I was just in time to chat a little bit with a fellow Star Wars fan I had met at the entrance of the room called "Workshop II" - then I wanted to enter. We parted, and decided to look out whether we'd meet again or not. (As it turned out, I didn't see him later on, but we know that we can meet on fan meetings as well - so it's no big fuzz.)
The presentation was led by Chromatrix , the TDE licence holder for TDE video games - and they give the license to build TDE games to other developers.
The first presentation was about the Remake of the game we know here in Germany as "Schicksalsklinge", translated into English (almost literally) as "Blade Of Destiny" (the German language sometimes allows to write things into 1 word).
The game is in full 3D now, with a kind of "Dungeon Master" telling things - but the worst thing for my ears was, that he left out all characters' names.
This sounded like this : "after closer inspection … could find a hidden door. However, … was not strong enough to open it."
In this spoken game master's text (with a great voice, imho !), the … is simply a pause. And that sounds quite … strange for/to me.
The only other negative point I found was the very few NPCs there - the number of NPCs in that pre-Open-Beta game was really tiny.
Apart from that : Realms Of Arcania galore ! Expect everything to be there ! - Of course a few things had to be adapted to newer times - for example there is now a message - we were told - saying that proper sleeping bags and cutlery plus dishes can vastly improve the health … A few thingfs were adapted to modern times as well - but only minor things - so expect the full assault of landscape ( 3D !), combat ( 3D !) and Micromanagement to be back there ! At least that's how I understood it.
And, of course - please don't expect AAA game quality. That just won't be there.
Simply, because a) the developer is rather small, and b) they just don't have the money of full-scale AAA productions.
The second presentation showed Memoria, the second Adventure game after Satinav's Chains. It will be completely DRM-free - but the first game will still remain bound to Steam.
I'm not sure anymore, but they could become a Trillogy - but again, I'm not sure about that anymore.
The main protagonist of this game is in fact a Tulamidian Princess. Tulamidia is located south of the Middlerealm, but north of Al'Anfa, the so-called "Plague Of The South". Al'Anfa is infamous. Decadence, slavery, you name it, they have it. The only thing that's missing there are demons. Al'Anfa is ruled by a Boron priest.
What was shown were a few riddles within that adventure - the Princess had been put into some kind of prison, and had to break out from it.
I won't spoil you how she escaped, but she had help of a few ancient Golems and a staff.
In the second scene she was again improsoned - within her own room - and she could escape, too. With the help of an elemental djinn.
The second scene took place within the famous Drakonia, an Elemental Castle, which had been re-discovered only 10 years ago, at the height of the Borbarad Crisis, when one of its members came to a council (?) of mages who were trying to battle Borbarad and his minions, presenting them thje scroll to an hitherto unknown or lost spell called fire ball in the Drakensang games. (As such, the fire ball in Drakensang 2 really shouldn't exist, because that game takes place far before the Borbarad Crisis.)
The only thing I could remember from this presentation was that her story and the story of Geron intertwine and get solved at one point (in the end, as I understood the presenter).
The third presentation was about Black Guards. You know, that "dark & gritty" TDE game.
During the third presentation, it was about Demonicon, I left the room - I was simply fed up with information. What made the choice more easy for me was the fact that we already know quite a lot about Demonicon.
The last game presented there should have been an strategy game for iDevices, if I remember correctly, but at that point I was already elsewhere.
Now, on to Black Guards.
You probably won't get more precise information on this planet, because I spoke to the producer himself.
But that was a while after that presentation.
In the following, I'll mix both what i saw and what I was told & shown by the producer.
There were once 4 friends. Two young men and two young women.
As a new, shown teaser trailer showed, one of the young women was killed by a wolf. She was the Count's daughter.
Her best friend, one man of the 4, was later imprisoned by the Count - because they found a bloody weapon with him, and a bloody shirt, if I remember correctly.
Not only was he put into the prison, but his best friend also tortured him - the other man from the 4.
In prison, a paranoid Dwarf tries to break free. Alone, he wouldn't have much success, so he takes the young man with him.
Later on (I wasn't told how and when), the group becomes bigger - additional members.
The team already has developed wallpepers/t-shirts with lines describing these criminals very well.
- The Magicion. Descriprion line : "Naturally horny". He likes alcohol, women, and a good life. Kind of a dandy, as I would put it.
- The Dwarf. Description line : "Anger management". The wallpeper (the only one I saw) showed the Dwarf, and behind him a giant red splash of blood. "Kill first, ask questions later". He is truly paranoid,m because he fears that a Dragon is after him.- The female Elf. Description line : "High Elf". Because she had so bad experiences in her life that she now has a split personality. She veryoften "high" = "stoned", because she constantly takes drugs - which is the only way that she can endure her misery life.
- The Protagonist.
- The Fighter. An former slave, now he's quick in killing slavers.
- The Sorceress (or how she is called). Kind of a "Femme Fatale". Her description line sounded similar, but I don't quite remember it anymore. She's the left woman from the group of 4 friends.
The producer told me that their bantering might be quite funny - but the story is in fact very dark - especially because at one point one nasty kind of "policeman" is after them. He is a bit like the fanatics you could meet hunting the witches in the first Drakensang game.
The combat is indeed turn-based and uses tiles. It is made in 3D, with kind of an isometric view (in the Blad Of Destiny remake one can zoom in, Black Guards didn't look as if this was possible).
It is sometimes possible to get help through the enviromnent (cut loose the giant chandelier to kill opponents, open other prison cells to let other prisoners let do the dirty work for you, as the producer put it).
Each party member gets "action points", and looking at just how it worked (I mean the bare system, as it looked like), it kind of reminded me of the tile set combat found in King's Bounty/Armored Princess.
The early alpha was still "riddled with bugs", as many forum entried about other games often put it
, meaning that the presentation found an premature end - the game simply crashed.
The reason why they wanted to do Black Guards - they started with it 2 years ago ( ! ) , was, "to do something different".
Well, that's what I can remember for now. Maybe later I'll remember a few more bits.
Oh, just 3 points :
- Deadalic changed the TDE rules a bit so that spells can have up to 4 levels.
- The fighting menu looked like a wheel - it reminded me of the wheel I remember from PS:T.
- And last : They'll be at the E3 !
Tomorrow more about the other games - not many, unfortunately.
Edit : For Blade Of Destiny, the time limit was expanced roughly by factor 2.
Did you get a chance to see Lords of the Fallen or was it closed to everyone but the press?