Seven Dragon Saga Kickstarter Campaign Launched

The SSI alumni at Tactical Simulations Interactive have launched a Kickstarter campaign for Seven Dragon Saga, just as previously announced, with a funding goal of $450,000. The game is described as a turn-based tactical RPG that will have players control a party of six player-made “Chaos Touched” characters with extraordinary powers, tasked with securing a trading route for their empire.

Gameplay will consist of a mix of turn-based combat encounters and real-time exploration, with a few twists on top of that. Firstly, players will have to set a “Goal” for every character, which will determine which bonuses (if any) will be earned by doing a quest in a certain way. A party with mixed goals might benefit from some form of bonus throughout the entire game, while one with a unified goal for every character will find itself in an “all or nothing” situation where certain quests will grant party-wide bonuses but others won’t grant any kind of bonus at all. Secondly, it will be possible to claim regions and plant a faction flag in them, granting that certain faction with more resources and power. From the Kickstarter page:

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.

Reward tiers range from an entry-level $25 that only includes the game to a $10,000 tier with a bevy of rewards. Bonus items in between these extremes include a pen and paper ruleset for the game, an artbook, and access to the beta and alpha of the game. As far as I can tell, most of the rewards are digital, though there are tiers that come with physical copies of the game and some of the additional items.

I have to admit that I’m personally surprised by the lack of hooks to this pitch. The team has an incredibly solid track record with turn-based tactical combat and RPGs in general, but the market isn’t as underserved as it was a few years ago, so I’m afraid they will have a tough time selling it to the those that are on the fence. Either way, we will keep you updated on the campaign’s progress.