Game News Sacred Fire, a psychological RPG set in ancient Caledonia, now on Kickstarter

[laclongquan]

Lots of autists in this thread.

 

[Ismaul]

Lots of autists in this thread.

It's a psychological RPG. Part of those who have an interest when you say that word are going to care because of personal reasons. Self-selection.

Like you and grampy bone there.

 

[Grizzlor]

Lots of autists in this thread.

Although I haven't been clinically tested, I wouldn't go denying this on my part.

 

[Lurker King]

These games with CYOA mechanics all look great in trailers, but most of them have bare bones repetitive gameplay and bad writing. Do you guys remember ICY? I’m having an ICY déjà vu here, but I hope that I’m wrong though.

 

[poetic]

It's hard to keep up on various themes you guys bring up, but you are doing a pretty great job debating them among yourselves

I'll do my best to address them:

- the visual representation, and the character art is a stylistic choice. That being said, the historic research on the population on the +/- 100 A.D. Caledonnia I read was inconclusive. It left the imagination open to all kind of origin stories for the people who lived there. Iron age population, celtic immigration wave, norse immigration wave, 2 groups of people represented by the brochs and the hillforts. In the end, you can change the hair color in the character creation process and be the one historically accurate specimen based on your favorite interpretation

- fight against christian sins: I take it you refer to terms as Anger, Fear, Envy, Prejudice and Guilt. I think we agree those are universal emotions, and the reasons why people feel them wary across history and cultures.

I think we do a good job in Sacred Fire exploring the universal ones: envy, look at children across all cultures and time, it's there from the beginning. Loyalty, also something that ancient people bet their lives on. Prejudice - never more dominant than in the historic cultures. Guilt for making a mistake that got people you care about, or are charged to protect, killed. Guilt for betraying said loyalty. Guilt of survival. That kind of thing.

The Beliefs system in the game is abstract. We try to identify believes that define and separate people. Do you believe in a higher power, do you believe to be in favor of said power, do you believe happiness is possible in life, do you believe in goodness in people. And there is no penalty for believing strongly there is none of the listed, in fact it makes you more effective at certain tasks, as you are not slowed down by guilt, but there is always the other side of the coin, e.g. that allies mistrust you as you are ruthless.

The point here is the psychological forces behind these terms make you do things that you wouldn't do otherwise and they make for a fun mechanic, when your protagonist is going to do stupid shit and you have to actively overcome that and make a different choice. Seems more unique to do in a game than to loot, rape and pillage without a deeper consequence to these actions, which on the other hand is common in games.

- repetitive gameplay, trailers are easy to make look good: Please see the 10 minute developers' commentary video: we hate grinding and repetition and everything is set up and optimized to provide you with a constant flow of interesting choices to make.



If you like what you see, go get your Early Bird reward now!

Thank you for your support.

 

[Fenix]

Guilt of survival.

I'm sure it is pretty modern reaction, such reflexion wasn't possible in those cultures, people were wholesome natures then.

 

[Charles Eli Cheese]

These games with CYOA mechanics all look great in trailers, but most of them have bare bones repetitive gameplay and bad writing. Do you guys remember ICY? I’m having an ICY déjà vu here, but I hope that I’m wrong though.

That merathera game or whatever is what I think of. Dawn of megrathera? The let's play looked great, then you play the game and it is not even like a game at all.

1990 - combat has 50 skills and/or spells.
2017 - combat is about emotional states, cards, and facebook integration

 

[Xzar]

I think we agree those are universal emotions

There is nothing universal. Some African tribes dont understand concept of time (it is always "today" for them), others cant count (because why bother). There are still a lot of marginal... how to put it best... collective states of mind, probably. Belief that there is something universal is a quasi-monotheist belief. Of course, monotheists 100% sure they got it right (this was motivation for this, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations). But... Even if we entertain the notion that some proto-monotheist ethics could indeed be there at that time, at least give option to be genuine pagan and dismiss all these considerations (guilt, goodness, envy) as not worth attention, and allow to promote such virtues as physical strength, power, wealth as self-sufficient. If were able to turn Etain away from murder path, I dont see reason why we cant convince Clair that altruism is dumb.

 

[Fenix]

I remember a lesson in cultural studies, or was it about history of GB, in short lecturer said that in Middle Ages people hasn't sense of time or personality maybe, something about that people who have long been away from home, when they returned, their relatives did not recognize them as relatives. Something like that.

 

[Ismaul]

I remember a lesson in cultural studies, or was it about history of GB, in short lecturer said that in Middle Ages people hasn't sense of time or personality maybe, something about that people who have long been away from home, when they returned, their relatives did not recognize them as relatives. Something like that.

That is some bullshit studies man. No sense of time lol? You know there's the fucking sun marking it? Seasons (which you need to plan for or die)? The town / church bells, etc. Of course they had a fucking sense, even animals do, and some have a long memory. And personality? Remember Jesus, Ceasar, Spartacus? Why would you if they had no sense of self? Even slaves did.

Some teacher that was.

 

[Charles Eli Cheese]

Cultural anthropology is bizarre/retarded crap, mostly made up for SJW purposes. Like some study tried to say that an african tribe had no sense of vertain colors because they had no words for them Turns out they are all just genetically collor blind. I mean obviously there's a million tribes why would this ONE not have a word for certain colors, except they can't see them?

I am sure survivor guilt always existed, but unfortunately a game being "psychological" is the very least exciting thing they could say to attract my interest.

 

[Tigranes]

Of course Medieval Europe had a sense of time. What was relatively new is the emergence of clock time / abstract time, which took a long time to become a standardised thing that we all live our lives by. You have to wait until 14th century Italy and the like for the hour to be a consistent reference for the denizens of a city, you have to wait for the 18th/19th centuries for a sense of everybody working from 8:30pm to 6:30pm and calculating their productivity and wages by the hour, etc. I can't recognise what fenix is trying to remember, though.

Caleb Everett's new book, Numbers and the Making of Us or something, apparently does a full run through of all the recent hoopla about do X tribes not have a sense of numbers or is it just a difference of language or whatever.

 

[Charles Eli Cheese]

Maybe there is a tribe that is just too dumb to count. It is a big world after all, one of them has to be the dumbest.

 

[poetic]

I do agree the title should read 'inspired by Caledonia' and not 'set in Caledonia'. That's why we used 'inspired' on our home page and Steam Greenlight etc. What happened is we hit the character count limit on the Kickstarter sub-header form and went with the shorter 'set' and here we are It's good feedback, as it really sends the wrong message about what the game is. Sorry and thank you for letting us know, we fixed it.

As Sacred Fire is a work of fiction, exploring contemporary western themes on the backdrop of an inspiring historical period. Not an attempt to rewrite history. The reason for this is, we see added value in a game that allows reflection in modern terms and drawing conclusion to our contemporary lives, like say Andrzej Sapkowski, who inspired me to be a writer, explores contemporary themes in his fictional Witcher universe.

 

[Commissar Draco]

But walls do not bring peace

Stopped reading there; developers should play Nethergate to see that both ancient Romans and Celts did not lived according to (post) Christian guilt based but rather honor/shame culture. So your warrior band should strife to gain prestige among their family/clan/tribe and honor and loot on battlefield instead of feeling emotions introduced fully by XVIc puritans. As to hair color in fistst century AD there were no Irish Gaels in Alba/Caledonia/Scotland and some ancient authors claim the Picts were dark haired same as Spain descending Silurians were while other claim them to be gingers. Roman/Greek authors often chosen licencia poetica to make their barbarians more awesome and there were so many invasion waves since then that you can't say for sure which one was closer to truth.

Game has some potential but it can turn out to be some SJW white guilt based shit too so will wait to back it up.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Stopped reading there

That's why I asked poetic to clarify the inspired/set description. If it's 'set' then all criticisms of historical inaccuracy are valid, and indeed there is evidence of trade and other cultural exchanges between the Roman front line and the inhabitants of what is now Scotland. If it's 'inspired' then further discussion about hair colour are pointless as it's clearly set in a fictional universe using a casual knowledge of the Hadrian's Wall and the Roman occupation of Britain as a starting point.

At the time the Brythonic celtic speaking people lived well into southern Scotland, so you could argue that there was greater similarity between the people north and south of the wall than between those north of the wall and in the highlands.

 

[Fenix]

No sense of time lol?

It was long ago, so I possibly just retelled it wrong.

I am sure survivor guilt always existed

I don't see any reason for its existance at all then. People lived other things at the time, not thinking such bullshit things that basically indicate some meantal problem.

but rather honor/shame culture

Didn't played it yet, though I like Vogel works an this particular engine he used.
I agree that so called primitive cultures based their value on honor/shame.
Some still doing it, for example the tribes living in the Caucasus mountains.

Also I'm sure that most games will fail to to explain that experience of living on such values scale, and second will fail to transfer that experience to player.

 

[Fenix]

Also I rembered funny thing - I read some article about Communistic and Marxistic theories, about labor, work etc.
And there was mentioned very curious fact - antropologists make a discovery, that aborigenes of that refion where aztecs lives, maybe Brazilian region, so their attitude to work is different form modern european, and modern man from so called civilazed states - while we often have feeling "I dream that work week is over quickly" or "when I can go home at last, it is unbearable", those aborigines don'n feel like that, thay doesn't consider labor as something undesirable but necessary activity.
Author made the assumption that wage labour/wage labore/wage work made these changes.

 

[Ismaul]

Fenix, about our relation to labour.
That' pretty obvious, and has been highly researched. When you do something you need, or your family/friends needs to survive, it is rewarding, because it strengthens your relationships, and yourself, because it's success vs adveristy. Hunting/gathering was like that, even if it wasn't always fun. Later, artisans who worked on one thing from start to finish, say on a pair of boots, and maybe knew the person who bought and and wore them, could feel a sense of pride and achievement in the finished work.

Nowadays most work is doing something you don't need, benefiting people you don't know, and you might just be a gear in a chain of production on one item, so you can't feel tangible achievement or fulfillement. Even art stuff, either you're marginal / indie / might be throwing your life away, or your movie/game for example employs hundreds of people who get no recognition aside form money. Faceless work is the norm now. Almost everyone is a mercenary, work's just a mean to get abstract money. And everyone's usually replaceable, lowering pride and feeling of achievement. It's now considered very lucky to do something you even like, which says a lot about the situation.

The gameplay of work is is dire need of improvement. But something like work/lifestyle designers for the whole of society (the game we all play) is unthinkable right now.

 

[Tigranes]

I mean, that's basically one of the things at the basis of Marx's critique of wage-labour.

 

[Charles Eli Cheese]

Fenix, about our relation to labour.
That' pretty obvious, and has been highly researched. When you do something you need, or your family/friends needs to survive, it is rewarding, because it strengthens your relationships, and yourself, because it's success vs adveristy. Hunting/gathering was like that, even if it wasn't always fun. Later, artisans who worked on one thing from start to finish, say on a pair of boots, and maybe knew the person who bought and and wore them, could feel a sense of pride and achievement in the finished work.

Nowadays most work is doing something you don't need, benefiting people you don't know, and you might just be a gear in a chain of production on one item, so you can't feel tangible achievement or fulfillement. Even art stuff, either you're marginal / indie / might be throwing your life away, or your movie/game for example employs hundreds of people who get no recognition aside form money. Faceless work is the norm now. Almost everyone is a mercenary, work's just a mean to get abstract money. And everyone's usually replaceable, lowering pride and feeling of achievement. It's now considered very lucky to do something you even like, which says a lot about the situation.

The gameplay of work is is dire need of improvement. But something like work/lifestyle designers for the whole of society (the game we all play) is unthinkable right now.

If you remove tax and nigration and rent-seeking then it solves itself. But most of the work is basically for its own end to pay for mere existence - rent/mortgage for artificially expensive house and so on.

It's actually easy to solve, but doing so is the furthest thing any politician or businessman wants to do, they are the ones who've engineered wage slavery in the first place.

 

[Ismaul]

It's actually easy to solve

I don't think so. I even doubt it will ever happen.

 

[Charles Eli Cheese]

It's actually easy to solve

I don't think so. I even doubt it will ever happen.

It IS easy to solve, that is factual. These are created problems. Emperor Tiberius solved the housing problem in Rome in a single day by decreeing whoever actually lived in a house now owned it, and anyone who had an empty house now no longer owned it and the state did.

It probably won't be solved but only because the people in power don't want that to happen obviously.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Good luck on removing the wage slavery and usury from society Comrade. The donor and clergy classes say hello! ((( ))) They literally bombed entire countries for far less like ideas about selling Oil for Euros not Dollars or replacing fiat currency with golden Dinar.

 

[jewboy]

I'm not sure what to make of the 'cinematic' combat. Is it static or is it fully animated and highly detailed battle simulation? I don't think I've ever seen this concept tried before in an rpg. Sort of the melee combat equivalent of bullet time. I sort of like the psych-state gamism but it's that idea that really appeals to me: realistic simulated sword/axe/mace/club swinging and impacts, but also turn based. All of the turn based decisions could then be replayed as a movie at the end like a sort of instant replay of the entire battle.