invest in another full time 3d modeller - I'm already financing everything myself...)

But, there is an option there. We will see. If good progress is made and I see I have time "to tinker a bit more" then maybe I'll do something about it.

Saying that, my target is to release this game next year and if I see that any additional feature would move that date beyond 2024, then I'll skip it. Maybe these additional features can find their way into the next part. Afterall - Mystic Land story is written/created as a trilogy (with party transfers between games).

 

[mindx2]

Would you guys be interested in such boxed version?

Oh, please oh, please.... OH, PLEASE!!!!

 

[mindx2]

index.php

 

[Lady Error]

As for smooth-scrolling.
It was meant to be "grid-based movement only" at the start (as a homage to Wiz 7 and EOB/M&M series).

Personally, I prefer movement without the smooth scrolling. It is faster and also reminds me of the classics.