Today's update contains more bug fixes and improvements based on your feedback in these areas:
User experience, player agency
Added an icon to choices that loop back, to inform players which choices move the story forward
Character creation
Improved Blocks attributes and Blocks resistance tooltips
Fixed +/- link highlighting not disappearing on hover off
Fixed mismatched attributes effect on beauty/menace
Fixed preset traits highlighted icons mismatch
Combat
Berserk eliminates fear, thus your attacks have a higher chance to hit
Radical Attack has an NPC dice roll step, so even pulling it off does not guarantee an instant win opportunity
Morl, when not enraged, does not kill you in the duel:
when you run out of hit points, but you fought well and managed to win his respect, Morl only knocks you out
when player uses the flee option, Morl only shouts insults
BUT if Morl is enraged he will use deadly force in both situations
Wear Out tactic made more accessible
Your character's Close call and Effortless defense now both grant +1 MP
Your character's Critical miss no longer causes -1 MP, just a penalty to anger/fear
Tutorials
Separate combat attack, defense, enemy turn start, player turn start texts
Hard and soft checks click on choice improvements
Fixes
Fixed typos and Raven/Luan mixups
And this is what we're planning for the next update (there will be a testing build made available, in our #feedback channel on the Discord server next week):
Limit allocation of points to once per chapter
so the story flow is not interrupted by the temptation to re-allocate the points yet again for yet another dice roll
but you never feel like you made a mistake and can’t get your points back
+ allow to remove wealth upgrades on a story step with choices costing wealth, so you never feel like you can’t allocate your wealth points out of fear of a choice coming up that costs more than you left un-allocated
Hide choice effects values
you know the choice affects a stat, but you have to read the choice text to know which way
so that you both rely on role-playing and not clicking choices based on stat effects only
But at the same time don’t feel like a choice had an unexpected effect
Other changes
Fix bugs around Ironman unlocking and checkpoints when reaching the game’s end
Story: several fixes when skipping dialogues, abandoning characters
UI and game mechanics fixes around NPC characters death
And of course work will continue on writing and editing the scenes for Act 2.
Let us know what you think of this patch, and what's coming up next! Drop your thoughts on the Steam forums, or join the community on Discord!
It's been only one month of Early Access, but thanks to everyone who took the time to leave feedback, the game is already at 92% positive reviews. Thank you for helping us get here!
We set out to create something new and meaningful, so we're super happy about how many of you say they've never played a role-playing game like this before, and how tense and immersive the experience is.
That's why we'd like to invite you to vote for Sacred Fire in the Innovative Gameplay category for the 2021 Steam Awards!
The game is currently also 15% off during the Steam Autumn Sale! If you haven't picked it up yet, now's the time.
Sacred Fire Update: Multiple Save Slots, Shorter Tutorials, And More!
Hi everyone!
Thank you for all the feedback and support, it’s truly appreciated and helps us make the game better.
Sacred Fire's Early Access Journey
After careful evaluation, we decided to prioritize finalizing the story. While the character art is also important (and we’ll address some issues along the way), having the story finalized first will leave us more time to test and implement feedback. Sacred Fire's second and third acts will be released as free major updates. Act II is coming in Q1 2022, and Act III in Q2 of the same year.
With the story completed in Q2 2022, our focus will shift to finalizing the art (customization variety, poses, expressions and enemy variety), and localizing (translating) the game into more languages. During Early Access, Sacred Fire will only be available to play in English, but at full release it will have the following languages:
Slovak
German
Russian
French
Spanish
Chinese
Czech & Slovak Games Week!
We're also very excited to be a part of the Czech & Slovak Games Week! You may be surprised how many well received games come from this small corner of the world - open world RPGs like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but also hits like Machinarium or Factorio.
Take a look at the event page! There's a wide variety of amazing games there with deep discounts, so there's something for everyone.
Update: Tutorials and Save Slots
First, we've addressed the number #1 request that will enable you to enjoy more time in the game - we’ve added save slots. This allows you to play multiple different characters and builds without having to say goodbye to your previous protagonist. You can also experiment with certain story choices more freely, without feeling like you've 'messed up' your story.
Second, we've reduced the amount of tutorial pop-ups. Some players felt like there was a bit of an information overload at the start, so we've fine tuned them a bit. We feel like the tutorial is still clear enough to get you started, without being too handhold-ey. Let us know what you think!
And finally, we made some improvements to the flow of the story, and fixed a few bugs (most of them identified and reported by you guys, our community!)
If you were struggling with the amount of tutorial pop-ups before, make sure you give this new update a try! The same goes if you wanted to try some different story choices without losing your main save. Let us know what you think on the Steam forums, or join the community on Discord (and earn the official ‘Bug Hunter’ role)!
thank you for your patience and support. Based on your feedback the first update adding options to customize the game difficulty and the way dice rolls work is now live.
Those who liked the original experience do not have to worry, the default 'normal' difficulty is the original experience with no changes whatsoever.
Those who expressed desire to customize their experience have now these options:
Easy difficulty
Gives you a bonus in all dice rolls
Restores all of your HP and MP when you start a new chapter
Emotion extremes do not drain control
Control recharges motivation faster
Hard difficulty
Increases the challenge in all dice rolls
Control recharges motivation at a slower pace
Apart from these 3 difficulty settings, we're also introducing additional options for customizing the difficulty of your Sacred Fire experience when creating a game on any difficulty, you can:
enable step back: enables a BACK button that allows you to undo your last step in the story
enable the weighted dice option to remove bad luck streaks
enable Ironman mode where no check-points are getting created: Can you cheat death?
Ironman mode can be unlocked upon completing the game on Hard difficulty without a weighted dice and without the step back option. Of course when playing Ironman mode the step back is disabled.
Apart from that these are the changes made to the game to accommodate your feedback and make the game better:
Improvements:
a scene where you can regain hp/mp after the duel with the centurion has been added
the ants biting you (scripted hp loss) can be avoided
you can turn on subtitles for the intro cut-scene
refined Mindset tab Idea boosting tutorial
Fixes:
the Mindset and Renown pts exploit bug
the MP recharge exploit bug
Risk Chain bonus now shows up correctly in the Dice Roll Result UI tooltip
Renown tab tooltip lists now all effects
Chapter progress now doesn't pop-up after game reload
many minor bug-fixes
Join us on Discord and let us know what you think of these changes!
WHAT'S NEXT In the next update I'll focus on adding support for multiple characters and fixing any bugs around saving and loading the game. Thank you for your patience.
Added: - Easy difficulty - Normal difficulty (100% original experience) - Hard difficulty + options: - enable step back - enable the weighted dice - enable Ironman mode
Improvements: - a scene where you can regain hp/mp after the duel with the centurion has been added - the ants biting you (scripted hp loss) can be avoided - you can turn on subtitles for the intro cut-scene - refined Mindset tab Idea boosting tutorial
Fixes: - the Mindset and Renown pts exploit bug - the MP recharge exploit bug - Risk Chain bonus now shows up correctly in the Dice Roll Result UI tooltip - Renown tab tooltip lists now all effects - Chapter progress now doesn't pop-up after game reload + many minor bug-fixes
Sacred Fire - Upcoming Difficulty Settings
Hello everyone!
We're very glad that many of you have been enjoying your time with the first act of Sacred Fire. We set out to create a very immersive story that was fun to role-play your way through, and for the most part, it seems like we have succeeded.
Of course, we entered Early Access to gather feedback from you, the community, and we're glad to have gotten it. Some of you have expressed that the randomness when making checks can be a little punishing at times.
Fans of TTRPG, where randomness can be harsh at times, but also creates interesting, emergent narratives, do not have to worry, that remains the default experience.
That said, we don't want to impede anyone from enjoying the story just out of frustration at randomness, which is why we are currently working on 3 difficulty settings.
Easy difficulty
Gives you a bonus to all checks
Restores all of your HP and MP when you start a new chapter
Emotion extremes do not drain control
Bad luck streaks are prevented through weighted dice
Control recharges motivation faster
It’s important for us to not waste the time of our players, and we know that mis-clicks happen, so instead of forcing you to replay a chapter, when creating a game in EASY mode you can optionally choose to enable a BACK button that will allow you to undo your last step in the story.
Normal difficulty
The game in its current state will reflect normal difficulty, with one change
You will regain +1 HP and MP per character level when you start a new chapter
Hard difficulty
Increases the challenge in all dice rolls
HP and MP only restore during story rest moments
Control recharges motivation at a slower pace
Apart from these 3 difficulty settings, we're also introducing additional options for customizing the difficulty of your Sacred Fire experience when creating a game on any difficulty, you can:
enable the weighted dice option to remove bad luck streaks
enable Ironman mode where no check-points are getting created: Can you cheat death?
Ironman mode can be unlocked upon completing the game on Hard difficulty. Of course when playing Ironman mode on Easy difficulty the step back is disabled.
Let us know what you think of these upcoming changes! Join us on Discord to be notified the moment we push the update!
Join us as we have Sacred Fire lead developer Andrej Vojtas on to talk all about his psychological role-playing game.
The talk touches on the setting of ancient Caledonia, important inspirations for the story, and what makes role-playing in Sacred Fire different from other RPGs.
Tune in! And check out the demo as well while you're at it.
Join us as we have Sacred Fire lead developer Andrej Vojtas on to talk all about his psychological role-playing game.
The talk touches on the setting of ancient Caledonia, important inspirations for the story, and what makes role-playing in Sacred Fire different from other RPGs.
Tune in! And check out the demo as well while you're at it.
It has been a long time coming, but we are thrilled to announce that Sacred Fire is now available in Early Access! The journey is of course far from over, but we are so happy to have reached this milestone.
We set out not just to create a game, but an immersive story that you truly play. This Early Access release, containing the first act of the story, should already give you the deep, immersive experience we aimed to build.
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Here is what you can expect from Sacred Fire in its current state:
Act 1 of a highly branching, immersive narrative.
Every choice counts, making the story highly replayable as you uncover all the different outcomes.
Real role-playing reminiscent of TTRPGs. Consider your character's emotional state when making decisions.
A cast of intriguing and living characters, each with their own wants, needs, and ambitions.
A beautiful soundtrack that takes you on a journey to ancient Caledonia.
If that sounds like something you would enjoy, please don't hesitate to pick up Sacred Fire on Steam for $17.99, with a 10% launch discount! If you want to dip your toes in the water first, the demo is also still available.
Sacred Fire Early Access Release Date + Demo Update!
Greetings everyone!
We’ve got some very exciting news to share with all of you:
First, we’re thrilled to announce that Sacred Fire is entering Early Access on October 19th!
[previewyoutube="n7dPCp3AtnE;full"]
The initial Early Access release will contain the first act of the game, with the other two being added in major releases later down the line.
We aim to involve you, the community, directly in the further development of Sacred Fire, so make sure to join our discord or visit the Steam forums.
Note: Early Access will be in English only, and localization will begin once the story is finished.
Demo Update
Second, please take the time to check out the new demo update! It should feel like a new experience, one where you worry less and enjoy and immerse yourself into the scenes more.
Based on your feedback, we overhauled the way story steps carry bonuses and penalties, putting you, the player, in control:
You know what’s coming (‘Formative Moments’): Major changes, affecting important attributes, happen on rare clearly marked story steps and come with a warning in the UI:
You know what penalties choices in these formative moments trigger
Most penalties can be resisted
Discovering choices defining your backstory can get you rare bonuses to physical attributes
You know how to fix everything: Minor penalties can be fixed by using motivation to zero out emotions, or simply by collecting positive relationship experience, wealth and renown. All of these behave in an easily predictable manner.
Major penalties can be fixed by collecting and using upgrade points to upgrade Items, Ideas, Titles, and Insights.
Ideas can flip to positive statements
Insights can now be used to spread rumors and gain renown
Upgrade items easily with a new UI layout
The important result is, you can now freely explore the story and know there is no big penalty catching you by surprise. If something BIG is going to happen, it’ll be marked. The upgrade points and their sum, the Influence, also allow you to track how well you are playing.
Additional Changes Character screen rework
Flashing ‘+’ sign for available upgrades
Switch 4 main tabs order (no name clicking)
Refined 4x3 layout for Traits, Ideas, and Titles
New dark background for better readability
Upgrade points at the bottom screen position
NPC Screen: UI and tooltips better explaining the 3 layers of relationship
Surface: the sentiment based on positive and negative experiences
The deep: blocks and goodwill, the beasts hidden below the surface
Abstract: the layer based on upgraded Ideas and Insights, the power of your compassion and reasoning vs. emotions
Floating Texts Change
All can be clicked taking you to the corresponding screen
Their tooltips explain also the automatic check failure effect
As always, if you want to let us know your thoughts, please visit the Steam forums or join us on Discord!
