[WIP] Sacred Fire - a psychological RPG for PC, flavors of Banner Saga and Darkest Dungeon

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:

THE GAME:

• Use tactical thinking in a story full of risk-based choices and combat.
• Enjoy a fast flow of narrative twists and turns.
• Inspired by the pen & paper RPG experience, explore NPCs’ motives, stay in character and play to your strong sides.
• Choose how to solve conflicts: use force, smarts, skill, looks or empathy.
• Express your take on story events in inner monologues shaping your personality and inner strength.
• Manage your relationships and renown to increase your impact on the story.
• No magic, no dragons: solve real conflicts, fueled by real motives, with real solutions. Your heart hides all the monsters.

More info at Steam Greenlight: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile…/?id=800757379

 

The art style and animation looks great. Voice acting is not bad either. Kind of reminds me of a younger version of Geralt from Witcher series.

 

@Zionmoose Yes, good catch, the voice is indeed Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt from the Witcher series. Thank you for your kind words, I hope the attention to visual detail shows our passion for this project!

 

Some eye-candy for the weekend:



The gif shows up correctly in the preview when I edit the post, but for some reason doesn't show up in the actual post afterwards. Can anyone help? Here is a link: http://i.imgur.com/RuKew8k.gif

 

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 point of using a psychological personality model is to connect story choices and combat actions to make them support each other:



Choice Making

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

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

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

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

 

Nice trailer for your game. My team are planning on making at least 2 game trailers, before launching out Steam Greenlight campaign. Any tips you, or your viewers can give us? We would greatly appreciate it. (Note: Our game is a 2D fantasy, metroidvania game).

 

Hey, thank you for your kind words.

We recently wrote a lengthy blog post about the creation of our trailer 'Something More': https://www.sacredfiregame.com/2016/12/06/the-witcher-geralt-teaser/ from setting goals, storyboards, voice casting, production, finalization and propagation.

We hope it will be useful to you. Best of luck with your game.

 

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!

 

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 home 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?

 

We have been hard at work and have some exciting news - right on track with our roadmap we just launched our regular Steam Greenlight campaign.



Thank you for your feedback and encouragement during our Concept stage. Your reactions were overwhelmingly positive. You’ve become a vital part of this adventure.

“I didn't realize it, til I saw this trailer, but I've been waiting for a game like this.”
-Cypher-D

“Looks (and sounds) awesome. Good luck!”
-Aleonymous

We’ve taken your comments and ideas and used them to further refine our official Greenlight page.

• We’ve added a few juicy gameplay GIFs showing in-detail combat, politics and ambush gameplay
  
• Added more details about Combat and Choice Making in Sacred Fire. These are important aspects of the game and deserve more information.
  
• And we are particularly happy about a quote from Arnie Jorgensen, art director of Banner Saga.

So now we’re turning to you again to help us to make Sacred Fire a reality.

Head to Sacred Fire Greenlight page now and vote ‘Yes’.

Every single ‘Yes’ vote is appreciated and important. We are always looking forward to when a new comment pops up and we had a blast answering them. Favorite us or follow, so you don’t miss important updates. And tell your gaming friends on Steam about Sacred Fire.

Thank you!

 

The voting on our Steam Greenlight campaign is going great, thank you all for your support.

Our first update is about Character Creation, as Sacred Fire is all about building a strong personality:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/updates/843790587

 

We took the Steam Greenlight voting by storm - we currently have 1,050 YES votes and we are thankful for each and every one of them.



We still need some more to get Greenlit, so if you like what you see, please consider helping us to get the word out, either by reaching out to friends, admins, bloggers and influencers, or let the people know on reddit or social media. We appreciate all the help we can get, thank you.

 

We just made it into the top 100 games on Steam Greenlight. It took less than 3 days - you guys are awesome, thank you all!

Let's see how far we can keep climbing.