The Necromancer’s Tale demo has had over 1500 playtesters over the past 12 months, providing lots of analytics and around 150 in-depth responses via questionnaire. We have learned what players most love about the game (the detailed world, well developed characters, and overall interactivity)- which directly led to several features being added during 2023 (e.g. wearable clothes, voice acting, and further responsiveness in the world such as a playable piano and an interactable cat).
That’s right. It’s a gif of a cat. It’s about to hiss at you and run off.
We have also learned that players hope that the final game will offer a range of summonable creatures and various other necromantic battle-magic spells (in addition to the ritual magic will has always formed the core of the game). The one area that players felt a bit bland was combat.
Some powerful creatures you can enslave, and then summon to help you in battle.
The latest demo shows off our improved combat system, adding Mana, Battle Magic Spells, and Activity points carry-over. We have also made a more friendly in-game tips system during combat and generally improved the combat UX.
Mana: this is the game’s 10th skill, adding arcane ability to the physical, social, and mental emphasis of the existing skills. Mana will be built up in various ways as you progress through the game, either directly or through the wielding of magical artefacts. Mana has become a core skill which is now needed in order to activate undead minions in battle, as well as to cast other spells.
Battle-magic spells: we have 10 battle spells planned in total, but for now the demo offers 3. Each spell costs Mana, Action Points, and (sometimes) drains your Energy.
“Activate Minion” is required in order to move a minion during the current combat round. Adding this requirement makes undead minions fundamentally different to your human allies in combat, adding a tactical dimension to their positioning and activation.
“Death Focus” allows you to commune with the Realm of the Dead and gain a temporary Mana boost. This is a useful spell when you’re in a tight spot, perhaps during a combat round in which the randomised winds of magic are blowing only weakly.
“Chilling Mist” is the first of two planned area-effect spells. This one invokes a magical mist which drains the action points of all mortal creatures in the affected area. It adds more tactical nuance to your control of the battle-field’s space.
From next Thursday (Dec 7th) the game is going into its second round of playtesting on the excellent [G.Round platform]. If you’re interested in being involved, for The Necromancer’s Tale or other games, please check them out!
Play the demo in the Steam ScreamFest
The Necromancer's Tale has been invited to be part of Steam's ScreamFest this Halloween! You can play our detailed demo (1.5 hrs+ content).
The demo contains four distinct parts:
Chapter 1 (From the Beginning) - Your character's backstory, early career and skills are chosen through an interactive fiction. This demo offers an abbreviated version of the interactive fiction (chapter 1), followed by a portion of 'Homecoming' (chapter 2) which deals with the events and intrigue after you arrive home for your father's funeral.
Chapter 2 (Homecoming) - This demo covers the second half of chapter 2: your initial exploration of the city, meeting old friends, and finding a job. You have gathered enough information to realise that your father's death and hurried cremation were suspicious, and that the family finances are in trouble. You will need to find a short-term job in the city and investigate recent events. We begin with you about to venture past your home gates for the first time...
Chapter 6 (Hospital) - This demo covers the first half of chapter 6. Using a ritual from an ancient spellbook you attempt to raise a dead body but collapse into a coma. You awaken in hospital beside Diedrik, your childhood friend who has been in hospital since he got caught up in a necromantic trap spell you had set to protect your house.
Combat Demo - A demo of the turn-based hexgrid combat system. Here you have some reanimated skeletons under your control in addition to your own character. Characters move in sequence based on their Agility skill.
Steam Deck Compatibility
The Demo version 0.89 update adds a bunch of things:
Steam Deck compatibility. The game works great on the Deck! Combat controls still need some work.
Added some additional minor NPCs to the demo.
Added additional graphics settings, hint options and other info.
Some people seem to be struggling in the first section after arriving home (the investigation bit), so now your old friend Sofia turns up to tag along and give a few hints if you seem to be stuck.
I made a breakthrough in terms of save-file backwards compatibility, so hopefully save files from this version forward (0.89) will stay compatible. I know this is important as the Steam analytics show that some people are playing the demo for several hours (which is great to see, by the way!)
Other development is going well. We have loads of exciting content going into the game at the moment :-)
Tiny Teams Festival
The Necromancer's Tale has been selected to participate in Yogscast's "Tiny Teams" Festival! The official stream will include the game next week (Wednesday 9th August, 9pm UTC/8pm BST), but meanwhile watch out for affiliated streamers picking us up!
We have added partial voice audio to the demo, covering the entire prologue and the early lines for the game's NPCs. The process of working with voice actors has been a lot of fun, and a lot of work too! We'd love to hear your thoughts on whether this is a good addition.
Other small changes include:
footsteps audio
functioning mirrors
a "speed up" slider for combat
a camera rotation speed option
Clothing and Animation Improvements
As you might know, we ran a substantial testing campaign on our demo over the last several months. Nearly 1000 people have tried the demo now, and we have received a lot of really useful feedback. Not just bugs, but also strong evidence of what people like about the game and what they want to see more of.
One of the most requested features was wearable clothes - so, when you find a leather coat and wear it, it should appear on the in-game character. This makes sense as something players would want, when you consider that the depth of the game world is one of the main features they love. This is roleplaying, after all...
We have just updated the Demo to include a bunch of improvement on the main character art. - Wearable clothes (with cloth physics) - Improved animations, including procedural movement so everything feels more fluid - Inverse kinematics on torches held in front of you.
Here's some quick footage showing this in-game. Naturally, there are wearable tricorn hats -- the 18th Century's most iconic fashion item. And yes, there is a royal ball in the game: it's at a major pivot point in the plot as the player's insanity is really starting to burn bright.
Analytics from ~500 play sessions
Analytics are something that's well worth putting the time into. We released a demo for The Necromancer's Tale a few weeks ago and here's a heatmap of around 500 play sessions. We can see where players went and where they spent most time. It turns out players went everywhere possible (and one place that should not have been possible!) and poked at everything.
We have also made quite a few bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements based on player feedback. So thank you all for that!
What I can't easily show as a visual, but which is probably more important than this location-based heatmap for game balancing, is a heatmap of the narrative/story data in the game. By recording the "critical path" through the story we can identify precisely where players tended to drop out.
The Necromancer's Tale -- Demo Available
A demo of The Necromancer's Tale is now available at last! This provides material from several places in the game:
Chapter 1 (Prologue) - the interactive fiction that covers the period 1701-1733 including the player's early life; your choices here define your initial skills and career.
Chapter 2 (Homecoming) - the start of the main game, where the player arrives home for their father's funeral and begins to meet old friends and explore the city of Marns.
Chapter 6 (Dominion of Phobos) - the first half of chapter 6 sees the player confined to the city hospital, having fallen into a coma while attempting to re-animate a skeleton.
Combat Demo - a demo of the turn-based combat system.
This is a demo so there may be bugs! We value your opinions while improving and completing the game.
The demo has an inbuilt feedback form for small ideas and bug reports; it also links to a longer feedback form for gathering your opinions.
We will keep this Demo updated and available for an extended period while continuing to work on the game. Think of it like a free Early Access!
Physical, Mental, Social: Systems in The Necromancer’s Tale.
In The Necromancer’s Tale the player character has 9 skills, grouped into 3 groups: physical, mental, and social. This categorization is mirrored in other aspects of the game, including the career path of the player character.
Group 1: Physical Skills The 3 physical skills are important in combat, as well as being used in skillchecks when attempting other physical tasks.
Strength refers to physical power, and tasks such as arm wrestling or breaking things.
Agility refers to speed, agility and dexterity, and affects how fast you move in combat as well as how well you can complete physically awkward tasks.
Constitution refers to general health, stamina, and the ability to withstand poison or alcohol.
Group 2: Mental Skills The 3 mental skills are used in skillchecks in order to provide clue-gathering or puzzle-solving options to the player.
Acuity refers to logical thinking, and the ability to piece together clues to form a conclusion.
Knowledge refers to knowing important information such as local history, military or medical facts.
Investigate is the ability to notice important details or out-of-place elements.
Group 3: Social Skills The 3 social skills are used in skillchecks related to understanding, convincing, coercing, blackmailing or seducing NPCs.
Analyse is the ability to read other people's truthfulness and intentions.
Impress refers to your charm: getting people to like and trust you.
Convince is the ability to tell lies and talk people into doing your bidding.
Career Choice
The initial skills, portrait and backstory of the player character are defined through an interactive fiction which forms the game’s prologue. One of the key choices here is the PC’s career: Military, Academic, or Diplomat. As an 18th Century person of noble birth, the player is lucky enough to have these paths open to them.
Broadly speaking, the military career aligns with the physical skills; the academic career aligns with the mental skills; and the diplomat career aligns with the social skills.
Job Choice
The main game starts with the player arriving back to their home city and deciding that they need to stay for a while and take on a short-term job (their father having just died and left the family finances in turmoil). There are 3 jobs available:
Dock-worker aligns broadly with the physical skills and will tend to give the player opportunities to mix with distasteful (but useful) people such as fences and smugglers.
School teacher aligns broadly with the mental skills and gives the player access to a group of orphans who have their ear to the ground and are more than capable of spying or thieving on the player’s behalf.
Tavernier aligns broadly with the social skills and gives opportunities to mix with and spy on a broad array of denizens who frequent the busiest tavern in the city.
Trust and Tension in the Necromancer’s Tale
The Necromancer’s Tale has a strong focus on the social aspects of RPG gameplay. The player secretly operates as a black magic practitioner in a medieval city (in 1733) where to be caught would mean certain execution. A lot of play revolves around the social aspects of conversation, coercion, blackmail - and even seduction - whatever it takes for the player to progress their cause. We wanted a game system which would involve decision-making during conversation as well as during more action-oriented play. In short, a system where choices matter - where the player wouldn’t feel that they could just mindlessly click through every conversation option without getting punished. Our system involves two related concepts: Trust and Tension.
Trust
Trust represents the attitude of the NPC townsfolk to the player. Through the use of ‘Trust Groups’ we simulate the behind-the-scenes gossip through which one NPC’s changing attitudes to the player propagates around their social network. For example, if the player acts cruelly to an NPC, then the Trust value will reduce for each of the Trust Groups that that NPC belongs to.
The Trust Groups are: 1 Workers 2 Educated 3 Military 4 Gentry 5 Orphans 6 Outsiders
The player’s uncle Jervase (militaristic baron of the city), for example, belongs to the Military and Gentry trust groups.
The overall trust of the city to the player is calculated from the average of each of the first four trust groups (since no-one really listens to orphans or outsiders). If this overall city trust value drops too low, the player will be tried in court, punished, and perhaps hanged. In the meantime, conversation options are affected by Trust values.
Transgressions
As well as conversation, the game also involves physical activity, of course. The player interacts with objects in the world, moves around, fights (on occasion), and sometimes drags dead bodies back to their home laboratory. Whenever the player is doing something illegal, line-of-sight arcs are displayed for all nearby NPCs. If the player falls within the arc of an NPC, then Trust is affected by the witnessing of the transgression (for the appropriate Trust Groups).
Tension
The second concept in our social system is Tension. This is a number which represents the overall atmosphere of fear in the city. Actions taken by the player which they were not actually witnessed doing will raise Tension but not directly affect Trust. So the player should be careful not to leave dead bodies lying around or bump off too many NPCs - even though they may get away with it at the time.
As Tension rises, the city becomes more heavily patrolled by guards, which in turn makes Transgressions harder to get away with. A high tension value also means that people are more suspicious, harder to deal with in conversation, and more likely to jump to conclusions if the player ends up in court.
