RAVENMARK: Scourge of Estellion – An epic turn-based strategy game

Firstly, yay for the multiquote button! =D

Looks interesting, too bad it's only for iDevices. Don't have any. A PC or Android version would be appreciated.


Same here. I've never understood what's the big deal about the FF games. That said, however, FF Tactics is actually a whole different style of game. Instead of being a (boring and quirky) JRPG, it is a quite good turn-based tactical combat game with RPG elements. I got it cheap for my PSP quite some time ago and, to my surprise, found out I really like it. Sure, I would change a few things about it, like the slightly weird (to me) slotting of skills and swapping classes, but all in all, it's a good game and anything in the same vein as FFT would be something I'd look forward to.

Sorry to disappoint, we'll look into porting depending on the success of the iPhone version! We took to the iOS first mostly because of the support and user base of the device.

I can say the same, I found the story lines a tad ludicrous for my liking. Give me Baldur's Gate any day. I loved FF:T on the PSP along with the gorgeous videos. I hope you'll enjoy Ravenmark when it releases next month. =)

Looks good, for 2.99 it's a sure buy. I'll get it when it's released.
Good luck!

Cheers! I think you'll enjoy it! Also note that we'll be added more campaigns along the way too. We have a sweeping story prepared that carry across 4 Arcs, with about 2 to 3 campaigns in each.

Would be neat, if it wasn't for phones. :/

Sorry to disappoint! Hopefully you'll get a chance to play it somehow down the road!
 
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I would be willing to pay more than what you ask for it on the iPhone if you released it for the PC. Sadly I'm stuck with a dump phone (so no phone-based gaming for me), so I can't buy this :(
The game does look great, by the way. I'm a big fan of SRPGs in general, and saying that it is in the vein of Fire Emblem made me more interested. So please tell us if you ever port it to the PC, you would get an instant sale from me.
 
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Alright, I'm sold. This is a day one purchase for me. The combat videos and the fact that the dialogue isn't as bad as I feared (judged a book by it's cover too quickly I guess). This looks like a lot of fun. Hope my fat fingers can play this game on the iphone.
 
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I see. Now with it, it has the feeling of the famous strategy game "Heroes of Might and Magic".

Kinda. =)

I would be willing to pay more than what you ask for it on the iPhone if you released it for the PC. Sadly I'm stuck with a dump phone (so no phone-based gaming for me), so I can't buy this :(
The game does look great, by the way. I'm a big fan of SRPGs in general, and saying that it is in the vein of Fire Emblem made me more interested. So please tell us if you ever port it to the PC, you would get an instant sale from me.

That'll be the first thing I do if we go down that road! I'm sorry you can't play it right now. =X

Alright, I'm sold. This is a day one purchase for me. The combat videos and the fact that the dialogue isn't as bad as I feared (judged a book by it's cover too quickly I guess). This looks like a lot of fun. Hope my fat fingers can play this game on the iphone.

It's an easy assumption, no worries. =) Storytelling is a key value for us here Witching Hour Studios, after all, some of us even come from writing backgrounds.

Here's a synopsis of the first campaign in Ravenmark:

Ravenhood

Several weeks ago, Calius Septim, a fledgling soldier in the Earthbound army of the Empire of Estellion, found himself forcefully promoted to an officer of the Ravenhood at the behest of Rook Vidius Harper, one of the greatest generals of the Empire. Young Calius had saved the Rook's life during an ambush by raiding barbarians from the tribes of the Lyri… And now, in the wake of sudden responsibility, he struggles to juggle the doubts of wary and judgemental old soldiers under his command against his own insecurities.

As if things needed to get worse for the poor lad: At the outset of his first patrol into the Lyri barrens, Calius and his company encounter a mysterious new enemy force: hordes, nay, swarms of little rat-faced humanoids and their masters draped in white hoods. Seemingly, this new enemy seems to bear the power to drench the world into darkness, thus earning them the collective name of the "Suneaters"…

Elsewhere in the Empire, Vidius Harper was set to retire in a peaceful town when the Suneaters came knocking, bringing ravage appetites for destruction to bear on the Empire's lands of plenty. Mustering up a makeshift military force, Harper seeks out only the safety of the citizens he swore to protect.

As Calius and Harper struggle to ensure the survival of their entourages, they stand on the precipice of an unprecedented play for political power within the Empire and beyond. The Suneaters, hungry for a vicious revenge against the ruling power of Eclisse, seem to have deep, dark roots entrenched into even the royal echelons of the Empire…

Will the ravens of Estellion be able to withstand the rising threat of the Suneaters?

If you guys want to see more stuff, come join us at www.facebook.com/RavenmarkSaga =)
 
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I doesn't remind me remotely of HoMM, but it looks like it has the potential to be a good game in it's own right.

I'm not 100% sure that releasing it on the exact same day that Skyrim comes out is such a good idea though, even if the markets are different.
 
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Tebius, I wish you the best of luck with sales on this game. May you earn enough to make many more. :)

I hope you can answer something for me though. You mentioned earlier that you are developing only for the iphone/ipad, as if that was a no brainer. But why? I mean, sure ifones and ipads are very hot internationally, but nearly everyone has a PC these days. Wouldn't you stand to make more sales if you developed for the pc first?

Second, how hard is it to port a game you made from the IOS to the PC? Is it as hard as making a new game from scratch, or is it easier?

Lastly, I looked at the gameplay videos on youtube. (hint, the gameplay video link in your first post in this thread is dead ) and while it looks pretty sharp, it is completely like Fire Emblem, and nothing like FF:Tactics. I personally didn't care much for Fire Emblem on my Gameboy, but I LOVE Tactics and have played through the PSX version 2wice, and have almost completed the PSP version once. Agrias Oaks is my favorite character followed by my Dark Knight Ramza.

Is there any chance that if you make enough money from this game that you could make a FF:Tactics clone, complete with a Holy Knight class? :)
 
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Are you guys planning a proper iPad version or just upscale? If so i hope it will be a combined app and that you will enable savegame syncing between devices via Openfeint.
 
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Winter's Coming in the form of Skyrim. We're all getting ready for that one.

I'm loving the look of this game. The squads remind me so much of MoM. Thank you for that. Even the little animation and sounds :) This game will beat the hell out of my other iOS games….with the exception of a few others. Basically the other iOS games in this forum :)

Just don't have those damn mini-transaction things for this game....please. I hate those goddamn things. Those are basically for the free games, but a few like 100 Rogues have them as well. You can't play certain characters unless you buy them...meh..

That aside, everything about this game is looking great.
 
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Ahh.. I know I've missed replying to a few people. I'm really sorry! We're in the process of getting things settled with Apple so I'm kinda all over the place. I'll reply everyone some time tomorrow. Thanks for all the words of encouragement! =)
 
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I doesn't remind me remotely of HoMM, but it looks like it has the potential to be a good game in it's own right.

I'm not 100% sure that releasing it on the exact same day that Skyrim comes out is such a good idea though, even if the markets are different.

There's some influence from HoMM from the battles, there's no denying, but I think we have our own spin on things. Thanks for the vote of confidence, little things like that help us keep going. =)

We picked 11.11.11 because that was the only time we could secure some basic marketing. I doubt we have a chance to fight toe to toe with Skyrim. Think of Ravenmark as something to play on your way to buying Skyrim. =D

Tebius, I wish you the best of luck with sales on this game. May you earn enough to make many more. :)

I hope you can answer something for me though. You mentioned earlier that you are developing only for the iphone/ipad, as if that was a no brainer. But why? I mean, sure ifones and ipads are very hot internationally, but nearly everyone has a PC these days. Wouldn't you stand to make more sales if you developed for the pc first?

Second, how hard is it to port a game you made from the IOS to the PC? Is it as hard as making a new game from scratch, or is it easier?

Lastly, I looked at the gameplay videos on youtube. (hint, the gameplay video link in your first post in this thread is dead ) and while it looks pretty sharp, it is completely like Fire Emblem, and nothing like FF:Tactics. I personally didn't care much for Fire Emblem on my Gameboy, but I LOVE Tactics and have played through the PSX version 2wice, and have almost completed the PSP version once. Agrias Oaks is my favorite character followed by my Dark Knight Ramza.

Is there any chance that if you make enough money from this game that you could make a FF:Tactics clone, complete with a Holy Knight class?

Heya Andhaira! Thanks for the well wishes!

1) Truth be told, we picked iOS mostly because it was one of the friendliest codes to find a programmer for over here. Also, publishing is a real breeze and it's secure. The thing about the PC is that we didn't know how distributing the game would go and how to make good use of our marketing fund. Let's just say that we took the easiest path available to us since we're completely new at making games.

To be quite honest, Ravenmark has grown into something far more than what we planned. I don't think it could have been what it was if we had picked another platform to start from.

2) Hmm. From what my guys tell me, porting to the MacOS should be a breeze since it uses the same APIs as iOS. Windows might be a long ways away. Porting isn't hard.. it's tedious. A new game would just be more fun to do, but I'd say it's the same amount of work.

3) It draws a lot from both game but it plays rather differently. I think the major difference is that the battle doesn't play out sequentially. There's two phases, a command phase where you tell your troops what to do and a battle phase where you see it play out. It's more chess-like in the sense that you need to plan ahead three of four moves.

4) Hah, I don't Square would like that much. Hehe. We could harness the spirit of it, but I doubt we'd ever make a clone of FF:T, or any other game out there.

Are you guys planning a proper iPad version or just upscale? If so i hope it will be a combined app and that you will enable savegame syncing between devices via Openfeint.

We're still debating that in the office to be honest. We're just kinda afraid of having a 1 gig app or something. Which might happen along the way when we expand to the other Arcs/Campaigns. Saves might be doable over the Apple gamecenter. I'll see what I can do. =)

Winter's Coming in the form of Skyrim. We're all getting ready for that one.

I'm loving the look of this game. The squads remind me so much of MoM. Thank you for that. Even the little animation and sounds :) This game will beat the hell out of my other iOS games….with the exception of a few others. Basically the other iOS games in this forum :)

Just don't have those damn mini-transaction things for this game….please. I hate those goddamn things. Those are basically for the free games, but a few like 100 Rogues have them as well. You can't play certain characters unless you buy them…meh..

That aside, everything about this game is looking great.

Thanks Skavenhorde! I'm really glad it speaks to you such. I hope others feel the same when it's out. (Fingers crossed it gets approved in time! We sent it out this morning, lol.)

Don't worry about the microtransactions. I can promise that there's none of that in this release. Only two things matter here: story and gameplay. We have nothing else to distract you from that. =)
 
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Some of you were asking about an iPad version.. While Ravenmark isn't a universal app at launch, I think you can play it quite comfortably on the iPad. Here are some screenshots so you have an idea of what it'll be like.

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I'm just another person without iPhone… And no I won't buy it (because of my personal morality dubioses about cheap labor).

Which puzzles me how you are writing this, since every PC is laden with the same components, uses the same factories, and given the 'race to the bottom' pricing of PC's, even WORSE policies regarding treatment ...
 
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Sorry to disappoint, we'll look into porting depending on the success of the iPhone version! We took to the iOS first mostly because of the support and user base of the device.

Don't worry, you made the correct choice. You will sell more copies this way, and get loads of feedback. You have to remember that this is a PC-centric audience, which means that it is going to be a PC-first-and-only crowd.

Also, the site is full of people who are tired and frustrated at seeing their franchise moved to console action games, and now to casual phone games.

So ... is this still slated for a November 11th release?
 
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Don't worry, you made the correct choice. You will sell more copies this way, and get loads of feedback. You have to remember that this is a PC-centric audience, which means that it is going to be a PC-first-and-only crowd.

Also, the site is full of people who are tired and frustrated at seeing their franchise moved to console action games, and now to casual phone games.

So … is this still slated for a November 11th release?

Heya txa. I completely understand that the people here are PC centric. =) I guess I picked this forum mostly because I felt like everyone here would really appreciate good game mechanics and narrative.

I share the same frustration.. we're seeing a dumbing down of games in general to attract a bigger crowd. I don't see the trend changing any time soon unfortunately. I guess Ravenmark is my attempt at offering something with depth to a device mostly know for things like Angry Birds and such.

I doubt any iPhone game has a novel's worth of Codex entries to chew on. =D

Also, we've already submitted it to Apple for approval. If all goes well, you should see it on the App Store on the 11th!

Since I'm posting, I might as well share our latest gameplay trailer.. features a bit of story as well. Hope you guys enjoy it. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVqWiMP1W_g
 
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Excellent - thanks for the info. Please update this thread when it is released, I have a draft article for GearDiary to promote the game on release. The cool videos are a nice touch! Or you can email me (michael at geardiary dot com).

As for the foks here, although they are PC centric and generally biased against Apple and Apple products generally going back to the Mac vs. PC days, they are the best RPG community for fans of the cRPG genre you will ever find. We argue, bicker, laugh, areee, disagree, get out of line and so on ... but in the end if you want to discuss anything related to the genre there is NO better place.
 
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Excellent - thanks for the info. Please update this thread when it is released, I have a draft article for GearDiary to promote the game on release. The cool videos are a nice touch! Or you can email me (michael at geardiary dot com).

As for the foks here, although they are PC centric and generally biased against Apple and Apple products generally going back to the Mac vs. PC days, they are the best RPG community for fans of the cRPG genre you will ever find. We argue, bicker, laugh, areee, disagree, get out of line and so on … but in the end if you want to discuss anything related to the genre there is NO better place.

Oh sweet! Thank you so much! =D

Yeah, I really like the atmosphere here. My co-founders and I were saying if there were such a thing as an 'intelligent crowd', here's a good place to start. I love how people here can really take apart and scrutinize game mechanics.
 
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