Orphic Software dropped us a line, saying that AntarioN has a 30% discount for the next week on Steam.

You can win 1 of 5 copies of the recently released old school RPG AntharioN over at Fluent's Steam group.

Antharion Giveaway!

Hey folks!

I have 5 copies of the recently-released open-world RPG, AntharioN, to give away! All you have to do is retweet a message on Twitter. That's it!

You can enter once per day for the next 7 days, so make sure to get tweeting every day! Winners will be drawn next Monday. Good luck!!

Link to the giveaway - http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d6803aa83/?

Hello everyone!

Today I'm sharing a video from "A Fluent First Look" series where I take a look at various RPGs that catch my eye. In this episode, I take the recently released open-world RPG, Antharion, out for a spin and see what's what!

Hello! In this first look video, we take a look at the recently-released open-world RPG, AntharioN! 

AntharioN is an open-world, party-based, turn-based RPG with old-school sensibilities and a charming art style. It was successfully Kickstarted and marks one of the many successful releases we've seen from the Kickstarter platform.

If you'd like to read or see more of this game, then check it out on the Steam store by going here - http://store.steampowered.com/app/293...

If you'd like to see me play more of this game, or perhaps create a unique Let's Play for the game, please sound off in the comments section of this video and let me know! The more people that comment and like this video the higher the chance of more AntharioN videos going forward! =)

Enjoy!

Craig Stern checks out the recently released Antharion:

In Kickstarter update #47 Orphic Software announced the release of the Antharion soundtrack (some samples included) and patch 1.0.9.3:

Patch Notes

We've been continuously patching AntharioN following release. We're currently at version 1.0.9.3 and here are some of the more notable patch note items:

• Additional arrows have been added to vendors.
• Various spelling and grammatical issues have been addressed.
• Trainers now train up to 50 levels each instead of 25.
• An issue preventing some displays with 1366x768 resolutions from entering full screen mode was fixed.
• A bug causing certain spells to display inaccurate to hit % cursor tooltips was resolved.
• Your chances of getting random loot from monsters was increased, resulting in more gold early in the game.

Antharion will be released tomorrow:

Antharion is an epic old-school fantasy RPG that combines tactical turn-based combat with the freedom of a huge living-breathing open world. You'll create and customize a party of four: choosing from seven races, nine classes and fifteen skills, before setting out to explore the fully interactive continent of Antharion. Explore dungeons, get thrown in jail, discover hidden passageways, burglarize homes, read books, create potions, become and infamous pickpocket, embark on a journey at sea and discover uncharted islands or persuade NPCs to do your bidding. In Antharion no play style is off limits.

Features

• Create and fully customize a party of four, choosing from 7 races, 9 classes and 15 skills.
• Journey through five huge provinces, each with its own environment, history and culture.
• Experience an open-ended epic storyline where you determine what happens.
• Turn-based tactical combat makes dungeon crawling endlessly satisfying.
• Explore a huge living-breathing and fully interactive open world.
• Make choices that matter and affect the world around you.
• Enjoy total freedom to play however you want.

Gameplay video by tr1ppa:

Orpic software announced the release date of Antharion today:

    Release Date: 7/15/2015
    Platforms: Windows/Mac
    Availability: Steam, Humble Store, App Store
    Price: $17.99 USD
    Languages: English
    Duration: 40+ hours
    DRM: None
    Pre-order: Available

Official Trailer:

Description

Antharion is an epic old-school fantasy RPG that combines tactical turn-based combat with the freedom of a huge living-breathing open world. You'll create and customize a party of four: choosing from seven races, nine classes and fifteen skills, before setting out to explore the fully interactive continent of Antharion. Explore dungeons, get thrown in jail, discover hidden passageways, burglarize homes, read books, create potions, become and infamous pickpocket, embark on a journey at sea and discover uncharted islands or persuade NPCs to do your bidding. In Antharion no play style is off limits.

Features

• Create and fully customize your party of four, choosing from 7 races, 9 classes and 15 skills.
• Journey through five huge provinces, each with its own environment, history and culture.
• Experience an open-ended epic storyline where you determine what happens.
• Turn-based tactical combat makes dungeon crawling endlessly satisfying.
• Explore a huge living-breathing and fully interactive open world.
• Make choices that matter and affect the world around you.
• Enjoy total freedom to play however you want.
• Create and customize a party of four.

Orphic Software sent news on the development of their RPG game Antharion, and sent a new video. They also sent a link for some new screenshots on the games website.

The Official trailer for our upcoming old-school open-world party-based RPG AntharioN - to be released in summer 2015

Orphic Software finally released a new public video preview of their game Antharion.

Orphic Software released a new Progress Update for Antharion this week.

Progress Update 8/15/14

Hey everyone, we're very pleased to report that things are going great! The technical stuff is frozen at this point. We're in a kind of pre-alpha testing feedback loop mode that involves playing through parts of the game over and over, building up lists of things that need tweaking/changing, actually tweaking them, and then starting all over - again and again and again. There are so many tiny issues, like what towns to put what spells in, how many early spells to make available via vendors at early levels and how much should they cost, how much gold do you want the average player to end up with by level 5, what should the distribution of common low-level alchemical ingredients look like across the early major dungeons and how do you prevent the player from acquiring too many. I feel extremely comfortable that we're totally nailing all of these balance issues.

I want to talk a little bit about skills because so much has changed since we started heavy testing. The final skills are: Black Magic, White Magic, Gray Magic, Archery, One-Handed Weapons, Two-Handed Weapons, Defense, Lock Picking, Pickpocketing, Barter, Persuasion, Lore and Alchemy.

Persuasion - Allows you to manipulate NPCs in dialog. We're trying really really hard to make this skill valuable by adding tons of opportunities to use it in dialog throughout the game. Our goal is to make Persuasion as desirable of a skill as Two-Handed Weapons, Archery or Black Magic.

Pickpocketing - This was a tricky one because of balance issues but we feel pretty good about the implementation. The way it works is that you've got to be right next to whoever you're attempting to pickpocket, then you right-click and select "pickpocket" and then a little window pops up showing their inventory contents. You can then mouse over each item to check it out and it'll show you your odds of successfully pickpocketing that item. So basically it works on an item by item bases and not on the entire inventory making is much more likely that you'll get caught (which will result in a hefty fine or jail sentence). Naturally whenever you're talking about pickpocketing a lot of people are concerned with potential saving/reloading exploits. Our goal has always been to design the system with this in mind. I think as long as the value and number of the items available for pickpocket is not totally outrageous, then the reward should be pretty much proportional to the amount of work done. Plus 100 points invested in pickpocketing is 100 points not invested in black magic or two-handed weapons so that alone pretty much balances it.

One-Handed/Two-Handed Weapons: After we added shields, we split the Melee skill into these two skills to introduce more choice into the game. Fighters and Warriors will now be forced, more or less, to choose between fighting with a one-handed weapon and shield or a two-handed weapon.

Lore - This does several things. First it allows you to identify unidentified items. Second, it allows you to spot and open hidden passages (yes we have hidden passages now!). Third, certain books will have a Lore requirement that must be met in order to make sense of them. And fourth, certain objects will require Lore in order to be used or activated. This skill more than any other really rounds out everything and significantly adds a lot of depth to the non-combat side of the experience.

Overall we couldn't be happier with how things are shaping up. Thanks everyone for your excellent and continues support!

Thanks to tomasp3n I have the latest update for Antharion. Now remember the games developer only shows the updates for backers so give him a big thank you.

This month we put together a little video for you guys. You'll notice a new world map, I want to emphasize that it's missing its topographical icons (mountains, forests, bodies of waters, etc.) which will be added in this coming week. You'll also notice some "location" icons, these are cities or settlements which, as you discover them, will show up on your world map as fast-travel destination icons. We're going to restrict this as much as possible to the 10 or so city/settlements on Antharion's mainland. There will be island settlements but in Antharion anything not on the mainland is considered "uncharted" and so will not be visible on the world map. As for the release I will say that we are still on track for a December release. I should probably also mention that the accompanying music is an actual in-game atmospheric track by our composer Eric Gallardo. Thanks again everyone for your generous patience and support and enjoy the video!

Thanks to sakichop I have the latest two updates for Antharion. The games developer only shows the updates for backers so give him a big thank you.

Project Update #35

Hey guys, it's been another very very busy month for us as usual. The thrust of what we're working on right now is getting everything ready for the Alpha (yes it's finally began to loom on the horizon!). This consists mainly of lots and lots of little tweaks and fixes, making sure that every last button has the right sound effect, every item's stats are just right, and everything is generally balanced, etc. Programming-wise we've got two major tasks still open: (1) verify that combat works correctly; and (2) verify that spells all work correctly in every conceivable circumstance. This last one is pretty tough considering the high complexity of our spell system and the fact that we've got 45+ unique spells (which often interact with one another) to debug. Engine development and and asset production have frozen (aside from 2x outstanding atmospheric music tracks) so our focus right now is on adding polish, refining the world, eliminating bugs and making it fun, of course ;)

Project Update #36

Hey everyone. This month we've been splitting our time between building out the world and testing and tweaking. The world has become pretty huge at this point. Here's a bird's eye view of the main continent (missing islands and underground areas). If you look very carefully you can even manage to see some towns and settlements...

         

You may notice that the desert and snowy areas take up a sizable portion of the world map. That's because we really wanted to give those two areas the feeling of being a vast barren wasteland/wilderness in contrast to the more densely packed and populated temperate regions.

One feature I don't think we've mentioned yet is smooth scrolling. While much of Antharion's old-school gameplay mechanics come from the snappy feedback of instant grid based movement, we recognize that for some players it can be a little harsh on the eyes so we've added an option for smooth scrolling. We've done our very best not to make it too smooth so that it retains the snappy/quick responsive feel of the original scheme.

Orphic Software sent us a video preview of their funded RPG Kickstarter Antharion.

Antharion's Kickstarter has closed with $22.5k - over double the original goal of $10k but a bit short of the next stretch goal:

Thank you everyone so so very much! We are incredibly grateful to each and every one of you for your support throughout this campaign. Who would have imagined we'd end up over-funded at 225% with 730 backers?

We'll continue to produce updates for you guys but you can also keep up to date on Antharion's official website and forum. We have a section on our forum for feedback and ideas where we want to here from you about what you'd like to see in the game or even just cool ideas you have for Antharion. If you have any questions or comments don't hesitate, you can reach us here or on our website or forum anytime.

Antharion has passed their second stretch goal at $20k and trying for the next stretch at $25k - just 6 hours to go as I type.

Wow! We've had quite an eventful last day: we passed 700 backers and unlocked our 2nd stretch goal!

New Add-On:

$40 - Name an Inn or Shop

    Why Are The 25k Stretch Goals Important??

Pets - these would represent probably the single largest game play addition to Antharion so far. Pets add a whole new dimension because their presence is felt across all aspects of game play. Each pet will have a different role. Just a few examples of what pets will do include: carrying around large amounts of extra inventory, holding aggro or attacking monsters during combat, stealing/looting items and providing a light source for your party in while in darkness.

Linux - Speaks for itself. Come on Linux people, let's make this thing happen!

Monster Island Conclave - An island off the south eastern coast of Antharion solely inhabited by monsters and complete with a monster capitol city where you can interact with inhabitants just like regular NPCs. Let me just say that this is so big that it could almost be considered a standalone expansion on its own! 

Antharion has just 30 hours to run and they are close to the $20k stretch goal (currently $18.7k), with this new update offering a new reward tier and some screens showing the game's visual evolution over time:

We just added a new $45 reward tier so that now anyone who pledges $45 or more will get a digital PDF bestiary (plus all previous rewards)! This thing will be huge and extensive considering that we already have 55 monsters and plan on adding even more! Again, anyone whose pledge is currently at $50 or more will automatically get the bestiary.

Evolution

Last update we talked a bit about how Antharion has evolved since its initial conception. Today we're going to actually show you just how far Antharion has come since its humble origins. Those of you with us during our "big-head" days probably already have a feel for how quickly our project has been progressing but there's nothing like seeing it laid out clearly in a time-line. Antharion will continue to grow and improve in every way possible up until the very day of its release!

Orphic has posted Update #14 for their Antharion Kickstarter as the enter the last three days. With $17k on the board, they have their sights on the $20k stretch. This update also looks at magic:

Today we're going to talk a bit about magic. In Antharion there are three schools of magic: Black, White and Gray. Antharion's magic system is relatively unique in that each of its spell schools focuses singularly on one thing. Black Magic focuses on harmful spells, White Magic focuses on buffs and restorative spells, and Gray Magic focuses on alterative and illusory spells. This means you won't find any damage spells in the school of White Magic and likewise you won't find any buffs in Gray, etc. Below is a complete list of all of the spells we currently have working. Keep in mind that we will continue adding/refining spells throughout the remainder of development.

Black Magic

• Firebolt - Hurls a ball of fire at a single target
• Summon Beast - Conjure a rat to fight for you
• Curse of Weakness - Increase the target's weakness to physical attacks
• Poison - Does damage over time to a single target
• Curse of Sloth - Slows your enemy temporarily lowering his action points
• Web - Immobilizes the target in a spider's web
• Life-Tap - Convert some of your life into mana
• Inferno - Create a huge wall of fire extending out in every direction
• Ice Bolt - Hurl a shard of ice at a single target freezing it
• Death Blow - Deals a single devastating blow to an adjacent target
• Cone of Cold - Freezes all targets within its cone
• Curse of Magic - Makes the target susceptible to magical damage
• Poison Cloud - Poison all targets within its radius
• Summon Demon - Summon an imp to hurl fireballs at your enemies
• Last Stand - Create a massive explosion killing the caster in the process

Update # 13 for this game at the Kickstarter page features a video showings us a quest:

This video demonstrates a very simple quest from start to finish along with a little combat and some new interface elements. All of the music in the video is part of Antharion's original soundtrack composed by Eric Gallardo.

Antharion has passed $15k with a full week to go. This goal opens up "magical items, alignment powers, buy a house, 5 new monster types and Northern Point Winter Island". The next goal at $20 includes a new Undead playable race and more. There's also a new update that looks at races:

Human -  Are the ruling dominant race in Antharion. After thousands of years of brutal Orc rule, humans united Antharion's various factions under a single flag and proceeded to enslave the entire Orc race in a single sweeping act of retribution.

Orc - For thousands of years Orcs used their surperior strength and fighting ability to dominate all other groups. This led to a deep-seated resentment among the other races culminating in the Orc race's complete enslavement by the debauched King Zeverith. Though Orcs are officially classified as a commodity in Antharion, a few still exist freely in small pockets on the outskirts of the Kingdom.

Lynx - A naturally solitary race, Lynx prefer to live out their lives alone on the fringes of society. Many of them survive off of thievery leading to a general distrust of the entire race.

Elf - During Orc rule, Elves were kept as pets and artificially bred for aptitude in White Magic, beauty and tiny brains (a trait elevated by Orcish culture). Humans are quite happy with the small state of the Elf brain as that's one less group to potentially challenge human dominance.

Necrophil - Originally the summoned magical creations of powerful Black Wizards. Necrophils began a recursive sequence of self-replication whereby each successively summoned creature was capable of more powerful magic than the last. This resulted in Necrophils being even more powerful than their original summoners. Necrophils are the most feared and reviled of all the races, and the greatest threat to the Humanty's hold on power.

Antharion ($13.4k / 15 days) has posted a new update adding new reward tiers:

Hey guys! We're now just $1,584 away from hitting our first stretch goal!! With over 500 backers, if each of you upgraded by just $5 we'd instantly unlock our first stretch goal and be well on our way towards hitting the 2nd! Tonight we're introducing several new reward tiers to give you guys more upgrading options...

$50 All Digital Pack (Includes all previous rewards)

•     iPad version of Antharion
•     50 page digital PDF comprised of Antharion's original hand-written design notes and sketches
•     Your name will appear in an in-game book as one of the "Founders of Antharion"

$80 All Digital Design a NPC Pack (Includes all $50 level rewards) - plus you'll work with us to design and name your own NPC. Want to make an NPC in your own likeness? Just give us a photo and we'll have our artist recreate you in pixel form. (Note: this reward is NOT included in any higher level tiers.) This tier is limited and will only be available to the first 20 backers.

$500 Immortalization Pack (Includes all $100 level rewards) - plus you'll be immortalized in Antharion's world. You'll name one of Antharion's major towns plus we'll create a statue of you and place it prominently in the center of town for all to see! You'll also become a part of Antharion's lore and we'll even create an entire in-game book about you! This tier is limited and will only be available to the first 3 backers.

Orphic has successfully ported Antharion to the iPad and offer a new video showing it off:

Antharion has been successfully ported to the iPad! And the good news is that it runs, looks and feels way way better than we ever imagined it could on a tablet device. We believe that there is a place for serious RPGs on tablets and it just so happens that Antharion is perfectly suited to the platform. Touching and dragging interface elements like spell buttons from the spell book over to the action bar feels so much more intuitive on the iPad. Selecting targets in combat and opening and closing interface panels feels effortless. It's hard to tell from the video, but Antharion looks gorgeous on the iPad's display. Check out the video...

Catching up on Antharion ($12.7k/$10k, 19 days), an update was posted the other day with a video of the day/night cycle:

To make a virtual world feel compelling and alive, it needs regularity. Antharion's day/night cycle gives it this regularity and helps to give you a sense that you're fully immersed in a living-breathing world. Day and night also have tangible effects on game play. Adventuring outdoors at night becomes a dangerous affair since even with a torch you still can only see a few feet ahead. Searching for inns to sleep at during nights becomes quite important. Also, NPCs have schedules and will often go home at night after work. One new feature we just added that you'll see in the video is light shafts coming in from windows. Light shafts start to shine when the sun comes out and eventually disappear when the sun goes down. The atmospheric music in the video was created by our composer Eric.

In the latest update for Antharion the AI in the game is made visible by means of a video.

Hey guys! Antharion is all about immersion and creating a beautifully unique and alive fantasy world for you to explore. In order to make this world feel more convincing, we've spent countless hours trying to make its inhabitants feel more intelligent. In Antharion each NPC will have its own unique temperament, personality and combat strategy. We want the creatures of Anthartion to react to your actions in tangible ways so as to make everything you do feel more meaningful and important. In this video we demonstrate just a few of Antharion's working AI features...

[Note: In the video you'll notice NPCs moving sometimes quickly without the player having moved. This is merely for the sake of demonstration and is achieved by holding down space bar which has the effect of passing on the player's turn]

There's another Antharion update ($11.8k, 26 days), this time with some sample work-in-progress music samples:

Here are a few tracks that our composer Eric Gallardo has been working on. Please keep in mind these are more like sketches than finished pieces. The first is a dungeon atmosphere, the second an outdoor atmospheric track intended for use in snowy regions and the third is a general usage outdoor atmospheric track. Hope you enjoy and please let us know what you think!

Antharion has updated their lighting tech and the latest Kickstarter update shows that off:

Hey guys! In the past week we've made a few modifications to Antharion's rendering engine and thought we might as well make an update out of. So here's a video showcasing our engine's real-time dynamic lighting and shadowing capabilities along with a newly added "classic lighting mode" option for older devices (or for people who prefer a more tile-based aesthetic). We've also included the first dungeon atmosphere track by our composer Eric Gallardo. Check it out...

Antharion's new Kickstarter has been funded and they now sit at $10.2k / $10k goal with a whole 30 days yet to run. Time to look toward Stretch goals...

Antharion has almost reached their goal ($9.5k / $10k) ans so stretch goals have been launched, including new items, a player house, new tilesets and Linux support. The actual list is a graphic that is hard to quote but here's some of the accompanying text:

Magical Items - items imbued with magical effects such as: a sword with a chance to freeze its target on strike, a bow with a chance to poison, etc.

Northern Point Winter Island - A massive island on the far northern reaches of Antharion, Northern Point is a snowy winter wilderness with a few small settlements carved out amidst it's barren frosty landscape. Explore and conquer numerous ice caverns filled with Frost Liches, Snow Yetis and like monsters.

13 Level Mega Dungeon - Conquer this 13 level mega dungeon bohemoth and you'll be duly rewarded with one of the three most powerful items known to exist in Anthation!

Monster Island Conclave - An island off the south eastern coast of Antharion solely inhabited by monsters and complete with a monster capitol city where you can interact with inhabitants just like regular NPCs.

Antharion is back on Kickstarter again. After the first try where they came $1,190 short in order to reach their goal of $15,000 they are now asking for $10,000 and have currently already collected 20% of that amount.

Antharion is a hard-core dungeon crawling turn-based RPG set in a vast and interactive fantasy world that encourages player exploration. What sets Antharion apart from other RPGs is how faithfully it recreates the experience of classics like Ultima, Wizardry and Pool of Radiance. Antharion combines an immense open world, deep tactical turn-based combat and a rich character creation system, with the distinctive look and feel of a traditional Western RPG. Antharion wants to breathe new life into an old genre.

On Antharion's first Kickstarter campaign.

Our first try at Kickstarter failed at 92%, but that’s not the whole story. We’d done a total of just 5% in the week leading up to that day. In the last few hours of the project, our backers just went nuts driving funding progress up from 73% to 92%. You’d think that with just hours left to go, and 27% still needed, that they’d feel hopeless and just give up. Instead, they kept going, upgrading their pledges and pulling in tons of new backers, eventually we the day with a gain of 19%. It was just amazing, it’s hard to express in words how that made us feel. We’ve been working on this thing for over a year, never really knowing if anyone else would actually be interested in it other than ourselves. Just to find out that there were so many people out there who believe in what we’re doing was a really amazing feeling.

Antharion has fallen short of their Kickstarter goal, closing at $13.8k out of $15k. For fans, it looks like they plan to re-group and try again. From the comments:

Alright, you guys have convinced us!! We're going to relaunch, but we'll take a week to regroup and polish. We've learned a lot this first time around and will definitely put this knowledge to good use for the relaunch. Check back here or on our website for details - and we'd continue to appreciate any feedback or advice regarding Antharion or how to move forward with Kickstarter. Thanks again guys!

orphicsoftware.com

Atharion has only 18 hours to run for their Kickstarter as I write - with a little under $4k to go, they need every pledge they can get. For the last push, a new video has been released:

Hey guys, so it's the last day and we're doing a huge push! Here's a video showing off a full battle plus some monsters and environmental stuff. Hope you enjoy, and remember, tell everyone you know, post on every forum, send emails and help us get the word out ...less than 24 hours left! It's a lot of work but we can do it with your help!!!

A short update on Kickstarter for Antharion is available, which is mainly just linking to a few previews (IndieGraph, RPS, IndieGames and I-Luv-Games).
Antharion could just reach its goal having 10K in pledges out of a 15K goal and 5 days to go.

True PC Gaming interviewed Ari Rae-Silver, developer responsible for the open world party-based RPG, Antharion.

Please talk about developing the art style, level design and music for Antharion.

The art style was originally conceived of by myself back when Antharion was still a one man project. Antharion’s style was inextricably linked to the overall design of the game since its inception. The game was always intended to be a massive open-ended world with tons and tons of dungeons. In order to do this, I had to strip away all but the absolutely necessary assets, figure out how many unique version of each I’d need (on the high-end estimate) and determine how long each type of asset would take to produce. Level design is unique to every project and is something that you learn as you go along. For Antharion, it’s figuring out the optimal size/shapes of dungeons along with the optimal ratios of monsters to dungeons size and those sorts of things. We have yet to hire a composer to score Antharion’s music, but we know what we want and use placeholders while testing in-house.

 

Outside of creating the game itself, what is the toughest aspect of being an indie developer?

Game development itself is really one huge challenge. Probably the biggest is maintaining the project’s core vision while engaging in a multiplicity of seemingly unending tasks. You’re constantly designing, coding, managing the asset pipeline, planning what assets you’ll need and at what times, worrying about funding, paying people, distribution, deadlines, promotion, etc.

Also if you go to their Kickstarter page, you will find that they also have 3 stretch goals at 18K, 21K and 25K. At the moment of this writing they are about 6.500$ short of their 15.000$ goal with still 16 days to go.

The Kickstarter campaing for Antharion is with 19 days to go halfway to its goal and they bring us this small update on what progress they are making with the game.

It's been a really busy last couple of days for us. Programming-wise I've been polishing the smart AI system for enemies and NPCs along with making some balancing tweaks to combat and magic. Our artist Peter has been churning out monsters like crazy and just created a female avatar body for each race. Our world designer Jen has been creating some really cool towns and dungeons which all look amazing. Everything is coming together beautifully and it's incredibly exciting!!

RPG Codex has talked to Ari Rae-Silver from Orphic Software, the company behind this game. A quote on the inspiration:

To begin with, what inspired Antharion's concept and why did you decide to make a turn-based RPG in this day and age? What makes Antharion unique and sets it apart from the multitude of other indie RPGs and Kickstarter projects?

Antharion was inspired by my experiences getting lost in games like Pool of Radiance and Morrowind for hours or days at a time. And I’ve always had a love of turn-based games, they just feel more cerebral which I really like. A lot of modern games hide behind obtuse interfaces and fancy graphics. Antharion doesn’t (it can’t afford to). Our goal from the start was to make Antharion’s core gameplay feel ultra-responsive and transparent in a WISIWIG sort of way.

A quote on the plot, background etc:

Can you introduce our readers to the game's setting, backstory and plot? What are some of the themes you aim to explore with Antharion?

 The game is set in the fantasy world of Antharion, a huge island continent. The beloved King and uniter of Antharion was recently murdered by his own son Zeverith. Zeverith paraded his father’s corpse through the streets of the capitol. Then he had the corpse rendered into a monument in the center of the capital city square so as to remind all the citizens of his ultimate power. Along with dissolving the Senate, Zeverith sold of huge swaths of land (along with the inhabitants) to wealthy powerful interests. Magic was long the domain of a small group of very powerful wizards known simply as, The Order.

A quote on how the quests are going to be:

How diverse are Antharion's quests going to be? What other types of quests apart from kill and fetch quests are you going to put in the game? You also call the game world of Antharion "open-ended". Does this include alternative endings and multiple quest solutions?

There’s a lot of diversity. Of course you’ll have the standard Fed-Ex style quests, but you’ll also have some pretty unique stuff. For example: you meet a local slave trader in one of the sleazier taverns on the wrong side of town. He tells you that he’s just had a shipment of Orcs stolen by a rival slaver and asks you to go retrieve them. From this point there are a number of possible outcomes: (1) you could go and retrieve the Orc slaves and return them to the quest giver; (2) you could go and free the Orc slaves; (3) you might happen to run into the rival slaver who would then offer you money to kill the quest giver; or (4) you could just kill all of Orc slaves for the heck of it.

In the latest Kickstarter update on Antharion a message was made showing some of their plans.

Hey guys, we just passed $6,000 and are on track to meet our goal but we still need your help! Please like us on Facebook and tell all of your friends about Antharion! Every little thing helps.

We wanted to share with you a few features that we're going to be adding along with a few that we're considering.

We're definitely adding: alchemy, female avatars, pick-pocketing and a traits system (advantages/disadvantages that you can choose from during character creation).

We're considering: crafting, a persuasion skill, a blood particle system, optional walking animations, feats/perks, scaling down head size and a gambling mini game. There are a few other things but they're more tentative.

Also, let us know what kind of stretch goals you'd like to see.

There have been a couple of Antharion Kickstarter updates over the last few days ($5.8k/$15k, 24 days). First, new reward tiers have been added:

Due to popular demand we've just created a new $30 tier which now gives early access to Antharion's Beta. We also created a new $110 tier in which you'll be given access to the Alpha plus a special thanks in the game's credits. And of course anyone already supporting us above the $30 tier will automatically get access to the beta as well.

...and some new monster art has been posted.

Antharion is an indie 2D RPG with turn-based combat, a party and an open world inspired by Ultima, among others. The team are looking for a modest $15k from their Kickstarter, with $2k already pledged:

Antharion can best be described as a fusion of various elements from classic series like The Elder Scrolls, Baldur’s Gate, and Ultima into a single player old-school RPG experience. We wanted to combine an immense open-ended living-breathing world where the player is free to go anywhere and do anything, with a deep tactical turn-based combat system, a rich skill set and character creation system, and the distinctive feel of old-school classic RPGs.

Features

• Open World: Go anywhere and do anything in Antharion’s vast open-ended living-breathing hand crafted world.
• Turn-Based: Antharion features a deeply satisfying tactical turn-based combat system beneath a sleek and intuitive interface.
• Party-Based: Create and control a party of up to 4 characters. Choose each of their races (each race with it's own characteristics) and customize all attributes, skills and equipment.
• Epic Story: Antharion features a dark and mysterious world of magical mystery and political intrigue.
• Meaningful Decisions: Save the kingdom and become revered or destroy it and become reviled. In Antharion your actions matter and are reflected tangibly in the world around you.
• Freedom: The world of Antharion is fully interactive: go inside of every room of every building, open every drawer and steal any item. Explore over 100 dungeons ...all at your leisure.
• Magic: 3 schools featuring 45 unique spells.
• No Level Scaling: Antharion does NOT scale loot or monsters.