The Occult Chronicles

[FullAuto]

Vic Davis/Cryptic Comet's next game.

 

The whole game is basically one big map exploration. You play an agent of the O.D.D (Occult Defense Directorate) who has been assigned to check out some bumps in the night at an ancient estate out in the country. Before each game you choose a mission (or ask for a random one). This will determine who the final boss is and what clues you need to collect to find it and take care of it. You start in the main entrance hall and commence your exploration from there. Each mansion is randomly constructed but follows one of several architectural frameworks i.e. central hub, wings, T shaped etc. There are multiple floors, attics, basements and even things lying deeper under ground. Rooms are divided up into smaller 100 by 100 pixel areas with circular movement locations that you click on to move your character’s icon about the map. When you encounter something you must complete a challenge based on a trick taking game with Tarot cards to figure out whether you win or lose, run way or deliver a shotgun blast to the thing’s torso etc. I’ll have a lot more to say on the mechanics as I reveal more about the game.

 

100% behind you, Vic, take my money God damn it! It was to be released in June, but it's been delayed.

 

The Occult Chronicles is a thinking man’s rogue like….. a “strategy rogue like” is the term being bandied about. It’s focus is on the random generation of a large explorable game space. This means not only the map but all the things that can interact with it and each other. I’ve pushed my art budget to the limit to pump up the item count in the game and also pushed my mind to come up with ways to get the elements to combine in unique and hopefully emergent ways. 150+ unique encounters, 60+ unique items, 40 spells, heroic actions and psychic abilities, 40+ edges (passive abilities), 22 Major Arcana, and over 100 unique room, basement, cave and dungeon-like tiles. The game is huge. And the fun is in each play through finding cool things and figuring out how they can help you to accomplish the specific mission that you are on.

 

And it's going to have player-customisable dice! OMG!

 

Here are all of Mr Davis' blog entries about it over which I regularly wet my little knickers.

[Thorondor]

Still addicted to Vic's wares I see...

 

Been keeping an occasional eye on this one too; updates are understandably few and relatively far between.

 

Great potential, but I hope The Man doesn't stretch himself too thin, FA. As I recall, his last meaty delivery was Solium Infernum, which came out by late 2009, so I'm afraid he is bound to be a little tight on operational funds by now and gambling it all on this offering to stay afloat.

 

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This is one of those cases where I think going with a Kickstarter would make a lot of sense.

[FullAuto]

I think that's what Six Gun Saga was about, getting him a chunk of funds to continue development. Being essentially a one-man army, dev costs aren't actually that steep, and so he's probably doing fairly okay.

 

I do hope, one way or another, he ends up with a big lump sum of cash, hires some people, and really goes to town on a strategy game. Any big publisher looking to crack the strategy genre should just hand him a million dollars and tell him to go full-bore. Job done.

 

I think he's one of the leading lights of strategy game development, right now. Graphics, sound etc unarguably lag behind other efforts, but his game design ideas are something else.