Magehunter: Phoenix Flame Discussion Thread (OUT NOW)

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Hi! Since I’m getting closer to finished, I thought I would start properly introducing the characters of this story by writing some interesting bios for you to enjoy! The first is about Xiaoxi. My favorite character? Maybe! But I also know some readers who can’t stand her, which is great in my opinion.

There are hints about the story in the following text, but not enough to ruin it in my opinion so I will just say don’t read if you absolutely can’t handle SPOILERS. Enjoy.

CHARACTER BIO
Wu Xiaoxi — Xiaoxi is your fellow apprentice in Phoenix Chapter, a romance option, and your squad mate. She is small of stature with black hair, dark eyes, and a soft-spoken yet bold manner of speaking. Her fun-loving attitude is only eclipsed by a fierce sense of loyalty to the hunters. If there are any doubts about your missions, she will usually follow chapter laws. She prefers to use Brutal Flame technology, and her signature fighting style is to encase her fists in ice and fire and punch away at her enemies with devastating results. Her small stature also makes her good for nimble tasks, but she’s not a fan of caution, strategy, or intellectual pursuits. She is also an expert at picking locks and will gladly share her knowledge with you. Xiaoxi grew up in Pine Chapter with Embla and they have been friends all their lives. Xiaoxi’s conviction often counters Embla’s overflowing optimism and keeps her idealism in check. The two friends join Phoenix Chapter and your squad after passing the Trial of the Initiate alongside you, and although Xiaoxi doesn’t get along with Gael, her capable determination drives many of your missions forward. Xiaoxi’s surname, Wu, is said to be shared by the kingdom’s former royalty and this can be a point of friction — it’s rumored that the Wus betrayed the kingdom and let the mages in, and Jubai has been under their rule ever since (although those who are familiar with the tale of “The Squire” know otherwise). Because of this, Xiaoxi is determined to prove herself by being a capable and loyal hunter. She admires Inquisitor Delgado and aspires to be an inquisitor herself someday. Like many hunters, she is an orphan who doesn’t remember her parents, but she has found a family in Embla — and now possibly you.

Let me know if you want to know anything else about Xiaoxi, and I’ll have another bio ready for you soon!

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Hi! The final battle chapter is almost finished. I know I say that a lot, and here’s why: I just checked the word count and it’s 36,000+ words. That’s like a novella! It’s extremely complicated but I’m loving it.

And in reward for your patience, here’s another character bio for you: (Spoilers, but not really.)

EMBLA FALK – Embla is your fellow apprentice in Phoenix Chapter, a romance option, and your squadmate. She is strikingly tall and broad-shouldered with dark skin and big eyes that are sometimes fierce, and other times warm and gentle. She is a standard teacher’s pet – carefully following the rules and enthusiastically learning about anything she can. She is always happy to share her knowledge of hunter history and tactics if you’re willing to listen. Her kind and positive nature means she prefers Living Flame technology outside of battle. In battle, on the other hand, she makes use of her sword and her large stature to plow through anything that stands in her way. She’s always watching your back in case you make a mistake, and she’s ready to step in and fix it when you do. She dreams of becoming the matriarch of her own chapter someday, but she has a secret that she believes will stand in the way of that dream. Above everything, she values teamwork and she encourages everyone else to believe in the squad too. All of these things make her a natural leader if you allow her to take the reins. She grew up in Pine chapter with Xiaoxi, and the two have been extremely close ever since. Embla sees herself as the gentle voice of reason to counter Xiaoxi’s hot temper and impulsiveness. The thing she hates more than anything in the world is when her friends fight, and she blames herself when she can’t stop Xiaoxi and Gael from arguing. Embla loves the hunters and the matriarch, and fully believes in their mission of liberating Jubai from mage rule. She just prefers to do it in a friendlier way than most – she unironically believes that people can achieve anything if they only work together.

Let me know what you think of Embla. I personally think she’s a sweetheart and my favorite deus ex machina device. More bios soon!

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Hey guess what! I just finished writing the final battle chapter. I just need to balance and debug it now, and then we can get on with the endings. What a megahuge task that was. The final word count is almost 50k for that single chapter. I can’t wait to playtest it and see if everything worked out.

Also guess what again! I have another character bio ready:

GAEL – Gael is a fellow apprentice in Phoenix Chapter, a romance option, and your squadmate. He is average height with an agile but muscular build. He has dark hair and his often serious face is covered in a careless peppering of stubble. It can be difficult to get past Gael’s dark and quiet exterior, which makes him come off as arrogant and aloof. None of this is helped by the fact that he likes to do things his way and without the help of his squadmates. This annoys Xiaoxi to no end, and she thinks Gael is hiding something. Deep down, Gael is actually quite passionate—he has a different relationship with Phoenix Chapter because he was not orphaned at a young age like most other hunters. In fact, he fought the mages with his family in the borderlands until he had nobody left to fight for. He has been determined to find a way to stop the mages with or without the help of the hunters ever since, and he’s not afraid to say so. He prefers Silent Flame technology, and he wants to learn as much as he can about slipflame so he can master it. He’s willing to go to any lengths to discover more about the technology, believing knowledge is the only way to win this war. His intellectual pursuits make him a good resource for investigating the truth, and he has insights about the war, the mages, and slipflame if you’re willing to ask. On the other hand, if he feels you’re disrespecting him then prepare to feel his wrath. Gael often argues with Xiaoxi, but Rio is the person who irritates him most in the world. While Xiaoxi merely questions Gael, Rio is constantly outsmarting him and hitting his ego where it hurts.

Gael is okay in my opinion. He is the dark and brooding nerd type, but we all know thorny exteriors are often hiding something softer inside. I’m not a fan of his name, though. I don’t know why I chose it, but not everyone can have a cool name in life, eh?

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That mean, there are new chap to test/read ?

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Yeah I think once I’m done balancing the final battle things might have changed enough to make a new demo. I might also include some more chapters to get some feedback before the actual beta test starts.

Right now I’m making sure all paths to the end have a fair chance of being discovered. This is usually as simple as tweaking some stat tests to make them harder or easier, but the final battle tests all of the stats in the game so it’s a little more involved. There are also five different sides you can join in the battle, so each side needs to be fully developed from earlier chapters. That’s where I might go back to add content. Once that’s done, I’ll likely release another update.

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Hi, I wanted to give you all an update that’s a little more devloggy since game development has been on my mind. I’ve been going through the whole game to make sure the most recent chapter fits, and I think there are a lot of small changes coming this time around because my method of editing has shifted a bit.

Part of it is that I have read my own writing so much over the years that I’m starting to recognize a lot of my blind spots (I use passive voice too much, I rely on words like “suddenly” and “immediately” to try to inject action into scenes, and probably many more that you’re welcome to add if you notice while reading).

Another part of it is about developing a method. There is a lot of writing advice out there about the importance of finding a method and sticking to it, or figuring out what the story is really about, or in game design seeing the game through different lenses (a reference of course to The Book of Lenses). I think what all of these come down to is finding a reliable system for quality assurance.

It’s really difficult to judge art objectively, but videogame QA departments try to do just that all the time. I think in the end it’s still a subjective decision, but it’s important to figure out what the vision is and then create a rubric or a set of qualities to judge the project against. It’s just like how a fictional setting needs to be consistent with the world you’ve built, and only then will the story be believable.

While editing Magehunter, I haven’t actually listed these qualities out on paper before now, but I have been mentally building a list of questions I can ask about every line of text. It goes something like:

  • Are the available choices different enough from each other?
  • Are there any choices I’ve left out that the player would want to choose?
  • Do the sentences flow when I read them, or do I stumble? If so, why?
  • Have I used any of my usual crutches in this passage?
  • Does this dialogue contain any cliches or overdone tropes?
  • Can the player visualize everything in the scene based on what I have written?
  • Does each relationship have a complete arc to follow?
  • Does each ending have a complete arc leading to it?
  • Does this description engage multiple senses?

And so on.

And finally, branching narrative is fundamentally different from a lot of traditional, linear stories, so the method needs to be different too. Movies and books are about something. Usually just one thing, if they’re effective. But for a branching story, it’s about player agency. It requires asking what the player wants and giving them the result they chose (if they’ve earned it). So I have tried to have each character and path represent different answers to a single question - in this case, “Who should rule the Kingdom of Jubai?” And of course why and how and all the rest of those questions should be up to the player to answer. So my last metric is whether I’m pushing my vision onto the player, or letting them decide for themselves.

So, that’s the method I’ve been trying lately, and I think the results are great so far. I’m making a lot more edits and adding more choices, at least. I’ll let you know when I’m done, and you can check it out!

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Iit was really interesting to read this indept look at the more behind the scenes/under the hood part of your process.
Thanks for sharing.
I’m looking forward to how it will all turn out. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Hi! I’m back with a new demo!

Here’s what’s changed from the last version:

  • You can play until Chapter 4 again! (That’s five chapters total including the prologue)
  • Fixed misc. spelling, grammar, and word choice
  • Fixed/Added to descriptions that were unclear
  • Rewrote/Added choices to be clearer and represent a wider variety of roleplay styles
  • Added some scenes and choices to set up/foreshadow story arcs
  • Added some stat checks for reactivity and character development

I only have the ending chapter left to write now, and overall I think the story is developing nicely. There are still a few areas I want to look at.

1: Violence level. If you hadn’t realized, this is somewhere between YA and New Adult fiction. The characters are young adults (the story begins with you coming of age for the hunter trial). I have gone back and forth on whether to call the characters boys, girls, young hunters, etc. (it seems a bit rude to call women girls) but I have settled on this over men, women, etc. because that’s what other fiction in the category does. Anyway, since this book also involves fighting with mages and a final battle, I need to decide what level of violence to maintain. On the one hand, if you choose to use a flame sword, you should expect some flaming severed limbs. On the other hand, if you’re playing strategically you might feel pressured to choose a more violent option because you know you can pass the stat test. I started thinking about this because I have tried to create a pacifist route through the game (and I’m considering making it an achievement but it’s a bit of work to implement). And it’s possible to be a pacifist the whole way through, but I don’t know if it’s possible to be a pacifist and actually win. So, there are a few possible solutions: First, I could tone down some of the violence. Right now, there’s one particular scene where you burn some enemies to ashes, and things like that could be a little less graphic for the New Adult tone. Second, I could provide some more nonviolent choices. Third, I could do both, and that’s probably what I should do. Anyone have opinions?

2: Reactivity. I have a lot of systems to track relationships and game events. I should add in some reactivity by having NPCs make comments based on these systems. Right now, you make a choice and a stat is tested, then you get the result. That’s great, but there is a lot of dialogue outside of choices where the NPCs can say something different based on how much they like you or whether you’ve kissed them, for example. This is something that’s easy to go back and fill in here and there.

3: Relationship arcs. The above reactivity will help this, but I don’t quite feel the relationships developing like I want to. It’s difficult to get a good balance here, because action isn’t very romantic. Games need to kind of abstract the idea of relationships and imply that, for example, your relationship with Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3 has been developing off screen as well as those times you have short romantic conversations with her. Plus, it’s a bit hard to feel a satisfying arc when I haven’t written the endings yet. Despite all that, I think at some point I will need to go through all the text and focus specifically on building each character’s romance arc fully. I have a lot of great character development in the choices, descriptions, and gameplay but I need to bring it all together.

But first, I need to finish the game! I’m going to be focusing on writing those endings in the next few weeks, then hopefully beta tests are right around the corner. In the meantime, check back here soon for some more character bios.

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Okay, it may be that I am just not very good at your game but… it makes me feel like a loser. Gael beat us to the letters in the first mission. Frey fucks up the second mission for us and chapter 4 starts with someone literally telling us how much we fucked up. So I’m up to chapter 4 and I haven’t really gotten to feel like I’ve had a win.

Like I said, this could be me not making the right choices (though keep in mind I always cheat so my stats are basically maxed out) or it could be a narrative decision you have made. If it is a narrative decision I worry that intentionally making the player feel like a failure is a mistake, especially if it drags on too long. Like I said, I’m into chapter 4 and it’s becoming a bit of a slog to get through feeling like I may just be forced to fail again at the next mission. It is especially worrying for when the project goes into full release and potential buyers only have the first few chapters to decide whether they want to purchase or not.

This may be solely a “me” issue. I am very clearly on record that I don’t like “losing” in IF. I mostly self insert in these stories, and having my self insert be bombarded with losses isn’t a great feeling.

I think you would have to have a very generous (or deluded) soul to have the guy who disappears at the start of the mission and refuses to work with you get the item and then be rewarded above everyone else (the inquisitor singles him out for special praise at the end of the mission) and consider that a “team win”.

If there were a way for you/the team to get to the papers first I think that would go a way to alleviating the feelings of failure. I’m not opposed to narrative failure when used sparingly and I think going from the inquisitor being a little more effusive about a successful first mission for the squad to really dressing them down for fucking up the second mission could work.

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think that like last game a lot of mystery will pop up and the story will run to the end, leaving the reader with more questions than anwers.

think its a lot to ask (in this late phase of finishing the game) but plz don’t rush the story like last time. I will happily give more money for a rich and long story, like when you read a book and are satisfy that the story keep you long.

Game of choice don’t have to put games after game without leaving writers make long storys. Better and long game give more sells and more people to look foward to anything that is produce.

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Hey, this is a great comment. I noticed this on my last playtest too, and I was wondering if narrative beats were feeling like losses to anyone else, so it’s good to know this. Gael getting the letters wasn’t intended to feel like a loss, he’s part of the squad so it’s still a mission pass but it could be interesting to let the player get there first through the right choices. The Frey situation is also unavoidable as part of the narrative, and it definitely feels more like a loss. I think again I can have the chase still happen, but make a way for the player to pass that mission. It will just require a significant amount of alternate writing for the next chapter. It might be some time before I can implement these fixes, but thanks for letting me know.

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Sure, I understand that longer stories are better. This game is already twice as long as the last one. It just takes a long time to make something so detailed.

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Hi! Guess what, I’ve already updated the demo again!

Changes:

  • Made it possible for Player to accomplish the first mission instead of Gael
  • Adjusted rank rewards for the first mission in Chapter 3
  • I tested these changes, but let me know if ya’ll find any remnants I missed

I think this is a good opportunity to talk about narrative failures (vs. player failures). Many of you might be familiar with the “all is lost” moment in the three act structure, where the protagonist faces a crisis at the end of Act 2 that makes the audience think all is lost. A very obvious example is in Ghost of Tsushima, when even the landscape changes from vibrant beauty to desolation at Jin’s lowest moment (then his horse dies of exhaustion to make us all super sad). In Battlemage (SPOILERS for Battlemage and Magehunter, by the way), there is an “all is lost” moment at the end of Act 2 where the Player is stripped of their rank and exiled from their knight’s estate to fend for themselves. You can “win” the situation by making the best of a bad situation, but you cannot convince your knight to keep you. To me, this was an important “all is lost” moment, but some players were/are extremely frustrated that you can’t change your fate. The narrative failure feels like a player failure.

As Lance_Heyen pointed out, Magehunter has two similar narrative failures that feel like player failures. One is when Gael gets the letters to accomplish the first mission before the rest of the squad and he’s rewarded for it at the beginning of the next chapter. (Before, it was still possible to “win” this situation by following the Matriarch’s orders and advancing in rank alongside Gael, but it wasn’t actually possible to get the letters before Gael). The other one is when the player meets Frey and is forced to flee, which causes them to fail their mission.

Both of these plot points were set up for narrative reasons - to set up the conflict of Gael’s character arc, and to introduce Frey with a chain of events that influences several chapters. In other words, both are there to provide conflict, which is a necessary ingredient to any story. After all, if everything went the player’s way, there would be no reason to play.

So, the question I need to ask myself here is: How can I maintain conflict in the narrative without forcing the feeling of failure? And I think the answer is actually quite simple: Give each chapter a win condition. This is a game, after all, not a film or a novel. So, when the player loses, they can feel that “all is lost,” but when they win, they should feel, “All was lost, but I saved the day!”

It seems obvious, but it’s tricky to get the balance right. There are several possible small victories in every chapter, but that’s not enough. Those victories should add up to a win condition for the chapter, and finally for the entire story.

For Gael’s solution, I added a tracker to see how well the player does across their choices in the first mission. If they do well enough, they beat Gael to the goal and they’re rewarded instead of him. Conflict is still maintained because Gael isn’t happy with the fact that you’re rewarded instead of him, and you have a chance to gloat about it. I really like this solution because it asks the player how they want the conflict with Gael to unfold, where before the story just told them.

For Frey, things are a little more complicated. Being punished by the inquisitor is a big plot point that drives the next few chapters. Still, I think I can do something similar where I add a tracker to see how well the player does and reward them with a mission success. It would just have to happen despite being chased off by Frey, and the Inquisitor would still have to punish the player, but with the understanding that she is doing it to appease the mages after causing such a big disturbance at their barracks. Maybe it could come along with a rank increase. This solution will still take me a lot longer to write, but I think it works because it provides a victory condition.

Okay, that’s it. Just want to let you all know my thought process here, and I thought it would be interesting to let you know how your comments impact the game. Now I’ll get back to work on those endings!

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Hi! Happy Friday. I have another character bio for you.

I’ve written about four of the ten endings I have planned. My brain is getting a little mushy from keeping track of all the variables and possibilities, but I’m having fun imagining what the world would be like if each faction won. I’m trying my best to show those worlds through dialog and environmental storytelling. Speaking of factions, this bio is for the game’s coolest mage. I kept the bio tone more in-world but I’m not afraid to say here that Frey is a bit of a himbo. This bio is a little shorter as a result - he’s handsome and fun-loving, what else do you need to know? Enjoy.

FREY — Frey is an apprentice battlemage and romance option. He is “handsome” in Embla’s words, but in a predictable way for a mage — tall, muscular, and blond — and he has a carefree attitude to match. He often crosses paths with your squad while you’re out on missions, and with Frey’s confident, playful demeanor, the squad naturally develops a friendly rivalry with him. That is, except Xiaoxi, who hates the thought of befriending any magic user (and there’s no quicker way to draw her disgust than to flirt with one). Frey sees no problem fraternizing with hunters, and in his own words, he “just wants everyone to be happy.” This simple life philosophy is challenged when it comes time for the mages to fight their enemies, but Frey still believes the kingdom should maintain the peace that mage rule brings. Frey might not seem like a deep thinker, but if pushed he’ll say he believes the actions of Archmage Nylund shouldn’t reflect all mages. Despite that fact, he has connections to Nylund and he’s a capable magic user. In other words, Frey can be persuaded to give helpful information, but his loyalties will always lie with the mages in the end. He might even be willing to help if you’re trying to get Nylund’s attention.

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Hi! I have another character bio for you. It’s for Rio, the final romance option. I think I could keep going with the other characters, what do you think?

Also, I’ve finished writing the critical path through all 10 endings (27K words and counting)!

By critical path, I mean I wrote one path almost as if it was a normal novel, but left all of the other options blank. I think this is the best way to do it because of how the mathematics of choices work out. There will be some spoilers about game mechanics for the next paragraph, so skip it if you prefer.

So, if there are four factions you can join, and each of them could win the game, there will be four endings, right? But then if you’ve joined the faction and they win, it’s going to be a very different ending than if you fought against them and they won. So, eight endings for winning and losing each. But then what about if you did an ending but had a different romantic interest? What if a faction lost but they were really strong? What if you want to forget factions and take all the glory for yourself? And so the amount of endings starts to multiply - eight endings times five romantic interests is forty endings and so on until there are more endings than stars in the galaxy. Maybe that’s true on a technicality, but I decided to count it as ten endings because there are five major outcomes for the story (four of which you can win or lose), and everything else like romantic arcs is modular (meaning it can fit into any ending with a few details changed). So what this all means is I just need to fill in all those interchangeable parts for each ending, and we’ll have a full game ready to go!

Anyway, here’s the bio:

RIO – Rio is a romance option who is neither a mage nor a hunter, but a normal citizen. Rio dresses in bold, masculine or feminine clothing and uses pronouns according to the way he or she presents herself. Rio has a nimble build with short brown hair and an ever-changing assortment of piercings. She knows the city better than anyone, and you can usually only spot her long after she’s spotted you. He carries a staff, which he often uses to teach lessons to young hunters and mage apprentices meddling where they shouldn’t. Rio is quick to call out injustice, cruelty, or just plain stupidity. It may seem like Rio and the hunters share common goals because he wants to see the kingdom free from mages, but she also wants to be free from hunters or rulers of any kind. Rio sabotages anyone who works against that goal, going after Gael in particular for sneaking around the city. He strives to remind everyone that the magehunters and their rebellion aren’t the only path forward for the kingdom, but he would still rather maintain the current balance of power than to throw the city into chaos. Rio can be an asset when it comes to revealing information about the mages or the hunters, including your own squad. Most importantly, she can help you if you want to join the people and find out if a Jubai free from tyrants is just a lofty dream, or a future that can be realized.

That’s it, what do you think? Rio is one of my favorite characters. I wanted to allow this character to be gender fluid in a way that I can show in descriptions of her beautiful clothing, and I really love the way the world responds to him so naturally. See you again when I have another update!

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Hi! I am very close to finished!*

Big asterisk because I still have to finish writing around 2 relationship scenes, then fill in all the numbers for the stat checks, then test everything, then finish a list of edits in other chapters, then send it off to our lovely editors, then implement their feedback, and THEN we’ll be ready for beta.

The endings are almost 50k words now. I wanted to give closure for every possible situation I could think of, and that meant being systematic while being organic. Each ending should feel unique, and I think (I hope) I’ve managed to make each ending fit the player’s choices to the point where no two players will experience exactly the same thing. I think any writer would admit that endings are hard, and it’s been a challenge to make sure each possible ending goes out with a punch. But maybe I should just focus on the fact that I have a lot of practice at writing endings now.

And I shouldn’t get too confident before testing it. I’m sure I forgot something among all the possibilities.

Speaking of possibilities, it’s been a fun journey. I think a lot about the meta aspect of why choices exist as a means of experiencing this world (so spoilers about the meta level narrative ahead). In the previous game, Battlemage, the epilogue told the story as if it was passed down by word of mouth and became legend. That explains why Magehunter can exist in the same universe - the events of the previous book are legend and the details are up for debate. All we know going into Magehunter is that there was a war involving mages, and generations later they rule the kingdom. The epilogue of Magehunter expands on that meta narrative by letting the player choose each element of how the world has turned out themselves. You can create a fairytale ending of your choosing, but if you fail then the same world can become a dystopia.

That’s the idea, anyway. I’ll finish these up and then I’ll have more to say, along with changes to the demo coming. Thanks for reading.

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Hi! I’m bringing you a new demo, and it’s your last chance to play it before the beta starts. Here’s a list of changes:

  • Moved the end point of the prologue to include all the exposition (for pacing purposes).
  • Rearranged the Kameh trial scene to shorten the trial chapter slightly and end on a climactic note.
  • The second mission now has a win condition. Meeting Frey remains unavoidable by design.
  • Rewrote some very cliche lines to make them more realistic.
  • Misc. word choice and other errors.

Those are all the changes to the demo itself, but the rest of the game also underwent quite a few edits to prepare the beta version. Most significantly, the epilogue chapter is complete, meaning all the writing is finished! Here are some stats:

  • Epilogue final word count: 50,370
  • Total word count before beta: 303,327
  • Number of endings: 10
  • Number of romance arcs: 6+

And as you can see by this thread, it took a few years to write. Looking back, I’ve realized that every game project is special because it reminds me of a specific period of my life. During Magehunter, I lived in 3 countries, finished two other games, we all survived a pandemic, and I worked an entire full-time job where I did everything from writing to quest design.

I also had two marriages during this game - I spent a season in India as the groom in a Punjabi wedding (so that my partner and I would never be separated by international borders during a pandemic again), and when the Indian courts wouldn’t recognize the marriage because I’m a foreigner, we did a zoom wedding in Utah (this one legal).

We moved our family including our dog from Taiwan just as covid was finally breaching their borders and landed in Finland. We jumped through immigration hoops and bought a home. Then the very same week that we found out we would be having our first child, my company’s publisher cut our project to save money and 60% of my coworkers were let go. I stayed on, burdened with survivor’s guilt and the responsibility to salvage a project that had become impossible to make, and I was finally laid off in January - along with tens of thousands of game industry colleagues.

Then, in April, our daughter was born. We gave her both our surnames in an attempt to make things easier for her across the borders of India, the US, and wherever else our lives take us. I had to prove my own citizenship, but she was finally given an American passport. We’re getting on a flight to visit my family for the first time tomorrow morning, and this is a minor miracle for me.

I write all this because I never could have predicted any of these events before I started writing this game, but now they’re forever sewn into the words of the story. Over the past few years, I’ve become a person who makes choice-based games. I mentioned before that I think a lot about the meta aspect of that. The very fact that I write these games is the result of the choices I’ve made, and it’s more obvious looking back that those choices led to other choices, which led directly to where I am.

One choice I’ve made in the past year, at the end of many things and the beginning of many others, is to prioritize the things that matter - art, experiences, family. Because those choices are crucial, and roadblocks like laws, funding, or lack of imagination can’t get in their way. When I got laid off, I could have rushed this game to the end in a short-term grab for money, but that’s what got us into this in the first place, isn’t it? Short-term profits prioritized over the art. This period of my life made me realize that human things matter most, and that was solidified by the birth of my child. (It’s a cliche because it’s true.)

I tried to translate that to Magehunter by letting each major choice bloom into its own world of possibilities. I thought it was impossible to approach a project this way, but real life (and some writers at Larian) showed me it could be done. It was a lot of work. My hands need rest. It’s not perfect, and it could never be perfect. But it was worth it because it means something to me. I hope it will mean something to you, too.

So if you want to see what it’s like to go on a YA adventure stalking the streets at night to hunt mages (and kiss probably too many people along the way), go wishlist the game. Or, if you want to support someone trying to make art while the industry collapses, that’s a good reason to wishlist too. Even if you don’t buy it, wishlists go a long way for visibility. Here’s the link:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2411340/Magehunter_Phoenix_Flame/

Thanks for reading!

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Wishlist game have perk in steam business grid ?

1 Like
80

The little changes made to the story’s flow and structure made a difference in this reading vs the last.

I still feel victory paths in the game seem too narrow and difficult to achieve at least to the point where the demo ends.

I feel the exploration of the city can be expanded, there was a lot not touched upon it seems, from the social structure involving all the factions to how the MC would know to answer the chaotic kingdoms (before making the choice) …

One of the big areas that is a huge void is the factions within the hunters (Riverside vs Pheonix) also Wu being the traitor Queen should be something in the common history for everyone.

Overall, I see a big improvement since my last read and still look forward to seeing the entire story.

Just wish the victory conditions for the trials were a lot more flexible.

2 Likes
81

Mostly enjoyed it. Some parts are annoying to play without a save function though. Ain’t a fan of diminishing returns on stat gains and large stat loss swings on wrong choices.

2 Likes