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

[Nm6k]

Thank you for answering my question.

I try out the demo and I quite enjoy it looking forward to the early access release. I went with a honorable berserker kind of character for three runs. It was fun seeing the differences between them for example a roman archer being alerted to you if you managed to kill the elk. It could use a tutorial though it took me a while to understand what was going on with character creation. I might try out another build today if I have the time.

 

[poetic]

how much is the wishlist after the stream?

Still safely within the 'starving artist' territory But this demo basically marks my first attempt to promote the game to the regular Steam gamers and what I consider a good result is that the visit to wishlist conversion rate is well above 10%.

 

[poetic]

The Steam Next Fest ends in roughly 7 hours from this message! If you haven't had the chance to play the demo yet, now's the time

 

[jackofshadows]

Ugh. Are people unironically like this? Mindblowing. Shade assumed or made a joke at the 1st page that it "looks like a dating sim for celtigfags" - I'd say it would be much better game if it actually was exactly that. With sex scenes and everything. Or not. At any rate, the character creation is great, after that - not really, total downhill.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Tried it. There is "no choose your own adventure" in this. This is an RNG and dice game first and foremost. You can have 99% chance of success and fail.

 

[poetic]

jackofshadows Hey there, no problem, to each its own. Glad you liked the character creation. In a sense the whole game can be viewed as a character creation process, as all the choices further shape your character and in some of them you retrospectively define your backstory.

 

[poetic]

Ibn Sina Thank you for trying the game. I don't know if you knew, but you can use your motivation points to boost your chances to 100% in choices that matter to you. You can click the percentages next to the choices to do that. This demo gave us the feedback to explain these basics better.

The "Choose your own adventure" is in the basic structure of the game regularly asking you after a few lines: What do you do? What do you make of this? How do you go about this? And then following through with consequences and branching. People do tend to like the high reactivity of the story.

The other thing that puts the player more in control, that the game clearly signals which choices and dice rolls have soft consequences (choices displayed as text can be repeated upon failure, and the worst thing that can happen to you is pay 1 motivation point, but you get to role-play what you want to role-play). Only choices displayed as icons are one off dice rolls with failure leading to negative consequences and branching.

The other thing is we don't call it primarily a 'Choose Your Own Adventure', but a role-playing game, so that people expect dice rolling. But you are not at the mercy of RNG, you can make sure you get the choices that matter to you. You just have to overcome the tactical challenge of building up enough inner strength, emotional control, skill, and influence to do so. You don't get to be brave, selfless, or brutal and ruthless just by clicking on a text. You have to earn it, and you have to have the stomach for it, depending on which route you take. Of course, that's just one of the many axis you choose to build your character and your story along.

 

[udm]

The way Motivation Points work in this game is kind of how I run my PnP sessions with metacurrency (like D&D's Hero Points). Rather than just "welp, you reroll and succeed", I normally frame it as "at the last moment, you draw upon the strength, remembering what had happened last time". Flows better with the fiction.

 

[poetic]

Yes, that's a good way of explaining it. For me personally, the idea comes from sports. I played soccer for over two decades, and scoring a goal requires a certain focus and state of mind. You literary have to set your mind to it, decide that that's what's you want to accomplish. Otherwise even if you are in the same position, with the same skills and mathematical chances, but without the focus and commitment, you won't. At least that's how it works for me. So the motivation boosting represents this kind of extra effort, setting your mind to it.

 

[Infinitron]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/900400/announcements/detail/5511827138713578355

Sacred Fire - Demo Update!

Hello everyone,

We've been hard at work on Sacred Fire since the Steam Next Fest. Thank you again for all of your valuable feedback on the first iteration of our Steam demo! We're happy to announce that we've also been tinkering away at that, and have updated the demo for your role-playing pleasure.

What's new?

Quality of Life improvements:

• UI visibility improvements
  
• Audio volume controls
  
• Native 21:9 ultra wide-screen support

Understanding the Game made easier:

• A tutorial on character creation, choice-making, dice-rolling, emotion impulses, and combat
  
• New tooltips using easy to read sentences

Game Rules Improvements

• Re-balanced character creation
  
• Relationship start values based on protagonist gender and beauty

We hope you'll enjoy the updated experience! If you want to be the first to get the news, join our Discord! We posted the updated demo there earlier this week.

 

[poetic]

Ha, Infinitron you beat me to it! I was just about to post what's new I'll get into the details what's new in a bit, but first let's give an incentive to try the demo to people new to the game

 

[poetic]

The one thing that the feedback during the Steam Next Fest to our demo made clear is, that people get really immersed in the experience and really want to understand all the nuances of the game rules.

So that's what our new updated demo gives you: a detailed tutorial and completely rewritten tooltips, leaving no aspect of the design unexplained.

Here is a small example of exposing the automatic resistance-to-emotion-impulses evaluation, that is happening behind the scenes:

The tutorial texts explaining the basics concepts

And the tooltips explain precisely how things get calculated...

...and what each of your character attributes is and what it does.

As you can see, dice rolls in Sacred Fire determine not only success or failure, but also how big a success or how hard a fail it was your action ended up being, ensuring variety in the results.
There are many more nuances to discover and take advantage of in character creation, combat and choice-making.

If you get a chance to play the new demo, please let me know what you think about the new tutorials and tooltips and how easy it was for you to feel like you understand all the nuances of the game.
Cheers!

 

[udm]

poetic if you don't mind me asking, how are the finances looking? Just really asking out of curiosity as SF has been in development for a while and I'm assuming most of the funds were from IGG and KS. I'll play the hell out of SF, but I am also curious as to whether your projections indicate the possibility for more of such titles after it's out.

 

[poetic]

udm Thank you for your interest. In general, and I'm no exception, your first indie game is the hardest to get funded (and to get made). And you can expect it to make the least money.

I can't foresee the future, but if the release and the reception of the game follows the median stats about Steam games, I should be able to continue working on more games like this. And things should get easier with consequent titles.

Just out of curiosity, with Sacred Fire unique game mechanics - what would you see as 'more like this' - the setting, or the game mechanics? Because I can see taking the game mechanics and telling stories in many different settings. In other words would you be more excited for another ancient Caledonia game, or one that takes you to a completely different time and place? I'll make proper research on this, just getting the ball rolling. And if you can entertain the idea - what setting do you think fits the psychological focus of the gameplay and storytelling best?

 

[Rean]

The game looks good, went through the thread and definitely got me interested.
Will you be releasing this year for sure, poetic?

 

[udm]

Just out of curiosity, with Sacred Fire unique game mechanics - what would you see as 'more like this' - the setting, or the game mechanics?

Yes

But on a more serious note, I guess it's the feel of PnP/theatre of the mind that I'm looking for in such games, not just Sacred Fire but games like King of Dragon Pass too. In that sense, I would say 'more like this' as in game mechanics, but at the same time, I don't know if carbon copying the system from Sacred Fire to another title is the best move since the system must have been specifically tailored for SF (correct me if I'm wrong).

Also, the Caledonian/Roman setting of Sacred Fire is nicely presented too with its visuals and music. I would hope that future titles would carry that same quality too (no pressure)

And if you can entertain the idea - what setting do you think fits the psychological focus of the gameplay and storytelling best?

Probably most settings can have this style of gameplay. Spy thriller, dystopian, colonialism, etc.

 

[oasis789]

I tried the demo and it was quite interesting as a kind of risk and resource manager, though I can see why the absence of exploration and more conventional forms of interacting with the game world feels very... railroady. Its like a Telltale game but substituting stats for QTE.

My feedback is that in this kind of risk management game, the more information and agency you give the player the better. Having random and unforeseen stat checks on every screen on every click only leads to metagaming. The tooltips explain calculations, yes, but after the fact. Ideally, as a player, I'd like to play the game instead of it playing me.

 

[poetic]

The game looks good, went through the thread and definitely got me interested.
Will you be releasing this year for sure, poetic?

Hey Rean, thank you for your kind words. Yes, Sacred Fire will be released in Early Access mode later this year.

 

[poetic]

udm , thank you for entertaining my questions. Sorry for my late reply, took some time off to be with family and read books of all kinds, one of them e.g. dramatizing the story how water came to be chlorinated. Interesting how much personal and social drama is behind the things we take for granted. Yes, I want to keep the quality high in my consequent games, and have setup my project in a way that makes it easy to tweak the game mechanics to make them fit the narrative, setting, period.

 

[poetic]

I tried the demo and it was quite interesting as a kind of risk and resource manager, though I can see why the absence of exploration and more conventional forms of interacting with the game world feels very... railroady. Its like a Telltale game but substituting stats for QTE.

My feedback is that in this kind of risk management game, the more information and agency you give the player the better. Having random and unforeseen stat checks on every screen on every click only leads to metagaming. The tooltips explain calculations, yes, but after the fact. Ideally, as a player, I'd like to play the game instead of it playing me.

Hey oasis789 , thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it. I'm curious to understand it correctly, what do you mean with

'The tooltips explain calculations, yes, but after the fact.'?

I'm confused, because every percentage next to a choice has a tooltip, before you make the dice roll. Not trying to be defensive, just trying to understand what you mean.

 

[oasis789]

Yes, I am referring to non-choices. Checks that occur without player input. It can feel like I am being punished for... something I don't have much player agency over?

 

[poetic]

Thank you for elaborating. Interesting.

If I understand it correctly we talk about the many fear and anger impulses that occur at almost every line of the story, each with an automatic resistance check dice roll. From my perspective, I give the player the opportunity to get lucky with a dice roll and resist in completely.

1) Would it feel better for you, if the negative effect was completely predetermined without a dice roll?
2) Also, how is it different from any other RPG rolling a dice: e.g. if you miss an attack or a defense roll? Do you feel the same - being punished for something you can't control?

 

[oasis789]

Also, how is it different from any other RPG rolling a dice

It is absolutely, completely different.

Again, I am referring specifically to non-choices, checks that occur without player input.

Choice matters. I choose a particular action, I choose to go down a particular path, I choose this or that, and I'm not making blind choices, I have reasonable expectations about what I am rolling to save against. There's risk, but there's also agency. I don't and can't completely determine the outcome, but I "deserve" it in some sense. If I am punished, it is because of my own actions.

From a macro perspective you could say that I have chosen my starting build and everything that checks against those stats, such as those fear/anger checks, is downstream of that choice, but I think that feels distal enough that it isn't agentic in the way that me, the player, making decisions based on my build in the moment does. And that ends up feeling like I didn't roll the dice, the game did.

 

[poetic]

Thank you for explaining, I appreciate it.

I'm not trying to change your mind, that's why I'm asking: Would it feel better for you, if the negative effect (NPC reaction, negative emotion impulse, lose of HP, etc.) was completely predetermined without an automatic dice roll giving you a chance to resist it? In the end it's a simple matter how passive skills are evaluated. In most games their effect is fixed. I think it's fun to give the player a chance to get lucky. You may disagree and that's fine.

But I fail to follow what you mean with 'checks that occur without player input'. Which ones are those in your mind? As the fear or anger impulses are a consequence of your recent story choices - so you did something to trigger them, just moments ago. The game gives you options to avoid risk - e.g. in the demo, you can abandon the hunt. You can decide to not get involved into the battle with the Romans. You can decide to not confront the bully. You can decide to not speak to the crowd. But if you choose to do something risky, there are fear impulses on the next lines describing how you run towards danger. If you choose to escalate a conflict with a aggravating person there are anger impulses at the lines where they provoke you.

And yes, the game rolls the dice to determine how much of the impulses you resisted, but you choose to go down this story path. Isn't that quite common, in a session, that a DM would roll the dice to determine, how strong an effect, a reward, even an enemy you encountered based on your previous choices is? On top of that how tedious would it be for somehow letting the player control each and every of these many resistance rolls. Instead of that you control directly the negative effects of many resistance checks - 1 click on the control button resets the emotions at the time when the players tactically decides their negative effects are too much and want more control.

Then there are dice rolls that the game makes that determine how an NPC acts. And again, in the first place, your story choices led you to this point of evaluation. But on top of that, you usually have a degree of direct control over the dice-roll, because your emotion also influence the % - e.g. if you are angry, you are seen as more menacing, and the NPC is less likely to perceive you as a friend. So before clicking the continue button, you can click the control button to reset your emotions and get a better chance the NPC acts the way you want. Not to speak about the many mid-term strategies you can use to build up the relationship with NPCs that mater to you via Insight unlocking and interpretation.

I'm still curious about what your suggestion based on your preference is. Fixed penalties, and NPC reactions?

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/900400/view/2979681315597336906

Gamescom 2021 - Sacred Fire Demo UPDATE!​

Hello everyone,

We're excited to be a part of Gamescom 2021, a digital event showcasing many different games through trailers and demos. To celebrate, we have updated our demo once again, based on your feedback!

Many of you enjoyed our new role-playing experience. The 2 themes that come up in the feedback are that to enjoy the game even more:

1. people want to understand all the details of what’s going on
   
2. people want to feel more in control

To address the first one, we updated the demo last month with an interactive tutorial and detailed tooltips. And we’ve refined both of these aspects in today's update.

But more importantly, we redesigned how changes are displayed, so that they instantly communicate the significance of the change.

This makes the experience so much more enjoyable, filtering out the setbacks that are easy to fix, and setbacks that need a long-term approach to fix. It significantly decreases the ‘Oh no, the game is punishing me’ feeling, as you know how to fix it, you are in control.

So now all the short-term changes are displayed directly in the UI, and only long term changes show up as floating texts in the scene. As a bonus, this change makes each scene easier to read and players can feel more immersed and more in control at the same time.

So, thank you for all the time and effort you put into sending us feedback, we appreciate it. We can honestly say, without it, we would have never thought of this change. And it does make the game better in a perceivable manner.

What's new?

Player More In Control

• Using UI to signal which penalties are significant and which one are common and easy to overcome
• Recharge motivation less punishing
  
• Rewritten combat scenes that could result in unintended player character behavior

Quality of Life improvements

• Made it much easier to explore the story and follow what's going on by reducing the number of floating texts displayed.
  
• FPS capped at 60 frames per second

Understanding the Game made easier

• Character Creation: refined all attribute and bonus stats tooltips, making effects and causes easier to read
  
• Combat: refined tooltips to expose all combat mechanics

That's it for now! Make sure you join us on Discord if you haven't already to let us know what you think.