Last week, I had the opportunity to spend an hour with three people from the Tactical Adventures studio (Mathieu Girard: Co-Founder of the studio, Emile Zhang: Community Lead, and Pierre Worgague: Marketing Director), a French structure created three years ago by Mathieu Girard. Currently seventeen people work there, all big fans of role-playing games, whether they are on the table or not. Solasta: Crown of the Magister is their first game, a project/passion. Tactical role-playing game, the universe is original, but the rules are adapted from Dungeons & Dragons, in its SRD 5.1 version under Wizards of the Coast license. Funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2019, Solasta: Crown of the Magister is backed by 6 backers, who were joined by new players when it released in early access last October. On Steam, 000% of feedback is positive. These last seven months have also been an opportunity to gather a lot of feedback from the community, and to prepare as it should be for the release, which is coming soon: on May 92, the entire campaign, as well as a beta version of the Dungeon Maker tool, will be accessible, i.e. at least a good forty hours of play!
The story begins with the creation of a group of four adventurers. Because, unlike many games of the style, you don't play a hero, who is joined by companions. But the group as a whole, with the possibility of choosing the race and attributes of each hero. Basically, six classes are offered, each with three subclasses that will be unlocked later (and even more for priests). The opportunity to offer good replayability with different experiences during combat, but also dialogue phases. Indeed, each hero offers an answer according to his personality, with the player choosing the one that best corresponds to his approach to the current situation (arrogant, aggressive, sympathetic...). The idea is to simulate as much as possible the exchanges of a real role-playing game.
To return to the scenario, more than 1 years after a cataclysm which saw the collapse of empires (including that of the Elves), our four adventurers find themselves engaged in an epic quest after having found a crown in ruins. Except that this artifact is incomplete, it lacks gems. Then begins a search that brings them to a volcano, whose bowels are inhabited by orcs. And, coincidence or not, Arrok, the Orc King, suddenly gained magical powers, which would suggest he's found one of the missing gems. Having become too powerful, the tyrant Arrok can only be defeated if the company succeeds in rallying the other orc clans, leading to accomplish different missions to gain their trust. In addition to the main quest, the game features random encounters, side quests, and quests related to the characters' pasts.
The combat system uses the rules of D&D in its purest expression, down to monsters and powers. The characters move on a grid, made up of cubic cells, and several game levels. The verticality of the game area is assumed in the gameplay, with many spells to gain height: flight, teleportation, climbing... But it is also a constant risk of falling, especially since certain skills allow you to push... at the risk of being pushed. For example, the magician's thunderclap pushes back, or the warrior pushes back, and watch out for the fall! It's also possible to drop things from the ceiling, like in this cave where stalagmites can be used to fight huge beetles, ancient creatures once controlled by the elves, which they used to dispose of their waste, but who today have become ferocious monsters attacking all that is magical.
The vast majority of D&D spells have been integrated, apart from a few very high level spells, such as those that lead to communication with gods or demons, which are not easy to represent in a video game. The studio has however allowed itself some liberties, in particular because of the bestiary system, with spells to be able to better identify the monsters. There is also an area mental damage spell. Finally, legendary actions are interspersed with classic powers, on a principle of points (each hero has three points, and each action costs a variable number of points). The long rest allows you to regain your life points, the opportunity to check the progress in your levels (for a maximum of 10), to select your spells (for magicians), or even your abilities. And magic items bind together, with the impossibility of carrying more than three.
The interface discreetly and effectively supports combat. At the top left is the combined initiative table of enemies and allies, while another window provides information on all dice rolls made, for complete transparency of each action. The bestiary is a good way to help the player in his strategies, with four levels of knowledge. During an encounter, party members roll dice at the start, and at the end, with a chance to better understand the monsters, including all of their weak points.
Balancing was difficult for the studio, especially at high levels, beyond seven, because the characters are very powerful. But the randomness persists, insofar as the systems are based on dice rolls, which can lead to bitter failures in situations that should have been mastered. Additionally, players are able to leave with unbalanced team compositions, which could end up in trouble in certain situations. An original approach has been taken: the monsters do not automatically adapt to the power of the player, but they are parameterized in a very fine way. Five calibrations are offered by default, from the most narrative to the most epic, with the addition of gauges to define certain aspects and deactivate what gets in the way.
The fights are very dynamic as far as I could tell. In addition to the bad scarabs, I saw an encounter where the boss was protected under a shield. To reach it, four statues must be deactivated, placed on high platforms. Of course, the boss does not intend to make the task easy, and continues to send minions in a loop, just to hinder the climb!
Finally, the presentation ended with the Dungeon Maker, a tool that will be offered in beta at launch. This feature has been requested for a long time by the community, but the studio could not find a solution to implement it, the game being developed under Unity. Proposing a solution to directly interface with the game engine was too complicated. But, during December, an idea gradually made its way, which materialized in the form of the Dungeon Maker, a very simple 2D tool which allows you to create dungeons for the moment in four environments: an elven castle, a lava cave (very organic, with an orc and goblin environment), a fortress (a very dusty ruined castle, with prisons), and catacombs. We place the rooms, which connect through holes, to be filled with elements or doors. We decorate the whole with accessories (walls, tables, columns), then we add gadgets, interactive elements that trigger the appearance of monsters, the opening of a door or even the triggering of a trap. There is no programming language, but the ability to link elements together. A pressure plate can for example be connected to a door that will release enemies. Finally, the level is refined with a visual atmosphere (two only but others are to come). The end result is saved as a json file, easily shared with friends, especially since Steam Workshop support is assured. An interesting idea is the possibility of linking several dungeons together, to make a longer adventure, on several environments.
The studio has a lot of ideas to improve the tool, such as adding support for an external environment, such as a city, where there could be merchants, to sell its equipment. Or even NPCs who would help with immersion, the story in these environments can only be told via text inserts. Some features will be added, that's for sure, but a sorting will be done according to what the community wants. Knowing also that the studio's objective remains accessibility to as many people as possible, it will be impossible for them to respond to certain requests that are too specific, for example from the modding community.
The game will be available on May 26. If you want to know more, you can also reread the preview made on early access by Sodzounet here.
