by Jeff Sullins, 2012-10-26

Forge of Legends is a classic, party-based RPG currently in development. I began work on Forge of Legends after yearning to play more games like Wizardry 7-8 and the old Bard's Tale games. At the time (back in 2010), there did not seem to be the right game to scratch that itch, so I finally decided to create my own. It will be released for PC, Mac, Android tablets, and (probably) iPad.



The game features much of what I crave in an RPG. Namely:

- a party of six characters

- turn-based combat

- freedom to move tactically (more on this later)

- multiple races, classes, spells, and monsters

- multiple dungeons to explore

- a first-person dungeon view

I've also created what I hope is an interesting angle for this kind RPG: the concept of a "Guild." In the Forge of Legends world, adventurers gather together in guilds -- actually competing with other guilds for rewards and reputation. Part of the goal of the game,

then, is to climb to the top and become the best guild, beating out others through questing, fulfilling contracts, and even directly through arena bouts.



Another aspect of the game is the tactical movement. In the past, some games of this type would limit the party to essentially occupying one "square" in the dungeon, while multiple monsters roamed freely about. I want to unchain the characters and allow the freedom for each character to move about independently in combat. This presents

all kinds of interesting tactical possibilities, and it has proven to be a lot of fun in the prototype. To make it work well, the party (when not in combat) moves through the dungeon in a player-defined formation. Individual party members do their best to maintain the formation until combat breaks out. Then, each party member can be

controlled independently to engage the enemy (or not) as the player chooses.



Work has been going about a year and a half now, with much of what I have discussed already complete. I suspect I've still got quite awhile to go.

