Game News Psychological RPG Sacred Fire resurfaces, coming in 2021

[Ismaul]

Yeah, we should welcome devs experimenting with mechanics, combat, dialogue or otherwise, which is why I backed the game. This is how RPGs evolve.

It's a risk for sure, unfamiliarity means harder development, mistakes and smaller audience, so that can only really happen with indie devs taking that risk upon themselves. That alone IMO is deserving of respect and support.

Sad to see a bunch of supposedly monocled codexers shitting on it. If you don't want that type of thing there's always some AAA crapola around the corner.

 

[Tyranicon]

Yeah, we should welcome devs experimenting with mechanics, combat, dialogue or otherwise, which is why I backed the game. This is how RPGs evolve.

It's a risk for sure, unfamiliarity means harder development, mistakes and smaller audience, so that can only really happen with indie devs taking that risk upon themselves. That alone IMO is deserving of respect and support.

Sad to see a bunch of supposedly monocled codexers shitting on it. If you don't want that type of thing there's always some AAA crapola around the corner.

I just want the dev to bite the pillow and go full adult dev. The pay is better and it would be nice having more sane people in that field. And games that aren't steaming piles of degeneracy.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

 

[SerratedBiz]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

You're on the codex, I'm sure some of them were directly responsible for those things

Your average codexer is not a creator, as that would require the ability to produce original thoughts.

People here are more like locusts.

 

[poetic]

Ismaul Thank you for your kind words, I appreciate it.

It's only natural that a RPG is many things to many people, as the genre evolved differently in different parts of the world.

I think it's no coincidence that Disco Elysium originated in Estonia.

My take on it is, that while the eastern Europe was behind the iron curtain, role-playing and cRPGs emerged in the west - developed by creators that were able to master the development for the hardware of that era. So basically engineers, which tend to be more interested in things then in people. So naturally the section of role-playing they enjoyed and adapted into cRPGs was position-based party combat tactics, items management, stats optimization, logical puzzles, navigation, monsters, lore. And mostly in a competitive context. Basically a mathematician or academic testing your intellect in a fun way. And that's absolutely fine. And these implementations of cRPGs built audiences around them and business tend to cater to their customers, thus reinforcing an implementation.

I was surprised to learn pen & paper role-playing had a nerd stigma in the west in the beginning. As that's not the case here in central Europe. You can talk to almost anyone male in my generation, be they a doctor, a lawyer or a salesperson now - if they like abstract thinking, it's almost guaranteed that they played and enjoyed pen & paper role-playing as boys. The same way The Witcher is something almost everyone in Poland is proud of.

When the iron curtain fell, and with freedom and other good things, pen & paper role-playing came from the west. The shiny new thing with no stigma. And because it was affordable and most of people were pretty poor, and all it had to beat were really simple board games, it didn't become a nerd past-time, it became a mainstream thing for my generation of boys.

And by the time my generation grew up, the hardware and the tools to develop games evolved so much, that you no longer need to be an engineer to develop a video game. So now you're starting to get game creators from all walks of life, like the lead designer behind Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz, is a singer and a novelist. These people are interested in different things then engineers. So it's only natural that they will focus on a different section of the role-playing experience. And they do not have the academic testing mindset. They do not want to test your intellect. They want you to have fun using it on a journey of storytelling and self-discovery.

But there are examples of this also in the west, Bioware, founded by doctors, created a new flavor of RPGs, more focused on companions.

 

[poetic]

So, coming up with a sentence that conjures up the right image in the mind of your audience about an innovative game, is one of the harder things about this whole idea, "yes, let's innovate an established genre as an solo indie"

Here is a short history of terms we used to describe Sacred Fire and what the pitfalls were:

• “a narrative RPG”:
  • why this made sense in my head: you tell them it’s an RPG, so they know they get character creation, combat, dice-rolls; and they realize the focus is on everything that makes the story experience better.
  • people reacted that all RPGs have a narrative, so it didn’t really create a specific image in their mind. They had no idea how storytelling can be made better.
• “a visual novel RPG”:
  • it should’ve told them you flow from one interesting scene to another and that attribute checks and dice rolls are resolving the success of your choices
  • people wrongly assumed this is an adult dating sim
• “a psychological RPG”:
  • it should’ve told them the innovation is the game uses attributes to describe the mindset, the beliefs, the subconsciousness of your characters; allows for nuanced self-expression and internal conflict resolution
  • people wrongly assume the game will ask you about your mother This is a typical example when in designer language this is the best word to use, but in your audience language it has completely different connotations
  • NOTE: we used this when running the Kickstarter campaign, so what seemed to work was, that at least people got so intrigued by what kind of nonsense this is , that they went and looked and many of them ended up backing the game
• “a choice-driven RPG”:
  • it should’ve told them the game is a flow of interesting choices in the story
  • people wrongly assumed this is an open world or it has party-based isometric combat as most indie RPGs
• “a choose your own adventure RPG”:
  • I thought this one could finally work!
  • but alas, the one caveat is the term “choose your own adventure”, despite being a whole genre, it is copyright protected and the publisher behind it doesn’t shy away from going after indies
• but the last obstacle made me think and realize as this is establishing a new subgenre, I might as well give it a name: “a role-play your own adventure game”

Here is the current one-sentence-to-rule-them-all: "Sacred Fire is a groundbreaking Role-Play Your Own Adventure Game where you need to master your emotions and outsmart your opponents."
The previous iteration was: "Sacred Fire is a psychological choice-driven RPG inspired by ancient Caledonia."

Which one does a better job of setting up the right expectations, so that when you see the screenshots you don’t feel disappointed this is not an open-world action RPG?

You can also visit our brand new Discord chat room and take part in the voting there (look for the #polls channel on the left).

Joining the Discord server also ensures your place in the beta-testing we'll be running in the future. It's still ways off, but this way you don't miss it

Thank you for your time.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I liked the old Fighting fantasy, CYOA, Lone Wolf, etc books and still do. I love Shadowgate as well and Deja Vu etc (including the remake of Shadowgate for PC.. haven't tried the n64 one). I can say I'd give this game a go just on that as I also love old Zork, Myst games, some King's Quest, Kyrandia, and I loved MUDs that were more than zork and had stats. Again, I'll wait for a lot of reviews on the final product though. I usually do.