Seven Dragon Saga, the epic RPG debut title from Tactical Simulations Interactive formed by SSI alumni. For PC/Mac/Linux
First created | 10 backed
The Touched, chosen elite of the emperor, able to wield powers of Chaos both awesome and terrifying. A band of six martial specialists charged with removing the greatest threats to the empire from even the farthest flung corners of the known world.
How they choose to remove these threats is up to you!
Seven Dragon Saga. It's been far too long since you played an RPG like this!
A six-character party of heroines and heroes of your design, under your complete control.
An empire that exists to unify and defend civilization against the primeval forces that seek to destroy it.
A breed of adventurer, The 'Chaos' Touched, who exist to ensure the survival of the empire by any means necessary.
The power to change the world!
In this first installment of Seven Dragon Saga you shape the wild and dangerous Drakelands with your choices. Impress with noble deeds. Coerce with threats and violence. Or simply lay waste to the empire's enemies without mercy or regret.
Tactical, turn-based combat.
A dramatic central storyline to follow with side quests and explorations aplenty.
Wilderness and ruins.
Savage clans and diabolical beasts.
Swords and sorcery and secrets.
Seven Dragon Saga, an empire of RPG immersion.
"It is great to see these masters of the early games industry return to lead once more. SSI was always a great inspiration to me in my work. I look forward to the magical worlds TSI will create for us to play in once more!" - Richard Garriott, Co-founder, CEO, Creative Director - Portalarium
"Dark Sun, Pool of Radiance, Panzer General, Imperialism… These are but a few of the SSI titles that influenced me as a game developer. I’m extremely excited to hear that the team is coming back together to bring all that old school goodness into the modern age beginning with Seven Dragon Saga." - Swen Vincke, CEO – Larian Studios
"SSI was the strongest PC game brand in my youth -- I could count on dozens of hours of enjoyment from every SSI game I played. As thrilled as I was in the late 1980s when I learned they were making Pool of Radiance, a real D&D CRPG, it's even more exciting now to hear about Seven Dragon Saga." - Kevin Saunders, Project Director, Torment: Tides of Numenera
"David Shelley and Paul Murray honed their skills at SSI on RPGs, such as the Gold Box games. I am excited to see what they create with Seven Dragon Saga." - Joel Billings, former President, SSI
"The SSI games were a great source of inspiration for me. We need more authentic simulations of epic situations that offer thoughtful gamers something real to chew on." - Electronic Arts and EA Sports founder, Trip Hawkins -presently Co-Founder and the CEO of If You Can
"I have known Dave Shelley and Paul Murray since the golden days of SSI where they were cornerstones in the creation of the “Gold Box” games, RPGs of the highest caliber. I look forward to TSI recreating those glory days and providing a role playing experience that will be on one-hand traditional and on the other exciting and new." - Dan Cermak - SSI Alumni
"One Of The Best Developers Of RPG And Strategy Games Is Making A Comeback" - Logan Booker, Kotaku Australia
"I adored the gold box RPGs that SSI produced, and the thought of new games in that same style has me both nostalgic for the old and excited to see what’s new." - Matt Miller, GameInformer
Dragonshroud Blade: Our friends at Portalarium wished to get together with us to offer unique in-game items for both games. If someone backs Seven Dragon Saga at the Emperor's Own ($55) level and backs Shroud of the Avatar at the Immortal Adventurer ($55) level, then the backer gains an in-game items in both games: the Dragonshroud Blade her in Seven Dragon Saga, and a magical cloak in Shroud of the Avatar.
The Gateway: Your adventures continue! With Gateway, TSI is inviting RPG developers to take part in an initiative that harkens back to the days of classic RPGs like The Bard’s Tale, Ultima and Wizardry where players could continue their adventures by porting over their characters and parties into different RPGs, without having to create them from scratch within each game. The initiative will be rolled out in TSI’s debut title, Seven Dragon Saga, beginning with support for inXile's Torment: Tides of Numeria and Shadowrun: Hong Kong by Harebrained Schemes.
Several veterans of SSI's golden age of RPGs formed TSI to recapture the magic of classic RPGs updated to modern times. Seven Dragon Saga is the first of many exciting projects the team seeks to create.
David Shelley, Producer, with nearly thirty years of experience in the games industry. David's earliest projects were as one of the designer/ implementer and producer on many of the now famous Gold Box games, such as Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, and Champions of Krynn, at Strategic Simulations. David also designed and produced the Buck Rogers games, and the first Dark Sun game, plus ran the Scripting (story and level design) department at SSI. David has continued his adventures in a long and successful career working on many high profile games. But his passion has always sought a path back to hardcore RPGs which are his roots and personal favorite. Seven Dragon Saga is an original creation of David, Paul Murray and Keith Brors, all hard core SSI alumni.
Paul Murray, Systems Designer, was one of the first engineers at SSI, working on numerous titles including Wizard's Crown, Eternal Dagger, The Gold Box Series, and the Panzer General series. After nearly two decades creating top selling games for SSI, Paul moved on to personal projects, including the initial design work around the Seven Dragon Saga System.
David Klein - President. An avid gamer since adolescence, David's love of computer games began on his Apple IIe. After working in Hollywood for 20th Century Fox and New Regency Productions he made the jump to digital entertainment. In 2000, he began his focus on games and assisting companies to leverage their IP. He has worked in a variety of senior positions to help companies reach their goals including project work with: Alcon Entertainment, Aldamisa Entertainment, EA, Harmony Gold USA, Incomm, Origo Games, and Space.com. David has always been passionate about RPG's and set about making his dream a reality by founding TSI.
Broderick Macaraeg, Lead Artist. During his two decades of work in the industry, Rick has always loved RPGs... from his early days with Sega and Electronic Arts through his current work on Seven Dragon Saga. Prior to TSI, Rick greatly enjoyed being Art Director and Concept Artist on Djinn, an RPG at Castaway, a company comprised of former Blizzard North employees, creators of Diablo II. He learned much from them and imparted his own creative flavor to the project. With "Seven Dragon Saga" Rick continues that creative journey, generating diverse multicultural characters, layered in an epic mythological magical land.
Edwin McRae, Narrative Designer. Edwin McRae is perhaps best know for his work as Lead Narrative Designer for the award-winning action role-playing game, Path of Exile, where he has done everything from designing civilizations and four Act story arcs to writing poetic flavor text for soul-sucking swords. He has also designed narratives and created story content for mobile games, 'storyfying' an exotic butterfly farm (Flutter, Runaway Play), scriptwriting for a hot rock star PA (Indie Music Manager, InGame), taking an editor's axe to a game book (Hamnasya, Blue Flame Publishing) and turning the Bible into a steampunk fantasy game (Aetherlight, 2nd City Studios).
When 'in his cups', Edwin has been known to say this of video game narratives. "If I'm going to bash some goblins, I want it to mean something."
The Drakelands Experience
The Drakelands are on the fringe of the Empire. In this wild and largely unexplored region of mountains and forests, two races are locked in an age-old civil war. The Drakyri and the Feydri, both descended from dragons, both embittered by bloody grievances.
The Drakyri and Feydri tare as hard as the Dragon Steel they wield and as territorial as the predatory beasts and savage demi-humans that they must oft battle with in the name of hearth and home.
But the Drakelands were not always so untamed. An ancient culture once occupied these forest and mountains. A people of wealth and knowledge. Now their grand architecture stands crumbling. Their secrets locked tight in forgotten vaults of carven stone. There are but a few tales told of these people around the dragon-folk's hearths at night. Tales of great powers, of a terrible war, and of a civilization that tore itself apart.
To the dragon-folk clans, they are legends unfathomable. To you, they are a mystery yet to be unveiled.
The ruins of the ancients are your key, to the survival and growth of your party, and to the balance of power in the Drakelands. Ancient forces await their awakening. Should your party be their masters, land and beast, water and wilderness will bow to their whim.
It is not simply the honor of the empire that is at stake here in the Drakelands. You hold the lives of thousands in your hands.
The Chaos Touched
The Chaos Touched. The heroes and heroines of our tale. Touched by chaos’ at birth, these powerful individuals are both revered and feared throughout the empire. They control the elements, heal the sick, commit feats of superhuman strength, agility and endurance. They can choose to go unseen or be elsewhere in the blink of an eye.
The Touched are the greatest treasure, the greatest asset the empire has ever known. Yet should they be used without care, should they be ‘broken’, they will become the empire’s most terrible threat.
The Broken
There are those upon which Life and Chaos have laid a heavy hand. Too heavy. While their bodies have endured, their minds are warped and cracked. While their powers equal those of the Touched, the Broken are untameable. They serve no one and nothing but their own twisted ambitions and appetites.
The Empire
Seven families came together to forge an empire. A single nation that would stretch across lands and races, uniting all under one banner. A banner that would fly, strong and proud, when the Eternal Evil returned to wage its war. Divided, mortal life will fall. United, mortal life has a fighting chance.
The Empire of the Seven Dragons spans numerous cultures, thanks to an expansionist drive like that of the British Empire during the great Age of Exploration. But at its heart it is as ruthlessly hierarchical as the Tokugawan Shogunate of 17th Century Japan. The Emperor maintains ultimate and divine power over the empire while the seven Dragon Dynasties manage the political, military and economic affairs of the day.
It is the Emperor’s role to proclaim.
It is the Dragons’ role to command.
It is the role of the Chaos Touched to act, without hesitation and without regret.
COMING SOON!
Character Design
You get to choose race, class, specialty, and can customize even further as you create your team of six player characters. And once forged, you have complete control of your party's actions and development throughout the game. At certain times, you will be able to opt to have an NPC join the party in addition to your core six characters, but your party design will always remain fundamentally yours.
Core Gameplay
The party moves through the regions in real time, switching to turn-based combat during encounters. Core gameplay revolves around turn-based tactical combat, quests and navigating factional politics.
The Chaos Touched
The Touched are forces to be reckoned with, both personally and politically. They have been recruited from all corners of the Empire, provided with equipment and training, and a mandate from the Emperor to be his elite troubleshooters. Touched by 'the winds of chaos', these individuals are as feared for their unpredictability as they are respected for their power and status.
The Use of Power.
As representatives of the Emperor, your party of adventurers has significant power within the Empire. It's up to you to choose how you wield that power, how you shape the world, encouraging order and peace or exacerbating the forces of disruption.
Goals. At creation, the you select a Goal for each character. When resolving quests, you will often be presented with difficult choices. If your choice aligns with one or more character Goals, then those characters receive a bonus that improves them in some significant way. While no character will ever leave a party if their Goal isn't met, they will be slightly weaker. It's up to you to decide if you want your characters to have uniform Goals or a mixture of Goals. Uniform goals lead to bonuses for all from some types of quests yet absolutely none from others. Mixed goals can produce a wider range of bonuses from a broader selection of quests. It's up to you how you wish to manage this precarious balance.
Borderlands. Some territories remain unclaimed and languish under the control of monsters, bandits, or hostile humanoids. If you are able to clear such regions, you will have the opportunity to plant the flag of one faction or another – or perhaps your own – granting the recipient faction greater power and resources. Once conquered, Borderlands become Frontier and a town or trading post will appear, giving you another place in which to buy, sell and quest. Through questing you can go one step further and make the region Settled, therefore providing the associated faction with further benefits. A neglected Frontier will fall back into Borderland status and be lost to the faction.
Left to Sleep. Within the ruins that dot the landscape, beings and artifacts lie silent and waiting. Some are powerful tools, others are self-aware entities with their own agendas. Should you awaken them, leave them be, or seek their destruction? Your choice. Your consequences.
We've been extremely encouraged and supported by the community so far, and Kickstarter is the right fit for us. The game is already months into production but we're far from finished. As veterans of SSI, we remember the freedom of being our own publisher. Taking our vision and creating the best game possible is the primary concern.
We're now going through a process of upgrading and improving many of the early systems. We'll use the funding for much needed programming, art, music and sound. This will see us through to a polished and expansive product that our audience will expect and enjoy. Backing Seven Dragon Saga will make you our collaborators, rather than needing a publisher or other resource.
Seven Dragon Saga has been in low level development for some time, so we have much of the low level architecture in place. That said, software development, and games, in particular, are challenging to schedule. While we have taken steps to mitigate slippage, there is always the possibility that we will need to go beyond our target ship date, in order to provide you the best experience we can.
Seven Dragon Saga's story is designed to be modular, so we will expand or contract as needed to balance time, budget and quality. The team includes veterans with decades of experience, so we are familiar with the hard decisions needed to actually complete a top notched product.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterWe plan to release on PC/Mac/Linux. We'll evaluate other platforms after the initial release.
We intend to include additional languages, but are still prioritizing. We intend to issue a survey to gauge demand. French and German are most likely, but if our backers show a different preference, we will take that into account.
Some of the rewards on the side bar were omitted, and KS does not allow us to alter the tiers, so we will be rewarding backers the items shown on the main page. We felt this was important in case backers made their choice based on the main page, and we never want to take away from anyone.
We are monitoring the comments and messages to gauge demand for this. If there is a groundswell for a particular combination, we will look to adding a tier. If there are specific items in demand, we will look to supporting add-ons.
- (32 days)