I was mentioning that I was working on my own game in the Dominions thread: here is what it is about:
A few years ago, I was lamenting the lack of a fantasy X-COM, so I started working on Zodiac Legion.
I am still not there yet, but we made a lot of progress towards the objective.
Our vision was to combine the geoscape of X-COM with traditional turn-based dungeon exploration with brutal melee combat, traps, and fireballs.
You play the role of the Commander of the Zodiac Order, a group of arcane knights, during a new magic age.
Here is the strategic map, where you pick your missions, and expand the reach of the order.
You need to recover artefacts, and research magic disciplines so that your knights may channel the power of the stars in battle.
It comes with an extensive paperdolling system.
Shameless copy/pasting of what our writer/level designer wrote for the Steam page:
Features
Zodiac Legion is a turn-based tactical RPG featuring lethal combat, squad management and strategic elements. Lead your heroes through daring raids and forgotten ruins, defend your land in a time of conquest and betrayal, and master the secrets of volatile ancient magic to restore a realm beset by the armies of undying fiendish sorcerers
- Lead your knights in turn-based tactical battles.
- Explore ancient ruins and places of power, thwart the plans of enemy lieutenants, forge alliances, and restore the Zodiac Order.
- Expand and strengthen your stronghold, research new spells and craft powerful artifacts.
- Conduct diplomacy and warfare.
- Develop your warriors into mighty champions.
- Smash your way through fully destructible dungeons.
- Reshape the terrain to your advantage.
Our gameplay trailer will debut with the Guerrilla Collective be up on Saturday 5th, between 6PM and 8PM CEST, before being displayed on our Steam page.
We plan to release a demo on Steam for the Autumn festival, then go to Kickstarter in late 2021, early 2022, and release the game in early access in June 2022.
Regarding the history of the development, I started working on Zodiac Legion (who was supposed to be a game about Ragnarok before it was that trendy) in 2013, when we were in Shanghai (I had followed my wife in expatriation, so I thought it was a good opportunity to start).
I thought we would be here for 5 years, and I would be done by that time, but none of it came true, and we were back in 2015 in France. I started working with our musician and our writer/level designer shortly after moving back to France. We first demoed the game in 2018. It had a mixed reaction with many players finding its UI unintuitive (seeing players at conventions send their mage in melee against opposing demons is not as fun as I thought it would be when it is your game).
But between the cost of living in Paris, and the end of my wife’s expatriation benefits, I had to take a year off, working on freelance assignments. I ended up taking a loan to stop being distracted by short-term money issues.
Then we moved to Germany on a new expat contract, and the stars started to align. The flow of the game became much better. We got a very nice preview in a French magazine.
We then got selected for the Guerrilla Collective event, and our request for subsidies was approved.
A lot of what I did was not sound at all (choosing such an ambitious project for the first game, starting without a team or a plan …), and should not be emulated. I will probably write a post-half-mortem soon, about how I could have avoided taking so much risk, but it starts to seem to go in the right direction now. At least, I feel like I have crossed the valley of despair, even though there is still a long road ahead (and a lot of geoscape features to add!).
