Mercyful Flames News

Hey, you gloomy bastards.

If you have played Dagon, you probably know that 21.37% of the game's charm lies in the details, i.e. hidden (in plain sight) interesting facts. I was afraid that such a meta-narrative would break the flow, but nothing could be further from the truth. If you are also a curious person or nosy person, you will be happy to know that Mercyful will also be rich in this type of collectibles. More: we are in a privileged position due to the fact that we are making a documentary game, where the plot plays a secondary role. And just like in documentaries that you may find in the true crime tab on Netflix, the trivia stuffing simply does the job.

Mercyful may not be an encyclopedia of black magic, but rather a fancy special issue of a history magazine. One that will not exhaust the topic, but will plant clues that you will be able to harvest on your own. For each interesting fact, we always provide the source, and - believe me - we put a lot of effort into research. We will not refer you to Wikipedia, nor will we stop at the magnificent books published by Polish Replika, a series that could be used to create a thousand Mercyfuls.

As part of the promotion of the game, I will be posting here some more intriguing information that I managed to collect during preparations, so if you are not following this Steam page yet, now is the right time to sign up for the newsletter (just click follow). Especially since Next Fest is lurking around the corner, that is, the festival where you can try a free demo (FREE DEMO!), so it's high time to get hyped. HYPED.

Halloween is coming, we need to be ready. Let's start with the new look. Expect updates this week.

Today I want to introduce you to a dark and intriguing world where the rules are set by the Church and the judgement is passed by the Inquisition. A world where you will have to make tough decisions to get information and save your loved ones.



The story begins with the protagonist's dramatic separation from the love of his life, Henrietta, who is allegedly involved in the investigations of the Inquisition. The great power and prestige that come with the title of Inquisitor become his only hope of regaining his beloved and living a peaceful life.



Desperate but relentless, he embarked on a quest that led him to a mysterious settlement and an ageing priest. The priest offered the hero a deal: in return for a certain mission, he would help him find his beloved. The protagonist realised that in order to convince the priest, he would have to make a not-so-easy attempt. He agrees to take on the role of Inquisitor and solve the murder that has paralysed the village. Little did he know that this was just a test of credibility, as the priest knew the real murderer.



Crossing the threshold into the dark chambers of the Inquisition, more than one has succumbed to a cruel force. Together with our Inquisitor, you will take up the fight against adversity and uncover the secret that lies hidden in the darkness. Will you be able to preserve your values in the face of cruelty? Find out for yourself what lies behind the closed doors of the Inquisition and add Mercyful Flames to your wishlist on Steam now!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1066740/Mercyful_Flames/


Uncover the truth…
Asmodev & Gaming Factory

On Steam, we are celebrating the Steam Mystery Festival which involves promotions for titles with relevant themes and titles in the detective climate. We recommend games about Sherlock, Frog Detective, The Wolf Among Us, and Disco Elysium. There is a lot to play. But there is also something to look forward to.



We still, like losers, can't show you the demo. The reasons and causes are the same as always - we don't have a good game for now. We're still sitting and tinkering on the project to deliver satisfying content, but for now, we don't feel confident enough with Mercyful Flames to show it to the world.

What's our biggest struggle today? The lapping of the strict gameplay layer with the scenario. At this point, we have something like a cake made of independent layers. Once we experience a piece of the story, once we deliver a piece of gameplay. Perhaps this is the nightmare of role-playing games in general, but we have the ambition to prove a product that can blend these elements to the consistency of a unified matter.



In a nutshell, our main task is to trim and sculpt the scenario so that elements that enrich lore knowledge are transferred to environmental elements and relationships resulting from interactions with characters or objects. Instead of selling the information during independent cutscenes and log readings, we try to smuggle it in at a non-overwhelming size, mainly as a reward for quests.

We made bad production decisions, but we are a competent enough team to fix them. We are working up a sweat so you can play Mercyful Flames and experience the story yourself.

[h2]Hi there.[/h2]



I want to tell you one more interesting fact. We tried to make sure that the game did not have a voice-over, well, because, you know, costs. Our grumbling was simple: it needs to be recorded in English, it needs to be recorded in Polish, and it may need to be recorded in other languages... And if later we make some changes in the script, well, then we have another problem. Voice over is out.

Unfortunately. It didn't fall out. The more work we put into bringing the world to life, the more we added sounds, animations, and other nitpicks, and the more the feeling that the experience was incomplete nagged at us. Intuition told us that a narrator to guide the player through this dark and depressing world was the missing piece. Well, we trusted our intuition. We gave it a try, and what was heard, will not be heard again. In the Polish version, we made a voiceover with our efforts and the result allows us to smile with self-satisfaction. For the English version, we will look for a suitable person.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

What impact has the addition of a voiceover had on the work so far? Contrary to appearances, quite a lot. Well, the script of Mercyful Flames was written in the second person, a style known from paragraph games or RPG sessions. In the case of our game, we decided that a first-person narrative, which allows us to report on events in a somewhat storytelling style, would best suit the proposed dynamics. Besides, the inquisitor's story is very personal, and the presented course of events comes out most credibly when the author of the reflections is the main character.

Sooo... We have already added a voiceover to the first scenario and it works.