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[Nomad Hermit]

Hello, y'all!

We created this little game during the 7DRL Game Jam, and we're to continue its development further on.

Of Mists And Shadows is a game about making magic by actually writing the magical words with the right syntax.

The general idea is that the players start with one school available and some words, and then learn new words as he progresses through the dungeon (like items in typical roguelikes). They will be buzzwords like "uzzok" and "prec," but after studied by the character (in-game action), they will reveal the meaning. The player starts with a book in inventory detailing the grammar of the school they have and all the magic words. You see, you have words for things like Target (self, area, etc), Elements (fire, water, negative, etc), Schools (Evocation, Conjuration, etc - though for the 7drl I only managed to implement one school, evocation), and so on, and so on.



Then the player on his turn can write an incantation, hit enter, and see the results. Like, if it's Evocation Fire Front it would evoke a jet of fire in the "front" direction. If it is Evocation Negative Front Distance Distance Explosion it will evoke a jet of negative energy in the front direction that goes on for two extra tiles and then explodes.



The game is being updated, and the jam version is playable on this link.

The core mechanic is in place: you can make magic, learn new words, move around, kill some monsters, defeat the boss and win. Or die and lose.

But we want to add more things, make the world more interesting to explore, add survival mechanics, and more magic schools for the player to play with. Right now there is only a dungeon the player can explore and monsters to kill, but we want to make a more organic world, in which not everything is an enemy, and the magic word value is not defined by its usefulness in combat. So there will be a lot of room to expand.

The world is the Plane of Shadows, a place full of mists and sorrow. It is a plane of existence in which nasty things lurk around and every step is a step into the unknown. You are a foreigner to this plane, displaced from your original place, far away from home, and trying to survive using just your magic.

I hope you like the concept and the gameplay. I would love to receive feedback on it.

[Mythrix]

Hi! Cool concept.

You'll want to be very creative with your choice of combinations to stand out, and definitely need to have an easier way to put the spells together than typing!

It reminds me a lot of Runers: https://store.steampowered.com/app/306550/Runers/.

You might find that game interesting as an inspiration for where to take it.

Good luck with the project!

[Thaumaturge]

This seems like a neat concept--I quite like it!

(And conversely to the poster above, I quite like the idea of having to type out my spell-words--but then I'm also one of those who actually liked drawing runes in Arx Fatalis!)

If I may ask, does your game generate spells procedurally, or does it match against a list of hand-designed spells in the background?

[Nomad Hermit]

You'll want to be very creative with your choice of combinations to stand out, and definitely need to have an easier way to put the spells together than typing!

Right now we the player can press the "up" arrow to get the last spell used, so he won't need to type the same spell over and over again. One thing that is on the roadmap to bee added is a way for the player to just click the words on the grimoire and they would be added to the input field, so the player could just click the words and then hit Enter.

It reminds me a lot of Runers: https://store.steampowered.com/app/306550/Runers/.

You might find that game interesting as an inspiration for where to take it.

I'll take a look! Thanks!

If I may ask, does your game generate spells procedurally, or does it match against a list of hand-designed spells in the background?

It is procedurally. It works a bit like a programming language, with a parser reading the command and calculating the output. For now, on this jam version, we still don't have things like conditionals or loops, but I want to add it later. Add a lot of complexity so the spellcasting can be very flexible and do almost anything. That's also why I want to steer a bit from pure combat, so utility spells can be a thing.

Thank you both very much for the feedback!!

[Thaumaturge]

It is procedurally. It works a bit like a programming language, with a parser reading the command and calculating the output. For now, on this jam version, we still don't have things like conditionals or loops, but I want to add it later.

That sounds pretty cool; I'm interested to see just how flexible and expansive it becomes! ^_^

[Nomad Hermit]

We have a new update!

On this quick update, I added a way for the players to "type" the spells by actually clicking on the arcane words on the grimoire instead of actually typing them with the keyboard. Also, you can now load the last spells cast by using the "up" arrow on the keyboard.

And we also added a Mac build for our game!

[Thaumaturge]

Those sound like useful accessibility features. ^_^