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[Dinomaniak]

     Hello Everyone !
  I'd like to share our project with you, the wonderful community at TigSource !

  This is a project we've already placed a big part of our hearts into, and we want this to be something you'd love playing.


(click for the full size image)

Our upcoming RPG is a place for everyone, a vast world in a fantasy universe.
In the game, you can own one or more establishments of your choice, and upgrade these to better fit your customers, while advancing at your own pace.

Play your way :



We want The Mages Club to be a game where you have the freedom to approach the world in many different ways.
If you'd like to build a tavern, talk to your customers, learn spells, solve riddles and hear jokes, and make it a profitable business, you can do so   .
However, if that isn't your choice, you could sell the establishment, move to a new city and start anew. Perhaps gathering herbs and becoming a potion master would be more to your liking, or you would choose one of the many other options the game has in store.

A little more...




We'd like to fill the game with beautiful little details that give life and at the same time have a role to play. As an example, if you are in a hurry and don't want to travel to the merchant's store for groceries, you can send your trusty owl to order your purchases, and these should be delivered in no time.



Technical details :
The art direction is aimed at giving a nostalgic feeling, while meeting something new. For game engine, we're trusting Unity. The game is targeted mainly for PC players, however, we will consider expanding to other markets.

As far as plans for release go, we'd like to go early into testing, and help polish the game design based on user feedback. This means that a large part of the game will be free for you to test and play, and purchase the full version if you believe it's worth it.

About us :
We're all dedicated gamers with a strong drive and passion for what we do, and with a long history in game development, moving  from creating web games and outsourcing for companies into creating our own games.
We hope you'll enjoy this game at least as much as we do creating it , and that would be a lot.

Thank you for reading this far !



join us on discord : https://discord.gg/xJjuaBj

newsletter : http://www.themagesclub.com

facebook : https://www.facebook.com/The-Mages-Club-102740524787584/

[Caravaggio]

The art is very cute.  What you've mentioned kind of makes me think of Fable 2 with the property buying mechanic.  Is it kind of like that or more of a Stardew Valley type of game?  I'm curious was the end goal / win state is since you didn't mention having to kill an evil wizard or something.

[Will Escher]

Interesting. And there is a cat!
Will there be combat? Turn-based or real-time?

[Lares Yamoir]

The graphics look great
But I have to admit I'm a bit skeptical concerning the scope of the game. Sounds like you are trying to make multiple games at ones, given the detail you want to put in per job. But go for it, sounds interesting. In cases like these I like to be proven wrong :D

[Dinomaniak]

The art is very cute.  What you've mentioned kind of makes me think of Fable 2 with the property buying mechanic.  Is it kind of like that or more of a Stardew Valley type of game?  I'm curious was the end goal / win state is since you didn't mention having to kill an evil wizard or something.

Many thanks !
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Fable's property purchasing mechanic. Could you share a bit more about it please ?

Our intention is to allow the player to purchase just one house per city, and possibly limit the amount of houses the player can own.
The game has elements from games like Stardew Valley, in the sense that you can have a garden and farm, however these are treated very differently as you can cast spells on your crops to have them grow faster ( cast the spell wrong, and beware of monster cabbage ! ) .

Regarding the end goals, we're quite far from that. We do have a few concepts in mind, however we'd like to focus on gameplay first, to make sure it feels great.

Interesting. And there is a cat!
Will there be combat? Turn-based or real-time?

Yes ! there will be a lot of combat, and it will be in real time. I have to warn that it will not be available in the first few alpha versions we'll release -= mostly because we want it to be really good, not rushed =- but we'll do our best to place it in the game as early as we can.

Also, that cat might not really be a cat

The graphics look great
But I have to admit I'm a bit skeptical concerning the scope of the game. Sounds like you are trying to make multiple games at ones, given the detail you want to put in per job. But go for it, sounds interesting. In cases like these I like to be proven wrong :D

Thank you so much !
Indeed ! Initially our scope was smaller, however, seeing how our small team managed to progress during the past three months, I'm highly optimistic. There are so many things we can't wait to announce and show, but all in good time

[Caravaggio]

In F2 basically you'd save up, buy a place, and get a bonus for it.  It might just be money back over time if you rented it or a stat boost.  I think you might have had to stay there to get the boost or something, it's been a while...

https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Real_Estate

[Dinomaniak]

Let's talk about the characters look and concept ! the way our characters look was a very long process in deliverance. To the present day, the style for our characters is in it's 6th and final major iteration.



After deciding upon the game's initial design, the experience of the player had to be our main concern, and the first step in that direction was the graphical side. I often imagine a (similar) feeling I would like the players to gain while playing, and proceed to understand how we could create this feeling in their minds and hearts.



The feeling.

When I was young, my family would purchase a chocolate shaped egg with a toy surprise inside (Kinder Surprise). The surprise toys found  inside were all different, however the ones everyone looked for, were the ones that came in one piece and were the cutest thing imaginable. These would provide endless hours of joy.



THIS was the feeling I was looking for. It was similar to the feeling I wanted our characters to create, in the first second, through their look.

This also needs to apply on their personality as well. Their underlying purpose is to give you a good feeling.
Thus, even the malefic characters in our game, will still love and worry about their cats .



The concepts
Behind our characters, I wanted to add a certain nature, mentality or disposition, individual to each character. This means that almost every character you will be able to interact with is likely to have something to share, if they seem to like you.



There's so much more to talk about, the purpose, the mechanics of interaction, but this story is long enough .
If you enjoyed the read, let me know, or we might need to switch to shorter devlogs with more images and more on the technical side.

[Ramos]

That is some cute & attractive character art

Looking forward to seeing more animated gifs

[marcAKAmarc]

Super cute!

Love the surprise/delight on this guy's face.

Good read - I'd love to hear more about the mechanics behind the game and what mechanics are shared between the barkeep path and the potion master path.

[Dinomaniak]

In F2 basically you'd save up, buy a place, and get a bonus for it....

I see. Thanks for the info ! in our case it'll work quite differently.
The way we pictured it was, if you had a large house, you could create something in each of the rooms. A tavern in one, a kitchen in another, a potions laboratory in the back and a store in front, or any way you want it to be .

That is some cute & attractive character art

Many Thanks ! ^^ the 6 iterations to reach where we are regarding the characters, took a few months of exploration.

Love the surprise/delight on this guy's face.
Good read - I'd love to hear more about the mechanics behind the game and what mechanics are shared between the barkeep path and the potion master path.

Thanks ! I think it took me 2 hours of iterating on the animations, went back and forth, but just looking at him makes us happy :D .
We're planning for each of the characters to have one or more unique animations on their favorite things !

Understood ! There are actually a lot more paths than just the tavern keeper and potion master. I'll be certain to write a lot more about this topic in a later update, as it's a main part of the game .

[Dinomaniak]

After some consideration, I thought I would create smaller, yet more often updates that contain visuals that would help convey our ideas regarding certain areas.

This past week, we created the old witch character -= while reading discworld =- I'd like to share . You can find her at times in the potions store, or if you are the Potions Master, she'll be an often found customer. Bubbling Cauldrons are her biggest passion   .



We had had a long conversation (and a lot of fun) about how to emphasize the little bubble on her nose

[Dinomaniak]

So much has happened, and we've been updating the discord on a weekly basis, but not the tigsource. It's time for a comeback !

A few weeks back we posted an announcement for someone to be kind enough and help us with the audio side of things. Due to the large amount of wonderful audiomancers that have offered to join us, we thought we'd give something back 
Let the bards join in !

[Dinomaniak]

One of the establishments in the game is the Kitchen :



this is where you can prepare all types of dishes for you and for the patrons in the tavern.



Most of the resources for cooking can be grown in the garden, purchased from a local merchant, ordered via the owl menu ( however these will cost more ), or scavenged around the world.

[Dinomaniak]

Each establishment in the game will contain devices with their own purposes. Some of these may be very specific, and most will have animations and interactions.
This is the broom enchanter :



This belongs to the potions store, which during development we've changed to being pretty much a room dedicated to witches .

[Dinomaniak]