There are lots of people interested in games with medieval settings and people interested in resource management... Heroes of Might and Magic, Crusader Kings, Dwarven Fortress, and so on... And Ars Magica has its own twist and charm... So yes, I think there is a good potential market, but do your homework: You need two documents as complete and accurate as you can, a business plan and a design doc. Take all the time you need to have these two very clear to guide you, of course things can and will change along the way, but clear planning is a must.
Why not replicate Ars Magica Manager? I would love something this robbust to run VTT Ars Magica, this could be a mode, no?
And maybe mod support for translations?
You can have a more "covenant focused" mode, more focus on resource management and so on... A "Visual novel" mode, with focus on the development and history of one single character and a VTT mode for people to play Ars Magica RPG online.
The two first I was thinking in the modes of Dwarven Fortress, "fortress mode" and "adventure mode"
Althrough a bit old, fundamentals of game design by Ernest Adams is a good entry on game development., this can help you with your design doc. For the business plan, you will have to look for something at your country.
I am doing this project because I like the challenge and a business plan is not something I am interested in. Design docs - yes, those I have done. With lots of detail so I do not stray too far from the original concept. Ars Magica Manager was a MAMMOTH undertaking for me and it also needs to stay for what it was intended: a helper for table top roleplaying. It will never be a VTT tool - Xzotl already has that covered. This game is not intended to be as glorious as the other titles you mentioned. I do not have a team of devs and do this in my spare time, as fast as I can. Translations is something I would like, but not as mods. But for that I will lean into the Ars Magica community to help me get the right terminology once I get to that phase. That might only be after release, but will see.
Covenantum is a 2D game, so no visual mode planned - I am sure there will soon be alternatives for that like: https://dragynrain.itch.io/ludus-mercurii - For me, I need to focus on what I can deliver on and as much as I'd love to create RPG adventuring, not in my capabilities at this time.
Sorry, I definetly was not pushing anything over you. Sorry again.
I do not know the Xzotl tool, where I find it? (is it a Dune reference?)
And for me a visual novel is a 2d game with mostly static graphics, a "picture" version of the old "choose your own adventure" books"... Unfortunatly most games on this category are adult games, and there is a pyton open source engine if you are interested https://www.renpy.org/
The link you sent seem to be broken...
And yes, we do what we can, and the manager alone is a HUGE contribution for the Ars Magica Community!
Xzotl is the developer who made the Ars Magica mod for Foundry - really amazing what he has done. If you are looking for a good VTT platform for Ars Magica, you should check it out. Ars Magica 5th Edition | Foundry Virtual Tabletop
When it comes to supporting other languages, I will have to be decisive. Because the game is very text-based, adding translations for everything would not be feasible. I am willing to cater for 2 or 3 additional languages providing the community can help me with translations. Yes, some things like results or randomly generated text I will have to make a plan for, but static content like spells, characters, events, UI info, etc can be mapped to a new target language.
So my question is, which 2 or 3 languages would be most beneficial to the Ars Magica community to add? Spanish is definitely one of them, but any others that would be important to add?
At this time I just want to extend the structure to add translations in future. It will be a big task to get content translated.
For audiences I would imagine Spanish and German, with possibly French and Japanese additionally. From what I know of Japan scene it might have some real appeal - near if you can find one of the Japanese Ars players to help with it.
I can volunteer to do Swedish (I already have done a lot of Ars translation and very used to it as I run my game in Swedish, and I have old history doing technical translation work), but frankly hereabouts we're used to all computer games in English. Still, if you make the game with language abstraction and definition files to cater for the large languages, I'll happily add it as an extra. Massive rpg community here and it may be a bonus appeal.
The trick, I imagine, will just be if there's language abstraction built in and then clear definition files for all text fields.
For language, i'd say that having the possibility for any community to translate the game is a big plus (I'm guessing that means the texts are thought with this possibility at start). If the game is not easily translatable (like so many Japanese games for example), it can block communities who would take the game and translate it when it becomes something big (and making it available to not bilingual persons).
I'm not even sure it could go that way, but that's something I learnt on several discord servers with active communities in many "niche" style video games.
I'd say that German probably isn't worth it. Most people will use the English books and will be fine with an English game as well. In fact, if given the choice between English and German I'd prefer English because there I'm familiar with all the technical terms.
from personal experience, the only language I know which can be a "plus" to have a translation in is French (because some french players I speak with are not fluent in English); dutch and german players I speak with always tell me they play in English.
All in all, I think you should do only english, but if you can make the texts of the game "translatable" easily it's better. I don't know how it relates in developping terms/tools but I have read many games trying to be translated, and some were easy and some (many Japanese ones for example) were a real ordeal. I expect it is related to hardcoded language/language displaying boxes size in the game compared to... the opposite?
Edit: also think about modability. I don't know what it means, but I know there is a reason why a game like Baldur's gate 1 and 2 got so many good years and gathered a loving public long before the current time, and it's a great strength of already quoted game like Crusader kings 3 and it's big brother Europa universalis 4. Factorio for example is a very well known example of a perfect game for modders.
I am targeting the first round of playtesting to start in August and would be great if a few members from the community would be willing to help with feedback, suggestions and of course, bug reports.
The first test cycle will probably run August and I will have another round towards the end of the year which should be a more polished version. If interested in participating in the first round, you can add your details on this Google form: Covenantum - Playtesting Volunteers
I will only be accepting a limited number of testers with a key criteria being various hardware configurations. The form will be available till the 18th of July.
Thank you to everyone who volunteered to help playtest Covenantum! The form is now closed and I will be reviewing the responses. The first round will be Windows only, unfortunately. I will be in touch with all accepted applicants and provide you with Steam keys to access the current build, giving access to play 10 years of game time. The second round of testing (later this year) will be more comprehensive and I will have a new application cycle for that one.
@LadyAth I just completed the 10 years with little issue and submitted feedback (looks like I was the first?). It took me 2 hours and I found it quite interesting and enjoyable. I do understand the early state of the game - but if you flesh this out it can become very nice.
It was a bit rough to select what I wanted to do and focus on - but the amount of choices and results were already impressive. 10 years wasn't nearly enough to get anywhere haha.
One more thing, it was kinda rough to get the sense about status and decide what to focus on. I would advise for some richer context on the seasonal selection screen - so you have data to make your judgements on right there (including covenant status+projected status and effects - some are there but not quite enough) - including the event pipe. Scrolldown within the menu is short so I'd like that to be longer or configurable for quicker choice. Same with XP application, that was a bit of a cumbersome user experience.
I appreciate the feedback! And yes, there is a ton of polishing to do and the 2nd round of playtesting will be targeting gameplay with a much longer playthrough option - 10 years is really just a taste!. The plan is to use the feedback from the current playtest to help me prioritise (and stay out of rabbit holes...)
I will be making more updates while the current playtest is in progress and I would appreciate more playthroughs to test different character and game choice combinations. There are a few playtesters not as familir with Ars Magica since the story mode option also needs more focus (personally I am biased to want to do all my testing in RAW mode )
Development is still ongoing and thanks to the current round of playtesting, I have added some improvements & bug fixes. Something that I have been chatting to a few people about is to perhaps include a more personal aspect to the game. The principle remains the same: that the covenant is the main 'character' that would be impacted by the various events, decisions, opportunities, etc. but what is missing is for characters to be more significant.
So I am wondering, should I bring in more character-specific mechanics such as character to character relationships (within own covenant or others within the tribunal)? I am not looking to make it Ars Magica Sims, but I know how attached I can get to my own characters so this might be interesting to add for those who are interested (and be ignored by those who just want to keep it impersonal). Any thoughts?
Are there other things I should think about adding? (This game will remain a 2D UI-focussed game, no 3D characters running around on adventures, etc)
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