Battlemage: Magic by Mail—Defend your kingdom with forbidden magic!

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Battlemage: Magic by Mail

We’re proud to announce that Battlemage: Magic by Mail, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, Android, and on iOS in the “Choice of Games” app.

It’s 40% off until August 19th!

Will you defend your kingdom with forbidden magic, or backstab the crown? Win tournaments, kiss a prince or princess, or just seize power for yourself!

Battlemage: Magic by Mail is a 168,000-word interactive novel by Nic Barkdull. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

You’re lucky you saw that ad at the market. “Learn from home! Full battlemage qualification by mail!” it said. Now, your first battlemage assignment is finally here! At last, you can master the magical arts of elementalism, illusion, healing, and necromancy.

Yesterday you were just a squire, but today you’re an aspiring battlemage! But Sir Kelton says that squires aren’t allowed to practice magic, so you’ll need to act like you actually want to be a knight, at least for now.

With the powers you can unlock, maybe you can win a tournament or two, or get in good with the royal family—you can even try your hand at the game of court politics. Or if you really want to get on Kelton’s good side, prove yourself on the battlefield, defeating the mysterious invaders that threaten your kingdom’s borders.

But beware, if you’re not careful, you’ll suffer from Arcane Corruption. At first, Corruption warps your physical appearance, but it soon takes over, putting the magic in control.

You won’t let that happen, will you?

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, bi, asexual, or poly.
• Manipulate minds with illusion magic, master the elements, channel the forces of life with healing magic, or harness death with necromancy.
• Compete in tournament events like combat, archery, and jousting.
• Navigate the royal court and use intrigue and betrayal to gain power.
• Defend your kingdom from mysterious invaders led by a powerful battlemage.
• Compete with other students to gain the notice of the legendary El Cano.
• Romance a fellow squire, a humble stableboy, a prince, or a princess.

Will you be a loyal squire, a powerful battlemage, or ruler of the realm?

We hope you enjoy playing Battlemage: Magic by Mail. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

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Friday cant come soon enough so suprized on the price and cant wait to play full version

Also congrats to the author

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We price based on wordcount of the entire game :slight_smile:

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But its so cheap i cant remember the last time it was that low

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Pugmire, Versus: The Deathscapes, also released at $2.99, as did Kidnapped! last year…Just keep an eye out for release week sale, and you’ll be able to get a game anywhere from 25 to 40% off :smiley:

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Then i havent payed enough attention or the prices were difrent in euros :sweat_smile:

Nope havent payed atention

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does anyone know how to win the tournament in all categories? i only managed to come in third place.

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Congratulations @Whitelocke! I hope launch week goes well!

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It’s because some of these games were licenced, like Vampire the Masquerade or 7° sea.

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Ahh this was such a great story, so glad I bought it! :slight_smile:

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Thank you! Very nice to see kind words here.

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I finished it. Final judgment: 7,5 I mean… not bad but it could have come out better…

My issues are:

  1. (A minor one): Even if it is a multiethnic setting I found mixing the names (Italins, Spanishes, Englishes, Asians etc.) almost at random.

  2. I didn’t feel particularly attached to any character and didn’t feel engaged by the antagonists (I met the main antagonist, the “evil queen”, just once before the final battle) who seemed a generic evil invading enemy. Personal note: I wish having interacted with the battlemages more.

  3. After the worst day of my life part I just saw no more reason for my MC going on. I just speed read because I couldn’t care anymore: the goals didn’t mutter, I felt no attachment to the cast and I haven’t strong reasons to hate the antagonists.

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Tips on becoming Tournament Legend (winning all three categories)

First your score is cumulative from all tournaments so make sure you go to all possible tournaments and compete in all events you can.

Focus on Strength and Agility. Strength gives you an easy win in the joust by unseating your opponent. For the melee make sure you don’t finish the fights too soon (using overwhelming strength). Do a couple of smaller hits first then use your overwhelming strength to end the fight. Archery just needs some decent agility and maybe use some illusion to throw off your opponents. Fizza is your main competition here so if you can throw her off and score halfway decently you should come out ahead.

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how do you get yuwan or something to be in relation? yuxin asked even though with kiss yuwwn never die. Different play through. Also if you go and kill queen how does it go?

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I repeated this game a lot of times, but I literally don’t have a genuine idea how to do some things. How to achieve 100% goals? How to impress the queen?

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Unfortunately I think it’s just you :frowning: But if you’re having issues please email support at choiceofgames dot com

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So, how do you unravel the court conspiracy? I mean, the contessa being super sus, the royal mage’s death, and the queen’s death later at the end

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Need to have high illusion, be close to contessa (idk if necessary), find out about her secret on tournament by talking to her when Kelton gives you the day off, when you find her at the stables you’ll have the option to blackmail her since you will see through her lies with high illusion, either that or if you didn’t find out about the secret, bluff it, until she admits. So far I’ve managed to become a ruler by blackmailing her, not sure about other options…

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I have the same problem as @lemonminttea. And it didn’t change even when I uninstalled it and downloaded it again.

Also @Whitelocke Congrats!

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I’ve had the same thing happen a few times.
In my case it seemed to help to reconnect to the VPN (or perhaps I just got lucky), so you might try that if you’re using a VPN or just shutting it down completely or resetting your internet connection if you’re not using a VPN.
Can’t guarantee that it will help, though.

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