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7 Mages - turn-based blobber where you play a party of mages

hell bovine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 9, 2013
Messages
2,711
Location
Secret Level
Turn-based, party of mages, splitting your team - looks great! :)

Though I'm interested in the PC version, even if it is going to be early access. Can't stand touch screens.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,365
Pathfinder: Wrath
I recommend against releasing "barebone" port for PC. As Indie developer, steam review is one of the factor deciding whether you will get sales or not. Crappy PC Port, even with fix later, will thumbs down your game a bit, especially if people don't bother to update their review. Do try to at least give a satisfactory basic options such as windowed/full screen, resolution, and control.
 

*-*/\--/\~

Cipher
Joined
Jul 10, 2014
Messages
909
OH MAH GAWD!!!

:love:this game looks absolutely gorgeous.

Seven Mages also looks pretty great.


I remember having fun playing that when it came out. Think it is free download now, if you can get it to run somehow.
 

Merlkir

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Oct 12, 2008
Messages
1,216
It's also on Android, iirc, but it didn't play great on my tablet.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I remember having fun playing that when it came out. Think it is free download now, if you can get it to run somehow.
With the latest fan patch it runs just fine on Win7 x64. The main problem is that the original game is in Czech, and the fan translation is, well, not very polished (though mostly understandable).
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,324
Location
Flowery Land
Emaciated man (zombie?) needs to be mirrored: The point of a single pauldron is so that right handed attacker (the vast majority) will swing from their right (your left).

Otherwise looks nice.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,938
Title failure.

Why evoke Seven Samurai and not go with something like Seven Sorcerers?
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Ok, some first impressions:
- Despite being mobile port, the UI is pretty fine. I expected the game to be fully mouse-driven, but that's not the case, there are keyboard shortcuts - although figuring them out takes a bit of time since the tutorial messages haven't been adapted to PC. Granted, some actions could take fewer clicks and the combat started/new turn/combat finished messages stay on the screen too long but those are minor annoyances. One thing I love about the UI is the ability to fast-travel within the dungeon level through the minimap - saves a ton of time on backtracking.
- The graphics are also optimized for mobile, which is a pity because art direction is pretty good. Hopefully the PC version gets better viewing distance and more after-effects.
- The perspective doesn't change in combat, but in structure the game is closer to Goldboxes/Realms of Arkania than pure blobbers like Wizardry. In combat each character is a separate entity, with their own action points pool and, it seems, initiative. You can split the party out of combat too.
- The game is very puzzle-heavy. Just a few steps out of the tutorial there already are some non-braindead puzzles. The ones I've encountered so far were DM-style: pits, pressure plates, teleporters etc, but there might be some more unique puzzles later on. There is at least one spell involved in puzzle-solving, hopefully more.
- Character system isn't terribly detailed, this isn't Wizardry. There are no races or classes, you get four main stats and skills for each weapon type/magic school/musical instrument. On the other hand, all four stats seem to be of some importance no matter what kind of character you are trying to build, there are no dump stats. Also, it's probably the first game in decades (since BG?) where the starting attributes are rolled randomly.
- The world seems to be quite open, after the tutorial quest you are free to explore the dungeon further, or go to town, or take any one of the three exits into the wilderness.
- The starting town is fairly large but most of the buildings and NPCs are just props, you can't enter/talk to them. Most of the dialogs boil down to clicking the only availible options, when there are more it usually involves some sort of service (training etc) - but, well, it's a blobber, they aren't exactly known for deep dialogs. Some options are locked behind Charisma checks, others require having a certain character in your party. The writing tries to be witty and occasionally succeeds.
- You need food, and unlike Grimrock you don't find it lying around in the dungeon. If you get locked in a dungeon level without any food in your backpack - well, tough luck. The game lets you fuck up in other ways too, no hand-holding there.
- On the subject on inventory, it's extremely limited. Initially you can only carry six (?) items + what you have equipped, later you can buy bags and chests that expand that space. Moreover, potions and food don't stack. Personally I am loving this and rubbing my hands gleefully in anticipation of the butthurt the local lootwhores will have from it.

TLDR: So far I'm having a ton of fun, it might well turn out even better than LoG2, nevermind MMX.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,324
Location
Flowery Land
How are encounters done? Are they all running around the map, or his there a percent chance with each step?
 

Lady_Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
1,879,250
TLDR: So far I'm having a ton of fun, it might well turn out even better than LoG2, nevermind MMX.

I kind of distrust the opinion of someone who didn't like MMX and prefers a RT combat title.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I never said I didn't like MMX, but it was merely good. Its level design - the thing I value most about blobbers - wasn't particularly remarkable, puzzles were few and mostly optional. LoG2, on the other hand, was amazing despite being RT, it nailed exploration and did many creative things with its puzzles and enemies. 7 mages so far seems even better in that department, since it's puzzles are more varied (there's been a bunch on adventure-style ones since my last post) and each area has some unique mechanic specific to it. The game also does a pretty good job integrating character abilities and other mechanics into puzzle design. I doesn't quite have the thick atmosphere of LoG2, but it will probably get fixed when the graphics are updated for the PC version.
 

Reapa

Doom Preacher
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
2,340
Location
Germany
yeah, so i got through the crypt and now i don't know where to go next. i read about some swamp on some official forum but couldn't find one. all i can find is a forest with a road blocked by a fucking troll that i don't seem to be able to kill. the forest also leads to some kind of glacier with some ice trolls that i also can't beat yet. tried killing one from afar with fireballs. it just came closer one step at a time and killed both my mages.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
yeah, so i got through the crypt and now i don't know where to go next. i read about some swamp on some official forum but couldn't find one. all i can find is a forest with a road blocked by a fucking troll that i don't seem to be able to kill. the forest also leads to some kind of glacier with some ice trolls that i also can't beat yet. tried killing one from afar with fireballs. it just came closer one step at a time and killed both my mages.
The swamp entrance is behind the troll, yes. And you don't need to use the forum for directions, all the important quest information is recorded in the journal (forums may be more pleasant to read though, I give you that).
Explore the town, get some more equipment and/or spells - you should have enough money from the crypt to get at least one spell and some armor. A certain spell makes fighting the troll quite trivial. One particularly effective tactic is to turn Dog into a tank, place your main char behind him and fireball the hell out of the troll (don't forget that you can split the party and make a formation before starting the combat).
There is another area you can try to take on at this moment, it's arguably harder than the swamp, but manageable if you abuse the out of combat fireball sniping. You need to talk to some NPCs in town to get there. If you go that route, try to get Dog to level up as soon as possible and raise his Spd to 30 so that he'd get 2 actions per round - that makes a huge difference.
Two more areas can be entered from the forest, but one requires another party member, and the other requires special protection that you probably can't get at the moment (i.e. it's not gated, but you'll have a hard time surviving the process of getting it).
 
Last edited:

Reapa

Doom Preacher
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
2,340
Location
Germany
yeah, so i got through the crypt and now i don't know where to go next. i read about some swamp on some official forum but couldn't find one. all i can find is a forest with a road blocked by a fucking troll that i don't seem to be able to kill. the forest also leads to some kind of glacier with some ice trolls that i also can't beat yet. tried killing one from afar with fireballs. it just came closer one step at a time and killed both my mages.
The swamp entrance is behind the troll, yes. And you don't need to use the forum for directions, all the important quest information is recorded in the journal (forums may be more pleasant to read though, I give you that).
Explore the town, get some more equipment and/or spells - you should have enough money from the crypt to get at least one spell and some armor. A certain spell makes fighting the troll quite trivial. One particularly effective tactic is to turn Dog into a tank, place your main char behind him and fireball the hell out of the troll (don't forget that you can split the party and make a formation before starting the combat).
There is another area you can try to take on at this moment, it's arguably harder than the swamp, but manageable if you abuse the out of combat fireball sniping. You need to talk to some NPCs in town to get there. If you go that route, try to get Dog to level up as soon as possible and raise his Spd to 30 so that he'd get 2 actions per round - that makes a huge difference.
Two more areas can be entered from the forest, but one requires another party member, and the other requires special protection that you probably can't get at the moment (i.e. it's not gated, but you'll have a hard time surviving the process of getting it).
you can't split shit. as soon as a character that's farther away from the troll than directly in front of him gets his turn the troll jumps from the bridge and the fight is over. he also seems to regenerate to full health every time he jumps back up or back down since i've tried to fireball and run again and again and all i could achieve was getting some mana wasted. just tell me how the fuck you did it if you did it at all instead of possible solutions that don't really work. also the troll kills anyone in 2 strikes. so there's no such thing as tanking him and i don't see any way to resurrect characters yet. i also can't level up shit since the game offers no other enemies then those already mentioned.
 

cvv

Arcane
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Joined
Mar 30, 2013
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18,071
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
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TLDR: So far I'm having a ton of fun, it might well turn out even better than LoG2, nevermind MMX.

I kind of distrust the opinion of someone who didn't like MMX and prefers a RT combat title.

I wouldn't talk about distrust. But it's kindda unfair to compare MMX and LoG2 and say level design and puzzles in MMX were weak. LoG2 is explicitly a traditional puzzle dungeon crawl while MMX is a full-blown RPG with quests, NPCs, dialogues, story, much more advanced character development, itemization and much better combat. It's fine to prefer one genre to the other but you can't really say one game is better than the other.

Anyway thanks for the write up V_K.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
you can't split shit. as soon as a character that's farther away from the troll than directly in front of him gets his turn the troll jumps from the bridge and the fight is over.
This shouldn't happen.
he also seems to regenerate to full health every time he jumps back up or back down
The devs on steam forum claim he's not healing.
As for strategies, there are two options:
1. Dog as a tank.
Buy an Armor spell and the best armor you can afford. Cast armor on Dog before starting the fight - this should last him a lot longer than 2 strikes. This tactics requires moving your main chat behind, though. Or, if you can afford it, try to armor both you chars to the max.
2. Dog as DPS.
Buy him two one-handed weapons and have him double-wield it. If you use multiple slashes for both weapons, he can do 4 strikes in one turn. Once again, if you have the money and meet the stat requirements, you can do this for both chars also.
As for what I did,
I did the slaver ship first. Although an average half-giant is arguably as strong as the troll, you have the opportunity to snipe them from afar and generally use the level topology to your advantage. And when Dog levels up and gets 2 moves it gets much easier.
 

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