Sorcerer King Beta 4 is starting to come together. We expect to release it in early February.  There’s a ton of changes coming to it, most notably the new crafting system and summoning system. 

Below are two screenshots that give you a taste of some of the visual changes coming too.

I need more analytics in the game to do this properly but this is a start.

How long should a game last? That depends on the game. 

Sorcerer King, for me, as the designer, is meant to take elements of Master of Magic, Star control and FTL and put them together.  While those games may seem dissimilar, they each have key ingredients that I think can be blended together to create something really spectacular.

And Sorcerer King is turning out spectacularly.

Map Size Ranges:

These are random maps so they’ll have random shapes. As maps get bigger, the shard dots (the white diamonds) will get smaller. You

Tiny maps

Land tiles: 300 to 800

Shards: 8

Time to play: 1 hour 45 minutes

Small Maps

Land tiles: 450 to 1200

Shards: 8-9

Time to play: 2:30 minutes

Medium Maps

Land tiles: 800 to 1600

Shards: 9-10

Large Maps (for the hard core)

Land Tiles: 2200 to 2800

Shards: 11 to 12

Huge Maps (for crazy people)

Land Tiles: 3000 to 5000

Shards: 12

Misc. Screenshots

Just thought this looked cool.

Years ago the world was at war. Ceresa, The Fallen Enchantress, had unleashed an army of the undead upon the Kingdoms and Empires of Elemental.

The adventurer, Relias, managed to acquire the necessary pieces to build the Forge of the Overlord and with it, defeated Ceresa and her allies.

For a time, there was peace.

Then, one day, a powerful Sorcerer named Mirdoth found the ancient artifact, Curgen's Bane.  It was thought that the bane had been lost in the cataclysm. This was the same artifact that the ancient titans had used to try to consume the magical energy of the world before they were stopped by the great uprising.

The bane transformed Mirdoth into a being of unspeakable power.  He became the Sorcerer King.  With his power, he annihilated all those who stood in his way.  At the very last, Lord Relias, with the help of the Forge of the Overlord, managed to prevent the Sorcerer King from destroying the last city of Relias's realm, Athica but at the cost of his life.

The Sorcerer King's advance was blunted but not stopped.  With his grip on Elemental secure, he devised a new plan. He would send his minions out to sacrifice themselves by attacking the remaining shards of magic. Once shattered, the shards would unleash their power into the bane and fuel the Sorcerer King's new plan - to become a god.

With Relias and the other great channelers gone or ruined, only you, Relias's heir, stand between the Sorcerer King and the end of all life on Elemental.  While you master the Forge of the Overlord, you must send your champions out to find the necessary components to craft the powerful weapons and tools necessary to send an elite force into the heart of the Sorcerer King's realm and stop him before it's too late.

The game itself

The Sorcerer King (www.sorcererking.com) will have both a campaign that enables the player to take on the Sorcerer King through through the scripted story of his rise and godhood or downfall.  It also includes a sandbox mode with both pre-made maps and random maps to fight the Sorcerer King in lots of different and new ways.

The tentative name for the next DLC for Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is Battlegrounds.

A little background on the world

When a map is generated, we use tiny pieces of land called “stamps”.  The stamps were one of the first things we made when developing Fallen Enchantress and haven’t bee touched since. 

Needless to say, if you’ve played the game enough you start to recognize pieces of the world.  Moreover, in the years since they were made, we’ve found that certain types of maps are more fun than others. 

Hence, we’re looking at the new DLC, which will likely be only $4.99 to include over 20 new stamps and roughly the same number of new tactical battle maps.

The result is both subtle and profound, especially in terms of replayability.  More to come.

A pet peeve of mine of fantasy strategy games is how weak magic often is.  It makes sense if every side is supposed to be equal. Can’t have 8 players wrecking the land, it would be a pure luck of the draw on who won.

But in Sorcerer King, it just you, the Sorcerer King and the peanut gallery.  The other players are effectively as powerful as they are in other 4X games. But you are incredibly powerful (and so is the Sorcerer King).

The player in Sorcerer King starts out, on turn 1, with the victory condition from Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes.  They’ve already built the Forge of the Overlord. They already have incredible, magical power.  It’s just that the Sorcerer King is even more powerful.

By contrast, the “minor” races are actually quite a bit better than the major races you normally see in 4X.  Their units are impressive. But they can’t, unlike you, destroy cities and mountains with a simple spell.

In this screenshot,  I’m destroying monster lairs through magic.  Now, I don’t recommend this for a variety of reasons (I want their loot).  but the only limitation on this spell is that it requires converting life energy into fire (which means it only works on tiles with grass, trees, etc. and not on already desolate tiles).

And yes, it kills anything in those tiles. So be careful (I destroyed my shard):

This is all expected to be in BETA 2 btw.  If you’ve ever played Populous, you know what to expect.

And lastly, going to keep my cities safe by putting mountains around them.   When I’m ready, I’ll lower the land…

Like such.. The path is clear!