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.

The reveal of our next character marks an important moment in artwork development: Renkailon is the first character who's not going to appear in the Prologue and thus is exclusively created for the main game.

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.

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.

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.

Markets and bazaars are the throbbing heart of the rebuilt cities of the Riven Realms. Due to the isolation of many settlements and regions thanks to the Calamity, trade - propagated mostly by comitati - is key to the survival of these regions and thus to the survival of the Empire.

Hey everyone, let's talk combat. So based on the initial feedback and testing of the Companion combat, we have decided to revamp quite a lot of it. The process is still not fully complete, but you can already see the improvement on the images in the post.

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.

A lot of the Riven Realms are endless wastelands and deserts. Yet even in the deadliest of deserts, some life remains; thrives even. Most of that life tends to be found around an oasis.

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?