Nine Parchments is a type of game that we like to call a blast’em up, where you play as a bunch of wizarding students on a quest to find powerful spell parchments.

All the apprentice students use magic and therefore the game centers on spellcasting and using your wizard powers. Your goal in Nine Parchments is to blast your way through foes and to keep your teammates alive.

You can play in single-player or with up to four players in co-op, both locally and online! Co-op is of course the go-to mode to experience the full magical chaos, as friendly fire is always on, and from our experience your teammates tend to be trigger-happy.

Over the course of a playthrough, you’ll also gain additional spells, level up your character, discover new items and unlock other playable characters. Learn more about these mechanics by reading on, young apprentice!

Spells and Elements

Spells come in numerous variations, from channeled beam spells which can be combined, to projectile spells like burning fireballs or electrifying curtains of lighting. Some spells can even be thrown across the air and slammed on top of enemies. Spells come in six elemental varieties: fire, ice, lightning, steam, life, and death and some special non-elemental ones.

Characters begin the game with three starting spells and gain more as you progress through the levels, all the way until you’ve inscribed your ninth spell parchment into your spellbook!

Experience & Skill Trees

In addition to their growing spell arsenal, characters also gain experience and level up to gain skill points. You can spend these skill points in skill trees to gain new abilities. Each character has three unique skill trees available.

The skills available to each character correspond to their natural inclinations. For example, the mechanical owl character has a strong preference for lightning, so one of his skill trees is almost wholly focused on making your Lightning spells more devastating.

Items & Loot

While you’re out exploring the world, you may discover chests hidden throughout the levels. They grant you experience and can occasionally contain fashionable wizard gear: Hats! While hats are purely visual upgrades and have no magical properties, they do look awesome.

A wizard wouldn’t be complete without a staff, of course, so staves are also obtainable in Nine Parchments. Staves, however, serve a more practical purpose. You can use them for more powerful melee attacks, and each staff has a special gameplay effect that is sure to leave a mark. For example, the Owl’s staff creates an area-of-effect lightning spell when using blink, which stuns surrounding creatures, foes and friends alike, at your landing location.

Staves are also your key to additional playable characters, as they will grant you access special areas and quests.

Overall, a single playthrough of Nine Parchments spans a total of 32 levels, out of which eight are boss fights. There are four different difficulty options, including an unforgivingly tough hardcore mode for the real thrill-seekers out there! The hardest difficulty options also yield more rare and prestigious loot drops for you to distinguish yourself with.

We’ll have a trial available soon and the game is set to launch early December. Are you ready to join the adventure and your hunt for the Nine Parchments?

You can also check out the official Nine Parchments website over at www.nineparchments.com and follow the news on our Twitter and Facebook.