RPGWatch @ Gamescom - Dark Envoy Preview

At Gamescom I visited Event Horizon to check out Dark Envoy, a game where time is a scarce resource and where tactics play an important role in combat.

Dark Envoy is a game that mixes real-time exploration with turn-based tactical combat. By itself that is nothing special, but they have added some extras to this mix. The setting of the game is a combination of magic and technology, which the developers have labeled as Technomancy and to help with the story they work together with Michael Chatfield, an American author of Sci-fi, fantasy and LitRPG books.

You start the game with two characters, a brother and a sister. They want to fix a sky ship and travel the world. But unwillingly they are pulled into something that is much bigger than they are. As they go along, they will meet other NPCs that they can recruit, each of which has their own side story. At the moment there are 15 NPCs designed using different classes. Some of them are very rare special NPCs that are hard to find, but that players probably will want to have in their team. Next to the NPCs, mercenaries can be recruited, who have no story and will fight for a share of the loot.

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More information.

I'm not gonna buy till someone confirms the game is singleplayer where coop is just a gimmick to get an additional + from amateur reviewers.

That aside, I'll stall definetly with my wallet till a mod fixes (removes) timers:

Time in the game is a precious resource, while you are exploring a location, time elapses and if you take too much time exploring, the next location you visit might become more difficult as the level of all the enemies in that location have increased too much. So the best approach is to not take too much time exploring a location

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Because I'm always roleplaying an explorer. Of any aligment or profession, with any skillset and mindset. Every single character of mine is always trying to turn every rock and inspect every nook and cranny.
Maybe doomsday countdown mechanics in RPGs is fun to some, not to me.

Thanks for this detailed preview!

Even though it says 'real-time exploration' it isn't a game suited to the explorer types. The exploration in this game is to scout the terrain, inspect the enemies, lay some traps and determine what the best approach to combat is.

Yea, but certain items and NPCs we can get only by exploration of the world, and then timers can ruin it for me.
I really want this game, but there is that certain part that just prevents me for jumping into it immediately. To be honest I'm not worrying much as no timers mod was created soon after Pathfinder got released (and I cannot imagine playing Pathfinder without it) thus I believe this game will get the similar mod fast.

I can try to explain it differently. I smoke, everyone knows that. What people don't know is that I can't smoke Marlboro nor any other paprika flavor based cigarettes. I'm allergic to that flavor (or whatever chemical compound is used for it) and it gives me a stomachache. No, this is not a joke and I'm not alone with the problem.
I'd buy, but what's the point when I can't enjoy it.

I don't know about timers in the game. What I have been told is that time progresses throughout the world, so if you are in a certain location and do some exploring, time not only passes in that area, but also everywhere else. In that time the rest of the world has done stuff as well and gained experience and a certain point they level up. I have not been told anything about timers.

My impression is that there isn't a direct timer as in "do this by X time passed or you fail the quest".

Its that things will get harder the more time elapses. This seems similar to many RTS style games even if not advertised that way.

By that I mean - if you futz around too much in an RTS then it gives the enemy more time to build up their armies. I remember HOMM games where I would sometimes get too focused on maxing out buildings and getting resources and ignoring the enemy - only to get pummeled later.

So it was a matter of always trying to balance time - building, gathering resources, exploring the map, defeating the enemy.

That was the feeling I got here. Except maybe a bit more focus on how sensitive the time is? I could see that catching up to you. As things might keep getting harder - making fights harder and then you use more time to recover, get supplies, etc., and things keep getting harder.

I never felt too rushed playing HOMM or AoW but the balance was pretty good with options to make it easier or harder.

So I guess it depends on whether this game is more like a RTS where enemies get stronger if they are allowed the time to build up their armies, resources, and bases ... so you have to focus on keeping them under control.

More time management than timers.

I can understand comparisons between RTS games where enemies get stronger over time and you can't dawdle. However, in that case, you "feel" the pressure each turn and can focus on the things that will enable you to (hopefully) keep up with the other factions/races/whatever.

In this game, I don't get the same feeling. Spending too much time exploring just sounds to ambiguous - how much is "too much" time? I guess you'll learn as you get wiped in subsequent areas because you spend too much time in a previous one but that could become frustrating.

It just sounds too arbitrary to me, but as someone else mentioned, a mod might remove that. But the issue with that is whether the enemies in subsequent areas might now become too easy because they're not "leveling up", assuming all enemies in all areas start at the same base level. It's kind of like level scaling, but not contingent on the player's level, but on time.

tekulte said:

It's kind of like level scaling, but not contingent on the player's level, but on time.

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This.