Sacred Fire - a psychological RPG mixing narrative and tactics

Sacred Fire - a psychological RPG with flavors of Banner Saga and Darkest Dungeon

Hey everyone,

Sacred Fire is a turn-based, psychological RPG about survival, power, and the search for meaning, inspired by ancient Caledonia.

Build your will to show courage in battle and cunning in the throne room. Rise through renown, blackmail, or loyalty. Inspire others to crush Rome or to build a nation.

This is our new teaser showing gameplay, visuals and storytelling, voiced by Doug Cockle, the voice of the Witcher:



Check out Steam Greenlight Concepts for newest screenshots:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=800757379
If you like what you see, up-vote us! Every vote counts! We are already #1 Most Popular This Week, your up-vote can help us to get the coveted 5-star rating. Thank you!

Check out our new website: http://www.SacredFireGame.com
Subscribe and be the first in line to get Early Bird discounts when we launch a Kickstarter campaign in March 2017!

Thank you!

GREAT teaser! Very impressed. Its like watching something and finding out that you want certain elements in games that you never thought before.

Edit: Just upvoted. Enjoy.

Thank you for your kind words and the upvote, it means a lot!

There is a whole blog post about how we ended up with Doug Cockle, the voice of the Witcher in our game teaser: https://www.sacredfiregame.com/2016/12/ ... lt-teaser/

Some eye-candy for the weekend

I have a question for you, will there be consequences for barely surviving a fight or your decisions earlier in the game in later fights?

@SasqWatch Yes, there are various renown events defined for each activity, be it combat stealth, or non-violent combat resolution: so one immediate consequence for many narrative nuances, like letting the opponent attack from behind and dodge in the last moment, drawing first blood, or barely surviving will be noticed by others and will affect your influence, how they listen to what you have to say. So there is an emergent nature to consequences of your performance.

And than there is a structured, per-scripted set of choice and consequences based on the narrative. We have a writing rule of ALWAYS giving the player a chance to make a smart choice, so you can affect the difficulty of literary every combat encounter. The challenge is in passing the psychological test to be able to use the 'smart choice': e.g. passing the probability check to resist anger taking over when an opponent taunts you into a trap, passing the checks for perception to observe the environment and finding a better direction of attack, or luring him into a trap of your own.

In this regard we want to emulate the Pen & Paper experience: before each encounter players would try to better their odds and come up with ideas how to do so. Or they want to role-play and say screw it and rush in head on and if they win the fight a good DM would recognize that, while some will see that approach as foolish, some will be impressed more by the directness and courage and so on.

I hope this answers your question, please feel free to ask more. A lot of time and work went into having a crystal clear and focused design before starting producing art.

I thought it would be good to explain why we do a lot of things differently than other RPGs, or any narrative games for that matter. We are basically rethinking the Choice & Consequence mechanic in the genre. The whole point of using numeric personality models and have a rule set governing your characters psychology is to blend narrative and action seamlessly and enable a new level of role-playing.

We use the personality model to make the player's interaction with the story tactical. Choices, and their consequences, are the core elements of Sacred Fire:

• You have to earn the right to make a tough call.
• Ideas shape your character as much as actions.
• You always know the consequences of a choice.
• You have to earn the right to change the story.

The combat in Sacred Fire blends powerful storytelling moments, personality tests, and turn-based tactical moves into one flow. Each turn the player chooses one of four goals of your attack or defense: survive, provoke, intimidate and gain renown. However, a wide variety of different actions result from these four goals based on by how much you overshoot the probability check. If the goal is to survive, you will defend and attack in the most efficient manner, affecting hit points only. To provoke, you can taunt the opponent, parry like you were sparring with a child, or play nasty and hit a sensitive place.

To intimidate, you can split objects in half, shoot an warning arrow, or take a hit without nudging. To gain renown, you will intentionally dodge in the last possible moment, block arrows without dodging, or pull off a devastating attack.

• You have to control your emotions to perform optimally in combat.
• Equipment doesn’t win a fight. It only sets the stage.
• Letting the opponent attack you from behind is a valid tactic.
• You can win the game without killing.

You can read more about the straegy/politics/relationship aspects of the game on our Steam Greenlight Concept page:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=800757379

I feel like the lists of design decision above need to be explained better.

Choice Making

You have to earn the right to make a tough call

If a story choice you want to make is out-of-character or simply tough for the personality you’ve developed, you need to pass a probability check. To boost your chances you can use willpower points.
As a reward, making a tough choice develops your personality and helps you level up.

Ideas shape your character as much as actions

Inner monologue give the player’s character the ability to interpret and comment on what’s happening in the story. What are your thoughts on failure, injustice, or brutality in a scene? What is the motive behind your choice to help someone?
It’s your interpretation and motives that affect your character’s empathy, create guilt or strengthen your ideals.



You always know the consequences of a choice

We never mislead the player into a wrong choice. Our goal is to create an experience where the player always has a smart option out of a tough spot. Notice a trap, sense an ambush, spot a hidden blade, make a leap of faith. You just need to have the will to make the extra effort to actually use it.

You have to earn the right to change the story

You do not start out as a leader; you have to compete for influence within the group of potential rivals or allies. NPCs don’t just get angry if they don’t agree with your choices. They have their own agendas and will try to undermine your choices.

Combat



You have to control your emotions to perform optimally in combat

Fear weakens your attacks. Anger makes you ignore your defense. Save your willpower points; you will need them to help you keep your cool. This way you can intimidate, provoke, and wear out your opponent.

Equipment doesn’t win a fight. It only sets the stage

Collecting and crafting beautiful items is important, but not only for the protection they provide. Items such as armor also affect how comfortable and confident you feel, and how memorable, attractive, and menacing you appear to NPCs.
But what wins a fight is using your willpower to overcome fear. Use these willpower points to boost your chances of keeping your cool, to ignore pain, and to regain self-control when you go beyond your physical ability.

Letting the opponent attack you from behind is a valid tactic

We’ve all seen the scene. The hero stands still, the opponents circle him, and the hero dodges in the last moment. It’s good storytelling, but horrible tactics.
What makes this a valid tactic in Sacred Fire is that IF you pull it off, a display of confidence and skill like that intimidates your opponents and affects their performance. Furthermore, showing control and courage like that will earn you the respect of NPCs.

You can win the game without killing



All fights have context within the story, and a winning condition other than defeating the opponent. In some, if you can gain enough respect through displays of skill, your opponent will give up, or you can intimidate them into fleeing. In others all you have to do is survive until help arrives. Combat in Sacred Fire is all about the tactical choices that you make.

The game AI recognizes if you choose not to land a decisive hit, or if you do not use lethal-force in combat at all. All NPCs you fight have complex agendas and their own survival is high on their list. They will rarely fight till their last breath.
The writing also gives options how to avoid, prevent or end a fight before it gets out of control.

If you like what we are doing, up-vote us on Steam Greenlight Concepts: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=800757379

>_< I hope that there are people in this forum that are interested in this and just not posting here atm. I feel a little alien when i am the only one posting in this thread other than you, same feeling as when that dev that made the reallms of Arkania games tried to make a kickstarter game and fails.

He already convinced me with "Sacred Fire is a turn-based..."

Now I dont feel so alone.

Game sounds great to me but it does sound very ambitious. Considering how early in development it is I try not to get excited yet.

Game looks very interesting to me.
I feel like it would be a very niche game though so I hope they focus on the features more than the eye candy..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you for your interest!

We have spent years prototyping and iterating the UI, the rule set and the flow, so we have ironed out the features and how to make a design enabling blending tactical combat choices and relationships/story consequences.

It's true this is an ambitious project and will take time to get right, so we have also planned a long beta-testing period to fine-tune and polish the feel of the game once the story is complete.

The visual polish is just an extension of our passion for this project and our dedication to make it the best it can be.

It's Screenshot Saturday, so here you go, a new screenshot from Sacred Fire. If you feel like smashing an axe to get some order into politics these days!

Today is a great day for Sacred Fire, as we got our first media coverage and it's on PC Gamer of all sites: http://www.pcgamer.com/how-a-debuti...itchers-geralt-of-rivia-to-voice-its-trailer/



Thank you all for your support all the way back in 2014 and now in the last few weeks, you helped to make this happen!

Upvoted. Looks interesting.

Thank you for letting us know, it really means a lot! We are a small team and every single fan is appreciated!

With the new year here, let me wish you all a delayed but sincere Happy New Year. We were busy at work and laid out our road-map and battle plans for development of Sacred Fire:

• Steam Greenlight Concepts, VOTE NOW: let's get into the top 100 Best Rated of All Time. We are already close!
• Steam Greenlight, January 2017: let's start making some waves together and get the attention of blogers, youtubers and maybe even the almighty Valve
• Kickstarter, March 2017: get some cool backer rewards, immortalize your name, get alpha and beta access and more!
• Preview release, Summer 2017: get your hands on the first playable version for Firestarters Guild members and ALL Kickstarter backers
• Alpha/Beta release, Late 2017: be the first to enjoy the full storyline in our Beta
• Gold release: Spring 2018: own the sweet polished version of Sacred Fire

As you can see, you - our fans, are crucial to this plan. Our roadmap is a chain of events, one leading into the other and building its results. A strong Greenlight campaign will be noticed the attention can give us an extra push to build a bigger community before Kickstarter. We can then get into appealing rewards to make Kickstarter more attractive. So then Kickstarter has a better chance to hit the goal in the first days. What next? A swiftly funded project can get more coverage and raise even more funds. The game is able to get more content and polish. We can even bring in more star talent, as voice over legend Troy Baker, Joel from The Last of Us, has shown interest and is watching our development.

So to get to the Gold experience, your help is essential and we invite you to take part in the Sacred Fire development. Go to our web page and scroll down to Sign-up to the Firestarters Guild to receive all the updates and benefits.

We’ve are currently on Steam Greenlight Concepts, getting close to enter the top 100 of Best rated of All Time. We need one last push, vote for Sacred Fire now. If you use the Steam client, to find us in the Greenlight, you need to choose Browse 'Concepts' category.

Thank you!

Also, who would be a good fit for a female voice actress along Doug Cockle in your opinion?

My time is too restricted to look at unreleased games, but I think it's great that you post here. It at least makes me aware that someday there may be a game called Sacred Fire. If it hits release, I'll be sure to read any threads here to make my decision of whether to buy.

@Damian, I've wasted too much of my life reading about games that never see the light of day, so I no longer do it. For instance, I haven't read poetic's posts, but I read the reactions from forum members. I do look at the pictures though