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

[Jarmaro]

The main developer on the recent price-cut and people worrying it's getting abandoned:

I appreciate the tone of your question. It wasn't accusatory "HEY IS THIS ABANDONED?!" it was inquisitive "Hey, what is going on?" Thank you.

12+ of us are working hard on the game every day.

• Just did a major update to our quest tech, which the writers are excited about. You'll see results of this in a week or two.
• Many of us are working hard on the Mage Tower update, which we expect to get out in Aug sometime.
• 3 people are focused on rewriting combat with a new faster engine. 3-4 more weeks to see the fruit of this.
• 2 people are focused on reported bugs. Patch coming out today if it passes QA.

There is only one motto here: Make the game better.

I publish plan updates every week so people know where the effort is being put.

Also, on magic learning being rather bland:

Our lead designer is currently reworking how magic is learned in the game and it is to capture the feel you describe. You earn it, through actions. It's not a single tick.

 

[Abu Antar]

The problem isn't the price. I wouldn't mind buying a game like this for €30. The problem is the state that they released the EA in. It seems that it wasn't much more polished than the demo they released. That was very buggy, and glitchy, with some game breaking bugs.

 

[Jarmaro]

The problem isn't the price. I wouldn't mind buying a game like this for €30. The problem is the state that they released the EA in.

The game was bereft of a lot of implemented features once it was released in EA, now they are slowly re-implemented step by step, unbugging it in the meanwhile. The release itself was motivated in a significant part by the finances:

So where am I at financially?
Well I can tell you my wife is sick of me not contributing to the family finances and just blowing our lovely savings on this game. It’s time for the game to start paying for itself. So, we launched into Early Access. To be sustainable we needed to sell 400 units in April, 800 in Jun, and 1,600 in Jul. We’ve already sold 2,500+ in just over 24hrs, so we got at least a 6 month runway already.

Let me talk very seriously now (I’ll put on my Jim Collins biz hat).

I’ve been around a lot of different kinds of businesses. I’ve had success and failure.
I’ve been so outta money I had to make payroll by cash advancing my mastercard for $1,500
And I’ve had 800k in the bank with nothing specific to do with it.

This game is an iceberg.
I’ll grant it looks like it could be done by a 12 year old over a summer.

But there is so much tooling and tech under the hood to make it run it’s insane. Much like how Amazon tech goes so far beyond just a simple shopping website.

But as we add features with our updates, word is only going to spread more, and more, and more.

We could have the next Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress or Prison Architect here.

In Games we talk a lot about longtails. I believe this game has a growth tail. Our sales in Sep will dwarf what we are seeing here in April. Why?


We haven’t even started to market this game. I have to keep telling Phil "Slow & steady wins the race. Let's just focus on smaller streamers right now until we stabilize the EA and get a few feature updates done."

Fun fact: The main developer also made some money for the game by teaching Game Design in a college. This...makes me distinctly unnerved considering all we've seen from him.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Let's hope his students are going to drop out and never work in the video game industry, the last thing we need is more of this garbage.

 

[Serious_Business]

You can have a spouse in this fucking game? Implying that you need fucking magic to make marriage work, I guess? Fucking hell, the great archmage fantasy, settling down in a "cosy nest" with your beautiful wife, spawning offspring and growing old, fat and stupid. I cannot fucking wait for this mirific lifestyle. 20 years of studying magic schools for this nonsense. Bitch won't even do the dishes because she expects magic to do it now

 

[Jarmaro]

This week's plan in Archmage Rises (Jul 17 '23)
Welcome to another weekly update on Defiance and how we're making Archmage Rises.

Design
We have four major initiatives on the go right now:

1. Mage Tower Update
2. Combat Rewrite
3. NPCs Part II
4. Purpose - We're splitting this into two parts: Rivals and Narrative Quest.

Business
We're running an experiment on pricing the current version of the game at $10 USD instead of $30.
Why? As I wrote in response to a forum question:
We read every single review people leave on the game and we've noticed a significant number of people saying "This game in its current state is not worth $30 USD. When done? Yes! But not now."

Initial feedback is $10 is the right price for early access right now, both through forum responses (thanks!) and people's actions. Sales are up 20x, but this is largely driven by the 66% off discount so we'll see how this sustains. More tellingly is the returns have dropped from ~10% to 3%.

If this does prove to be the right price for right now we'll put together a plan, like Minecraft had, of increasing the price from $10->$20->$30->$40 as we complete roadmap updates.

The Work

• Mark, Jessi, and Jonathan continue with mage tower. It's looking good and looks to play fast.
• Michel & Tyler continue on the combat tech rewrite. Josh has joined them both as some fresh blood to meet the challenge and because he's fixed so many bugs in the existing combat system he really knows how it should be coded. With this addition we're able to get the new system into internal testing tomorrow.
• D2 and Zach are working on critical bugs.
• Nolan is working on a "main quest" to answer the question for new players "What should I do?" and to get them into the new features (like the coming mage tower). For those that played the demo, this is a replacement for the Demo Quest we took out. I'm excited, this will be good.
• Rubi completed another portrait base, she is working on 3 more portrait bases for the NPCs.
• James is actively working on combat and spell design in the new toolset and combat scene
• I finished the quest tech update Nolan has been waiting on. This makes it a good time for him to try it out with a nice epic quest. We have to QA this major addition, and if it passes it will come out in this week's patch.

Combat Rewrite
Finally, you've heard about this combat rewrite many times.
But what is the combat rewrite?

Here is a simple internal WIP capture of the new system showing how it allows it to be sped up and slowed down, one of the big requests we've had and couldn't be done with the old tech.


It's not just about modifying animation speed - that would have been easy.
It's modular, allowing for parallelizing actions - old one was sequential only.
Its modularity data driven design allows spell, spell effects, and tuning numbers to be easily created and modified.

Thanks for participating in the creation of this game. We like having you here!

 

[Late Bloomer]

This guy is starting to remind me of Phil Fish but without all the accolades.

 

[Jarmaro]

I forgot to add patch 0.1.4 when I'd come back from my vacations, here it is, only ~5 days old:

Build 0.1.4 is Live!

Here's what's new in this week's patch:

NEW:

• 4 new quests
• New male NPC portrait set

IMPROVED:

• Updated dice rolling sounds
• Added validation checks for keywords when loading a world so that those keywords/resources (and relevant quests) are exclude from dialogue options in worlds where those resources (and potentially races in the future) don't exist. This should prevent, for example, a snowmoss gathering quest from being triggered in a world where snowmoss doesn't exist
• Rooms in the inn now recover all Stamina
• Camping now recovers all Stamina
• Updated all resource-gathering quests to have a 84 day (12 week) time limit temporarily while we make some adjustments to resource generation. This should help with being able to complete quests on time when struggling to find resources.

FIXED:

• Fixed several issues that were causing quest-related NPCs to go missing, preventing some quests from being completed
• Fixed bad directions being given for snowmoss, which was preventing the gather snowmoss quest from being completed
• Fixed the herbalist job so that it can produce herbs to be sold in the Market
• Fixed the description of honey so now NPCs accurately describe which types of hexes it can be found in
• Fixed a bug where NPCs will give directions to an exhausted resource node when being asked where to find a specific resource
• Fixed a bug that caused the camping menu when using a campsite to disappear
• Fixed a bug that caused a stray window to appear when resting at a campsite
• Fixed a bug that causes conversation windows not to be cleared properly when quitting a game while in a conversation with an NPC
• Fixed a bug that caused dialog options not to display for some NPCs
• Various little quest fixes and typos

 

[Jarmaro]

Build 0.1.5 is Live!

NEW:

• Added 2 new female portrait sets

IMPROVED:

• Adjusted lockpick prices to fix weird pricing behaviour
• Increased odds of finding resources in world map
• Adjusted amounts of resources that can be found when exploring hexes
• Adjusted wood and stone so they can always be found where they are expected to be found based on map features (such as trees visible on map, etc)

FIXED:

• Fixed a bug that caused buying items from a market to result in the cost being 0 gold and not receiving the item
• Fixed getting items for free from the market if you try to buy and don't have enough money
• Fixed a bug that sometimes causes NPC's job labels not to get updated properly
• Fixed NPCs being able to sell services/items outside of their respective workplaces, which caused other branching issues
• Fixed skill quest icon being too small
• Fixed a bug with being able to drag weapon attack off of the HUD
• Fixed a bug with navigation system causing NPCs to tell you that some towns were "12 years journey north" or some variation of that
• Fixed a bug on character sheet that caused equipment slots not to update properly when equipping new weapons and gear
• Fixed a bug with glowstone not working properly
• Fixed a bug that caused some players to get stuck when trying to flatter an NPC
• Fixed a bug with town theme distribution that cause some world gen seeds to fail
• Fixed a bug where quest related NPCs know about other quest NPCs that they talk about
• Fixed a bug that caused NPCs to swap places when using services at the inn
• Fixed a bug that caused combat encounter backgrounds to show a dungeon during outdoor combat if you've recently been in a dungeon.

 

[Mortmal]

LMAO, its archmage rises but better, with more depth. Just a chink fantasy flavor instead of western fantasy.

Just played it, it has everything that Archmage Rise has on its roadmap, except more, and with a lot more depth. I'm really surprised by this game and highly recommend it.

 

[Jarmaro]

The developer finally found some sense and changed the price from 30$ to 10$. Unsurprisingly, it changed a lot of new reviews to more positive as the game now costs as much as it looks. And the sales went from 7 copies a day to 90, which quadrupled the profits. Who would have thunk?????


The devloper doesn't change the price permanently, though. It will slowly rise as the developement hits more mile stones, until rising to 40$ at version 1.0. Ambitious. I hope the game will be worth it, at the end.

Important Price change announcement post

We're Updating our Price and Price Strategy

Pricing an indie video game is very hard.

I believe I made a mistake pricing the early access game at $30 USD right now.

To test this, we ran a 67% off sale for the last 2 weeks. This spawned several questions wondering if it's a sign the game might be abandoned.

No:
Archmage Rises is still full steam ahead full active development with 12 full time devs
.

Short of death, nothing else has or will stop me from making this game.
While hard, this is the best job I've ever had and the team feels the same.

Before Jul 16
Before the 67% experiment:

• Daily average sales 7 a day, or about $200/day.
• New customer reviews ~50% positive.
• Returns ~11% of sales

After a successful launch, where we were in the top 10 selling games on steam for a little while, we were heading in the wrong direction, dipping into Mixed recent and Mixed overall.

We read every single review. A significant number of negative reviews (and even some positive one) seem to all say "This game in its current state is not worth $30 USD. When done? Yes! But not now."

After Jul 16
Moving the price to $10 USD (via a sale) obviously resulted in a big spike of 1,100 sales off our wishlist of 38,000. That is great, expected, hey it's $10k I didn't have before. But not the data I was looking for. I wanted to see the no-hype boring old long tail daily numbers at the end of the sale period when it is organic traffic discovering the game. It is not possible for me to know the psychological impact of $30 - 66% = $10 vs just $10, I recognize it is an intangible thing I cannot measure.

• Daily average sales are 90 a day, about $900/day (4x revenue)
• New customer reviews are 17/19 positive (89.4%, up ~40%)
• Returns have dropped to 3% (down from ~11%).

Beyond the numbers, the feedback in reviews and forum posts is $10 is the right price for right now.

Numbers show Customer Activity.
Reviews and forums show Sentiment.
When Customer Activity and Sentiment are in alignment you know yer onto something.

I got it wrong, so now I have to make it right.

Our New Pricing Strategy $10->$40
Steam strongly advises devs to charge "for what the game is today" not "what the game will be" and to then increase the price along the way or at 1.0 full release.

Minecraft is one of the most successful games ever, and Notch did his own "Early Access" of staggered pricing $10, then $20, then $30 at release (Bedrock).

I ignored that advice. I fell into a trap of thinking I'm smarter than Steam + Notch combined

There are many reasons but I'll list two in order of importance:

1. My sense of loyalty and appreciation to the super fans that pre-ordered at $30 long before Early Access.
2. All the indie biz advice (newsletters, people like Simon Carless and Chris Z, other indies) all say "don't price too low! You can always go down but never up!" I was following 'best practices'

I had the right model right in my face and didn't follow it.
Time to pivot. Now I am.

It was always my intent to sell the 1.0 version of Archmage Rises for $40.
This was hinted at in the Early Access blurb "priced differently during and after Early Access?" Apr 24 2023.

My thinking was the $30 price point was a sufficient Early Access discount for jumping in early. It isn't.

Starting today the regular price is $10 USD.
Then it will be $20
Then $30
Then $40 at 1.0

We will soon be updating our Roadmap to show the pricing changes which will occur at release of that Content Update Milestone.

For anyone reading this who bought the game at a previous higher price, I'm sorry it will be cheaper for a while. Your early support was integral to us being here right now. I can't thank you enough.

I'm trying to figure out how to do this indie dev thing well. I do and will make mistakes along the way.

Fortunately we have the same goal: enlarge the player community, sustain the development of the game, and deliver the complete game experience.

I believe this new pricing strategy achieves our goal.

I hope this helps in understanding what's happening and why we've chosen to reduce the price. Thanks so much for being on this journey with us and we're super excited to get Mage Tower out to you.

New Week Update

This week's plan in Archmage Rises (Jul 25 '23)
Welcome to another weekly update on Defiance and how we're making Archmage Rises.

Mage Tower

• We're close to announcing a release date for this second content update. The date is mostly driven by team schedules: August is a heavy vacation month for many of the team including myself. We don't want to delay the mage tower for another month into Sep, so trying to complete it before all the vacations start kicking in. I will playtest the teams work tomorrow and this will reveal where we are really at.
• Jessi, Mark, Jonathan continue designing and building out the features.
• Programmer Zach was added to the team and has already made 3 rooms. We're going to see how many rooms we can complete in time, could be 8, hoping for 10. It's not just about adding rooms but the systems beneath them to support them and make them valuable.
• Artist Rubi is joining the team this week to help with room graphics and decorations

Purpose
Mark is working hard on closing the game loop and tying it all together. Should be done design work this week and we can get programmers on it soon as they are available. I'm working on this with him and I like where it is going.

Narrative
Nolan is working on a "Main Quest", similar to the Quest in the demo, which is optional but answers "What should I do?" for new players with structured content in our sandbox sim game.

I don't know if I'm communicating this well or not.

There is no such thing as a "Main Quest" to Archmage Rises and never will be.
But we're making something story driven, sort of an Act 1, that acts like a main quest would in another game until more of our AI proc-gen quest systems come online.

Combat Rewrite

• James is busy making spells in the Fire and Earth schools with the new tools. It is going well.
• Josh is almost done implementing the new data driven approach in game, freeing him up to work on Mage Tower or Purpose
• Tyler & Michel have about a day left on the tooling fixes requested by James, then they can also switch over to Mage Tower while supporting James

Patch
Last week we got a patch out on Friday addressing core issues like finding quest NPCs and Resource Generation in the world. This week, due to resource scheduling, we will also be putting the patch out on Friday.

The main issue D2 is working on is finding non-building quest NPCs.

NPCs Part II
We're pausing this for a few weeks as we focus on the above. The Combat rewrite has been consuming 40-60% of our programming team for weeks and this is a casualty of it. Mage Tower, Purpose, and Combat are all higher priority right now. It's sucky to make these kinds of decisions publicly building the game, but this is how game dev goes.

Business
The two week $10 sale experiment ends on Thu. We're still collecting data and seeing how our ads convert but reviews have been overwhelming positive this is the right price for right now. A news post will come out on Thu on what we found and why we're doing what we're doing.


For new people, thanks for jumping in with us on this crazy ambitious journey!
For seasoned veteran co-adventurers, thanks for participating in the creation of this game. Couldn't do it without you!

 

[Tyranicon]

12 full time devs

Someone spent a lot of money on making this dream game.

 

[Jarmaro]

12 full time devs

Someone spent a lot of money on making this dream game.

It's 12 full time devs since only ~2 months ago, before it was the main dev, his collegaue and some paid work being out-sourced. He's gone all-in only recently. By the way, I've updated the post with another post I've forgotten to add.

 

[Tyranicon]

Also I can't help but think he timed his price experiment poorly, as he did it during Steam's summer sale, where there's a lot of attention on the platform.

However, I do think the new price of $10 is more accurate for the game that players are getting.

If nothing else, at least there's clearly passion behind the project, but I feel like someone is hemorrhaging money somewhere.

Oh well, I'll throw 10 bucks at this and try it out.

 

[Jarmaro]

Don't miss the previous post I've made a moment ago with two important posts from the developer!
Yesterday, the main developer has shared his list of inspirations for the game, which seem...interesting. Those are not the kind of influences I'd like to see behind a game focused on a mage role-playing, and the choices are rather eclectic, but it makes some things easier to understand:

Are there any games that you've taken inspiration from in the design of Archmage?
Skrain asked this on another thread, but I thought it would be better to make its own in case others had a similar question.

Originally posted by Skrain:
Are there any games that you've taken inspiration from in the design of Archmage?

Absolutely! I have an internal confluence page for the team listing out where answers come from. Meaning, if we have a problem (say exploration on the map) where do we look first for an answer?

Majors:

• D&D (AD&D, 2E, 3.5, 4, 5th), Pathfinder
• Sid Meier’s Pirates
• Goldbox RPGs like Champions of Krynn
• Ultima 4,5,6,7
• The Guild 2
• Dwarf Fortress
• Rogue, ADOM, TOME, Dungeonmans
• Pillars of Eternity

Minors:

• Capitalism 2
• Civilization 1-6
• The Sims
• The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
• Dragon Age Origins
• Total War Series (Shogun, Rome, Warhammer)
• Tropico 1

If game dev is like cooking, the above is the list of spices I use in making the meal. There is heavy flavor from D&D and only hints of certain aspects from DF, Pillars, Civ, Tropico.

I bring this up not because of its importance, but because we were just talking about it yesterday and this morning as it relates to Purpose in Archmage.

One of my alltime favorite games is Capitalism II. Its taught me a lot about business (and vertical integration, which I used in my previous consulting career). But it is my favorite Sandbox Simulator.



There isn't really a point to Capitalism II. How much money is enough? In the words of Gordon Gecko "Just a little bit more". It is a simulator (economic simulator) and you can do whatever you want: run an ice cream factory, be a coffee bean farmer, build automobiles, cell phones, or sport shoe.

I love the freedom in it.

It has rival companies you compete against, they are relatively easy and I enjoy knocking them out by building huge cash reserves and then buying them out (the biz equivalent of combat and killing). Sometimes I'll compete with them head to head on their chosen product lines (the AI tends to diversify into any markets that will make money.. much like the conglomerations of the 80's or the Asian companies of today) just to weaken them. The biz equivalent of ruining ones reputation.

For an over arching goal I just try to beat Bill Gates net worth of $63 billion.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lmb6se3k6n2284u/20210406101536_1.jpg?dl=0

Once I do, I feel great, like I've won, and end my "run".
Then I fire up a new game, found a new corporation, and do it all again.
It's the rogue-like of biz sims

I share this because I think when we reveal the Purpose work we're doing the pedigree will be obvious. Its just one example of how a game influences my design.

 

[Tyranicon]

So the game is honestly fun and less buggy than I expected, but at less than 2 hours, I feel like I already hit a content wall.

Is there anything to do beyond going from town to town fighting goblins on the way?

Also I have way more gold than I need from gaming the gambling mechanic. Will probably need to change that soon, since that AI for it is poor and it can be save scummed.

Good bones though. Could become something great if the dev does pull it off.

 

[Mortmal]

Also I can't help but think he timed his price experiment poorly, as he did it during Steam's summer sale, where there's a lot of attention on the platform.

However, I do think the new price of $10 is more accurate for the game that players are getting.

If nothing else, at least there's clearly passion behind the project, but I feel like someone is hemorrhaging money somewhere.

Oh well, I'll throw 10 bucks at this and try it out.

Really, you should try tale of immortal, they worked to death some chinese devs from 8 am to 10pm 7/7 (not even joking) and it clearly shows. At 50 hours i have not hit a content wall, probably 80 hours to reach immortality in one playthrough. Game is just brilliant and in a completely different league.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Really, you should try tale of immortal

I know this was to Tyranicon, but how is the translation?

 

[Mortmal]

Really, you should try tale of immortal

I know this was to Tyranicon, but how is the translation?

So far, very few texts have not been translated. I only found two occurrences of non-translated content: when a disciple asked which path to choose, and later when opening the ghost manual given to you by Jo the swordsman. Game is especially addictive and no problem with it, the mixed reviews are due to some review bombing cause of some trouble with mod support and their policies, also banning disgruntled users on forums. Game itself is pristine if you dont care about the controversy.

 

[Tyranicon]

Also I can't help but think he timed his price experiment poorly, as he did it during Steam's summer sale, where there's a lot of attention on the platform.

However, I do think the new price of $10 is more accurate for the game that players are getting.

If nothing else, at least there's clearly passion behind the project, but I feel like someone is hemorrhaging money somewhere.

Oh well, I'll throw 10 bucks at this and try it out.

Really, you should try tale of immortal, they worked to death some chinese devs from 8 am to 10pm 7/7 (not even joking) and it clearly shows. At 50 hours i have not hit a content wall, probably 80 hours to reach immortality in one playthrough. Game is just brilliant and in a completely different league.

Sure why not.

I don't know how Tale of the Immortal sold so well. Was it required reading in Chinese schools or something? I have never seen a RPG of this style get nearly 200k steam reviews. Astounding.

 

[Jarmaro]

So the game is honestly fun and less buggy than I expected, but at less than 2 hours, I feel like I already hit a content wall.

Is there anything to do beyond going from town to town fighting goblins on the way?

Also I have way more gold than I need from gaming the gambling mechanic. Will probably need to change that soon, since that AI for it is poor and it can be save scummed.

Good bones though. Could become something great if the dev does pull it off.

Reason why the second mile stone (Mage Tower update) is so important. Not to mention the combat rewrite with new mechanics and spells. As it is there is little to do other than basic quests and simple dungeons, with the tower there will be finaly some concrete goals to work towards and progress. The game needs that update to really hit its stride, or so I believe.

 

[Mortmal]

Also I can't help but think he timed his price experiment poorly, as he did it during Steam's summer sale, where there's a lot of attention on the platform.

However, I do think the new price of $10 is more accurate for the game that players are getting.

If nothing else, at least there's clearly passion behind the project, but I feel like someone is hemorrhaging money somewhere.

Oh well, I'll throw 10 bucks at this and try it out.

Really, you should try tale of immortal, they worked to death some chinese devs from 8 am to 10pm 7/7 (not even joking) and it clearly shows. At 50 hours i have not hit a content wall, probably 80 hours to reach immortality in one playthrough. Game is just brilliant and in a completely different league.

Sure why not.

I don't know how Tale of the Immortal sold so well. Was it required reading in Chinese schools or something? I have never seen a RPG of this style get nearly 200k steam reviews. Astounding.

It's better than anything else in the wuxia style, and for a country with a population of one and a half billion, it's not surprising to see 200k reviews. It's so good that I would compare it to the feeling of discovering Mount and Blade for the first time, for example.

 

[Jarmaro]

Finally, it's here. Or at least it's going to be in two weeks. Mage Tower hype!

The Mage Tower Cometh Aug 10th
We're excited to announce UPDATE 2: THE MAGE TOWER will be releasing on Aug 10, 2023, which is just under 2 weeks away.

The Mage Tower is a key feature of the game, allowing you to build your own personalized sanctuary and pillar of power (or several) within the world of Archmage Rises. Mage Towers will become your home base, granting you extra perks and actions, some of which are only available in your tower.

For those who played the demo, you may have experienced an early tile-by-tile version of this feature. Our original plan was to fix the bugs, improve the UI/UX for tile and room selection, then re-release it as part of this update.

But all that changed as the Tower Team sat down and started iterating on what we had. It just wasn't as fun as they felt it could be... It took too long, was too confusing, and while tile-by-tile was neat it was really tough to make a tower that looked good (unless you are a decent pixel artist). So we've rewritten it with a whole new UI paradigm. It is faster, more streamlined, and everyone can make a tower that looks good. Power to the people!

How To Build Your Mage Tower:
Mage Towers can be built next to any town. You can acquire the land for your tower by speaking to the Town Mayor of the town you'd like to locate your tower near. Once you have secured a spot for your tower, you can begin constructing your mage tower.

You can have as many towers as you desire.

Mage Towers are built room by room vertically, horizontally, and even underground, using our new Build Mode. Each room you build will increase the storage capacity of your tower.

Once you've built a basic room, you'll have the option to convert it to one of a variety of feature room types (listed below), provided you meet the requirements. Each feature room grants you specific benefits and actions.

Rooms You Can Build:
We're expecting to get 10 room types into this update, including:

• Bedroom - gives the option to Sleep and Treat Injuries (injuries make a return in this update)
• Study - allows you to “Study a Book” similar to a Conclave Chapter
• Blast Chamber - allows you to increase your Magic XP (or blow your leg off, or some other unintended consequence) through experimentation
• Library - allows you to increase your Magic XP at a slower, but safer pace through Research
• Dining Room - gives you the option to Dine In at your Tower
• Storage Room - significantly increases the storage capacity of your tower
• Games Room - provides entertainment options (similar to the inn), each of which will add a temporary buff

A lot of work went into this new Mage Tower, we basically did more than expected. This impacts the other features listed on the roadmap for this update. My feeling was we had to get the tower experience right first and foremost.

We'll have more details and a screenshot next week, once final art is complete.

 

[Tyranicon]

The problem is that while the tower is much needed and a critical part of the promised game, but there's still not enough content around it.

If anything, it might just turn the EA version into a grind where you farm goblin dungeons/resources/gambling to support the construction of the tower. There needs to be more enemies, equipment, and just more stuff to interact with. I personally wouldn't go back to playing it just for the tower.

I agree with the vast majority of the steam reviews that there just isn't enough meat on the bones. If the game launched at the current price with maybe 10 hours of content (for a procgen game, not that hard), then it would be much more favorable.

 

[Lhynn]

Really, you should try tale of immortal

I know this was to Tyranicon, but how is the translation?

So far, very few texts have not been translated. I only found two occurrences of non-translated content: when a disciple asked which path to choose, and later when opening the ghost manual given to you by Jo the swordsman. Game is especially addictive and no problem with it, the mixed reviews are due to some review bombing cause of some trouble with mod support and their policies, also banning disgruntled users on forums. Game itself is pristine if you dont care about the controversy.

I have to add that its still getting updates to the translation among everything else. I bought the game a couple months ago and translation has improved immensely since. Gone from what felt like a step up from MTL to an enjoyable read, especially when it comes to quests later on.