(WIP) Path of Martial Arts: The Beginning (Dark, Eastern Fantasy | 281k words)

TW: extreme violence, harsh language, very dark/grim world, slavery,

Heya! Some of you may already be familiar with this wip from another thread, but, since I don’t plan on including any NSFW content, it felt appropriate to move it here. Unless something changes, this would be the main thread for PoMA going forward.

About the game

You play as an heir of an old and noble, but decadent family of Martial Artists. The sole descendant of your clan, it’s fate within your hands: whether you will restore its previous glory or will let it collapse under turbulent tides of the Martial World is up to you.

  • Attend a sect full of noble scions. Forge friendships, establish connections and make enemies.
  • Shape your character and their morality: decide how to treat commoners and mortals and see how far are you willing to go to achieve your own goals.
  • Practice Martial Arts, gaining abilities far surpassing ordinary humans. Enter tournaments, take part in duels and fight in a brutal war.
  • Navigate the cutthroat politics hiding underneath the martial honor and bravado — or don’t and submit them all with brute force.
  • Help the reigning Dynasty maintain order — or be the spark that ignites the civil war.

Do take note, all of these things are simply unrealized plans inside my head. Check Demo to see the current state of the game.

Demo

The current demo is 281k words without code.

Last updated: Sept 18th 2023

ROs

Tang Ruo - a heavenly genius, with both talent and backing to afford his overwhelming arrogance and unyielding pride. Respects those confident in themselves and dislikes modest/low-key people.

The Tigress - a savage woman that comes from the uncivilized tribes of the West. Brutal, ruthless and with a thirst for blood. Respects the strong and the brave, lusts for muscle-bound hunks.

Jing Guo - a guy with a firm belief that life is given to us for enjoyment and pleasure: whenever you feel like drinking, gambling or buying unnecessary things, he’ll be your guy.

Mei Mei - a very innocent and cute alchemist that tries to get by in the cruel Martial World… at least, that’s what she appears to be.

Ai - a stubborn, headstrong commoner with a strong sense of justice and a compassionate heart.

Lei Xiwen - a pretty, beautiful even, young man with a picture-perfect face and a love for poetry and music.

Update Log
0.6

Continuation of the expedition (+15k words, size: 223k words). Saves should be OK.

0.5
  • New Tang Ruo event
  • Two new books
  • Start of the Expedition
  • Size: 192k → 207k
0.4
  • New Ai Event
  • New Tigress Event
  • Size: 175k to 192k
0.3
  • New Mei Mei, Tigress and not-yet-met character events!
  • Size 155 - 175k
0.2
  • New Stat System. Stats are now capped at 10k max and also have limits inside stages (Houtian - 500). Except Perception, INT and Char - they work as they did before.
  • Endurance has been removed. Instead, you’ll have ‘Inner Energy Pool’ that grows with every advancement (based on STR/AGI/CON/VIT before the breakthrough).
  • Each breakthrough now will also grow by 50% (instead of a set increase).
  • New trait added ‘Battle Sense’ - allows you to dodge whenever you fail a stat check / dodge the undodgeble at the cost of Inner Energy.
  • Constitution reworked. Instead of giving a %damage reduction it negates all damage below a certain amount all together.
  • New mission added.
0.1a

February 8th, 2023.

  • Wordcount remains the same (134k).

  • Introducing Alchemy: from now on, you’ll encounter many various pills/elixirs that would either give you exp directly or be available for use in the Training Grounds.
    However, alchemy is not a quick-way-to-become-OP. Every time you consume an alchemical product, your Alchemical Impurities will rise (depending on the quality of the stuff you absorbed). Impurities make it harder to increase your stats: for example, 10% of Impurities would mean 10% less stats from the same amount of EXP. Impurities below 80% can be ‘cleansed’, for a price, and after that… Well, let’s just say you should be very, very careful to never, ever reach a 100%.

  • A new trait: ‘Pristine Body’, the most expensive trait so far that completely nihilates all effects of impurities.

  • Injuries now will heal automatically for a certain Points price (you can go into debt). So no more bleeding for months :grin:

  • A new way to use supportive skills / artifacts / talismans. You’ll be able to access them multiple times during fights to use to your advantage (those of you with the ‘regeneration’ trait rejoice - you can now actively heal yourself during battles at the cost of Exhaustion).

  • Recoded how difficulties for stat-checks are made. Now the stats you see with ‘Aura Perception’ will be 100% reflected in the stat-checks and can be considered a reliable way to plan your battle.

  • Change to Skill-Storing ring: it can now store up to 4 different Skills (or multiple charges of the same one)

  • Change to Bracelet of Triplication: now it gives you 66% chance of passing an Agility check (by confusing an enemy) when active.

  • Talismans are finally here as well. Only basic ones for now: they are consumables that can be used at the same time as items/skills and grant various temporary effects (for now - only +20 buffs to STR, AGI, CON).

  • A new trait: ‘Blessed’. Allows you to automatically succeed in all random rolls / have them maximized (for example, maximum amount of EXP gained for training every time).

  • Restored supportive skills/fixed artifacts. They should now be fully functional.

  • Skills are now comprehended by spending EXP (also in meditation). Thoughtful Incense has been changed to make it 20% less expensive, ‘Martially Gifted’ trait now ensures that you don’t fail in the process.

  • Added an option to skip prologue (after you create your character / setup attributes). Very experimental, something might break - I’m not responsible, aight?

  • Added 6 new achievements (additional +4 for the Patreon Version).

0.1

February 6th, 2023 :

  • Version 0.1, word count: 134k.
    • Free Roam has been entirely removed. It complicated the game too much and since the feature wasn’t that popular to begin with, I’ve decided to make the game a more traditional CoG experience. There are still some free roam elements (like library, arena challenges, stores etc), but all events will happen regardless.
  • New Ai Event.
  • New Jing Guo Event.
  • Restaurant Management (just the beginning, so kind of raw) (Disabled temporarily, won’t get any money from it)
  • Stone Gambling
  • Meeting with He Jun.
Fan Art












Known Bugs
  • Restaurant management is bugged and will be completely reworked with the next update.

Have fun!

Tumblr Page
Discord Server (I’m very active on there, so don’t hesitate to join!)

If you liked the game, I’d appreciate it if you check out my Patreon. I post regular sneak-peaks, host Q/As and publish side-stories. Not to mention, that sweet-sweet early access =)
Patreon (currently same version)

P.S. Thanks @Gno_Nguyen for the beautiful art.

268 Likes

Random sugestion: I think it would be funny if you changed the cup Jing Guo puts the coins in some updates just to mess with some “speedruns”

20 Likes

I could make it randomized :grin:

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Looks good! Do wanna say tho the cheat level upon entering godhood level dosent seem to work with new xp system? Wasn’t able to get more than 2 levels on attributes starting up. Might not have the XP modifier working on some of the new stuff?

Regardless super fun, keep up the good work

3 Likes

:eyes: Taking a looksie-loo

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Fixed!

Eh, it’s kind of intended so that other difficulties may be balanced correctly. You can use Random Rolls + blessed for the ultimate ‘cheater’ experience, though I’ll think about raising the overlord exp multiplier

10 Likes

Is the restaurant currently functioning? I feel like it may be bugged.

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Yeah it’s bugged a bit. I’ll rework it completely come the next update. Should probably mention that in the thread, my bad

10 Likes

Love the stat rework, especially with it telling you how much exp is needed for each increase! Although I’ve been encountering a problem during the inn murder mission, where I have a strength stat of 20 and fail a strength check of 16 during the fight. And yeah, cheat mode does get nerfed after the tourney. Love the story as always tho!

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Added a Fan-Art summary in the thread, with all of the wonderful drawings @Gno_Nguyen did of PoMA :wink:

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Thanks =)

Mind telling me when that happens exactly? I’ll take a look

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Just noticed the ai scene is not happening in my game. Is it also getting reworked?

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It was during the fight in the inn mission where my mc was fighting against the dude, and I think it was after doing the front kick that I failed the strength check of 16 despite having a strength of 20. I’m replaying it rn to make sure, as I died during the fight after his transformation. Sorry, I have a bad memory lmao

2 Likes

It’s not, you just need good relationship (>55) with her. You probably got it before because relationship scores were bugged with high charisma.

Alright :joy:
I think it may have happened with the spin-kick option. It’s actually a ‘double’ check, which looks for both str/agi. May just be displaying wrongly.

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So I need to be very pro-commons in our first encounter then? And also not defend her, because she doesnt like that if I remember.

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Yep, though I don’t think it’s very difficult to reach. Especially if you have high charisma as it directly influences your relationship scores (every 10 points increase ‘positive’ gains by 1 and reduce ‘negatives’ by 1 as well)

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Given some rather gruesome scenes, I’d still say that game still qualify as an adult game regardless of having smut or not.

Guess it’s on the mods to say though.

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Is that so? Mei mei must then be a very resentful person as I ended the update with 13% rel with her, even tho I was decently nice to her and had 15 char. She must really want me to kill that guy uh

6 Likes

Oh yeah, you can completely destroy you relationship with her during that event lol

Don’t send me back to the purgatory :pensive:
But yeah, I especially made a disclaimer and everything, but mods said make a thread and see what happens haha

8 Likes