Once beautiful Madrigos, a city famous for its wealth and hospitality, is now a forsaken ruin called Scorponar, dwelling of the Scortaur, a race of savage scorpion-men who hunt all other races mercilessly and uncompromisingly on and around the Plains of Bone. Only a handful of fortunate wanderers can tell the tale of seeing the city's shattered buildings and old walls at the heart of the wasteland. Those who did see it talk about bone scaffolding and fortifications, flayed bodies hanging from battlements, and banners fashioned from human skin. Scorponar is a place of horror and despair, with the old white stone of Madrigos peeking out from under the colorless sands like broken teeth or shattered bones.

As I am writing these lines, we are actively working on what we call Enduring Effects for the game. What are these? Well, in short and to put it simply, these are all buffs and debuffs that last for several in-game days or are permanent (until removed somehow). They come in a variety of types and can be used for a lot of things to enhance gameplay and narrative alike.

'A simple matter, eh? A wee bit o' thrashin', you said, a right an' proper shindin'. Just seventeen guys, you said. What you forgot to mention is those seventeen are bloody Orcs, every single one of 'em! From the Chipped Fang tribe, no less. So here's your coin, find someone else to get killed. The Dread Reavers ain't takin' this one.'

As we are getting closer and closer to releasing the first playable build of the main campaign of Vagrus, it is perhaps a good time to talk a bit about the differences between the open world campaign and 'Pilgrims of the Wasteland'. The focus of this is going to be narrative design and stories but there are going to be implications on gameplay as well.

Hey Vagrus Fans,

while our Fig crowdfunding campaign is in full effect, we've been busy working on one of the gameplay updates: the new deployment features for Companion Combat.

Above you can see the old and the new Deployment UI and probably can easily spot the differences.

We are very proud and excited to finally release the second Teaser for Vagrus!

This one is focusing more on delivering a gist of the game's feel and atmosphere than showing off gameplay elements systematically like the first teaser did. Also, it will be used - in part or in whole - in our upcoming​ Fig.co crowdfunding campaign​. 

This time we would like to introduce a brand new game mechanic to you that you will see quite a lot in Vagrus: the acquiring and delivering of news across vast tracts of wasteland. Carrying news between settlements not only makes sense from a gameplay perspective but has its foundations in-world, too, that is, comitati are known to have a vital role in distributing news and taking messages all over the continent of Xeryn.

In Part 3 of our Character Design series, we discussed how a character concept gets to its final artwork state that is placed into the game. In this last part we'll talk about how characters are given stats, skills, and roles in game, especially in combat.

Vagrus has turn-based combat because we wanted to capture the tabletop RPG atmosphere and flow we know so well. It is also a fantasy game which comes with a few expectations of what roles characters fulfill in a party of adventurers. The similarities to DnD and other roleplaygames can surely be seen when observing combat and related character stats. It was along these lines that we designed our heroes (even though few of them are actually heroic) and enemies.

As we've previously hinted at, parts of the game Vagrus has a narrator in the person of Agos the wanderer. An older man and a vagabond, Agos stumbles upon the player one evening on the road and begins telling stories of his travels (if you let him, that is). One such story is the Prologue that you can play through to be introduced to the world and gameplay at the same time, essentially playing through the story Agos is telling.