Magic & Mercenaries: Curse of Eternal Darkness

Goldbox definitely. Also the combat looks really nice!

Looks like the quest, but all dark.

An updated GIF that showcases an early version of the weather system (this video shows rain and lightning).

Maybe more of a Curse of the Azure Bonds flashback than I thought earlier. Man, I'd play this in a heartbeat!

My goal is create games that feel like the Gold Box games (they clearly won't look 100% like them, as I don't want anyone thinking I took the easy way out and just copied everything). So, anytime someone compares my work to them, I am honored beyond belief and it lets me know I'm on the right track.

This game has been evolving over the last year and a half…

2017:



2018:



2019:

A few more development pictures…

Skill Screen:


Inventory (with unidentified magical items):

I created a demo to show off the engine, and you can watch game play in this linked video. It's about an hour long. Sorry if I'm not the best narrator, but I do try to cover a lot of different things about the engine and the system.

You can check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a231U4B22HA

(The video is currently only 360p. I'm told it will eventually go to 1080p once YouTube stops processing it. Might take a while, though).

That's a great video! The character creation section was a thing of beauty - so much choices, the way it should be. 12 classes! When do you think you will have something ready to release?

Originally Posted by Pongo
That's a great video! The character creation section was a thing of beauty - so much choices, the way it should be. 12 classes! When do you think you will have something ready to release?

Hopefully in a year. Or two. Depends on if I run into any issues with the final bits of coding I have to do and how long it takes to put all the content together.

In today's world, what would any of you reasonably pay for a game that emulates an old-school Gold-Box game with new content?

Difficult question, of course, as it depends on many variables. Maybe between 10 and 25 euros?

Originally Posted by Cacheperl
Difficult question, of course, as it depends on many variables. Maybe between 10 and 25 euros?

I'd say that's about right. I paid a lot more than that for Grimoire on release and didn't regret it, but most people thought it was overpriced and the price dropped eventually. 10 to 25 euros (depending on size and other variables etc) sounds about right.

Considering going a bit more Gold-Box and using the OGL as the ruleset instead of the system I created. It would be a lot of work, so I'm weighing whether it's worth it in the end.

In the meantime, I did a mockup of what it might look like…

The more gold box the better, says I. Looking great to me!!

Actually, now that I started toying around with changing the system, I realized what a massive undertaking it would be. Had I planned it from the start, it would have been fine, but I'm too far along now to start revamping the entire game. Should have known better, really. Doing this sort of change would be like starting over and rewriting the game from scratch. Not to mention it would likely remove the uniqueness of the system and pigeon-hole me into all the faults of the D&D system. Oh well…

No new screenshots at the moment, but all the spells are finally done. There are 5 spellcasting classes implemented (Sorcerer, Priest, Shaman, Druid, and Battlemage) with a total of 75 different spells.

It’s a pretty big milestone for the game.

Development continues. Monsters and enemies now have special abilities (example: spiders and scorpions can inflict poison, rats and bugs might inflict diseases, etc). Also, enemies are now capable of casting spells, making things interesting for an unprepared party of adventurers…

As an added bonus, I also spent some time tonight working out spells that could hit multiple PCs at a time.




Note: The animations on this GIF apparently skips some frames and as a result does not show the icon flashing correctly. If you want to see the GIF at full frame rate, try this link: https://gph.is/g/EJlr0Re

The animations are shaping up nicely! Congratulations on getting the magic classes and spells implemented. As a matter of interest, are you using a spell point system, or one that requires memorisation like in D&D?

Also, will there ultimately be environmental obstacles on the combat map? Eg, water tiles you can't move onto or wall tiles that block line of sight etc?