KickStarter Sacred Fire - a psychological RPG about romance, loyalty and revenge - now available on Early Access

[poetic]

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...-fire-psychological-rpg-about-revenge-and-lo/
Indiegogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sacred-fire-psychological-narrative-game#/
Steam Greenlight: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=843790587

https://www.sacredfiregame.com




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

Spoiler

UPDATE 2016: Hey everyone, it's been too long, but the good news is Sacred Fire is alive and well!

Sacred Fire is a turn-based, psychological RPG about survival, power, and the search for meaning, inspired by ancient Caledonia. Build your will to show courage in battle and cunning in the throne room. Rise through renown, blackmail, or loyalty. Inspire others to crush Rome or to build a nation.

This is our new teaser showing gameplay, visuals and storytelling, voiced by Doug Cockle, the voice of the Witcher:



See more at Steam Greenlight Concepts: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=800757379
If you like what you see, up-vote us! Every vote counts! We are already #1 Most Popular This Week, your up-vote can help us to get the coveted 5-star rating. Thank you!

Check out our new website: http://www.SacredFireGame.com
Subscribe and be the first in line to get Early Bird discounts when we launch a Kickstarter campaign in March 2017!

Thank you!


ORIGINAL 2014:

Hey,

I am the guy behind 'Sacred Fire' - a turn-based narrative RPG integrating story and gameplay by using character emotions in both combat and dialogue.

Inspired by ancient Caledonia, the story follows a band of survivors caught up in a century long conflict.

gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG82FDHfMyk
teaser promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jupxF97nGFU

screenshots:


Key design choices:
- adding challenge to dialogue (lots of checks, emotions affect chance to pass, use willpower to repeat checks)
- adding narrative to combat (lots of reputation, renown and relations stats reacting to your choices in combat)
- adding challenge to relations (relation states hidden, treated as strategic resource, you need to uncover them)

More info can be found at: http://sacredfirerpg.com

There is a turn-based strategy element to the game:
- you use your motivation to build your personality, relations and influence trough various actions and interactions with NPCs
- once you run out of motivation, you need to rest and than all NPCs act and develop as opponents
- the result is you and all NPCs fall and raise in your influence, which is crucial in key story events and helps you sway the story your way

I appreciate all your feedback.

 

[Cosmic Misogynerd]

Interesting stuff! Unfortunately, most of the posters here love action RPG games like Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age, and there's little love for turn-based, original games.

Nonetheless, good luck with your project.

 

[Abu Antar]

Will you be running a kickstarter campaign?

 

[Gulnar]

It looks browser-esque.

 

[Angthoron]

Sounds interesting.

The male characters look more metro than Windows 8 interface though.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Interesting.

 

[StaticSpine]

most of the posters here love action RPG games like Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age, and there's little love for turn-based, original games.

 

[Athelas]

Protip: stop using phrases like 'a narrative role-playing game' and 'create a personality with emotions'.

The systems certainly look interesting, although at first sight they seem more suited to a dating sim.

 

[poetic]

Interesting stuff! Unfortunately, most of the posters here love action RPG games like Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age, and there's little love for turn-based, original games.
Nonetheless, good luck with your project.

Thank you, I really appreciate it. Also thank you to the other posters who expressed interest. I am a one man shop, so I appreciate all the little love I can get.

StaticSpine:

Protip: stop using phrases like 'a narrative role-playing game' and 'create a personality with emotions'.
The systems certainly look interesting, although at first sight they seem more suited to a dating sim.

Thanks for the tip, I am open to any ideas how to best explain an RPG is about actual role-playing. The personality and emotions is what makes this RPG different from the standard 'how do you deal damage' character creation approach. I am looking to introduce a protagonist that is dangerous, because of the anger, cunning and determination that's inside him, not because of mere skill or loot.

I explore the romance theme in a few relations, but the player can ignore it and there is certainly no progress bar to fill up to unlock a hot scene. The goal is subtle, nuanced and meaningful storytelling.

Abu Antar: Yes, a Kickstarter is part of the plan. I just started to build a following and I am looking to gather feedback while preparing the Kickstarter. If you would like to get involved leave your e-mail in the sing-up form on my web page: http://sacredfirerpg.com

 

[Abu Antar]

I signed up, but why is there an attached file in the mails I get from you?

 

[poetic]

Thank you for letting me know, I wasn't aware of that. I use MailChimp for the mailing list with default settings.
I tested it myself, you are right, there is a .vcf (MS Outlook business card contact info) attachment there for some reason. I will get to the bottom of this.

 

[poetic]

Abu Anatar: Mailchimp support guy replied and claimed the .vcf attachment in subscription e-mails is mandatory and becoming a standard practice.

The vcard cannot be removed from the confirmation emails, unfortunately. This is due to the fact that many ISPs are starting to move to actually tracking how many of your recipients have your reply-to address added to their address book.
We have added the vcard to encourage this behavior for best delivery practices and it can't be removed from our double opt-in process. This is similar to how all campaigns are required to contain some identifying information about the sender, like the physical mailing address.

 

[Copper]

Looks interesting, but I agree you might be able to cast your net a bit wider with some tweaks to your copy, but the gameplay video looks promising.

 

[Eyeball]

"quest unlocks at friendship +10"

Eugh. I really hope this isn't like KOTOR or DA, where you had to kiss your companion's asses constantly in order to get them to hand quests to you.

Consider: when writing companion quests, think more NV Boone, less Visas Marr.

 

[poetic]

Copper: Thank you. I will be very happy, if you can make some specific suggestions about how to cast a wider net.
So far I have gathered from various places, that these are the things people care about and are missing in my copy:
- multiple endings
- support for localization
- current stage: pre-alpha
- next step: Kickstarter preparation and building a following

Also the 'narrative RPG' term seems to say little to people, a simple 'it's a SIM RPG' may set up the expectations better?

Eyeball: thanks, that is exactly the kind of feedback I am looking for, with specifics and examples.
The friendship +10 trigger is basically a placeholder at this point. There are many states, both friendly and hostile, that will trigger extra content with companions.

 

[SuicideBunny]

dunno about others but when i hear sim rpg i think unrealworld or those old animal lifesims like wolf or lion.

 

[Copper]

poetic: Are you familiar with Meriwether? Studying their Kickstarter might help. I'll make some more specific comments in a PM at some stage, when I've had a chance to think about it a bit. I'd avoid saying sim rpg. Also look at MoaCube's site - their games are more straight VNs, but there should be some more marketing info there, and the style crosses over a bit. On a related note, consider checking out the Ren'Py dev community for marketing strategies - you've already avoided what some of them have learnt to their misfortune - anime works for VN's, more realistic styles sells better in a RPG.

 

[Shadenuat]

That does look like a dating sim for celticfags.

 

[poetic]

SuicideBunny: thank you, yeah make sense - a sim rpg doesn't cover the heavy narrative focus of the game. I am quite happy with the ''narrative rpg'' part, what it's missing is expressing the turn-based strategy element of the experience, hence I ended up with 'a turn-based narrative rpg'. The takeaway here for me is that the goal for the Kickstarter video is showing a vertical slice of the game, the full turn-based experience, to avoid confusions about genres etc..

Copper: Thank you, this is quite helpful. Yes, I was watching the Meriwether Kickstarter, there are some commonalities. Again this helps me realize that what makes Sacred Fire different from e.g. Meriweather is the fast turn-based flow of the experience.
I am a fan of Moacube, I spoke to Tom several times, he is a very helpful guy. He pointed me also to the Ren'Py forums. The gamers over there seem to like Sacred Fire too. I will dig into the marketing insights that can be learned there.

 

[Lhynn]

Looks interesting. I love this kind of sim rpgs, will it feature some emergent gameplay and random encounters that you may or may not get in each new game? or maybe new content in successive playtroughs, perhaps an export feature.This would allow you to effectively put very difficult actions at the start of the game.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Would love something like this on a tablet or smartphone.

 

[Drowed]

Interesting and kinda unique concept, but I don't know. I guess I need some "real" combat in my RPGs after all. But good luck, anyways!

 

[poetic]

Thank you for your interest and kind words.

Lhynn: yes, that's the idea, to have emergent gameplay and the story playing out differently on each play trough:
- as the NPCs in the story evolve each turn the story plays out differently based on how they interact among each other and how the player interacts with them (what insights/secrets you uncover, what relationship blocks you mend/create etc.) These are not only dialogue interactions, but also system is very sensitive about when you start and when you stop to fight and offers you a lot of ways how to win without killing, how to gain an edge and how to avoid the fight alltogether.
- location exploration is handled as random story events with interesting choices
- another source of replay value comes from being able to raise in influence trough heroic deeds, wealth, crafting and relations and each paths has several methods

Kem0sabe: yes, the game is planned for tablets too (iOS, Android)

Drowed: I plan to will reveal a combat video later, maybe it will be 'real' enough

 

[Zed]

interesting concept. the interface is a little bright for me, but maybe it's just the youtube video and me being tired.
good luck!

 

[poetic]

Zed Sorry for the late reply, I was busy working on the game and out of town for the weekend. Thank you for your interest and kind words.