Stones of the Ancients - Now on Steam Greenlight

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HiddenX

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Mortmal spotted the old school dungeon crawler Stones of the Ancients on Steam Greenlight:

Stones of the Ancients is an old school fantasy role-playing game / dungeon crawler, heavily inspired by classic games like the Bards Tale series.



Character Creation

Available Races: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Hobbit

Available Classes: Warrior, Paladin, Thief, Monk, Bard, Ranger, Magician, Conjurer, Sorcerer*, Wizard*
(* not available at start)

Attributes: Constitution, Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Luck

Skills: 17 different skills which can be learned and trained from Novice to Grandmaster

Magic: 4 Magic User classes with more than 50 different spells

Story

The adventure begins in the city of Briar Glen, which has been cursed by an evil wizard and now is doomed to live in fear and darkness. Most people either have left the city or were slaughtered by the creatures unleashed. Others felt victim to the curse making them an instrument of the evil.
You will proceed by looking for clues, solving puzzles and getting stronger to survive.

World

Your party has to visit several dangerous places and dungeons to find a way to defeat evil and break the curse.
Movement is grid based and there is an Automap for every location. A world map is used for fast traveling, sometimes there are different routes chooseable because the journey may not always be safe.
You will find some merchants in the city to buy basic weapons and armor or to restore your spell points, a temple to heal your wounds for gold, a tavern which is the place to add or dismiss party members and several trainer to improve your skills and to learn new spells once you have earned enough experience.
The gameplay will not be strictly linear, but most places are hidden, locked or guarded by powerful creatures until you find a clue or the strength to proceed.
Most of the buildings in the city are deserted and can be searched for loot and clues but often they are obsessed by evil you have to destroy first.

Combat

The combat system is turned based, the options available for each character are depending on his skills.
Only the first row is able to perform a melee attack. Characters in the second row have to budge up if the frontman dies, revealing themselves to melee attacks. Positions can be changed during combat, but there always has to be someone in the front line for the second row spot.
Every party member has an Auto Combat option, which repeats the last action or looks for a better one.
Encounters are random most of the time and the only place for saving is the tavern.

Magic System

Magic users can choose from two different classes in the beginning and switch to another class, as soon as they have reached the third spell level in at least one class. Once a mage has changed his class, he will start again at the first spell level of the new class and won't be able to return to or advance further in his old class.

Magician: uses magic to affect physical objects like enchanting a weapon or making armor stronger
Conjurer: deals in the physical creation and manifestation of real things like fire, light or healing
Sorcerer: manipulates the mind of enemies in order to create powerful illusions
Wizard: dedicated to the summoning and binding of supernatural creatures. To become a Wizard, a spellcasting character must have reached the third spell level in at least two other classes.

With every new spell level reached, the mage can get the new spells taught by a trainer for gold.
Learned spells are casted by the proper combination of runes. If a casted spell hasn't been learned yet, there is still a small chance to successfully cast and learn it or, if you are unlucky, to wipe out the whole party.

The game is already in a playable state but isn't finished yet, projected release date is Q4/17. Getting it greenlit would be a great step towards releasing it in a timely manner.
Click to expand...
More information.
 
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I might actually try this one as it's not set in interiors and doesn't feature Grimrocky wall textures! Hurrah!
 
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I may even give this a looksee when it releases.
 
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A city based blobber? Turn based combat? Cheesy medieval music?
Hell yeah! Sign me up immediately!
Thanks Mortmal.
 
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Looks interesting and has turn-based combat. Worth a try, I'd say!
This is made with RPGMaker, right?
 
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Darkheart said:
Looks interesting and has turn-based combat. Worth a try, I'd say!
This is made with RPGMaker, right?
Click to expand...

The character art is from Pioneer Valley, which makes its art to be compatable with Rpgmaker. As for the rest, I'm not sure. Its not easy making a first person game in Rpgmaker, though its possible, since the developers of Lord of the Seal managed it. You'd have to be a pretty good coder to figure it out though, its beyond my knowledge. From the way the graphics in the background look, though, I'd guess its not made in the Rpgmaker engine. Looks more like Unity.
 
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Turn based blobbers like that are extremely rare now, the last few years we have seen on pc sword and sorcery underword gold and elminage.The only new upcoming one is bard's tale 4. So ill certainly try it, it doesnt look half bad for an indie.
 
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Interesting. For some reason it reminds me of an Ellis Studios "project" in some ways. Any information on the developer "Whitefishgames"? Their profile is private on Steam.
 
Fluent said:
Interesting. For some reason it reminds me of an Ellis Studios "project" in some ways. Any information on the developer "Whitefishgames"? Their profile is private on Steam.
Click to expand...

Yeah that exact thought crossed my mind as well. Bloody Ellis Studies, damaging my faith in indie devs!

Anyway, I looked into the company a bit and they don't seem to have done any rpgs before, but they had made another game (3d chess I think). So info was sparse. In the end, I figured the fact they were going for a Steam sale (rather than a standalone install) probably made them legit, and at least Steam gives a refund option if it turned into Mines of Grimvale 2. I think they're probably ok.
 
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Ellis Studios never put a game out on Steam. I think they were afraid of negative reviews, or people would refund their games. I'd give this a try. After all if its on Steam you can refund it, or wait a bit after release to see what the reviews look like.
 
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Well, the font for the combat log looks like the exact same one used in The Red Hand of Doom/Cave of Sorrows. A portrait in the video is also the same portrait used in The Red Hand of Doom/Cave of Sorrows. Beyond that, the mismatched UI with poor font and background design is another trademark of Ellis Studios, and the format of the "trailer" video is also exactly like how Ellis Studios does their trailer videos.

I'm skeptical.
 
This also has the classic Ellis Studios trademark of choppy gameplay footage in the trailer, presumably from recording the footage on a poorly spec'd PC. The video has a very low framerate.

Oh, and Missile is misspelled in one of the screenshots. Magic Missle. :)
 
GqOC3Lf.jpg




Or, to put it another way, I can't be certain at this stage, but I think it's very likely that Fluent is right.
 
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Ahhhh man, I'm going to be so annoyed if you guys are right. I'm holding out on the grounds that a) they're using Steam this time rather than that Itchio site, b) there are usually typos at this stage in an indie game, and c) dammit I'd just be really annoyed. :)

But yeah their track record isn't exactly promising. I might reach out to the devs and see if they can respond in a coherent sentence - that would prove it…

Edit: Mortmal has already contacted them on Steam. They say they aren't Ellis Studios for what it's worth. Mortmal has linked this thread so maybe they will respond here.
 
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Hi all,

just want to answer some of your questions. We are not associated with these other studios. Also the game isn't using RPGMaker, except of some assets e.g. for the portraits. The game is still in an early development state, so not everything has to be final. There will also be a new, improved trailer soon.
Please don't forget to vote for the game on Greenlight if you want to see it on steam.
Thanks,
Whitefishgames
 
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Hey Wfg and welcome to the forum. Sorry if we seem a bit paranoid…. but you know…. this is starting to smell a bit Ellis Gamesy. It would be great if you could put my mind at rest so I could get behind your project! Just a couple of questions:
- why did you decide to go from a chess game to a first person blobber? It seems a bit of a change in direction.
- What is your connection with Sw-winsoft.de? I noticed that the 3d chess game being sold on Steam mentioned them as "publishers", so I dropped by their website where the game is available as shareware:
http://www.sw-winsoft.de/eng/index.htm
I tried to access their forums to check the situation but couldn't access it.
- if not rpgmaker, what are you using?

Thanks!
 
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Fluent said:
Ehh, I don't want to jump to conclusions but this really seems like a work from Ellis Studios. Already there is a character portrait taken from The Red Hand of Doom, aka the game Ellis Studios re-skinned for Cave of Sorrows. Lol…

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/stones-of-the-ancients.114245/
Click to expand...

Fluent, the character portraits are NOT from Red Hand of Doom, but from Pioneer Valley Games, they are an asset that can be bought for 20$, I know I own them. That just means both Ellis and White Fish bought them from the same art asset creator that I did. You can see the graphics for yourself. Here are the Steam store links:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/249921/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/229751/
 
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