Forged of Blood - Released

HiddenX

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Forged of Blood has been released on Steam:

Forged of Blood is now released on Steam!

Hello and welcome!

We are so pleased to welcome you to the world of Attiras. A world, Forged of Blood, is now yours for the taking.


As you take on the role of Prince Tavias Caenican, you will be presented with a world of grey moral choices and difficult decisions in the war ahead. The forty-two regions of Attiras are yours to claim in conquest, and the three varied faction arcs will place the fate of this world in your hands.

Forged of Blood is a complex and expansive game. As you recruit and build characters in your retinues, you will have at your disposal an array of 10 Weapon Categories and 6 General Ability trees. Each weapon has a place on the battlefield, and various synergies with the General Ability trees are available for you to discover as you explore and experiment our character systems.

Beyond the confines of the medieval armory are the unending mysteries of magurite - our vast system of magical energies. Here, we put at your fingertips one of the largest spellcrafting systems ever made in a video game and empower you with freedom to experiment and explore to your heart's content. In Forged of Blood, players will wield 3 "types" of energies, and 2 energy "states" for each that add up to 6 unique "primordials." Each of these 6 "primordials" will have 8 unique effects, with each spell able to contain 5 effects at any single time. Each of these effects can then be modified through the use of the 12 "effect modifiers" before the entirety of the spell can be shaped through the 12 "global modifiers." All this is to say that there will literally be an almost incalculable amount of spell combinations for you to play with.

Finally, in keeping with our general theme of choices and consequences, we come to the philosophies that will drive the narrative and endgame mechanics of our game. Gone are the binary good and evil tropes of old, and in its stead we present the Tri-axis Philosophical Index. Choices throughout the game will move you along three axes that follow the world's philosophies of Altruism, Hedonism, and Rationalism. Your movement and placement in this index will have narrative, gameplay, and endgame consequences as you conduct your war in Attiras, and the outcomes of your campaign are myriad.

As gamers and game makers, we lean into the complexities we've built in Forged of Blood. Through the complex depth of our mechanics we've found freedom in gameplay, and we are extremely proud of that. However, we do know that it is not for everyone, and we have gone to great lengths to make sure that everyone can play and enjoy our game. For our weapons, we have provided two archetypes that will auto-level your characters as they gain ability points. With our spellcrafting we provide a selection of pre-set spells that will scale in power as your character grows more powerful. And finally, we provide gameplay sliders that will give players the freedom to play our game the way they want to.

It had taken us three years, five months, and seventeen days to get here, but the studio and I are by no means "done with this game. In the coming weeks and months we will continue to refine and tune the game. In the immediate days that will follow our launch, we will be watching, listening and reacting to your feedback and we hope to smooth any rough edges as we go. Internally, we have our own back-log of refinements that we will be taking on and we will share these updates with you as we go.

From all of us here at Critical Forge, I welcome you to Attiras and hope that you will enjoy our game.

On a personal note to my team: Sharing this announcement, this game, and this moment with you is one that I will never forget. We are fortunate to have had fans, friends, and family pushing us ever forward in the long years of development. We have had the chance to work with some incredible talent from around the world; and none of this would have been possible without you and the work you have put into this game.

Thank you.

- Igor
More information.
 
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The few Steam reviews I read pretty much called it a fantasy XCOM, which doesn't sound like such a bad thing. Also, there may be a few bugs and crashes, though not game stopping.
 
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Bought it, it plays a bit like a cross between xcom and legends of eisenwald.... Recommend it... Nice atmosphere
 
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I only noticed this game today what with it getting release news (I'm not one for hype trains much) and the basic taglines appealed to me: Fantasy, turn based, RPG.

However, upon even just a brief look into the game's workings and early reviews I've been greatly deterred from it for the following reasons:

1. Constant crashes to desktop, particularly annoying during long battles which you can't save during, and when you've just spent 10 minutes levelling a couple of people up etc.

2. It's one of those games where you hire mooks rather than have a dedicated party of adventurers and when anyone dies, they are gone forever, which is fine by itself but is compounded worse by the fact that when they die all their loot is gone as well. This is compounded by never really knowing if you're best off reloading upon death or if the game intends you to have casualties no matter what you do.

3. It's not so much adventuring as political conquest. the objective is to paint your territory your colour like in any 4x game via diplomacy and combat, making everything more about factions and politics than good ol' adventuring into the unknown.

4. Much of the game is based around timed quests and events, as if constant crashes wasn't making you as agitated and unrelaxed as possible already.

Combat and character building looks good, but beyond that I have no real interest, at least in the sense of scratching my RPG itch. As a random game to play to take a break from RPGs then maybe I'd be interested one day, if I can't find literally anything else that interests me.

Seems the 'market' for this game is more the strategy and X-Com crowd who don't mind janky games and feel there's a gap in the fantasy segment of that market. None of that market is me.
 
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I only noticed this game today what with it getting release news (I'm not one for hype trains much) and the basic taglines appealed to me: Fantasy, turn based, RPG.

However, upon even just a brief look into the game's workings and early reviews I've been greatly deterred from it for the following reasons:

1. Constant crashes to desktop, particularly annoying during long battles which you can't save during, and when you've just spent 10 minutes levelling a couple of people up etc.

2. It's one of those games where you hire mooks rather than have a dedicated party of adventurers and when anyone dies, they are gone forever, which is fine by itself but is compounded worse by the fact that when they die all their loot is gone as well. This is compounded by never really knowing if you're best off reloading upon death or if the game intends you to have casualties no matter what you do.

3. It's not so much adventuring as political conquest. the objective is to paint your territory your colour like in any 4x game via diplomacy and combat, making everything more about factions and politics than good ol' adventuring into the unknown.

4. Much of the game is based around timed quests and events, as if constant crashes wasn't making you as agitated and unrelaxed as possible already.

Combat and character building looks good, but beyond that I have no real interest, at least in the sense of scratching my RPG itch. As a random game to play to take a break from RPGs then maybe I'd be interested one day, if I can't find literally anything else that interests me.

Seems the 'market' for this game is more the strategy and X-Com crowd who don't mind janky games and feel there's a gap in the fantasy segment of that market. None of that market is me.

Hello, I'm the Creative Director on the game and would like to help clarify a few of these points:

1. The constant crashes to the desktop that have been referred to in the other review were from our preview builds that were given out to press a head of release. We're tracking the few crashes that have been reported on Steam and on our Discord as we speak.

2. You are indeed correct, Forged of Blood isn't about an adventure across a vast land, it is a tale of conquest, bloodlines, bloodrights, and claims. I totally get it if that's not what you're looking for in an RPG.

3. While at first glance it may seem that way, "painting the map" won't actually win you the endgame, and I've written multiple endings depending on the choices you make in the game. Conquest is a way to victory, but what victory entails and what it means for your future is entirely different to what could happen had you chose a different path.

4. We have timed events and quests, but they are still a fraction of all the other quests and arcs in the game.

If you'd like to see more of the game beyond the short previews or commentaries, I invite you to check out the 2 part gameplay previews we uploaded to help explain the full breadth of what we offer. If not, I absolutely get that it's just not your cup of tea and that's cool too ;)

Part 1, starting out and early conquest - https://youtu.be/2l2JTtkrbMc
Part 2, Party management and endgame - https://youtu.be/lyQv-vRLTIw
 
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Dunno, I played for three hours straight and didn't have a single crash..... However it's true that itpartly plays like a strategic game... However for me the mix is fine
 
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@CritiestBunny; , thanks for the detailed reply. Don't worry, once you've made your millions you wont have to bother responding to every tom dick or harry who isn't appealed to by your products. The golden era of a loyal fanbase and forum avoidance is but a few sales away, keep at it my good man! (or person, etc).
 
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4. Much of the game is based around timed quests and events
4. We have timed events and quests, but they are still a fraction of all the other quests and arcs in the game.
Sorry, I can't support this type of "entertainment".
There is a reason I don't play chess with timers and I don't find a pressure and stress - fun. Or in other words, deadlines are part of a job, shouldn't exist in modern videogames. IMO.

If some modder makes remove timers mod eventually, I'll buy it. Not before.
 
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@CritiestBunny; , thanks for the detailed reply. Don't worry, once you've made your millions you wont have to bother responding to every tom dick or harry who isn't appealed to by your products. The golden era of a loyal fanbase and forum avoidance is but a few sales away, keep at it my good man! (or person, etc).

He still has a chance to respond to Tom or Harry.
 
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"Forged of blood" - just another title saying "your character will get powah !"
Sounds like the title of an heavy metal music album. Quod erat demonstrandum.
 
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While he's here and currently promoting his game you could take the opportunity to interview him in this thread :thinking smilie: :D
 
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@CritiestBunny; thanks for coming by an answering some points. I hope you do get millions like some assume you do.

Do you have a demo? If you only have few timed events that's okay. It also depends on their quality.

It sounds like a game a lot of are of two minds about, with features we can be really excited about but wary that's its really not our kind of game.

But if its really political, 4x type game, and not a tactical strategy which we also like, that doesn't sound like a bad thing. I lot of people like this kind of game here.
 
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I've bought the game, but I still need some time to check it out.
 
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@CritiestBunny; , thanks for the detailed reply. Don't worry, once you've made your millions you wont have to bother responding to every tom dick or harry who isn't appealed to by your products. The golden era of a loyal fanbase and forum avoidance is but a few sales away, keep at it my good man! (or person, etc).

You know at least he took the time to respond to you, not sure why you had to reply in that way.
 
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