Valcarta: Rise of the Demon
Oct. 31st 2016 - Price Reduction
Thank you to all those who purchased at the original price.
This is not something that I wanted to do, but I have little choice. Blacksword Games and the Valcarta project has taken a lot of my time and I was simply getting no return from it at its original price point. The hope now is to start seeing that return so that I may continue on Valcarta: Rise of the Demon's sequels.
I hope those purchased at full price can understand this. I do believe the game's original price is where it should be, but I am not in control of how sales will go.
I hope that the Steam community can now see this game under the new price point and dive into it and experience all it has to offer.
Thank you for the continued support.
Talon
Oct. 24th 2016
Back to School Sale Sept. 12th - Sept. 16th
Now is your chance to get into the world of Valcarta and experience all the game has to offer.
The game features:
-Over 40 hours of gameplay!
-2 Storylines that intertwine with each other
-Seperate and unique characters on each of these storylines
-and more!
Get it now for 15% only this week!
August 16th, 2016
July 20th 2016
*Fixed an issue where the player could trigger scenes not meant for them to see by interacting with areas at a later time than intended. -- [Path of Darkness only]
*Fixed an issue where the encounter with Talon at Ifrit's Domain was potentially beatable. -- [Path of Darkness only]
*Fixed an issue where the Doomvoid Wyrm was susceptible to Typhoon. -- [Path of Darkness only]
*Fixed an issue where returning to Leviathan's Lagoon could potentially trigger event unintended for the player to see. -- [Path of Darkness only]
*Fixed an issue where attempting to head back down the Diamond Dust Peaks after entering the cave area at the summit would result in a permanent black screen. -- [Path of Darkness only]
*Fixed an issue where several Boss Encounters were susceptible to Typhoon, trivializing them if used.
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In addition, clarity was provided in regards to the following that have been reported as bugs:
Combat:
-- Boss encounters can be forced to due actions based on an HP%
-- Boss encounters can be forced to due actions based on the amount of turns that have gone by in an encounter.
-- The Doomvoid Wyrm is meant to be very difficult, which was something that v1.0 players could attest to as well :)
General
-- Player to Event collision prioritizes the player when checking which can, on occasion disjoint the collision box from the visual in terms of trigger the event. Everything is functioning as normal, it just may look a little unpleasant. My apologies.
Sorry for any and all inconveniences these bugs could have caused!
July 17th 2016
*Fixed an issue that would prevent the player from being able to move after concluding the events at the Diamond Dust Peaks within the Frostwind Forest. -- [Path of Darkness] only
*Fixed an issue where the events within the Web Wood Forest could be skipped by completed the events within the Crovinale Gold Mine first. -- [Path of Darkness] only
*Fixed an issue wherein on Valak's own path, while teamed up with Astrid, Maria and Enzo could be added to the party by entering the Brotherhood Dead Wood Camp -- [Path of Darkness] only
July 9th, 2016
We're live!
It's been a long time coming, so thank you for the continued support and I hope you enjoy the game!
Coming Soon!
Its been a long time since its been greenlit, because I wasn't comfortable releasing the game I had made vs. the game I could make. I took the time, revamped it entirely. Those who played the original will see some resemblance of the old game within, but not too much.
Gameplay Changes to Valcarta:
Rise of the Demon are massive and went through several revisions. Original, it was basic turn-based combat where the characters have several skills to work from, but you could get away with just smashing your most powerful skills without much thinking. There were a boat load of random encounters and an overall grindy feel to the game. Not good. I'll outline some of the big changes in this post.
Combat System:
I have designed a Action Turn-Based System that was, originally, meant to emulate something akin to Legend of Zelda, where you want to BLOCK incoming attacks, because it would remove a good portion of your HP. As development progressed, I found that becoming a little too stale and repetitive as you moved through the game, so only the first 1/4 or so requires precision blocking, because at least one of your party members will learn how to mitigate damage for the team.
Careful planning of resources, resource regeneration, damage output, status effects and defenses will all take a part in how successful you are. Some encounter expect a loose x,y,z out of the players in order to meet the criteria for success or failure. Other encounters require more healing, or more damage or something different every time. Each scripted encounter (Boss Fight more so) is unique, not only to each path, but in terms of mechanics.The combat, overall, is a lot more fast-paced, which brings in its own set of difficulty for each individual user.
General Combat Presence:
Valcarta: Rise of the Demon, as originally states had a more grindy feel, where you would find yourself, on occasion, taking a couple of steps and running into a new random encounter. That wasn't fun for anyone and became increasingly annoying if you intended on playing for longer periods of time.
There has been a massive shift away from general combat and more of a shift to scripted encounters. While there are still random encounters in dungeon areas, they are vastly less of them by comparison.
Story Development:
One of the biggest bits of feedback I had from the original version of Valcarta: Rise of Demon was the writing. Users felt that I had left too much to the imagination and would have preferred if more things were more fleshed out or clearly defined overall. So, for the most part, I've done just that.
The Story, while remaining the same, has been vastly re-written. Goals and objectives are more clear from a story progression stand point, while keeping small points of mystery intact.
There are now 'cut-scenes', there you break from the action and watch as characters are present on-screen while they are talking. These occur at almost every story hub and point that multiple people have more than just 1-3 lines. I feel that this adds a lot to the game and gives the characters more personality overall.
Character Development:
Through the re-writing of the games storyline came alterations to the characters themselves. While their overlaying story is roughly the same, people who have played the Path of Light will notice a major difference in Carter. All characters (there is even a new character on the Path of Darkness) have had their stories improved, clarified and overall just more clear.
Character stories, while not always prevalent during the main story, can be fleshed out by users by seeking out their end-game side-quests. These go into a bit more details about your traveling companions and provide a nice new set of equipment for them. If you are feeling really adventurous and up to a challenge, you can attempt to further this line of development by finding their secret MEGA BOSS encounters. These are the most deadly monsters in the game, designed to challenge each group of characters to the extreme.
Remember, Normal - Full is the baseline for the games balance. Hard - Full may, in fact, be unbeatable (I haven't tried it yet). I deemed it more important to provide a more general level of difficulty to a wider user base with the option to challenge yourself rather than fine tune each individual game mode. If you are curious what changes, you can ask in the General Discussion section of the community hub :)
Map Remakes:
Valcarta: Rise of the Demon had almost all of its map entirely remade and several new areas made. There are currently almost 300 maps within the game, including towns, dungeons, houses, tents, etc. Within some of these dungeon maps you will find mechanics. Perhaps its breathing underwater, or running from a swarm of spiders, or burning/choping plants before they eat you. In others, you will find puzzles, which are set up to impede your progress or test you in some way (those pesky Shaman Clans don't like people who can't do puzzles apparently ;)). Moving rocks to make a path, sliding across ice, creating bridges with ice shards, dodge rolling snowballs, and much more!
I hope the addition of these elements engage and interest users while providing a bit of action outside of combat.
I hope there are some out there who have remained curious about the game after its greenlit status had been hit. I know there were plenty of original versions acquired from sales on sites like Shiny Loot, etc. I hope that we can transition that interest generated from the older version to the newer, improved version of the game.