Vagrus - The Riven Realms News

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.



One of the most noticeable differences between the standalone story and open world (thought the second part of Pilgrims has this to some extent) is the frequency and importance of random encounters. These Events appear while you are traversing the Riven Realms. The longer it is you haven't come across an Event or encounter, the more likely it is that something will come up.

Part of the encounter Events are unique to each location (regions or sub-regions) while others are more generic and thus can appear in a wide variety of locations. The intent was to give interesting (and dangerous) things to do while en-route to some place and of course, to keep players from becoming careless while 'just traveling'. 



Another significant part of Events in the open world part are fixed in location. You can find them by the use of Scouting (or by happening upon them on their node) and interact with them by using the Explore button. 

A much more elaborate form of these fixed Events are settlement and point of interest Events. We like to call these persistent Events, though many will disappear upon completing them due to narrative reasons.



The aforementioned settlement Events are also mostly persistent; many of these you can repeat again and again, as these represent facilities, shops, tasks you can take, or activities you can do in cities or villages. The selection of these Events gives character and utility to settlements; it also makes players travel between them a lot when certain functions are only accessible (or are only profitable) in certain places.



The meat and potatoes of content when it comes to Events are of course quests and storylines you can take part of. These are typically started in settlements, though some are accessed through random Events, too. Such storylines come in all sizes and varieties. A certain part of these will be dedicated to Companions' personal questlines. These don't only give backstories to your heroes but are also tied into their progress: Prowess levels 3, 6, and 9 are unlocked by reaching certain points of their questlines.

The impact of quests and stories on the world and the player vary as well but many influence one or the other. Tone also plays into this: Vagrus is low key for the most part but sometimes the player does have an influence on things, for example, in deciding which Trading House wins a rivalry to dominate a settlement. Or if a camp of outlaws get to thrive or be ousted by the Empire.



As you can guess, writing and testing all this complexity is quite a task: the challenge to judge and balance the size and difficulty of Events grows exponentially as more and more content is created. Another tough part is to find the sweet spot of the frequency of random Events, as well as their distribution spatially and even in a timeline (would a story activate only in certain season or at a given point of time?).  We have our work cut out for us but the intent is to create a living and changing world that feels dangerous but certainly one you'd want to explore.

We are eager to share the Open world prototype with our Alpha Backers to get feedback about all this and to see what you think of the branching, layered narrative. There are still many things to complete beforehand but we are progressing well, so you can probably expect an announcement about it in the next few months.

The Lost Pilgrims Team
 

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At long last, Scouting is making its way into Vagrus. It is a vital feature in navigating and surviving the many wastelands of the continent of Xeryn. 


Scouting has two main uses. First, it can give you an indication of what to expect when moving onto specific neighboring nodes on the campaign map. Though these are given in percentages (what are the chances of a fight, and event, or that nothing happens) it still gives a rough idea of risks so that players can make informed choices. Second, Scouting can indicate if there is something fixed on a specific node (either a fixed Event or a Task objective for a faction). This is immensely helpful when looking for something out there in the wilderness with only vague directions to go on.


You can use Scouting when standing on a node. When you do so, you will have the option to select which neighboring nodes you wish to send scouts to - more than one route costs Resourcefulness for each additional node scouted. Naturally, you'll need scouts to even initiate this action. Scouting costs Movement Points: you have to pay equal to the highest route MP cost. The chance of success for each scouted node depends on how many scouts you send that particular direction and a Scout Master deputy provides further bonuses.


Apart from spending the Movement Points (and potentially Resourcefulness), your scouts have a chance not to return (having fallen prey to one of the many dangers of the wasteland) when you roll a critical failure. This makes spamming Scouting a bad idea, even with a Scoutmaster whose presence reduces the chances of a negative outcome.


A successfully scouted route provides percentage chances of an Event, combat encounter, or nothing happening. A critical success provides exactly what is going to happen (Event, encounter, nothing) and in case of an event or an encounter, it gives a relative idea of what to expect (obstacles, boon, chance for combat, the challenge rating of a fight, etc).


One of the deputy roles, the Scout Master is extremely useful when it comes to Scouting (as expected). When this role is assigned, it provides flat bonuses to critical success, and reduces the chance of a critical failure. Additionally, you can send scouts to a second node without paying Resourcefulness.

We are very excited to be able to now test Scouting and see how it impacts exploration in the open-world part of the game. We are even more excited to be able to include it in the game builds soon and see how players react.

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Have you played the previous Open Access build of Vagrus? Or are you considering just now to dip your feet into the deep lore of the Riven Realms for the first time? 
Visit our crowdfunding campaign and you can jump right in with some pretty neat improvements (via Discord).



Truth be told, we got trigger happy. We went further and deeper with some of the changes than we originally planned to, thinking that preparing the system for future features and enhancement will make our job easier later on and it would not impact our delivery timelines much. The first part we still stand by but the second... we were, well, a bit naive. We pulled ourselves into complexities we did not consider, game design decisions we thought to make only later on, not to mention testing and retesting every little thing. Especially the Journal part, which has already been an integral part of the game, proved troublesome to revamp. With all the changes, the hardest part was making the save files compatible backwards. We knew we would break the system - on purpose - we just did not expect to break it this much - not on purpose. Well, that and the untimely sickness grabbing our coder lead resulted in quite a bit of delay. We learnt from it though: gotta keep biting smaller chunks so we could keep up the pace of updates we would like to give you folks.

With the first two milestones delivered in this patch, we are going to start working on Scouting next. Mock-ups are ready; we've given it quite some thought, so we are fairly confident to deliver it in the indicated timeline.


We have been invited to showcase Vagrus at Dreamhack Summer between June 15-17, so if you are coming too, don't forget to drop by our booth and say hello.

But back to the present. Here's the list of changes. Let's call it:

Behind the Scenes 🚧

• Revamped the complete Journal engine to prepare the module for new features
  
• Relocated Passengers and Rumors between databases to allow expanding their use in the future
  
• Companion combat deployment logic upgraded to have more control over deployment restrictions (aka: so the Narrative designers could make things even harder for you 💀)
  

New Features / Content

• Delivering News 📜: from now on you can carry news between settlements, and trade with them at the Mansio
• Eight combat backgrounds refreshed 🎨
  
• New location art for Avernum 👀
  

User Interface Changes

• Divided the Journal 📖 tabs into Objectives, Qualities, Rumors, News, and Tasks (which is currently limited to Passengers) [includes a new UI art asset]
  
• Combat deployment ⚔️ icons added to indicate who can/can not/must be deployed, is locked to a position and/or wounded
  
• New/Improved Tool-tips and Tutorials for the above features
  

Bug Fixes

• Companion healing camp event now only displays wounded companions
  
• A number of event tweaks
  

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

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Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

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The soundtrack of Vagrus is of key importance in conveying the powerful atmosphere of the setting. Be it foreboding or hauntingly beautiful, the score by George Olah captures the essence of the ravaged world of the Riven Realms perfectly. Even more importantly, the majority of fans and influencers have told us that one of the most important parts of the Vagrus experience for them was the music.

Ever since we started working with George, we usually had him pour over the specific environment artwork and game world descriptions for each theme and together we listened to fantasy music that evokes the feeling we were looking for in that environment. With our tabletop RPG background, we were aiming for ambient, atmospheric music that goes well with each region of the game. Yet it was important for the environment tracks to be non-intrusive not to detract from the reading parts.

You can now get a taste of the main theme of the game above and listen to some other themes over at our SoundCloud page.


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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

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Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

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Throughout your journeys as a vagrus, you will come across many people who want to get from one place to another on the broken continent of Xeryn. This might seem trivial but travel over the accursed wastelands of the Empire a perilous venture which makes most people try to avoid it whenever they can.

Those who that do undertake journeys often pay comitati such as yours to take them where they want to be. In-game, this provides an optional source of revenue to help you keep afloat but one that requires you to plan your path ahead considering several factors, including where your passengers wish to go and how long you have to deliver them there.

Passengers are available at mansios (and are randomized) or sometimes in events (where they are specific). You do not only have to feed them on the way but also have to protect them as attacking monster or outlaws can easily slay them. Mind you, some of them can even give you a hand in defending your comitatus (more on that later).

You can see the statistics of passengers related to crew on the Crew Pane, while other information can be observed in your Journal (redesigned to include a Passengers Page).

We feel this system adds another layer to planning and risks during travels in Vagrus, one which also has the potential to tell tiny stories of people who risk a lot by venturing forth with you.

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🎉 Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE ▶️Get instant access to the Alpha build at Fig

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna get the game as early as possible with even more content? Please share our pages and posts with your friends through your favorite social media channel(s). Appreciate it!

Fig | Game Jolt  | Itchio  | IndieDB Website | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook 
Instagram | Patreon | Discord