The Necromancer's Tale - narrative-driven RPG about about necromancy and descent into madness

[LESS T_T]

http://www.psychicsoftware.com/thenecromancer/

Spoiler

Or Necro Elysium maybe. It's focused on conversation and... rituals, but the dev says there's turn-based combat too.

The Necromancer's Tale is a narrative-driven top-down RPG where you play the role of a minor noble in the 18th Century, drawn into the Dark Necromantic Arts as you seek knowledge and revenge. Great power awaits... along with the weird, the morbid, and a gradual descent into madness.

Before you lies a great spellbook, filled with powerful rites of death and reanimation. Can you decipher the pages and master its arcane rituals without losing your mind or being strung up by the townsfolk? Your progress will require great determination, cunning and secrecy, as well as a willingness to confront difficult aspects of yourself and all humankind.

The Necromancer's Tale focuses on conversation, narrative and ritual more than on combat. Yes, there are battles, and tactical turn-based combat; however fighting on its own will not be a route to success. Choose your words wisely, because the characters you meet are already suspicious of the eerie events in town.

Unlike most RPGs, this isn't a hero's journey as they rail against an evil lord. It is a person's descent into madness as they plumb the depths of black magic in their search for revenge, the terrible things it asks of them and the uncomfortable choices they make in their search for power.

Spells and rituals are not treated like guns, that you acquire and then use without a second thought: the process of gathering/manufacturing materials and knowledge and then the process of putting them into action is non-trivial and is a focus of the game.

Confusing dreams, strange distant lights through the trees, spooky voices whispering your name, a loosening grip on reality - the game focuses on the unsettling experience of becoming a necromancer and transcending mortality, whatever that may mean... The game deals with themes of death, change, morality, and a gradually eroding sense of time and place.

Blog post about the origin of the game: http://www.psychicsoftware.com/2020/the-necromancer-commune-with-the-realm-of-the-dead/

With early footage:

 

[Bester]

After Disco Elysium, all dialogues are a side bar. Genius design.

 

[The Jester]

That font and paragraphing is awful.

 

[JarlFrank]

That font and paragraphing is awful.

Yeah it's not enough to copy Disco's sidebar dialogue design, you also have to... you know... make sure your paragraphs are formatted well.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.psychicsoftware.com/thenecromancer/

Marns in 1733 is a cultural melting-pot; positioned on the coast at the head of the Adriatic Sea

An Austro-Hungarian barony on the Adriatic coast, I presume. I think in reality most of the characters here would be ethnic Croats or maybe Italians if it's in Istria. This game is not exactly historical I think.

 

[V_K]

My only hope is that this wave of VN-clones will go the same ways as Grimrock clones.

 

[Harthwain]

It could be an interesting game, at least in theory. I will be keeping an eye on it.

My only hope is that this wave of VN-clones will go the same ways as Grimrock clones.

"VN clones"?

It will have combat:

Yes, there are battles, and tactical turn-based combat; however fighting on its own will not be a route to success.

And crafting of sorts:

Spells and rituals are not treated like guns, that you acquire and then use without a second thought: the process of gathering/manufacturing materials and knowledge and then the process of putting them into action is non-trivial and is a focus of the game.

What more do you need to call it a game?

Spoiler

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/92/be/22/92be229fe568bffdac0b9fb11f2c5418.jpg

 

[compvet24]

Looks rather intriguing, they can tinker and change the dialogue fonts & format as they see fit in due time. I like the actual layout of the world otherwise. Better keep it in the back of my brain until 2022

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Elex]

So it’s not about summoning undead armies?

 

[Horvatii]

Oh look, a Neverwinter Nights module from 2003!

 

[Thac0]

I would shell out some bux for a well made Fantasy Disco clone. The base gameplay was very enjoyable in that one, lets see if they get what makes low combat rpgs tick.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[pomenitul]

There are ingenious ways of imbuing your game with atmosphere even when you're an unknown indie dev on a threepenny budget. A title entirely devoted to the art of necromancy so conspicuously lacking in that department is a sad sight indeed.

 

[Avarize]

The writing doesn't look very impressive.

 

[Jack]

Can't say this game looks very appealing to me but the clickbait thread title did make me consider the void of CAS inspired RPGs, what I wouldn't give for a Zothique RPG in the vein of Disco Elysium.

He who has trod the shadows of Zothique
And looked upon the coal-red sun oblique,
Henceforth returns to no anterior land,
But haunts a later coast
Where cities crumble in the black sea-sand
And dead gods drink the brine.

He who has known the gardens of Zothique
Were bleed the fruits torn by the simorgh's beak,
Savors no fruit of greener hemispheres:
In arbors uttermost,
In sunset cycles of the sombering years,
He sips an amaranth wine.

He who has loved the wild girls of Zothique
Shall not come back a gentler love to seek,
Nor know the vampire's from the lover's kiss:
For him the scarlet ghost
Of Lilith from time's last necropolis
Rears amorous and malign.

He who has sailed in galleys of Zothique
And seen the looming of strange spire and peak,
Must face again the sorcerer-sent typhoon,
And take the steerer's post
On far-poured oceans by the shifted moon
Or the re-shapen Sign.

 

[Harthwain]

I would shell out some bux for a well made Fantasy Disco clone. The base gameplay was very enjoyable in that one, lets see if they get what makes low combat rpgs tick.

I wouldn't count on writing being exceptional (and this is the main reason why Disco was so enojoyable). As such I would like to see greater focus put on gameplay mechanics. From what I am reading - the blog - the developers seem to realize that, which is a good sign for the future. Let's hope the mechanics they come up with will be as interesting as their vague descriptions. I am also strongly interested in how (in)sanity will be represented. The last game to make sanity REALLY important part of gameplay (and well executed one as well!) was The Consuming Shadow. The other one, that I recall right now, was Eternal Darkness.

 

[Kalin]

Meh.

 

[Storyfag]

Interesting concept, we shall have to see about the execution.

 

[Serious_Business]

So I see someone decided to put my biography into video game form. Very amusing indeed. I'll tell you right now though, it ends in sadness and loneliness. However, great knowledge awaits, and the unlimited power of never getting over your past. All worth it baybay

 

[RNGsus]

a game about codex

Sent from my SM-J327VPP using Tapatalk

 

[True Ukrainian]

I hope they have the balls to actually implement the journey into madness as promised and not cuck out in providing a happy ending.

 

[The Jester]

Check this out S0rcererV1ct0r, Disco Elysium BUT WITH NECROMANCY and combat.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.psychicsoftware.com/2020...ple-the-necromancers-tale-development-update/

How to kill your friends and alienate people: The Necromancer’s Tale development update


The Necromancer’s Tale is a dark, narrative driven game which follows the descent of an (initially) upstanding minor noble in 1733 – as he/she taps into powerful forces in a quest for power and revenge. What starts out as a simple investigation into your father’s suspicious death spirals into a web of secrecy, black magic, killing the innocent, and raising them again to do your bidding.

Steam page now open for wishlists!

Since my last update, we’ve been making good progress on a number of fronts. From a narrative point of view, the text for the game’s prologue is fairly complete – in which we use an interactive-fiction/’choose your own adventure’ style process for player character customisation. The prologue covers the events from a few years before the player’s birth, through to their 19th birthday. This material is presented in an animated book, with pencil sketches scattered throughout. The player chooses from three main career paths, and makes numerous other choices which affect their physical, mental, and social stats.

We have also almost completed a first draft of two chapters of the main game itself, in which the player discovers and tries out the first spell from a mysterious book. We’re generally keeping it tight and not putting in pointless time-filler side-quests, with the aim being that players can actually expect to finish the game in a reasonable number of hours, and enjoy the art, narrative, investigation and tactical-combat joys that it has to offer (rather than getting bored and giving up while hunting for 10 wolf hides to help a local farmer).

As well as putting a lot of effort into level editing (putting a full medieval town together is quite some effort!) I’ve been busying myself with programming all of the core systems needed by an RPG.. inventory, combat, AI behaviours, save+load, crafting. Integrating the code with the structured narrative information exported by Articy was a bit of fun, which basically involved having a 4MB massively-nested JSON file land on my hard drive and figuring out what it meant. I have also put together a cutscene-editing system similar to what I did in Goblins & Grottos.

The image below shows some of the data for a cutscene in which the player meets up for beers with their childhood friend Diedrik. This system gives me low-level control of character movements and animations, as well as control of the camera and other objects in the world (e.g. here beer tankards are appearing more and more on the table as the evening progresses). These cutscenes are also synchronised with the narrative ‘flow’ coming from the Articy data – so, for example, the cutscene can pause until a certain point has been reached in the Articy narrative, and similarly the narrative can be paused until activities in the 3D game which are under control of the cutscene system have reached a required point.

Combat will be turn-based, with movement working on a hex-grid:

We also have some really good artists working part-time with us, working on character portraits, sketches for the prologue, and in-world character art and animations.

There’s more details here:
http://www.psychicsoftware.com/thenecromancer/