Archmage Rises - the play-how-you-want mage simulator - now available on Early Access

[ERYFKRAD]

Fun fact: the indie dev community generally looks down on people who "teach others how to indie dev."

A common insult is "why don't you go start a youtube channel?"

Wait you have a youtube channel.

 

[mediocrepoet]

How bout get it right the first time so you can focus on either making new content or a new game, how bout that instead?

Inb4 no games are released ever again.

 

[Tweed]

How bout get it right the first time so you can focus on either making new content or a new game, how bout that instead?

Inb4 no games are released ever again.

Good.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

The 1 million USD is so optimistic that honestly I feel the guy fell for a scam or someshit

This game only have a very limited niche following with no real hype or splash. EA launch ended up a wet fart even for people waiting for the game

To even break even the cost of 1 million would require sales that this game will not have, unless they are simply taking the engine/baseline and use it to build another game as part of that 1 million USD

 

[Tyranicon]

The 1 million USD is so optimistic that honestly I feel the guy fell for a scam or someshit

This game only have a very limited niche following with no real hype or splash. EA launch ended up a wet fart even for people waiting for the game

To even break even the cost of 1 million would require sales that this game will not have, unless they are simply taking the engine/baseline and use it to build another game as part of that 1 million USD

Seems like a passion project through and through. People do strange things when it's something they love.

There was a lot of charm when I played the game a few months back, but the game was a skeleton. What it requires, unfortunately, is years and years of content.

With the studio being acquired and 1.0 being set to next year, I'm skeptical.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.archmagerises.com/news/2024/4/22/player-experience-driven-development-for-archmage-rises

Recipe for Success​

The last several weeks have been planning and transition. We’re bringing on four new team members in just over a week, so getting everyone aligned and on the same page as far as game vision has been pivotal.
Mark Webster is a 15+ year veteran game designer (GoW:Ragnarök, God of War 2018, Guitar Hero, Skylanders) and Lead Designer on Archmage Rises since last fall. Last week he laid out for the team how and why we are tackling development in a Play Experience way.
I recorded this meeting for the new employees starting in May. But afterwards, I felt it was so good and explanatory that I am taking a chance: I’m sharing this internal meeting with you, our faithful fellow adventurer.

This is the first slide, which I forgot to record.

Notes:

• What we’re working on is Update #3 Exploration, but it is so comprehensive of an update that it is most of the game. It is going to take us a while, many months.
• We will continue to make patches every other week as long as we need to, while we are doing the above.
• Mark mentions something about ‘Adventure Books’ and ‘Seasons of Life’. These are concepts around structuring the overall ‘life’ of a player character still very much still in design discussion. I’ll have more to say when we figure out what it means!

Rivals​

• All five mage types are working: Fire, Ice, Arcane, Earth, Storm
• Phil and I are doing one last round of experience testing before we release to the beta branch. Think it is this week.

 

[Jarmaro]

I'm a tiny bit exhausted with the devs talking so much about developing a game. I get making a game is a complicated and hard process, but making a diary of making it instead of providing the news is getting silly. At this point those news read like a motivational blog where the author tries to improve their life and hook the readers into it as well. It's weird.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

At this point those news read like a motivational blog

It probably is for the the dev.

 

[Jarmaro]

Weekly Dev Priorities: Apr 29, 2024

We are winding down on the final touches to the Rivals combat update, and ramping up on what is shaping up to be our biggest update ever!

Here’s what folks are working on this coming week (and beyond):

RIVALS WRAP-UP:

We are so very close to putting a lid on the Rivals combat update, at least as far as being able to push the update to the Beta branch. Last week after testing, Thomas and Phil were both pleased with how it all plays in general, with just a few more important bug fixes to squash.

Once we finish those, we’ll release it to the Beta branch for another round of testing where players can try it out, we can find any other bugs that may have slipped through the cracks, and do some more final tune-ups (if needed) before finally releasing it to the main public branch.

Phil will be heading the charge on this with the assistance of D2. Alex will also join the fray later this week (more on that later).

EXPLORATION:
Mark and the rest of the team are full steam ahead on what is currently known as the “Exploration” update, which essentially (as of now anyway) will be our biggest update/release between now and our 1.0 launch!

This is what we’re focusing on this week:

• Michal, James, Nolan, Mark
  - Exploration Events/Encounters.
• Tyler
  - Revised Skill/Stat System
• Zach
  - Dynamic Quests
• Jonathan, Jessi, Phil
  - Continuing on UI/UX Overhaul

We’re all very excited with how exploration will be improved in this coming update, which will (at least in Phil’s perspective) make the game feel a lot more like a TTRPG-like experience. BTW, an easy way to get Phil’s stamp of approval internally is to compare how the feature/idea we are working on is like D&D and he’s pretty much on board .
For those of you who might be worried about the game losing that feel, you can rest easy knowing that you’ve got several torch bearer’s within the team carrying that torch for you!

OTHER NEWS:
We’ve got 3 new team members joining us this week! Starting on Wednesday, joining us on our quest are:

• Emily:
  project management and helping us all stay on task and hitting our goals
• Alex:
  QA testing and running our regular patch updates
• Andrey:
  For the summer he’ll be joining us as a developer before returning to his teaching work

Next week our new artist Lucas will be joining us as well. Would love for you to give them a warm welcome!

 

[mondblut]

Maybe, just maybe, instead of writing his long blog post, he could try working on the game and adding content.

What?

Oh, this "acquisition" has Spire of Sorcery written all over it. Wait till That Which Rises becomes an idle clicker card autobattler MOBA for mobiles or whatever.

 

[Tyranicon]

Maybe, just maybe, instead of writing his long blog post, he could try working on the game and adding content.

What?

Oh, this "acquisition" has Spire of Sorcery written all over it. Wait till That Which Rises becomes an idle clicker card autobattler MOBA for mobiles or whatever.

That Which Rises is my game.

 

[mondblut]

That Which Rises is my game.

You gotta rename it if you have any plans to ever get it done.

Also, you owe me royalties.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Also, you owe me royalties.

No he doesn't, this is a democracy

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

This game should be re-labeled as vapourware

 

[Jarmaro]

Rivals Combat (Build 0.2.200) is now live on the Beta channel

It's been a while coming, but now you can finally fight your rivals! Prepare for a brand new challenge, as your rivals not only bring magical attacks your way, but they also bring some interesting defensive challenges for you to face.

NEW:

• New enemy types to fight: Fire Mage, Ice Mage, Earth Mage, Storm Mage. Each mage type has it's own unique challenges to face
• New option to attack your rival when you meet them
• Rivals are now more difficult to locate. NPCs will not easily divulge their locations.
• Bribe or schmooze Conclave Chapterheads to discover the location of your rivals
• New NPC greetings - now NPCs comment on you based on a variety of factors (your appearance, their relationship with you, how long ago they last saw you, etc)
• Gain additional legacy bonuses for eliminating a rival
• You can now hunt down and kill your primary rival in the Mabren's Tower quest after you've completed the quest
• New combat arena - Town Street
• Added new magic XP book reward to Innkeeper starter town quest
• New death animation over rival portrait after killing that rival

IMPROVED:

• Prompt to abandon a quest when talking to a quest giver now shows the name of the quest
• Added AP cost to button tooltip on weapons
• Additional "do not know" NPC responses

FIXED:

• Fixed VFX glitch when casting Fireball
• Fixed a bug with enemy difficult scaling
• Fixed some gender-related text generation bugs
• Fixed some minor combat background formatting issues
• Fixed a bug where abandoning the tower quest wouldn't remove the prompt to abandon the tower quest

There are likely more fixes and additions not listed here that I may be missing

Also, there are a few bugs remaining that we need to fix, but we have already made you wait long enough, so we decided to release this beta build with these issues outstanding so we don't keep you waiting any longer. These aren't game breaking bugs and we'll get these fixed up asap.

KNOWN ISSUES:

• While NPCs will not reveal the location of your primary rival in the Mabren's Tower quest prematurely, it's still possible to potentially encounter this rival by chance and kill them prior to completing the Tower quest. This should end the quest, but currently does not. We'll fix this soon.
• If you kill a rival and then find them on the Relationship screen, it currently does not indicate that they were killed. This will be fixed soon as well.
• When visiting a Shipwright, there is a text bug related to displaying his current activity when greeting you.

Thanks for testing out this beta and we hope you enjoy it! As always, we'd love to hear about any bugs you come across that we may have missed and would love to get your feedback on the new rival combat. Enjoy!