What is a Earth Mage like in the new Archmage Rises Combat?
Controlling, Dehabilitating.

Position, proximity, and angles matter in Archmage’s new combat, and this is especially true for a skilled Earth Mage.

As the ultimate battlefield tactician, Earth Mages use their control of earth and stone to keep their enemies off balance and knocking them around.

The more unbalance enemies become the more damage they take as they are moved.

Additional acid-themed spells such as acid blast and acid wash, corrode an enemy’s defenses reducing their resistance to both earth and physical damage.

This corrosion also makes earth magic highly prized among our battle style mages, looking to provide their blades with more susceptible targets.

Here are a few of the spells you'll be able to learn as an Earth Mage:

• Tremor: Jolt your foes with a sharp shudder of the ground beneath their feet.
  
• Stone Spike: Call up a spire of stone to break your foes and send them reeling in pain.
  
• Acid Blast: Scorch the field of battle with a cataract of caustic acid.
  
• Acid Wash: Shower your foes with the searing exhalations of the heavens.
  
• Seismic Shift: Fling your foes toward the field’s center with a swift upheaval of the earth.
  
• Exposure: Erode your foes' footing and expose them to the perils of storm and earth.
  
• Earth’s Grasp: Shatter your enemy’s concentration and drag them one step closer.

We'll have even more details diving deeper into the magic of an Earth Mage as we get closer to release.

What do you most want to see in the new school of earth magic? Let us know in the comments!

Next week we release NEW combat. Something we’ve put a ton of effort into and hope you enjoy!

Here is an internal WIP video one of the programmers shared to show certain things working. It excited me to see how far we’ve come, so I’m sharing it with you too. Don’t take it as promises of any particular feature, just that it is better combat.

• Last week, we did a full audit test of the game to see how broken it is. I expected 99 bugs but it was only 36. We’ve already managed to fix many of them. We’re performing another full test today to see how shippable it is.
  
• One of the reasons we couldn’t ship until Jan is we have to do three passes on all the spell schools. We’re just finishing our second design pass today, then embarking on pass three. This is when the numbers and timing really get tuned for each spell. So far, on schedule!

There is a new spell progression system. Here is a WIP example of how we’re really trying to celebrate the level up.




I’ve been asked several times “Will my progress be saved across versions during Early Access?”

My answer is “Yes. As best we can, it is a priority.”

Here is a line directly from our feature documentation

We need to preserve progress. Players can’t be told to just restart. They have to choose (opt in) to restart.

This is one of those times where we’re doing our best to preserve your progress, given massive massive changes to the underlying structure of the game.

1. All the spells are new, even if they have the same name. We will be refunding all spell XP so you can rebuy your spells.
   
2. The spell progression system is totally different with new buffs/rewards for hitting new ranks in a school. Spell XP will be refunded.
   
3. With a new system comes new XP costs, there just isn’t an easy way to map them. So you may have had 7 ranks in Fire before but now only have 2 ranks. But those 2 ranks are more powerful than the old 7.
   
4. Equipment (weapons, armor, etc.) have also changed drastically and function differently. We will refund the gold value of all equipment so you can buy new equipment.
   
5. Given the above, that means you will be naked and unequipped in the world… if your save file was in a dungeon and just about to go into battle, that’s real sucky. So we’re going to transport you to A) Your tower. OR, if you don’t have one, the starter town. Sorry if that isn’t ideal for you, it’s the safest thing we can do that works for everyone’s situation.
   
6. The new enemy race of Crocodons won’t appear in any previously generated worlds or save files. To experience them, you have to generate a NEW world.

We’re making best efforts here. I’m putting a programmer on this task today and it will take several days to pull this off. But if that isn’t sufficient for you, we will keep a Previous Build Branch on Steam. (Let’s call it “Archmage Classic” 😝 OK, lousy WoW joke.) So you can decide when you want to play the new version.

To be super ultra clear on this point: We are publishing the new version of the game to the default Steam branch, meaning everyone will get it. You have to opt into the ‘classic’ branch so as to retain the current version.

After saying alllllll that, the new version is best experienced in a new world and new game because the changes start right from character creation.


If the above wasn’t enough, Nolan is still cackling madly to himself as he works on an improved version of NPC dialogue. NPCs will be more aware of you, things you’ve done, and previous conversations. Things like this:

"Welcome, welcome." Bertram Bottom is complacently washing a bucket half-full of tankards and plates. He glances up in annoyance. "Brave of you to carry a dagger as your primary weapon. Most people see it as a last resort."

This is part of the new Dynamic Quest system, but will be coming before it is released in Update #3 Exploration.

This week is a very minor patch. We've reverted the changes we made to showing opponents dice rolls, so it's back to normal.

Powerful and Furious.

Fire Mage gameplay is a fury of escalating risk that can pay off with the rewards of near-limitless fire power (pun intended).

As a Fire Mage, you become more deadly through a stacking buff system called Embers which you gain after casting certain fire spells. Each Embers buff increases the strength of your fire magic, making each attack much stronger.

Embers, while very powerful, also come with a cost: the heat from those embers deals minor fire damage yourself between combat rounds. While trivial to start, the escalating heat damage from the stacking layers of Embers can quickly out of hand, leading to some interesting gameplay choices.

Luckily, Fire Mages can also mitigate this growing risk by casting certain powerful spells, such as Pyre and Emberstorm, which consume embers to deal a large chunk of damage all at once.

Choosing when to increase your growing power further or cashing out in a blaze of glory separates aspiring fire mages from true flame masters. But be careful, because those who play with fire also tend to get burned.

Here are a few of the upcoming fire spells you will be able to learn as a fire mage:

• Singe - Loose a swift gout of flame upon your adversary.
  
• Inferno - Blaze a path of smoldering ruin through the foe.
  
• Fireball - Call up a raging mass of flame and hurl it upon your enemy.
  
• Pyre - Immolate your enemy beneath a heap of burning coals.
  
• Emberstorm - Scatter the flaming remnants of your wrath across the battlefield.
  
• Flame Shield - Wreath yourself in flames that lash out at your attackers of their own accord.
  
• Fire Charge - Stoke your battle-fury until your very touch engulfs your weapons in fire.
  
• Scorch - Blast the battlefield with the searing heat of your anger.

We'll have even more details diving deeper into the magic of an Fire Mage as we get closer to release.

What do you most want to see in the new school of fire magic? Let us know in the comments!

We’re back for a fresh new year of magic, mayhem, and machinations in Archmage Rises. The team enjoyed the week break and we’re back at it to finish combat Jan 19.


WIP: The health bars are broken, but its starting to come together!

It really is all hands on deck this week to get combat out: James, Jessie, Josh, Jonathan, Michel, Mark, Nolan, Phil, Tyler, Zach, and myself.

• Last year, we hit an internal milestone Dec 22 of All Features Working. This isn’t every spell or monster, but every type of spell and monster and required features working. We did this to set a good foundation for when we return in the new year to not have to worry about features but instead tuning and balance.
  
• Combat includes a ton of new systems and spells. We are testing the entire game with a full battery of Test Cases NOW to see what broke in surgically removing one combat and putting in a new one. This is the earliest we’ve done this in a dev cycle. We’re trying to make quality a priority and do better this time. I’m expecting to find at least 99 broken things we need to fix.
  
• Added in the wolf racial ability to “Howl” which brings in more wolves to the fight.
  
• Spells for Arcane and Fire schools are being finalized with names, descriptions, and icons. We’ll share details on those schools soon.

That’s pretty much all there is to say: everyone working on combat.


So what does a game dev do during a holiday to unwind? Buy games on Steam and play em of course!

Sometimes fans recommend certain games as inspiration for Archmage. I was able to pick up a couple of these including Shadows of Doubt, Pentiment, and Outer Wilds.

I played some Shadows of Forbidden Gods to see how the political actions and city network work.


TW: WH2 is like a warm cozy blanket to chill with.

But then I found myself falling in love all over again with Total War: Warhammer II. I have loved TW games since I first played Shogun. I spent too much of my time off “just one more turn!” conquering Old World with the Dwarves!

(I have a secret life goal to complete a campaign with every race. Please don’t tell my wife!)

• Fixed bug where gold collected in dungeons was not being added to your total gold count

• Improved the way NPCs select quests to request of the player
  
• Now opponents dice are visible when gambling (player requested)

This is the last update of 2023. Thanks for adventuring with us. It has been an adventure!


What a year! From getting a demo (sorta) ready for Next Fest in Feb, to Splattercat becoming a fan and posting some great videos, to launching into Early Access in April, to two major content updates across the summer. The game has grown. So has our following. We started the year with < 5,000 wishlists and now have 37,316. We’re near the top of Steam in a couple of metrics that matter to us:

• Top 15% lifetime units sold
  
• Top 13% in positive reviews
  
• Top 9% lifetime gross revenue

This all says to me: I’m not the only one who wants a real open world mage simulator!




It's all hands on deck on combat! We have an internal milestone to hit this Friday in order to keep Jan 19 on schedule. Lots of systems are coming online:

• Items, weapons, and armor
  
• Spell XP gains and progression system
  
• Monster AI to pick optimal battlefield locations and avoid harmful things like fire
  
• Storm school spells and debuffs

In a recent discussion about the Rivals feature, people raised how ‘dumb’ the rivals are with not recognizing the player or speaking to you appropriately. We have all the data, we just need to connect it up. Given that there isn’t a lot of narrative work to do on Combat, Nolan took a stab at utilizing the new Dynamic Quest tech to solve this problem. And it’s working! He’s able to get far more sophisticated greeting for each relationship level and how long it's been since your last visit (very long time, long, medium, recent, very, recent, moments ago, and first visit ever).

Having NPCs recognize you, react to you, and talk to you based on relationship will come just after Combat ships Jan 19. Getting this working and out will really help get Dynamic Quests out in Update #3 Exploration.


I want to bring your attention to an important shift in the game design. Until recently, I’ve had the design objective to make each spell functional in combat AND the world. While it sounds cool, there are serious ramifications to doing this and I see now we need to pivot away from it. You can read more on why and what this means in this post:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/506480/discussions/0/4030222834124307825/



Die Hard is a Christmas Movie. Just like Elf.

The office will be closed next week and hopefully none of us working so as to enjoy Christmas with our families. This means we won’t be answering forum posts or Discord until the following week. Lots of new people are buying the game each day, so it would really help us if some of you veteran adventurers can help out the new ones in our absence.

We appreciate you all! See you in the new year with some new combat!

• Fixed a bug related to quest givers that could potential prevent save games from loading (thanks to Ashpeef for the bug report)

• Added option to disable rivals when creating a new game (requested by TakeMyLunch)
  
• Improved text highlighting during NPC dialogue to recognize more opportunities to highlight keywords

As we get closer to the release of the Combat Update we'll be sharing some info about each school of magic. Today we wanted to talk about the School of Ice Magic:



Cold, Hard, Calculating.

The core gameplay behind our Ice Mage is mastery through controlling adversaries, primarily through target prioritization and measured spellcasting.

Most ice-based spells, in addition to dealing ice damage, apply a stacking debuff called Chilled. This debuff builds up on an enemy, eventually Freezing them in place.

Once Frozen,

• Enemies become locked down; they can’t move or attack for a turn or two.
  
• The next Physical Attack shatters the frozen effect and deals excessive extra damage.

The allows players to pull off devastating hits on frozen enemies by mixing in weapon attacks like a Battle Mage...

Or cleverly leveraging a spell that deals physical damage, such as our re-imagined Ice Lance.

We're knee deep in snow testing and tuning this school's spells. Just yesterday some changed some single to multi-target. What about targeting one enemy but adding debuffs to neighbors? It's changing every day as we find the sweet spot. Sweet, like maple syrup on freshly fallen snow. Try it, it's delicious!

As of today, here are some of the confirmed spells you'll be able to learn:

• Frost Bolt: Fling a frigid bolt of pure winter at the enemy.
  
• Ice Lance: Pierce your frozen foe with a mighty shard of ice.
  
• Sleet: Drive your foes before you with a relentless onslaught of sleet.
  
• Frostburn: Smother your adversaries beneath a deadly shroud of frost.

We'll have even more details diving deeper into the magic of an Ice Mage as we get closer to release.

What do you most want to see in the new school of ice magic? Let us know in the comments!

PS: If you haven't yet, we'd love for you to vote for us for the Indie Game of the Year Award! You can cast your vote here: https://www.indiedb.com/games/archmage-rises

As we mentioned in our last dev updates post, we're really excited (and very honored) to have been chosen as one of IndieDB's Top 100 Indie Games of 2023, and we really couldn't have done it without all of you, so a huge thanks and congratulations to all of you!

Let's see if we can swing this momentum far enough to nab the Indie Game of the Year award for 2023! We'd love your help to make that happen, all you have to do is take a few seconds of your time to jump over to the link below and cast your vote for Archmage Rises!

https://www.indiedb.com/games/archmage-rises



Thanks again, and we'll have another post coming later today to dive a little deeper into our upcoming Combat Update!