The 3rd of September was a big day for fans of the interactive Fighting Fantasy gamebooks that have brought countless hours of entertainment to so many of us since the 1980s. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the fourth Fighting Fantasy Fest was held in London. Visitors of the Fest could meet legends like Steve Jackson and Sir Ian Livingstone in person, along with many other prominent gamebook writers like Rhianna Pratchett, Jonathan Green, or Marc Gascoigne, as well as many graphic artists of the book series. We could have our books signed, pick up a bunch of merchandise, mingle with other fans, and watch presentations on various, exciting topics. It was indeed great fun!

Lost Pilgrims had an AMA session over on discord where players asked us questions about the game and the studio alike. We had a great time talking to people and decided to compile the questions and answers into a single AMA article for posterity. We also added some very frequently asked questions to the beginning that players or those looking up information on the game might find informative.

Scorpions of all sizes, colors, and features plague the arid wastelands of the central continent of Xeryn, and most travelers are quite used to their presence and to the threat they may present. However, nobody is used to the presence of a Stinger Scorpion, this hulking yet frighteningly fast monster that hunts beasts and men during the cool night hours. Unfortunate souls may learn that while these solitary scorpions are inert during the day when they are buried under the sands, they are far from being safe around, as they can awaken with a sudden and fatal rage. There is a cunning viciousness about them that makes them far more than simply a large animal.

You will come across many caverns and subterranean tunnels in Vagrus, mostly under cities or sometimes out in the wilderness. Whether these are the lairs of terrifying monsters, the shadowy hideouts of bandits, gateways to ancient, buried ruins, or simply hollow ground is usually difficult to tell at first. There is no specific lore or design insight to be delved into here, so the only thing that remains is to admire this version of the cavern illustration by Attus, one of our artists.

You will most likely come across the artwork you can see here when wandering into sewers below Imperial cities in Vagrus' main campaign. This might not seem a very good idea since such places are typically neglected and extremely filthy. They are also most likely infested by mutated beasts or stray undead. Yet a vagrus needs to plunge into such vile places more often than not.

The greatest cause for mutations in the Riven Realms is a mysterious arcane disease that people call the Taint. There’s no telling how it spreads or why it attacks the ones it does; its workings have eluded medical science altogether. These days, every third human on the continent is Tainted. The Taint begins with a period of incubation when the victim falls gravely sick and suffers seizures and spells for days or weeks. About half of them perish during this interval.

The images above are from one of the starting regions of the main game, shedding some light on parts of the huge campaign map the player can traverse in Vagrus.

We can already hear you ask: 'But guys... why don't you show off the whole map?'

We at Lost Pilgrims will always remember 2018 as the year when it all began to come together, the year when everything changed for us. It was the year when development on Vagrus got out of the preparation phase and into hardcore production.

Now that this crucial year is done and over with, we felt it would behoove us to recount how 2018 went for those of you interested (and for posterity!).

In the last part of our character design series, we talked about what goes into conceptualizing and designing characters and touched upon how Bazsó came up with distinct the art style for characters and how Szonja raised the bar when working with the majority of them.

Now it's time to discuss what actually happens after the initial phase of concepts and moodboards. Mind you, this will probably have information that is well-known by any graphic designers who work on 2D character art; yet others may find it intriguing.

You may have noticed that Vagrus is pretty heavy on UI, being a strategy/resource management game and an RPG rolled into one. A lot of UI means a lot of buttons and icons, and drawing those is a challenge in its own right. Not only because of the size of the set but also due to the requirement of having them look right: easy to discern and to tell each apart from the rest.