Exiled Kingdoms available on Steam on February 23!

After years of development and wide success in mobile platforms with over 1 million players, the old-school action-RPG Exiled Kingdoms is finally out for PC.



Exiled Kingdoms at a glance:

• 118 areas. This includes dozens of outdoor sectors and over 40 carefully designed dungeons, each with unique content and surprises.
• Over 300 NPCs with unique dialogues. Dialogue options are influenced by your stats and previous actions.
• 85 quests ranging from the early simple ones to epic plots with multiple outcomes.
• Over 700 items. Of those, over 550 are equipment.
• 70 Skills to customize your character in an open system. The system has a reasonable learning curve that won't overwhelm you with choices at early levels.
• 120+ hours of Gameplay (verified!) Actually more because of replayability.
• 130,000 words of text in total. Originally written in English and Spanish, but thanks to the extremely active community the game is fully (or near fully) available in Russian, Portuguese and German as well. More to come!
• An exhaustive Wiki made by the community. Have I mentioned these guys are amazing?

Video trailer of the PC version:



Thanks you for your kind attention!

Note: It's been a long time since I posted about Exiled Kingdoms, and since I can't rename the 'ancient' thread which mostly dealt about the mobile version, I thought it was better to post a new one. The game has truly evolved a lot since then. I don't think this is against the forum rules.

Since you started a new thread it begs the question how does the PC version differ from the mobile version ?

The content and the game mechanics are the same, but now the game controls are different, as the game is meant to be played with mouse+keyboard (or just keyboard if one wants). The UI has been adapted to the large screen, and the field of view is now a bit larger than it was on mobile. Many things needed to be upgraded for the PC version like all the game fonts, many low-resolution graphics have been replaced, etc. But those familiar with EK will feel they are playing the same game.

What's the price point? This looks extremely basic from the above video. The music drove me nuts in just the few minutes it was on too. Hope that was placeholder stuff.
However, if we're talking a low price point, those things are forgivable. Can you ever have more than two people in the party? I actually prefer single-character games, but two isn't bad.

Looks great. Love the diversity in visuals. Music is cool. Hill Giants are alarming. Nice work!

The more I look into this, the more likely I am to make a purchase. It looks basic, but seems to have quite a bit of depth. If the graphics were better, I'd be much more impressed, but not bad.

The depth in this game is not in the visuals, obviously. It is in the quests, dungeon and world design, and in the multiple options to deal with problems and situations you'll get into. Have a look at our General Forum about the game: http://www.exiledkingdoms.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4

The titles of the threads will give you an idea of what this game offers in terms of depth. And they go back.. years, and still there's interesting stuff to post.

Now it is true this game is simpler in many ways than it would be if I had designed it exclusively for PC from day 1, but on the other hand who knows, maybe it wouldn't be as fun as it ended up being. For instance, even if this game has more text than most other RPGs out there (even than most AAAs), as it was originally intended for mobile it won't "Textwall" you all the time, nor every NPC "lore-dumps" on you; it's all very concise and measured, every paragraph has been tought over and rewritten to not waste your valuable time with filler descriptions. On the other hand every item has a unique description, making it fun to see a new piece of equipment for the first time if you care to read them.

Oh, and a good way to "demo" it: the mobile versions include the first 20% of the game for free! And saves will be transferrable.

Good luck with the release! I've been waiting for the PC version.

How is the marketing going?

thanks! I rarely do proper "marketing", just a few posts here and there like this one. Instead I focus 100% on development and let the product sell itself. Has worked for me so far, and looks like a ton of people is wishlisting the game (not sure what that really means, but I guess it's a good sign, heh)

This one's not for me. Too much Diablo-like respawn.

Originally Posted by wiretripped
This one's not for me. Too much Diablo-like respawn.

Yeah, many people don't like that. I prefer to think of it more like "Wizardry 1-like". You can't count on killing one enemy at a time to eventually trivialize any dungeon, you must find a way to efficiently defeat or avoid the enemies to reach the rewards deep inside. At least that's the design reason for it, although I am aware it won't appease some players no matter what the reason was.

I really like the game, and have added it to my wishlist. Also checked Google Play page, and I am a huge fan of the pricing model that you used, well done seriously. Are you going to use the same system for PC version?

It might be a very minor and subjective issue, but have you noticed that the health bars which are above the characters seem a bit "off"? The level number seems to be placed a little to the left and they look a bit work-in-progress

How many people worked on the game? How long did it take?

How did you handle translations? I am also looking into that topic, and using random people's work from the internet seems like a huge copyright/law-related risk… did you set some kind of written official agreement with community translators?

Originally Posted by Paszq
I really like the game, and have added it to my wishlist. Also checked Google Play page, and I am a huge fan of the pricing model that you used, well done seriously. Are you going to use the same system for PC version?

Thanks! for now the PC version is a regular Steam purchase that gets you the full game and all future updates. However I might add a demo in the future, which would include the same game content as the mobile free version.

It might be a very minor and subjective issue, but have you noticed that the health bars which are above the characters seem a bit "off"? The level number seems to be placed a little to the left and they look a bit work-in-progress

thanks for pointing out. The Level, HP/mana numbers have been adjusted already, the 2 weeks since the video was made have been frenetic with new builds being tested, and dozens of small details like that have been addressed. I might need to reupload video and screenshots in the future, I myself see many other wrong things on it!

How many people worked on the game? How long did it take?

I developed and wrote the game myself for the last 4 years. The exception is the assets; I did about 10% of them, another 40% or so is commissioned, and the remaining (especially the early content) come from open licenses. You can see them fully listed here.

How did you handle translations? I am also looking into that topic, and using random people's work from the internet seems like a huge copyright/law-related risk… did you set some kind of written official agreement with community translators?

The translation project has been clearly publicized as a volunteer effort in our forum, you become a translator after request and other translators can see your work or make corrections on it, much like a wiki. Until date, with 3 translations complete or >95% complete, and another two over 50%, there has never been an issue, be it vandalism or complaint. We have a pretty nice and constructive community at our forums, and most of the translators are also wiki editors, betatesters, and friends.

Originally Posted by DavidBVal
I developed and wrote the game myself for the last 4 years.

That's very motivating, whoah. How did you approach the in-game universe creation, dialogues, and lore? Do you have any prior experience as a writer?

Originally Posted by DavidBVal
The exception is the assets; I did about 10% of them, another 40% or so is commissioned, and the remaining (especially the early content) come from open licenses. You can see them fully listed here.

Did you contact the authors of everything "open" or just credit them as they were on the site you found CC-BY content?
That may be a stupid question, but I am still figuring out licensing… I see that you used some CC-BY-SA stuff, doesn't it mean you'd have to distribute your game as CC-BY-SA as well?

Originally Posted by DavidBVal
The translation project has been clearly publicized as a volunteer effort in our forum, you become a translator after request and other translators can see your work or make corrections on it, much like a wiki. Until date, with 3 translations complete or >95% complete, and another two over 50%, there has never been an issue, be it vandalism or complaint. We have a pretty nice and constructive community at our forums, and most of the translators are also wiki editors, betatesters, and friends.

That's good to hear too! But another case is when your game sells 3 trillion copies tomorrow and these nice people smell cash - be careful, better safe than sorry

Originally Posted by Paszq
Did you contact the authors of everything "open" or just credit them as they were on the site you found CC-BY content?
That may be a stupid question, but I am still figuring out licensing… I see that you used some CC-BY-SA stuff, doesn't it mean you'd have to distribute your game as CC-BY-SA as well?

The license is very clear, you need to make available any modifications on the original assets and credit the authors in the way they specify, not the game itself. But in some cases, of course, I did far more than contacting the authors. As soon as sales began I made many donations to the Flare project for their sprites, and to other assets creators. Even hired some of them or comissioned more paid work from them.

For less than $7, this is an easy buy since @DavidBVal posted about his game and kept us informed. Bought!

Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, Mage. Naturally, I'm trying mage and it's almost impossible for me to live, even on casual.