In the previous part of our Companion Combat Guide (Part 1: The Basics) we left off at discussing the Leader's role in combat after outlining the basic rules of an engagement. In this part, we'll cover the actions that Companions can take during their turn.

In the final chapter in our Character Design series, we have touched upon how we come up with the stats and skills for the Companion characters and enemies in Vagrus. A great number of those stats come in to play in action, so in this new Companion combat series, we are going to walk you through how they work in the game. Let’s start at the basics!

The TIME is approaching! We are opening up our Prologue Alpha testing soon, folks!

   - So I can just apply & play the demo before everyone?
   - Well, you get to see the game early but you actually have to test & report bugs. 
   - OK! When?
   - When we get to 1k+ followers on Game Jolt. So go and share this!

We posted our last update only six weeks ago but as we have just reached two important milestones, it felt pertinent to share it with you all.

1) We've passed our 1 year anniversary working on the game! We have been pushing so hard in recent weeks that we forgot to take notice - let alone celebrate. So that is something we will have to make up for later this week. :)

The new enemy character (that can also be an ally sometimes) you can see above is the tribal warrior of the Sadirar. These brave people are trackers, hunters, desert guides, and of course, capable fighters. Their only weapon is a spear, so in combat against tough opponents, they prefer to have superior numbers or support from their elemental shamans; or both.

There's been a lot of character reveals for Vagrus - The Riven Realms here on our website and on our social media since we began posting about a year ago. We figured it behooves us to talk a little more about who these characters are and what their role is in the game.

The vast majority of the characters you see revealed are enemy characters, even if sometimes they can be allies in the game for short periods of time (or versions of them, anyways). Although Events will involve these enemy characters often, you will mainly see them as shown in the artwork in turn-based combat. All of them have their unique combat skills and synergies with other enemies.

Vagrus - The Riven Realms is a game rich in storylines and quests, and most of these appear in the form of what we call Events: text based interactions where your choices guide the story. There are a lot (and I mean a LOT) of these Events and due to their nature, writing for the game involves quite complex scripting and a non-linear narrative design angle. But what does this mean in practice and what does it involve?

The Empire in the Riven Realms is based on the Roman Empire of our history, so it's no surprise that the gladiators of these cultures are also very similar.

This character artwork is that of the gladiator enemy that you can come across in arena battles. These arena or pit fights will feature in larger settlements, as the Empire of the Riven Realms is very fond of such bloody games.

Javek is one of our main characters in the Prologue and he'll hopefully make his return in the main game, too. A budding sorcerer with telepathic powers, he can read thoughts, see glimpses of the future, and even cause pain and damage to someone's mind.

His combat phases/poses reflect these abilities. Here's a list of skills the above displayed images are connected to:

It's spring 1990 and I'm in elementary school. My best friend brings a book to school that he reads aloud to a small group of us during our big walks at lunch break. The book has a weird old wizard on the cover conjuring smoke from a crystal ball. More interesting are the illustrations on the inside: intricate black and white drawings of strange fantasy creatures and dungeon locations. The little book is Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson's Warlock of Firetop Mountain, translated to our native language. Most of you probably know that it's a gamebook that you do not read from start to end but in branching numbered chapters that make the story personal and add replayability. Yet they are much more than simple choose-your-own-adventure books because they include a stat and combat system you have to manage throughout the adventure - albeit a really simple one.