Yeah, that’s why I tried to create something that wasn’t an objective moral system. Just like with the loyalty issue, these stats are defined largely by the world and what is expected of the character, especially on the part of Sir Kelton. It’s a meditation on morality and what you might expect to be right and wrong based on social norms, just like loyalty in the squire’s order means unwavering obedience to the chain of command, then the interesting part comes when these norms contradict what’s logical or what feels right. Arcane corruption is then a mystery and a shifting phenomenon that people spread superstition about and read into (hence why I’m not explaining it line by line in this discussion). It’s intentionally “flawed” in that sense but I absolutely thought all of this through.
Now, if you really want to look smart, tell me why most of my attempts at replying aren’t showing up as replies to that person. (Just playing. Have to give trouble to people with a moderator title)
Because you replied to the thread as a whole, not to me. 
Yep. Humans are social beings, so defying your society’s norms comes with a cost to your magic.
That’s all well and good but doesn’t that mean that if we disobey social norms, we get physical deformities?
That’s a very weird connection, ngl.
Well, in the lore of the game, arcane corruption is based on your subjective morality, but since it would be at least extremely complicated to adjust that to the player’s subjective morality, it needs to be an abstraction of the squire character you’re playing and their morality. That character isn’t entirely “you,” it’s you in a certain context, with a certain background and a certain society, so the morality is that character’s society plus what you as a player interpret to be the reasons behind corruption (again, it’s not clear to any of the characters and shouldn’t be totally clear to the player). Also keep in mind we can’t choose our morality, it’s shaped by our background and our society, so even if I technically could give the player the choice of their morals, that wouldn’t exactly be realistic.
Also, in regards to the physical deformities thing, I tried not to make it scarring or any real world attribute because A) I didn’t want to associate morality with body shaming and B) it’s actually up to you whether the physical manifestation is a negative thing or not. Arcane corruption can actually be one of the most useful stats in the final battle (if you even want to win the final battle). So that’s where it then becomes a player subjective choice about morality and their reaction to the game’s morality.
Haha nope I keep pressing reply, it shows replying to [name], and it keeps putting a general reply instead.
I think that happens when you reply to a post directly before your reply (as in, there’s no other posts between them).
You know what? That makes a lot more sense. I appreciate this explanation.
Let me start by saying I played many choice games and I rarely have a reason not to like any, except for some horrid spelling or grammar here and there.
This game though, I hate it.
The characters are bland and uninteresting, they have no depth and are described in so little detail that none of them even invoke any image in my mind as to what they might look like and contact with them is sparce and superficial.
Trying to reach top marks in the tournament and winning it is a lame joke and infuriating, to the point where I have restarted the game before even getting to the end of the story.
From reading the forum I have deduced that I don’t even want to keep reading, and from my own experiences with the game I have come to a singularly disappointing conclusion.
I will be asking for a refund from google play, as if it were one of the unreadable choice of games titles that seem to be written by an illiterate child. Not that it is not spelled correctly, it just leaves me wanting at every turn.
If you like this title, all the power to you, enjoy to your heart’s content. I have come to the forum for the first time to post, just to express my utter dismay at this title.
How do you take over the kingdom?
True.
Boy, I checked this out since the sequel just came out and they were both on sale but…it was depressing, in the unenjoyable way. I kind of felt like the secret to succeeding in Battlemage is…to not be a mage. I focused exclusively on healing (a little illusion on the side) and pretty much spent my time using magic as much as possible, trying to take care of and be polite to people and, man. My character failed at literally everything. As far as I can tell, I seem to have gotten the worst ending you can possibly get. I want to do another playthrough to, I guess, suck less before checking out the sequel, but it’s disappointing that I apparently have to either only do elemental magic or just dump magic and be a fighter exclusively if I want to actually do well.
(I also did very poorly at all the court intrigue stuff and I can’t really figure out why, I did have a decent illusion stat, thought I was being smart about investigating, but oh well. Failure is failure lol…)
Been a while since I played, but from what I remember, the court intrigue stuff is pretty much all or nothing. Dipping your toe in only gets you screwed over, you need to know what to look for in advance. The Illusion skill is also probably the number one way to increase your MC’s agency; it lets you figure out a lot of the intrigue bits and is almost equal to the others in combat.
I found this story to be less of a roleplaying experience and more like a puzzle game with some trial and error. You figure out the routes, then go for every choice that advances your chosen route. Almost reminds of some old-school visual novels that way.
Edit: Also, it seems that I played the Magehunter demo 100% oblivious to the fact that it’s the (indirect?) sequel to Battlemage, and even to them being written by the same author. If you’d never mentioned a sequel, I’d never have known…
Magehunter really isn’t so much a sequel, even indirectly, as another story that happens to take place much later in the chronology of the same world. There’s no shared data, so what happens in the second game isn’t affected in any way by anything you do in the first. I’d recommend playing Battlemage first because there are a few Easter eggs in Magehunter for those who have played it, but each game stands alone perfectly well.