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Vapourware Spire of Sorcery - turn-based RPG where you play a party of runaway mages - abandoned in Early Access

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014






As an old runaway mage who acquired forbidden knowledge, build your own magic spire, teach disciples, let them explore the world and gather resource and power.

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In this original mix of strategy and RPG designed by Alexey Bokulev (author of turn-based strategy Eador. Genesis and digital board game Gremlins, Inc.), you will:
  • expand and upgrade your magic spire, balancing the needs to research, craft and defend;
  • choose and teach your disciples, discovering their personal traits and collaboration capacities when matched in parties and sent on quests;
  • explore the vast open world stretching from the Empire to the Distorted Lands, seeking new knowledge, resources and sources of power – as well as establishing relations with the locals.
But above all else, you will try to survive: the troops of the Inquisition are roaming the land, hunting for runaway mages; and dwellers of the lawless wild, human and not, are on the lookout for easy prey.

Yet your most powerful enemy is neither of those. It is the time itself – the approaching death from old age. Only one thing can save you: the elixir of youth. Several ancient manuscripts mention it in passing... There must be a way to learn the formula. There must be a way to obtain the ingredients... Before it's too late.

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THE ANCIENT WARS OF MAGES
A long time ago, powerful mages ruled these lands. They moved rivers, they summoned monsters, they created new races of non-human servants for their own needs and pleasures... They also waged wars. It is one of these wars that brought the whole world to the very brink of collapse. Whole regions burned and mountains melted as thousands of souls screamed in torture. In the end, the great mages completely destroyed each other, and as they died, their final curses tore the land apart, creating anomalies that we nowadays call the Distorted Lands. Places that a few dare to visit. Places where abnormal is the norm.

THE INQUISITION
The suffering of the people following the last war had been so great that once the world cooled down from the violent storms, one of the very first groups to rise from the burning ruins was the order of the Inquisition. Said to be more powerful than the Emperor himself, this order is focused on controlling each and every person who possesses any magic powers – and on hunting down those runaway mages that seek to practice the forbidden skill. To the Inquisition, magic powers are a curse, and any practice of these outside of the strictly licensed guild is a sin punishable by torture and death.

THE EMPIRE
As the troops of the Inquisition were making the first arrests, a new state – the Empire – was proclaimed in the part of the world least touched by the war. Officially, the Empire stretches from the coastline and to the mountains, and, with a number of strongholds, provides protection to the population otherwise besieged by all sorts of rogues. Unofficially, the Empire's influence starts to fade even before you leave the capital's gates, and by the time you're in the wild lands, the decisions of local lords always count so much more than anything that the imperial court may try to impose.

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THE SPIRE
Until recently, you were an ageing mage casting simple spells under the strict control of the Guild. As years passed by, this satisfied you less and less. You started to look for books that held secret knowledge, studying them when no one could see you... until the day of the surprise search in your rooms. Ever since, you've been on the run, escaping the Inquisition by moving to the only region which even they avoid: the Distorted Lands.

Here, on the edge of the wild lands, you cast the forbidden spell for Spire of Sorcery and, tapping into the source of power, erected your new home: a magic fortress bound to you alone. You and the spire are connected so close that when one falls, the other follows. This is the domain that you can never leave. Yet from here you can still explore the whole world – with the help of your disciples.

Build, upgrade and customise rooms of the spire: libraries and herbal gardens, classrooms and prisons, living rooms and monster kennels, laboratories and warehouses, treasury and caverns, observatory and watchtower – your priorities define the capabilities of your spire and shape your strategy of exploration and survival.

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TEACH!
As you develop your spire, disciples start to arrive at your door. Some heard your magic Call; some just heard about you from their friends. At first, you don't know much about them except for their looks and what they choose to tell you. With limited number of living rooms in the spire, will you prefer to accept a farmer's daughter distressed by her own magic powers – or a dedicated student of arcane who yearns for new knowledge, even though his skill is on a lesser scale?

Some of these disciples come to you to escape repressions. Some seek the light of wisdom. And some come in the pursuit of greater personal power. As you accept and teach them, you will discover their true personalities and find them fitting roles in your spire. One will become a great explorer, traveling fast and surviving any hardships. Another will become a gifted gardener, and secure your supply of the rarest ingredients. Yet another will become a traitor, trying to poison you.

Select, teach and direct your disciples on the quests inside and outside the spire. Your choice of strategy may yield a few powerful young mages focused on deep research into the elixir of youth – or an army of simpletons excavating artefacts all over the land, looking for the books lost in the ancient wars.

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EXPLORE!
Legends claim that back in the days of the powerful mages, there were spheres that could show you what happened all the way across the mountains – and that through them, you could even converse with others. Nowadays, one hardly knows what happens across the river, as the wild lands are overtaken by rogues and monsters. But perhaps one day you will re-discover these long-lost magic artefacts of the past?

With disciples ready to depart on the quests of your bidding, ancient ruins and abandoned mines will reveal their mysteries to those who survive the expeditions. By sending parties and setting their goals, you will map dwellings, points of interest and sources of power. Your disciples will meet rogues and vagabonds, settlers and lords, animals and monsters. Through the eyes of your students, you will discover the non-human races of the past as well as the few ancient creatures from the pre-war era who continue to prowl in the wild, accumulating greater and great powers.

Explore the open world created anew each time when you start the campaign, charting new lands and deciphering new secrets. Maybe your brightest disciples will go missing in the Distorted Lands, lured by the innocent-looking fluters; or maybe they will befriend the many-handed Librarian and unlock his treasure trove of manuscripts? The story of the campaign is yours to write.

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SURVIVE!
Here in the wild lands, bandits and gangs are a fix of the local landscape. Looking for the weak, they will move to an easier prey once you step up your spire's defense. As to the local dwellers, not everyone appreciates a mage moving in, and quite a few may try to claim the contents of your cellars. Not to mention seasoned adventurers on the mission to raid a castle or two (and make it off with the artefacts).

As your spire gains notoriety, it will start to attract more visitors, including stronger private armies – as well as the troops of the Inquisition, who never forget or forgive. And as your disciples travel the world, other dangers will loom: from illnesses contracted far away on a quest and brought back to the spire by the returning disciples to dangerous spells triggered by the explorers, which can range from having a few ghosts to having to battle a full-blown death curse. Your old age is approaching, too, rendering you fragile... until one day you become too weak to defend the spire.

Survive the immediate dangers while looking for the formula and ingredients of the only thing that can offer you the truly lasting power – the elixir of youth. Whether you find it, craft it or trade it, this is the item that will decide the ultimate success or failure of your campaign!

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rvm1975

Educated
Joined
Sep 14, 2013
Messages
95
Location
Ukraine
At the moment it is very like to Thea. Instead of small village/people tribe you will have tower/acolytes. And poor Thea2 kickstarter shows real interest to this kind of gameplay.

But we don't know what kind of battles will be here.

Anyway Alexey is very good designer with unique ideas. I am big fan of Eador.
 

Dr Skeleton

Arcane
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
811
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Good to see he's still making games. The artstyle is a lot better than in the 3d Eador, the menus look a lot like in Gremlins. I think I've read about this before (the rough concept at least) as something he wanted to make so this might be a real gem like the original Eador.

Also I've noticed they put Gremlins and Eador Genesis in the pitch, not the 3d remake(s), did he not work on them or do they want us to forget these exist?
 

rvm1975

Educated
Joined
Sep 14, 2013
Messages
95
Location
Ukraine
Good to see he's still making games. The artstyle is a lot better than in the 3d Eador, the menus look a lot like in Gremlins. I think I've read about this before (the rough concept at least) as something he wanted to make so this might be a real gem like the original Eador.

Also I've noticed they put Gremlins and Eador Genesis in the pitch, not the 3d remake(s), did he not work on them or do they want us to forget these exist?

Snowball something which created Eador Genesis no longer exists.

sergei_klimov: @Zakraf про Kickstarter – нет, не планируем. все силы – на разработке проекта, любые другие вещи считаем низкоприоритетными. у нас сейчас 2 игры в разработке (Spire of Sorcery + Gremlins, Inc.) и этого хватает, чтобы больше ни на что времени не оставалось. думаю, до релиза SoS дотянем и на существующих средствах студии.

That's from russian discord. They are confirming about 2 games in active development - Spire of Sorcery + Gremlins, Inc.
 

Arrowgrab

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 20, 2016
Messages
603
Very intriguing concept, but when I briefly tried to play Eador (Genesis or some older one, don't recall), my three impressions were:

- Poor to mediocre UI
- Goddamn cheating AI
and
- A bunch of really good ideas that are completely buried under the poor to mediocre UI, the goddamn cheating AI, and just generally bad design. "Oh, hey, you can have your heroes explore your territories for cool things to discover! AND AUTOLOSE THE GAME BECAUSE ANY STRATEGY OTHER THAN RUSHING IS A LOSING STRATEGY."

So, how much should I hope this will be better in the actual gameplay deparment?
 

Dr Skeleton

Arcane
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
811
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/637050/announcements/detail/1460712968113932748

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It took us a while to agree on the topic for the very first blog post here: should we talk about the weird creatures that we're designing? Or about the team, and everyone's mixed roles? Perhaps we should start with the atmosphere and why it took us so many revisions, to finalise the very first track. But then we looked through the forums and spotted the same basic questions being asked about this game, and decided to go for them. To cover this, I (Sergei Klimov) sat down with Alexey Bokulev, our game designer, and asked him these questions for the record.

WHO'S OUR GAME DESIGNER?

Our game designer, Alexey Bokulev, started in the games industry in his mid-twenties, working at the Kyiv-based GSC studio. Following a strategy game that got released, and another project that got cancelled, he decided to fly his own flag, and holed up at home to design and develop his first independent project: Eador. Genesis.

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WHAT "EADOR. GENESIS" REVEALS ABOUT SPIRE OF SORCERY?

The development of Eador. Genesis started in 2007 and the game shipped in 2009. The team consisted of just one person: Alexey. He was the designer, the writer and the programmer. Graphics and sounds were contributed by freelancers who agreed to get paid only after the game releases.

This, by the way, is also how I met Alexey for the first time: back in those days, I ran a publishing label, and we signed up Eador as soon as we got our hands on the build. It was hardcore, for sure. But hardcore in a good way
malice
.

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With 82% approval on Steam and 90% approval on GOG, there's little doubt that the game – a mix of strategy and RPG – does something right. I asked Alexey about his own shortlist:
  • replayability – if you check Eador's player stats, there's a bunch of people with 100, 200 or 300 hours in-game on the record. This is one of the points that we'd like to highlight about the upcoming Spire of Sorcery: the product is built by the designer with a track record of bringing you hundreds of hours of engaging gameplay.

  • turn-based tactics – the tactics in Eador is multi-factor, and includes such variables as stamina and morale; wounded units have weaker attack, and the whole system is pretty complex. Which is another point for Spire of Sorcery: we intend to have a whole bunch of factors affecting the game mechanics, and we're not afraid of the complexity because our designer can balance it out.

  • possibility to create your own races – lots of choices is something that Alexey really loves, and in Eador, for example, you have 12 buildings that you can construct, with the space for just 4 of them; which means that your choice will shape your game from early on. In the same way, in Spire of Sorcery we build in a lot of opportunities, from how you can upgrade your Spire to how you can train your disciples, but they will never be used in their entirety in just one campaign.
2010-2013

Once Eador. Genesis shipped, a separate production company licensed the rights to build a 3D remake of the game. Alexey got signed as a consultant and spent almost three years advising the dev team, even though his input was rather limited as he wasn't making neither technical nor design decisions. The resulting game shipped in 2013 as Eador. Masters of the Broken World and is currently down to 66% approval rating on Steam, mostly thanks to tech bugs – the sales, though, exceed 200,000 copies.

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In the summer of 2013, Alexey was looking for a way to develop his next game where, like with Eador. Genesis, he would have 100% control over design and development choices; while I was looking for the first game that Charlie Oscar, my brand new indie studio, could produce. And so in July 2013, we started with the pre-production of Alexey Bokulev's Gremlins, Inc
steampunk
.

WHAT "GREMLINS, INC." REVEALS ABOUT SPIRE OF SORCERY?

We started Gremlins, Inc as a "simple" project that needed up taking over two years to release, but we learned a lot – and it's been crucial in forming the existing development team. From the sales of just 700 copies when we launched in Early Access, we went to sell over 125,000 copies of the game by now, all that – in a very niche genre of digital board games.

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Here's the few things about Gremlins, Inc. that both Alexey and I find relevant to Spire of Sorcery just as well:
  • Early Access and LiveOps experience – a lot of our friends ship products that are "final", and do not require any major future updates. You build the best game you can, and you release it. With Gremlins, Inc. this was never an option. From its Early Access release in late 2015 and up to now, we treat every feature as "good for now", as often data shows clear need to make a change, or to revert a change. This experience of operating a "live" product we will bring with us to Spire of Sorcery's Early Access period.

  • replayability – we have dozens of players with over 1,000 hours logged into Gremlins, Inc., which stands for something. The high replayability, in my opinion, is one of the core signs of Alexey's game design, and we expect the same to happen with Spire of Sorcery as already at this stage we can see how he puts in place solutions that will make us all go back and replay the main campaign because of the multiple choices that beg to be explored.

  • game balance focused on decision-making – even though Gremlins, Inc. is a turn-based game, the flow is very dynamic; the situation on the board keeps changing, which keeps the player engaged at all times. Making decisions is what the strategy genre is all about, and it's something that Spire of Sorcery will be all about.

  • longevity – we released Gremlins, Inc. in October 2015; six months later, in March 2016, we went ahead with the full release; since then, we launched 6 major updates – introducing new content, new game modes, and changing balance according to the data that we accumulate. You can expect the same with Spire of Sorcery: the road from Early Access to full release will be real intense, and yet once we'll launch, we'll keep adding to the game because this ambition is supported by our business model
    firstplace
    . Free updates make players happy. Happy players recommend the game to their friends. New people buy the game, giving us revenue to keep developing the game further – and so on.

AND NOW, WHAT IS SPIRE OF SORCERY ALL ABOUT?

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Below are some of the key points that we discussed with Alexey, listed in no particular order:

  1. First of all, Spire of Sorcery is an open-world survival project. The map is generated from scratch every time you start a new campaign.

    The game will offer more content than you will be able to discover in one campaign.

    Sometimes you will have a certain race close to your Spire, and you'll meet them and will trade with them. Other times, you won't even discover that race, because they'll be up near the mountains and you'll solve the main quest before even making your way there.

  2. Secondly, Spire of Sorcery has a big RPG part. It's all about you and your disciples, as well as their relationship with each other.

    The disciples are independent actors, not units.

    Each disciple has a personality, and traits. Many will have their secrets. Some may pose a threat to you, and some may bring great advantages. When you meet new disciples, you will only know what they will tell you themselves. You'll need to figure them out to be efficient. Perhaps someone is secretly in love with another disciple. If you cast one off, the other will run away, too... but if you send both on a dangerous expedition, their love will make their team fight better, with a higher chance of success.

  3. Will there be tactical battles in the game? Most likely, no. In Eador. Genesis, in the late game tactical battles became routine, while strategic aspect remained engaging. We currently feel that the game won't need tactics, and will launch in Early Access without that mode. If the actual data proves that there is some space for it, though, then we'll bring it to the game without hesitation.

  4. In Spire of Sorcery, you should expect high level of personal attachment to your disciples.

    There's only that many disciples that your Spire can support, in terms of food and accommodation. You will have to make a choice, who gets in – and who is left on the cold. The in-fighting, the usual magic school troubles, and the everyday hassle of trying to train mages, makes your disciples more like a family than an army. Sending someone on a life-threatening quest is not going to be easy, once you've trained them and go to know their real stories!

  5. Your main resource is your mage's time.

    Every day in the game, your choice is about how you can achieve more by smarter strategy. You'll start with small quests, such as sending some newly arrived students to a swamp nearby, or to a village that may offer some trading opportunities. As your Spire gets stronger, and your disciples gain knowledge and experience, your focus will shift to the quests relevant to the main goal – seeking out the elixir of youth. At some point, you'll have to focus on just a few strong disciples, appointing them to manage your Spire's everyday operations –so that you can immerse in your own studies of monstrology or alchemy.

  6. Finally, here's what Alexey told me about the expected high point of the game, the part of the flow that will make our hearts beat faster:

    Once you discover "red zones" on the map – dangerous areas that carry high risk for any explorers – and send there a daring expedition, you'll wait impatiently for their return. Will they come back at all? Will they unearth and bring back the valuable treasure that will make you one step closer to the ultimate goal? Will some of them die on the way, and if yes, then will these be your favourites? All through the game, seeing the scroll icon that says "an expedition has returned!" is going to be the hight point for sure.

The only things to add to the list above is that (a) the game will have modding, which we support at the very core level; and (b) the game will have meta-game AKA tradable in-game – we think that this sort of optional meta adds a lot of fun to the community.

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Thanks for reading this far –and we'll be back in a week, with the look at the concept art, and an explanation of the relationship between "human" and "non-human" races in the world of Spire of Sorcery!


–––



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malice
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Once Eador. Genesis shipped, a separate production company licensed the rights to build a 3D remake of the game. Alexey got signed as a consultant and spent almost three years advising the dev team, even though his input was rather limited as he wasn't making neither technical nor design decisions. The resulting game shipped in 2013 as Eador. Masters of the Broken World and is currently down to 66% approval rating on Steam, mostly thanks to tech bugs – the sales, though, exceed 200,000 copies.
That makes sense. MotBW felt like they struggled to remake the original in a playable condition, forget improvements or new content.


Interesting that they don't want tactical combat. It's true that Eador gets bogged down by repetitive fights with neutrals and province defenses but on the other hand "send expedition, they died of fatal RNG, XX hours of developing characters gone, out of time, game over" is a possibility and if the game is as tough as Eador it could hinge on these difficult late game red zones expeditions that you have little control over. I guess we'll see how much you can do before expeditions to improve your odds.
 
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Dr Skeleton

Arcane
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
811
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/637050/announcements/detail/1484357500667145829

#02 – YOUR CHARACTER
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It was great to see your response to the first issue of the blog – here on Steam and on the game's official Discord server[discord.gg]. All those comments definitely makes us feel more responsible about sticking to the weekly schedule =). In today's blog, we talk about the very start of the game: what exactly happens when you push the :turnon_lightning: START NEW CAMPAIGN :turnon_lightning: button?


THE THINGS THAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE

There's a few things that are a given for this game, at least if you'll be playing the core game and not one of the mods:
  • you are a practicing mage with years of work and study with the Guild
  • you already know some secret magic
  • you are quite old (i.e. "fewer days left to live than days you've already lived")
  • you just ran away from the Guild
  • you just erected your very own magic Spire
  • you are pursued by the Inquisition (not on the heels... but they are looking for you!)
No matter how you start the game, these things will always stay true. You will always be an old mage. You will always be a runaway mage. And you will always have the Inquisition looking into your whereabouts.


THE THINGS THAT YOU CAN CHANGE

Let's start with one of the most frequently requested issues:
  • you get to choose your mage's gender! yes!!
  • you get to choose your mage's character portrait!
Following the choice of gender and portrait, you'll be set on a text quest that will determine:
  • the exact age of your mage
  • the exact state of health of your mage at the start of the campaign
  • the circumstances surrounding his/her escape from the Guild
  • some of the major events in the world that happen prior to your escape
  • all of your mage's stats and skills
  • all of your mage's possessions at the time of escape

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GENERATING YOUR CHARACTER THROUGH THE TEXT QUEST

The campaign begins with the generation of your character, which takes the form of a text quest. If we put two players next to each other, and have them generate their characters – they will end up with 2 really different mages, reflecting their personalities and the roles they choose to play.

Important: this phase determines both your mage and the world around, as your answers will define both personal and global events that would have happened before your campaign begins.

Each question during this phase describes a situation followed by several possible choices of actions, one of which you must choose as the decision of your own mage character. We expect a total of 10-15 questions during the generation phase. The questions come from a fairly large base, and it is unlikely that you will be presented with the same questions when starting your next campaign, or the one thereafter.

A common question is: so what if someone keeps re-starting the campaign, and writes down all the possible choices and their consequences? To address this: firstly, it will be a hell of a job, since certain answers kick in new branches of events during the generation phase; and secondly, yes, it is possible that someone will eventually establish a link between what you have to choose, and what sort of character you'll get at the end.

But does this approach offer any tangible advantage? Not really!

Until you play the game, and figure out your personal strategy that you'll decide to pursue as the most effective one, it will be impossible for you to say what kind of character is better: with a higher Charisma, but older and more frail; or with an extra progress in Monstrology, but short on Intuition and having no possessions from her Guild days.

Our advice? We suggest to just follow your heart, and choose the actions that reflect the role that you're willing to play in this game during the current campaign!

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WHAT SORT OF QUESTIONS MAY YOU EXPECT?

Let's look at a possible question from this stage:


The Guild instructs every mage to undertake an additional study of Botanics.

YOUR ACTIONS:

summer_magic
Follow the order and put additional time into studying the subject, as is expected from any obedient member of the Guild.

summer_magic
Ignore the order and instead hole up in the Guild's Library to continue your search for the prohibited knowledge.

summer_magic
Ignore the order and instead spend more time hanging out with your friends from the Guild, visiting pubs and brothels.


The first option will increase your character's Willpower (since you demonstrate the capacity to follow orders, regardless of personal likes or dislikes), as well as increase the skill of Herbalism at the start of the campaign.

The second option may generate a new pre-campaign event (such as: "a guard found you reading a prohibited book in the Library"). It will also increase the chances of gaining a perk of Bravery, plus will increase your mage's magic skills in some specific areas. Finally, choosing this option will lead you to escape the Guild earlier than usual – since you would accelerate the study of the secret spells – so that you'll start the campaign at a relatively younger age, with a few extra years of life as a bonus.

The third option will increase your Health stat (fresh air and, uhm, pubs!), but will decrease your Willpower – since you're "going with the flow" here. It will also provide you with some friends early on, who may be involved later in the character generation process (for example, helping you escape the Guild) or even early on in the campaign (for example, these could be your students who will come with you to the Spire to become your disciples).

The other thing that is affected by the character generation quest, is your mage's starting possessions: what exactly did you manage to bring with you, when you ran away from the Guild. This is the subject of the last part of the character generation questions, that specifically deal with the event of you preparing your escape.

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CHARACTER STATS

The stats of your mage are the same as the stats of your disciples: it is the same system for everyone dweller of the Spire.

On a scale from 1 to 20, your mage will have:

HEALTH
INTELLECT
MEMORY
WILLPOWER
CHARISMA
INTUITION


Every stat is shown as a value (e.g. "3/20") as well as a descriptive ("e.g. "frail").

While HEALTH and INTELLECT are pretty obvious stats, let's talk more about MEMORY: Memory is something that affects learning. When you learn, you combine Theory and Practice. For example, you could know all about casting swords, but never have cast a sword in your life... so your skill will not progress with further theoretical knowledge until you actually engage in some real-life practice.

Having a great Memory allows your characters to progress further on the Theory scale while Practice may still be lagging behind.

Now, the WILLPOWER: this is your character's ability to do unwanted things. It's great when it means that your disciples, or your own mage, will pursue the order – no matter what their personal preference... but it also has the other side: it leads to stubbornness. And so in a critical situation during an expedition, for example, a disciple with high Willpower may refuse to listen to his colleagues who would be suggesting (rightfully so!) to change the course.

As to CHARISMA, it defines how attractive your character appears to the others, which is essential for negotiation, trading and deceit. If you need to establish good relationship with a faraway dwelling, you'll be best served by dispatching there a likeable disciple – regardless of her other skills. High Charisma can also be dangerous: if a disciple at the Spire will stage a rebellion against you, and his Charisma will be higher than your mage's... he is so much more likely to attract followers.

Finally, INTUITION: this is the ability to make correct decisions without having the necessary background information. For example, a party is sent to bring back a certain treasure. As the party enters the underground caves, there is a fork in the path. A character with high Intuition value will suggest to the group the correct decision, tapping into the global knowledge of the world that his character doesn't really have.

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CHARACTER SKILLS

In the conclusion of this week's blog, let's talk about the skills of your mage (just briefly; we will focus on them in more detail in one of the later blog posts). The skills come in addition to stats, and they develop as the game progresses; they are measured on a scale from 1 to 300.

Different character actions require different skill levels to perform them. For example, to turn tosljuk's horns into silver powder, you'll need Alchemy to be at least at 120. The higher your skill value, the more the chances of successful action – if your skill only just meets the required level, then it's not much likely that you will succeed at the action at the first try.

Here's how skills are connected to character stats: The progression of each skill is influenced by –

INTELLECT
INTUITION


Intellect and Intuition determine how your character's experience translates into increase of your skill.

And for your disciples, there is a third value that will affect their skills:

INTEREST

It can be a bonus (someone's not really talented in magic, but they are very interested, and thus will progress faster) or a penalty (someone's real talented, but... they simply don't care about the particular discipline).

***

That's it for today, and we wish you a very happy weekend ahead! We look forward to hearing your questions and comments here on Steam forums, or on the official Discord server[discord.gg].

–––



summer_magic
Official Discord[discord.gg]
summer_magic
Twitter (game updates)
summer_magic
Facebook (game updates)



malice
Official Discord[discord.gg]
malice
Twitter (game updates)
malice
Facebook (game updates)



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Twitter (studio news)
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Facebook (studio news)
hypnoheart
"Behind the scenes" Instagram[instagram.com]
fireapple
YouTube

Character creation gives me King of Dragon Pass vibes.
 
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Space Satan

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weekly dev diaries is awesome. Also whole thing is a huge incline.
What I don't like - that Intellect governs how much exp or skill you will have - from my experience, it leads to everyone maxing it out by any means possible. Fallout 1, 2 and 3 is a great example.
Skill limit of 300 - again, from my experience there is no reason to have 1-300 when you can have 1-100. Even 1-10 will do but that depends on game mechanics involved.
Anyway it's just a rant and the overall game look awesome. Will get it once it hits EA.
P.S. I also noticed that entire game is a perfect frame for japanese datesim porn rpg.
 
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Space Satan

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They released new DD and a damn massive one
Welcome to this week's dev blog of Spire of Sorcery! We've discussed
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the concept of the game and how it's connected to our previous releases, as well as
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the main character of the game and how you can shape him (or her). Today, we'll talk about the world around the Spire, and the different kinds of quests that you can set up for your disciples.

A BRAND NEW WORLD – EACH TIME!

When you start a new campaign in Spire of Sorcery, the map is each time generated from scratch. During the game, you will see a specific name that's given to this world (in the in-game settings menu), and if you enter that name when you start another new campaign, then you will be able to access the same world again (this option is not available in Ironman or Artefact Huntermodes, of course).

What exactly changes from one campaign's map to another?
  • notebook
    the whole geography (for example, how many major rivers there are, and where they flow into the sea);

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    the spread of dwellings, and dweller types, across the map (in one campaign you may start next to a war-hungry lord; in another, you may start next to the peaceful village of mushroom-eaters);

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    the location of the artefacts and other points of interests (certain old books may be stashed away or in possession of different tribes);

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    the exact location of your Spire in relevance to the Empire and the Distorted Lands.

Some things will remain constant, though:
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    all the way to the West, there is the big sea, and the capital of Empire, the largest seaport on the coast;

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    all the way to the East, there are the Distorted Lands – the unmapped region that is a highly dangerous place to explore;

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    all the way to the North, there are huge mountains that are not really mapped either, as the passes are snowed in and hard to come through;

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    all the way to the South, there's the same big sea, as it's going around the continent from north-west to south-east.

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    your Spire is roughly mid-way between where the Distorted Lands begin in the East, and where the border of the Empire lays in the West.

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THE SPIRE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS

While your Spire is always located between the Empire and the Distorted Lands, the actual placement may vary depending on the text quest that you will complete during the character generation phase early on.

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How long will it take for a party sent off from the Spire to reach the borders of the Empire?

About a week or two, one way. As to the capital of the Empire... it is going to take much, much longer. You ran away from the Guild of Mages in one of the satellite cities. If you were practicing in the capital itself, it's highly doubtful that (a) you would be able to arrange such escape; and (b) you would remain uncaught by the Inquisition on your trek to the Distorted Lands.

Generally, you are likely to start the campaign with a sequence of simple exploration and resource-gathering quests around your Spire. Such quests will mostly be safe and quick, and will not require any preparation beforehand.

MapOfEdenEmoticon
Should you expect to uncover the complete map of the world late in the campaign?

That would be quite unlikely, because certain regions are just too hard to explore (for example, old swamps that take weeks to cross) while other regions are simply too dangerous to venture into (for example, the territory of the Empire has decent roads that allow fast travel, but it is also extremely dangerous for your disciples as they might run into the Inquisition and fail to mask their true identities).

Whenever you're about to set a new quest for a party of your disciples, there are two indicators that will help you to gauge its possible results even before you dispatch that party on the quest:

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How likely the party is to complete the intended goal?
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How dangerous is this quest expected to be?

For example, if you're sending a couple of blind disciples to gather mushrooms in the nearby forest, then they are very unlikely to succeed in its goal (gathering mushrooms) – even though they have a 99% chance of getting back without any risk to their lives.

On the other hand, if you're sending another couple of disciples into one of Empire's border towns to sell rare minerals, they might be expected to have one hundred percent chance of success – since the minerals are rare, and in demand everywhere – while their lives will be in grave danger, because of their exposure (they are still young and cannot hide their magic talents well enough).

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THE GLOBAL MAP AND ITS LAYERS

In terms of exploration, the map carries several informational layers:
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    geographical layer: rivers, roads, lakes, mountains, forests... once any of your parties walk through these regions, the geographical data is added to the global map that always remains at your fingertips.

  • MapOfEdenEmoticon
    points of interest layer: known dwellings, possible quest markers, special places like altars of death, catacombs, ruins of the ancients, and such. This layer has some depth to it, for example you may already know the location of certain caves – but you will need a party to get there and explore them, in order to utilise the full exploration potential of the spot.

  • MapOfEdenEmoticon
    observation layer, i.e. the area that you can observe in real-time: firstly, around your own Spire – this is the zone where you see other parties coming and going as they move over the map (for example, adventurers or regular armies); this zone can be expanded with certain spells and/or upgrades to the Spire; and then, once you learn the corresponding far-seeing spells, you are also able to open such 'observation zones' in other places on the map by performing certain rituals (see below).

We currently intend to allow players to toggle these layers on and off as they see fit, and the general idea is to create such a default view of the global map that will provide all the important information for the decision-making without overly cluttering its space with tons and tons of symbols.

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THE QUESTS

And now, about the quests. Think of Spire of Sorcery as a "reverse RPG": rather than following the preset quests, you are the person that sets the quests for your disciples, and you succeed – or fail – through the balance of their skills and traits, and the sort of goals that you set for them.

summer_magic
What kind of quests are possible?

There's a lot of different options, some of which start with a specific Quest Marker (as a part of the game, you learned from someone or somewhere that in this specific place, there's something to do/explore/gain); and some of which start just with your own decision and pre-existing knowledge(for example, you already know of a certain dwelling, and you send a party to this specific dwelling to enslave its population).

Some of the quest types that are already a part of the game:

CORE

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EXPLORE – a core quest where your party travels to a certain place on the map, to confirm if there are any points of interest along the route / in the destination area.

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GATHER RESOURCES – collect minerals; or berries; or mushrooms; hunt for specific animals – or capture and bring back live animals.


MILITARY

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ATTACK – travel to a certain destination and fight with a specific opponent.

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DEFEND – provide military assistance to an ally or a neutral dwelling/being against specified or unspecified opponents.

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RESCUE – free (and possibly bring back) a captive character / being.

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EXTRACT – extract (by force) a certain item currently in possession of an opponent / neutral party.


MAGIC

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PERFORM RITUAL – carry out an active magic action, for example – perform a possession ritual on a Source of Power so that the Spire owns it, and grows its mana; or perform a raise dead ritual on a cemetery of an aggressive town, so that its citizens get busy solving that new problem instead of creating problems for the Spire.


DIPLOMATIC

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TRADE | NEGOTIATE A DEAL | ESTABLISH RELATIONS – there's a wide variety of diplomatic actions available, for different strategies.

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QUESTS SPECIFIC TO DWELLINGS / BEINGS

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RECON – observe everyday life of the dwelling, to gain further insight into its dwellers (same can be applied to animals or monsters).

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ENSLAVE – attempt to forcefully place the dwelling under the control of the Spire; sometimes this results in fighting. Once enslaved, the dwelling starts paying the Spire a tribute in resources.

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CREATE A NEW CULT – establish a following of the mage / the Spire, as a religious cult of the dwelling.

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PERFORM RELIGIOUS AGITATION – if a Cult of the Spire already exists in this dwelling, then this action comes possible and may motivate the majority of the dwellers to join the Cult, which results in the dwelling starting to take your orders and sending you voluntary gifts.

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GIVE ORDERS – if the dwelling is already enslaved or is a follower of the Cult of Spire, you can order its dwellers to attack or defend certain points, or to mine specific resources, or to send troops as bodyguards to the Spire.


SPIRE-BASED QUESTS

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GROW – grow crops or herbs, or even crystals.

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ANIMAL / MONSTER CARE – take care of captive animals or monsters, for breeding or harvesting purposes.

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CRAFT – create new items using skills, spells and resources of the Spire and specific disciples who perform this task.

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PERFORM ALCHEMY – attempt one of the transmutations that are known to the specific group of disciples.

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STUDY – study books, or attend classes of more senior mages (you or other disciples), to advance disciple's theoretical knowledge.


EVENT-CAUSED QUESTS

Finally, a whole other type of quests are born out of events, where you have a choice to react with this or that action. These happen based on how the world revolves, and vary from laughable (a fight in the class) to life-threatening (an invasion of undead brought to the Spire by careless disciple from a trip to the burial grounds).

–––

AND ONE MORE THING...

As far as game features are concerned, that's pretty much it for today! But there's one more thing that we'd like to share: we recently produced a limited number of patches that carry the Spire's sign (you can see these on the photos below), as well as a bunch of stickers.

In the coming week, we'll be running a giveaway on the game's official Discord server[discord.gg], with the bot drawing a number of random winners among everyone who is registered in the community. These will then have the patches, and stickers, mailed to them from our studio in Vilnius. The game may not be available yet, but the Spire is already here, reaching out to the mages hiding out there in the world...
 
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Haba

Harbinger of Decline
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Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
The design sure seems interesting. The removal of tactical combat makes sense, but I hope there is a decent feedback on what actually happened and not just "Bob encountered a dragon and died". Maybe still simulate the fight in the background and then generate the text based on the results of the simulation.

Not being able to fully explore everything also opens up new prospects, as unexpected things can happen outside of your domain.
 

Space Satan

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DD about stats:
STATS, TRAITS – SKILLS, STATES

Earlier in this blog, we discussed the stats and the traits, mentioned the skills – and went over the current states of human characters (the mage and his/her disciples). Today, we'd like to take a closer look at the traits they affect almost every aspect of the game, and are an extremely important part of its mechanics.

Let’s start with the summary of what we already know:

Your mage character (and every disciple in the game) is generated with certain
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STATS. These do not change through the course of the game, and define the character at the structural level:
  • HEALTH
  • INTELLECT
  • MEMORY
  • WILLPOWER
  • CHARISMA
  • INTUITION
Is your mage smart? Does he have an exceptionally good memory? Is she healthy, with an immune system that will withstand most of the viruses? The same applies to every disciple in the game: they arrive to the Spire with the stats in place, and this is something that will significantly influence your decisions as to whom to accept and whom to reject.

Your mage character is also generated with certain
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SKILLS. These will develop over the course of the game, increasing as character gains theoretical and practical experience.

There are multiple skills, ranging from Healing to Monstrology, and we will talk about them in detail in one of the future blogs. Meanwhile let's just note that screening your disciples for skills and teaching them selected topics to increase the skills that you consider essential to the survival and growth of the Spire, is a key part of the game.

When a wounded party returns from a quest, it’s whether or not you have the required medical skills in the Spire, that determines if you keep those valuable characters as a part of your Spire team – or add new tombstones to the Spire's graveyard.

The next group that affects your human characters is the
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STATES: things like mood (happy or depressed), current health (sick or full of energy) and loyalty (abandoning the Spire at the first sign of trouble or sticking with you through their last breaths). Character states change all the time.

Current character states are influenced by character traits (what the character likes or hates), game events (a discovery of a horrible undead creature, for example) and your own actions (which to the character actually seem like events, for example arresting someone, or giving them a wonderful gift to keep).

And now, the
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TRAITS: these fall with the same group as the stats. They do not change through the game and represent a part of what makes each character special. If you know the Stats and the Traits of a person, you know how to use them most efficiently. Skills and States are the layer that is based on such foundation, and something that you can influence to a great degree over the course of the whole campaign.

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TRAITS – HIDDEN AND REVEALED

There's a pretty large number of possible character traits. On average, in Spire of Sorcery a human has from 3 to 5 traits (but of course, "average" is just that, some will have fewer and some will have substantially more).

Below are some of the possible traits, grouped in pairs:
  • Lucky – Unlucky
  • Cruel – Kind
  • Inventive – Conservative
  • Greedy – Generous
  • Lively – Gloomy
  • Attractive – Repulsive
A character can also be Talkative, Attentive, and so on.

It is important to note that character traits can be Hidden and Revealed, depending on your mage's knowledge of that person.

Some traits, like Handsome or Ugly, are revealed from day one – whenever a disciple with such traits knocks on your door, you will immediately notice them. Some traits will take some time, and effort, to become revealed.

In modern life, banks have a rule that's abbreviated as KYC – "know your customer". In Spire of Sorcery, a similar rule – "know your disciple" – is essential to success: if you send a greedy disciple to extract treasure from ruins, you may lose both the disciple and the treasure, with which he will run away; whereas if you send a lucky disciple to attempt diplomacy with one of the (rare and powerful) supreme magic creatures, your chances of success will be rather high.

There are three ways to reveal character traits of your disciples:
  • through events

    For example, someone might steal a valuable item in the Spire, and when caught, this will reveal his/her trait that lead to the theft.

  • through horoscope

    By building the complete horoscope of a character, you are able to access full knowledge of his/her traits.

  • through a special ritual called Mind Reading

    This ritual is the fastest way to reveal character's traits, however it requires advanced skills and consumes valuable resources. So it's more of a late-game tool.
Generally, it is the stats of your mage that determine how fast you can reveal hidden traits (it depends on your Intellect and Intuition values).

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RECRUITING DISCIPLES

At the start of the campaign, your mage already has a few disciples. The exact number of followers depends on the way that you complete the character generation quest. You are very likely to know all of the traits of these initial disciples, since they would have a story of personal relationship with you that goes a long way back.

There are three ways in which new disciples may join the Spire:
  • by joining your existing party when out on a quest

    This is a rare occasion, and happens only when everything aligns in the right way.

  • through the Seek Recruits type of quest

    This is more common: you will be sending your disciples predisposed to such quests (e.g. charismatic, beautiful, convincing, lucky negotiators) to settlements (villages, towns) in order to specifically seek out potential recruits and convince them to come back to the Spire with the party.

  • through the Call of the Spire ritual

    This is another common tool to gain more recruits: you will be performing a magic ritual, that consumes energy on a daily basis, spread across the world the call that only the magically talented will hear. Think of it as sending "radio waves" through the world, that only the potential disciples can hear.

Once the potential recruit reaches the Spire, you have the option to Accept or Reject the character. If you don't have enough living or teaching space, you can Accept via Exchange, expelling one of the existing disciples and taking in the new person. Or you can just immediately add living space (and extra food supplies, if necessary) and accept the additional person (though adding food by magic is a pretty costly endeavour, and it makes more sense to find a disciple who would become a good gardener, and will supply the Spire's food in a regular way).

Before you decide to accept or reject the recruit, you will want to know as much as possible about that character – from stats to traits, and to skills. There are four solutions for this:
  • through observation

    Certain things will be obvious from the start, for example if the potential disciple is a great-looking tall woman with a strong build, you will already see all of that in revealed stats and traits. Or take a cripple – there, certain things will be immediately clear after initial observation.

  • by looking at the character portrait

    The generator that we use to create disciple portraits, associates certain facial features with certain traits. It is not a 100% reliable way to understand the character, however it would be enough to give you a certain "hunch" as to what traits the recruit may possess – and knowing ahead could be really advantageous.

  • by reading character's auto-biography

    Sometimes, this is a helpful tool. But bear in mind that characters can, and will, lie about themselves, and so someone who describes his/her great adventures and achievements may have in fact spent all of their life sitting at home.

  • by interviewing the recruit

    Conducting an interview takes time, but it's a good way to reveal more about the recruit. Especially if your mage's intellect and intuition are high enough so that you get a lot out of such interview.

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MANAGING YOUR DISCIPLES

If at the start of the campaign you're likely to have 3-4 disciples, in the late game this number will be closer to 30-40 (depending on your strategy, of course).

One of the features that we plan to actively test during the Early Access phase is how much of a hierarchy there will be in the Spire.

While initially, your primary focus is in teaching disciples and advancing their skills, later on there will be major events that require your full focus. For the late game, we currently expect to create a hierarchy of disciples, where you are able to appoint several advanced characters to the Council of the Spire, and to delegate to them day-to-day management of activities like teaching and supplies.

In terms of user interface, the settings for such delegated operations will require actual live tests to find the level of automation that allows full control over the major events – while taking off your hands the minutae. In just a few months, we'll see how it goes! We'll start with the closed beta, and then progress to Early Access as we confirm more and more of the UI solutions.

–––

With this, we wrap this week's blog – and welcome you to join the game's official Discord server[discord.gg], which already has a population of 300+!
 

Dr Skeleton

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Certain things will be obvious from the start, for example if the potential disciple is a great-looking tall woman with a strong build, you will already see all of that in revealed stats and traits. Or take a cripple – there, certain things will be immediately clear after initial observation.
No surprise fatties, dwarfs and clubfoot like in Battle Brothers, then? :incline:
 

HeroicBloodshed

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So heroes of might and magic with only one base and tactical combat removed. :decline:

Some other aspects look interesting but I hope the game isn't a gutted heroes of might and magic with extra CYOA.
 

Space Satan

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DD - Skills
Welcome back to the dev blog of Spire of Sorcery! It's been an intense week and a half for us here at Charlie Oscar (moving forward on a lot of different fronts at the same time, from global map to the way the Spire will look like). Today we will talk about something that is very likely to make you win – or lose – the campaign: the skills of your mage, as well as the skills of your disciples.

MAJOR & MINOR SKILLS

All the skills in the game are split into two groups:
turnon_lightning
Major and
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Minor. An example of a Major Skill would be Alchemy. It is a big area and once a character reaches advanced stages, it will make many things possible. An example of a Minor Skill would be Lockpicking. It's a fairly specialised activity that doesn't branch out much even when it's at a very high level.

There are three ways to increase character's skills in Spire of Sorcery:
  • THROUGH TEACHING
  • THROUGH THE ACTUAL USE OF SKILL
  • THROUGH READING BOOKS
Important note: Major Skills can be increased in all of these three ways; Minor Skills can only be increased through the use of skill and through reading books – but they cannot be taught. Generally speaking, Minor Skills are the skills that your disciples already possess by the time when they arrive to the Spire, they are a sort of a bonus (which, nevertheless, can become crucial at certain times in the campaign).

Like in other areas of the game, a character may have a specific
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TRAIT that would make her more or less interested in working on a specific skill, which would boost or decrease their motivation and speed of their progress. Someone who loves animals will progress fast with the farming, while pushing an honest, justice-seeking disciple to practice thievery is only going to get him or her depressed.

From early on in the campaign, you'll face a tough choice: your mage's teaching impact on the disciples is limited by his or her own skills; so it's essential to invest time and efforts into increasing them.

On the other hand, any time that your mage spends learning... is the time that the mage does not spend teaching the disciples!
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Another key point: in the game, there are no "levels" that characters may attain. Each Major Skill has its own specific experience axis that consists of Theory and Practice, while each Minor Skill has a single Experience value that will increase throughout the game.

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THEORY & PRACTICE

Characters gain theoretical experience by:
  • ATTENDING CLASSES
  • READING BOOKS
  • CONDUCTING RESEARCH
Characters gain practical experience by:
  • USING THE ACTUAL SKILL
  • STAGING EXPERIMENTS
It is possible to have more theoretical experience than practical experience – the exact gap that is possible, is limited by the character's
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MEMORY stat.

It is not possible to have more practical experience than theoretical experience, and if your Theory and Practice values are equal, then by accumulating more practical experience, you will be pushing both values up, but doing it very, very slowly.

Each quest that you assign to a disciple (or undertake through your own mage) has different skill requirements. You cannot assign someone a quest that requires a higher theoretical skill level than they currently have, simply because the character wouldn't event know what to do and where to start (for example, what if someone asked you to prepare some fresh うに ("uni"), but you had no clue where to get it and how to cook it? You'll gain nothing by sitting and staring at the wall
locked
).

Following the quest, the character's experience grows regardless of whether the action was successful or not. The lower the required skill compared to the character's practical experience, the more certain is the success of the undertaking – but there is less experience to be gained, right down to the situation where a simple candle-holder made by a master blacksmith would yield no experience at all.

The higher the required skill level compared to the character's actual practical experience, the more likely the action is to result in a failure – especially when the required skill level matches the character's theoretical experience, but falls behind the practical experience.

Does this mean that attempting actions at the edge of character's current skill level is the best way to progress? Sure, but please be aware of the drawbacks: firstly, you are likely not to receive what you wanted, e.g. making a long sword above your blacksmith's practical experience may result in waste of good metal and nothing to arm your disciples with; secondly, most failures carry a chance of accident, and in the case of blacksmith shooting above her skill, you may end up with the Spire's whole wing burning down to ashes in the process.

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MAJOR SKILLS

Below are some of the Major Skills. In the brackets are the stats (major, minor influence) that affect the pace of improving the skill.

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LITERACY (MEMORY, INTELLECT) – how fast and how effectively a character studies books; how well a character writes books and manuscripts; how good are character's foreign language skills.

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CONCENTRATION (WILLPOWER, INTELLECT) – minimizes loss of progress when a character is distracted in the middle of current action; increases the efficiency of sleep and meditation. Decreases magic energy costs for all Rituals. Makes learning from other characters more effective. Opens access to advanced meditation techniques, increases speed of recovery for magic energy, allows to store more magic energy.

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HERBOLOGY (INTELLECT, MEMORY) – defines the effectiveness of gathering herbs and mushrooms in the wild, of growing herbs and mushrooms in the Spire (in the garden and in the mushroom cave). Defines knowledge of recipes of potions made from herbs and mushrooms. Allows to be better at seeking paths in the forests.

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MONSTROLOGY (CHARISMA, WILLPOWER) – training animals and monsters, taking care of captive animals and monsters. Knowledge of behaviour and anatomy of animals and monsters. Hunting for game and effectively processing and preparing killed game, capturing live animals.

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GEOLOGY (INTELLECT, INTUITION) – knowledge of Stones and minerals, ability to find rare stones. Knowledge of precious stones and gems, and their effects. Knowledge of special liquids (mercury, acids, etc.). Allows to be better at seeking paths in the caves.

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ALCHEMY (INTELLECT, MEMORY) – preparing potions and elixirs, effectiveness of using potions and elixirs. Cooking.

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ASTROLOGY (INTUITION, MEMORY) – forecasting future events based on the star alignment in the sky, being able to reveal the coordinates of special locations on the global map. Preparing horoscopes for disciples that reveal their character traits. Being able to find one's way based on the stars in the sky.

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HEALING (INTELLECT, INTUITION) – healing wounds and taking care of wounded.

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ARTIFICING (INTELLECT, MEMORY) – ability to recognise and create magic items.

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ASTRAL CARPENTRY (WILLPOWER, INTELLECT) – being able to create furniture in the Spire, building new rooms and floors.

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COMMON MAGIC (MEMORY, INTELLECT) – spells used in everyday life.

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SOCIAL MAGIC (CHARISMA, INTELLECT) – spells that affect minds and feelings of humans and non-humans.

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BATTLE MAGIC (WILLPOWER, INTELLECT) – spells used in battles.

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ADVENTURE MAGIC (INTUITION, MEMORY) – spells used for adventures and travel.

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RITUALS (MEMORY, INTELLECT) – the rituals that allow for control of energies and living creatures.

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RESEARCH (INTUITION, INTELLECT) – determines the speed and efficiency of discovering new spells and alchemic formulas. Also determines the ability to discover characteristics of unknown items by study and experiments.

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MINOR SKILLS

Minor skills cannot be taught, but are obtainable and upgradeable through experience and through books. Unlike Major Skills, they don't have separate Theory and Practice experience values, but have just one general Experience value.

The most important Minor Skill is Teaching –

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TEACHING (CHARISMA, INTELLECT) – this skill defines how effective is the teaching when undertaken by this character; a high skill not only allows for more effectiveness, but may also kindle in the student an interest to the subject being taught.

Some of the other Minor Skills are:
  • Culinary Arts
  • Farming
  • Woodcutting
  • Reading footprints (of any creatures)
  • Streetwise
  • Thievery
  • Lockpicking
  • Survival
  • Archery
  • Melee
  • Carpentry
  • Blacksmith
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SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE

Finally, there's one last piece of information about skills that we would like to share with you in this edition of the blog: every Major Skill includes a set of "special knowledge", which character gains once they accumulate a certain experience.

For example, for all magic-related skills, these are specific spells; for Herbology, these are specific types of plants; and so on.

At the start of the campaign, most special knowledge items are unavailable and need to be researched by reading books or performing research. All of the disciples in the Spire have access to the special knowledge accumulated in the Spire once their skills pass the required experience level.
 

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