The Magician's Enigma (2 Chapters, 25k words)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Hi, everyone. Samuel here. It has been 14 months since the release of my Hosted Game, The Magician’s Burden. If you liked TMB, please consider leaving a review; it helps keep me motivated while chipping away at this 1,250,000 word, five-part series. :fist:

Many of you have undoubtedly noticed that I’ve been busy with a handful of other WIPs. Although I will still be focusing a lot of my time on Mass Mother Murderer and Nascent Narcissistic Necromancer in particular, I also think it’s high time I finally start working on The Magician’s Enigma in earnest.

Although I don’t have a demo available just yet, I’m posting this here so my fans can keep me honest, and I’ll be less likely to continue to procrastinate on this. All that said, you can expect a teaser to come soon, with semi-regular updates after that.

Summary:

Your father and your childhood cat are dead. Your village is still reeling from the devastating demon invasion. For better or worse, Zaleth has all but vanished from your mind, leaving you feeling strangely incomplete. Kihbok is still out there somewhere.

And yet, there are even more pressing matters looming. An army of demons is planning to break into your world and overthrow the kingdom of Githrad in a single, crushing battle. Melithar the Enigmatic, the most powerful wizard in the world, wants to train you and your fellow villagers to help stop them. But you quickly learn that the greater your allies, the greater your enemies.

Projected Features:

  • Play as male, female, or non-binary; romance males, females, both, or no one at all
  • 6 Romance Options: Violet, Mabelin, Keano, Rigel, Alice, and Melithar
  • Hone your magic, combat abilities, and knowledge, and become five times more powerful than you were before
  • Take revenge on your childhood bully, or forgive him and learn to heal
  • ~ 250k words total

Warnings:

Like TMB, The Magician’s Enigma will contain profanity, violence, and sexual content. It will also be generally darker in tone and events than its predecessor. However, it’s still aimed at, and should be suitable for, young adults.

Word Count:
Chapter One: 13k
Chapter Two: 12k

Total: 25k

If you’re a fan of this series, please consider “liking” this thread so others will check it out too. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Demo Link: https://dashingdon.com/play/mastersamuel/the-magicians-enigma/mygame/

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Can’t wait

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This full on made my day :tada: Best of luck with it all

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I actually found the original very intriguing, though didn’t feel at all that my decisions mattered in the end. It’s difficult to describe, because this story was excellent emotionally, and also interesting as an adventure, but the final scene(s) felt scripted.

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Yeah, that’s one of the dilemmas us authors face when writing series. There are three sequels to TMB, each of which will be roughly 250k words. That means the whole series will be a whopping one million words, or the equivalent of around 3,000 pages.

So if I start making big branches or big latent branches early, things could become unmanageable very quickly.

So while the journey through the first installment could be different for different readers, the outcome was largely the same, with Mowbow, Theyo, etc dying no matter what and the MC losing to Kihbok no matter what.

However, with Enigma, it’s my goal to make the MC have more player agency, and to have the MC be more of a powerful character than before, which I think a lot of people will appreciate.

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Will you lead armies or at least fight in a battle?

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Most of Volume Three will consist of the battle, yes. Though you won’t be leading more than maybe a small segment.

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ohana I am looking forward to this game so much!

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I’m looking forward to this as I really enjoyed the Magician’s Burden as a matter of fact I just started playing it again.

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  • The Magician’s Burden is released through Hosted Games.

  • I stated in very clear terms multiple times that I was not gone.

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Just wanna say that in my opinion, you nailed the two things I expect from a sequel. More choices, and for my improvements to carry over. I don’t think it needs to be a big “jump” in power, leave plenty of room to grow.

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NOOOOOO! Anyway, I’m looking forward to playing the sequel of Magician’s Burden!

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By request of author.

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So, I’m going to try this again because I’m confident that the trolls will find someone or something else to obsess over eventually. In the meantime, I know there are many of you who are actually interested in this thread for its intended purpose: beta testing my Magician’s series.

Progress on Chapter One of Enigma is going along steadily, and I anticipate posting the demo within the next week or so. It has a tone that hasn’t really been seen in the series yet: one that’s dark and depressing. It will mostly have to do with the funerals for Theyo and Mowbow, and it will also start to touch on some of the things to come, such as Zaleth hibernating, Kihbok still being at large, and the large role that Melithar will have to play in the subsequent chapters.

Although Enigma will still not have nearly as urgent of a plot as some of my other works, like MMM or NNN, it will have a significantly different feel than TMB. Whereas the first installment was primarily a slice of life, this sequel will deal with recovering after the demon attack; training extensively with Melithar, and finally journeying to the king’s castle and recruiting powerful allies along the way.

There will be more romance, new villains, and new dynamics with the characters you’ve already met so far. I’m pretty excited to get back into this series after only picking away at it here and there since I submitted TMB for the CoG contest. My biggest goal with Enigma is to address many of the issues people had with the first installment, and bring the quality of the story up to the standard that I’ve created with many of my WIPs.

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Stupid question, but will the mc be able to get a pet or befriend an animal that will actually stay alive? :pray:

And can I say that I am really glad you’re working on it? I know you have other projects and a personal life -and dude I hope you’re taking care of yourself- so I’m really impressed.

Good luck, keep it up and take care of yourself~

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Thanks a lot, @Ninja1. Yes, you’ll be able to adopt a stray dog while traveling towards the end of the story.

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Looking forward to this one and love tmb
Good luck

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Super excited, don’t let the trolls distract you from your fans :slight_smile:

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My intent isn’t to derail the thread further, but since it’s come up, first of all, if there’s been any mess up of moderator stuff, that’s on me, and I apologize if things were enforced weirdly for differently people. Part of it has to do with different moderators and admin having different ideas about how stuff goes, I’d imagine, and that’s always a little tricky. But I totally make mistakes with this stuff.

I don’t feel strongly about having multiple accounts.

It’s not super cool to have multiple accounts and then “like” your own posts or post in support of yourself, and that sort of thing makes me lift one eyebrow pretty high, but at most I would write to someone and ask them to please not do that, I think, if it weren’t something egregious.

That’s often been the case, but not always. For example, my Cakes and Ale thread doesn’t have a demo. But you do bring up a good point that these things aren’t always figured out in obvious ways. Sometimes I’m flying by the seat of my pants here between grading Beowulf papers. I don’t have a huge problem with non-demo threads in some cases, although in other cases the “Interest Check” thread is most appropriate. It’s a judgment call on my part, and if I screw up, write me, and I’ll fix it.

Anyhow, let’s let this thread be about whatever Enigma this Magician is having, and if there’s other stuff about moderation norms, we can also talk about it here: Moderation and Forum Norms

Edit: It is now strictly forbidden to have multiple accounts on this forum.

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