So - the long awaited “What’s the next Studio Archcraft project?” post…
First, a word of warning: any information found here is subject to change - we’re not committing to anything just yet, as there’s still a few things to sort out first. Also - this is strictly Studio Archcraft stuff. Graffiti is, so far, not involved in anything found below.
Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let’s have a look at future projects Studio Archcraft might do:
1-A Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled prequel or sequel
While Black Sigil’s story stands on its own fairly well, there are still stories to be told in Artania. At some point, we’d like to revisit that world and tell some of those stories. Whether we’ll be able to depends mostly on Black Sigil’s sales. On the other hand, if Black Sigil performs very well (hey, maybe, like Spinal Tap, we’ll be really big in Japan!) this may very well be bumped to priority one.
2-Black Sigil 2 - Unrelated story
We’re also planning on taking what we’ve got, improving it, and telling an entirely new story. We’re planning on basically improving everything from Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled. Better visuals, better monster AI, tweaks to the various game mechanics, etc. We’ve also taken good notes of the various criticisms given to us by the general public - while the encounter rate seemed fine to me, it apparently wasn’t for most people. So that’ll go back to the drawing board.
This project is probably the one most likely to hit shelves next. We’ve got an initial storyline down, we’ve got fairly final specs for many art assets, we’ve got a solid design doc… Basically, we’re putting our ducks in a row to develop it as fast as possible.
3-Action RPG unrelated to Black Sigil
Well, Black Sigil is nice, but we do want to branch out a bit as well. This is our other path. So far, we’ve only put down some ideas for that project, so don’t expect any screenshots or videos. On the other hand, the concepts we have written down would require us to work quite a bit less than we did for Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled, which is really interesting from a business perspective.
So - there you go. That’s what we’ll be working on for the next few months. We’d love to hear your thoughts on that!
I’m thrilled with these ideas, especially the first two! I thoroughly enjoyed Black Sigil and I am glad I purchased it; it’d be nice to see more story like that, even an unrelated one. Heck, I would probably try to buy the first game again if the Japanese version (despite my rusty language skills) has the bugs fixed and the encounter rate toned down a bit. But I digress. I look forward to seeing your future projects either way they go.
I would love to see a game like Black Sigil with an action battle system.
Are you planning to develop your next games for the DS?
Kinta
An action-RPG styled after our old SNES favorites is definitely a mouth-watering idea. I know you draw inspiration from them (SNES RPGs), but here are some of my favorites:
Seiken Densetsu 3: (Which unfortunately never made it to outside of Japan except via fan translations). It had a great leveling-up mechanic which made you choose between different classes. It also let you choose a three party team from six available party members at the beginning, and changed the game’s story based on who you choose.
That gave the game remarkable replayability. The boss battles were also excellent and very challenging. I’ll be honest, the boss battles in Black Sigil were, for the most part, not very challenging.
Tales of Phantasia: The battle system in this game is unique (being on a 2D plane like that), and I loved how you could perform the many different skills in real-time instead of pausing the game. The story was also very well done.
And I also miss the old Quintet games (Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma). They all gave you a real sense of progress as you restored the world. Terranigma in particular also had a very good story.
Those are some of the highlights I remember from classic SNES RPG’s. We all look forward to your next blog.
Greg
I’ll be looking forward to all of these.
I’m so glad to see a game company make some games like the old good times. I have just bought Black Sigil at GameStop without knowing what it was. Even if I never heard of Studio Archcraft, I told myself that the game seemed to have a very good quality by judging the gamebox. Well, I’m impressed! The game is really good!
I live near Montreal, I’m currently studying programming in order to work for a company like yours. If you continue making games in this old style for the next years to come, is sure that after my studies I will come and bring my resume for you. But this will happen in a very long time …
Ps: Sorry for my bad english…
I’m heartened by this post. I’m not quite through with Black Sigil yet, but having just passed 50 hours I don’t think my opinion of it will be changing drastically. While there are some things I’d change and various bugs/oddities can be quite annoying, there’s a really solid game in there.
However, with the web site being quite out of date, little forum activity, and all the delays Black Sigil went through even in the last year when the end seemed repeatedly in sight, I was worried its release was the final gasp of Studio Archcraft. I’m glad to see you’re looking to the next thing, and that we’ve got a chance to see a further polished title in the future.
#2 please!
#1 - Yes, please!
#2 - Yes, please!
#3 - Yes, please!
Black Sigil is a great game, despite its flaws. I’ll throw some suggestions, for what they’re worth.
- If on DS: Separate map screen (possibly scrollable since the screens
are so tiny)
- Town maps, or at least bigger shop signs
- Post-game content
- New game +
- Build your own village, maybe?
- Quests/bounties
- Customization (characters and ships! Oooooh…)
- Job system? Sorry. It rules so much, I’d love to see others’ take on
something like it.
Sure, there are others. Everyone has an idea of “The Perfect Game.”
Based on how great Black Sigil is, I’ll get the next Studio Archcraft game Day One!
I would just like to say I really enjoyed Black Sigil and I just finished my 2nd playthrough. I found the game quite interesting and the story was excellent. I got most of my friends to buy the game as well. Although I do agree if there are random battles I hope the encounter rate is not like Black Sigil.
Although Black Sigil is good I would like option #2. It would be quite enjoyable to see new characters however I hope they would be more balanced than in the first one. Isa was my favorite character but her points to let her do magic was so low that she could only do a few moves with the spells/magic and sword skills taking up so many. I really liked the comedy in the cast which I would like to see as well.
Either way I can’t wait to see your next project!
Black Sigil, despite the high(er) than usual random encounter rate, is a superb RPG. The story line was captivating, and each of the characters has a unique personality. I would like to see a better map, and possibly a travel log and encyclopedia, or even a better printed manual/guide. I will be looking forward to a follow up on this title.
Excellent game 11/10