Inspired by TLS - Noblesse Oblige: Legacy of the Sorcerer Kings

CyberForte

Hey there. I haven't been active in the TLS realm as much these days, but I'm a longtime fan of TLS (and supporter since back in 2016 XD). Back then, I started my own game heavily inspired by TLS, and though life derailed me for a while, I've recently resumed that effort. Since TLS did inspire me, I thought I would share it here in case anyone else was interested. If that feels inappropriate or anything, feel free to delete this post, haha. I was also wondering if anyone here knows of good places to post about games of this sort these days? All the old places I used to frequent in the days back when I discovered TLS seem to be long dead XD

Either way, I've written a lot about my game on the site/blog, if you're interested. In short, it's a game that follows the story of Alexander, a pragmatic young nobleman, as he navigates the vicissitudes of a messy civil war and also the complexities of what being a good ruler actually means. I've tried to focus on interesting combat--there are less party members than in TLS, but each of them has fairly in-depth gameplay.

Noblesse Oblige was inspired by TLS in a lot of ways, including the no-grinding combat, the desire for a strong and competent protagonist, a somewhat similar relationship system, and a set of key variables for measuring outcomes (albeit, in my case, I won't pretend the system is nearly as complex as TLS's, haha). I've tried to do some nice things with the UI as well, to make it a little easier to keep track of things, like my way of showing proposals.

It's also free like TLS, and although the current version is all-ages, there's an adult version with text scenes available using a patch on the game site if you prefer that. I've been planning to do an episodic release similar to TLS, but there's already a quite significant chunk of the game done. If anyone feels like giving it a try, I'd be thrilled to see what other fans of TLS think of my efforts to create something similar but unique!

Grim8P

No problems with the post as far as I'm concerned. You might get more engagement on the official Sierra Lee Discord server. There is a lot of discussion on any given day and you can talk about your game in the other-games channel.

What you wrote interests me, but I have a lot on my plate at the moment. I'll make a note of it for the future though. Good luck with your project.

CyberForte

Grim8P Hm, I'll give that a try at some point, yeah. Thanks for the heads up, and I hope you enjoy when/if you decide to give it a try!

kobajagrande

I tried your game a bit and I like it a lot, and think it has a lot of potential, I would just offer a few criticisms that might improve it:

1) Your writing style is too verbose for the purposes of the game. It would benefit from some simplification to make it more concise and easier to read.

2) Linked to one, a lot of times your paragraphs take an entire screen and then overflow into another screen for a line or two. Making it more concise and editing it, with paying attention to how it will appear in game will make it a much more polished and more enjoyable experience.

3) Same goes for the dialogue - while I understand most characters are nobles, and should speak in distinct style, making the speech more colloquial, at least in informal settings, would greatly increase verisimilitude.

4) I like your maps, but often I feel they are too cluttered, and I find there is only one path through the map when it makes no sense to be so, making it feel claustrophobic.

5) Battle system seems to have potential to be very deep, just afraid it will become too complicated. In RPG maker with a bunch of small icons its hard to realize which effect is in effect and when it will expire.

6) A lot of your detailed world-building is put in front and optional and does not have a good rhythm of presenting to the player. The best way I can explain this is through an example. At the beginning in the library you have an opportunity to read about all the gods in the pantheon, each having a dedicated large section of text. But later on, you enter into a sanctuary where you can interact with various shrines, and get a short, one-line explanation of every god. It should be the opposite; first giving the player an easy to digest quick explanation and then deepening it throughout the game.

7) Also, speaking of the library, and it really underlines the point 1) - just contrast the library in TLS, and how much more effective the text there is with characters quickly summing up what the player should know compared to your text sections.

But other than that, it shows a lot of promise and I hope it will be a fun ride. Good luck!

CyberForte

kobajagrande

Thank you for your thoughts! I'm glad you've been enjoying it.

With that said, I feel your concerns mostly boil down to differences in personal taste and preference. I personally don't consider unadulterated concision a virtue, for example. And, while the game is inspired by TLS, I would say that some differences are by design, such as below in (3).

This, I must say, really isn't a concern for me, I don't see it as a meaningful problem. Reading past a page break isn't hard, one does it when reading a book all the time. I can't imagine anyone saying an author should pay attention to where a paragraph carries over to the next page--and, in fact, it would be quite impractical to do so.
I personally think it's more worthwhile to create the period affect here, a cue I've taken from works that I myself quite enjoy (e.g. Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy Tactics - The War of the Lions). I understand your feelings on the matter here, I just don't share them. Honestly, one of my personal few issues with TLS is the -lack- of adequate period flair. I think it's too colloquial all the time.
How far have you gotten, out of curiosity? Just curious which maps you feel this way about in particular.
You can resize the window with F6 if size is an issue.
My thoughts here are mostly that the brief explanations are there for people not interested in the more in-depth aspects, and also just more for characterization regarding how the characters interact with the different deities. I can appreciate your feelings, but to me, giving this kind of "basic foundation" from the get-go makes more sense
The libraries in the game take different approaches, with some in other places having more of the TLS style of exposition. I don't think they work for the topics I've put in the style of full books for several reasons, though, namely (a) Avalonia's library can be accessed with a very variable party size, (b) the information there is too basic to the characters to be reasonably discussed, and (c) going through it in narrative form would actually take a lot longer.

Hopefully none of this came across as overly aggressive or defensive. I appreciate your thoughts and do understand your perspectives, but most of these decisions are ones that I stand behind and, indeed, which are relatively nonnegotiable to my vision.

lostone2

Just a heads up that, for anyone interested in talking about this game there is a thread in the TLS Discord server.