Hello there!
It’s been exactly one year since Realms of Magic was released as a Full Version. To celebrate our first anniversary, we are excited to share our plans for the future!
How it all started
Quite a long time ago, we had a dream - to create our own fantasy sandbox RPG. And we had absolutely zero skill, knowledge, or experience to pull off a project of that scale. That didn’t seem like a reason good enough not to try anyway, so we did… aaand it took us 8 long years to finally create something we could call a complete game.
The game turned out pretty decent, considering our lack of resources. Despite being very janky and lacking in many aspects, it sold over 50k copies, earned 80% positive reviews on Steam, and, most importantly, showed us the potential for this game idea.
Realms of Magic is a clear example of a game that is better than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t have great platforming, combat, story, or sandbox mechanics - each part of the game is mediocre at best, yet mixed together, they create a magical experience.
When we were getting close to finishing the development of the full version, we started wondering what kind of game Realms of Magic could be if all of the parts were actually well made: precise and responsive platforming, dynamic and juicy combat, captivating story with memorable characters and diverse sandbox mechanics with depth. Well, our next goal is to find out exactly that!
The best way forward
To continue working on the Realms, we had to make an important decision on which development model to pick: smaller updates, an expansion pack, or a sequel.
The most common way to further develop sandbox games is through smaller incremental updates. But Realms of Magic is not only a sandbox game but also an RPG. Do we want to stay in the Old Kingdom and replay the same story over and over again? Or do we want to explore different parts of the Ezran continent and experience new storylines? We decided on the latter, so an expansion pack or a sequel would make more sense.
While we had a complete and working game to build upon, the development in recent years significantly slowed down due to the game’s code and data being what you call spaghetti. But no ordinary spaghetti. More like barbed wire spaghetti. It was really painful and slow to get any major changes done. This mess resulted from an inexperienced team making a game that was way out of their depth.
We started analyzing which parts of the game we wanted to improve drastically. And the answer was… all of them. That made it clear, instead of trying to fix our mess, starting from scratch would be more efficient since we want to remake every system anyway. So a sequel it is.
But this time, we want to do it properly. No more jank, each game element must meet certain industry standards. No more skimping on refactoring and proper development practices, we want to create a foundation we will be able to efficiently build upon in years to come. As developers, we grew and learned a lot over the years and are confident in our skills to pull it off properly.
The next chapter
So it’s official, we are making Realms of Magic 2. But what kind of game will it be? Our goal is simple: the same idea but much better execution.
A significant part of the sequel will be the brand-new content. We will leave the Old Kingdom and explore new parts of the Ezran continent, discover new biomes, meet new cultures, fight new creatures, gather new resources, craft new items, and experience a new epic storyline. While we won’t share any more details today, all we will say for now is that work on the new setting is in pretty advanced stages, and our entire team is really excited about how it’s shaping up. We can’t wait to share more!
One of the fundamental parts of the game is the physics system, which is especially important since we are not only a sandbox, an RPG, but also a platformer. To achieve smooth and precise platforming gameplay, we wrote our custom character physics, and we are quite proud of how it turned out. After getting used to the new system, getting back to the original game is really painful, the difference between RoM 1 and RoM 2 physics feel is massive.
Another fundamental part is the animations, which in the original game were stiff and robotic. Most pixel-art games use handmade sprite animations for better quality. We can't do that because we require a lot of different parts and animations, and drawing a frame for each part and animation combination is not viable. We'll stick to skeletal animation, but we're working on a solution to give them depth and make them look more like traditional frame-by-frame animations.
The next element we will be reworking is the combat system. Combat in RoM 1 lacked impact, proper pacing, and juiciness. The enemy variety was lacking, and their AI was simply bad. Character progression was very linear, lacked depth, and the build variety wasn’t great. And there weren’t any range weapons. All of the above will be improved in the sequel.
Another core element that will be improved is sandbox mechanics. The main issue with sandbox in the original game was that all mechanics were frontloaded from the start, overwhelming new players and not introducing new mechanics later on, which resulted in a lack of depth and a repetitive experience. We will be solving that by proper progression and adding more complex mechanics at later stages. Oh, and we are making talent trees for profession skills!
One of the areas that were lacking in Realms of Magic was the narration. Instead of all dialogues happening in a small box while the game is paused, we want to create a more cinematic experience. When you initiate dialogue, the camera will zoom in, and characters will animate their faces and can perform movements and gestures. We will also be focusing on creating more choices and their consequences. And we will be moving away from filler quests, a quest that doesn’t tell an interesting story won’t have a place in Realms of Magic 2.
The final major part of the game that will be improved is the interface and user experience. We want it to be more intuitive and more convenient to use. We will improve inventory, building experience, quest tracking, and more. And we will be adding full controller support!
One of the heavily requested features is localization for additional languages. We will be adding support for localization, and we plan to create professional translations for a number of the most popular languages (details to be determined later). But even if your language won’t make it on the official list, we will be adding support for community-made translations.
Another fan favorite is mod support. And we are happy to announce that Realms of Magi 2 will feature official mod support! We are designing the game with mods in mind, we want as much content to be as easily modifiable as possible. We can’t wait to see what our community will create!
Finally, let’s discuss that one feature everyone asks about - multiplayer. After deep research and analyzing all our options, we concluded that we wouldn’t be able to deliver it with our resources in a timely manner without seriously compromising the game’s quality. Realms of Magic 2 will be a singleplayer only game. If you are waiting to journey through the Realms with friends, do not lose hope, and please be patient. After we create solid foundations in the sequel, multiplayer will be the next major step we want to explore in the Realms of Magic series. When we’ll do it, we’ll do it right.
But wait, there’s more
Realms of Magic 2 is not only a singular game but the start of a series of games in which we want to build and expand upon previous entries instead of throwing everything away and starting from scratch each time. Following this principle, we have a second major announcement: Realms of Magic Remastered.
What is Realms of Magic Remastered? Basically, it’s the content from the first game running on the sequel codebase and mechanics. We are not planning on adding any major content or features to the remaster (those will be available in the sequel), but it will take advantage of all new updates to the mechanics, such as physics, animations, combat, narration, interface, etc.
What does it mean for updates for the original game? We are not planning any significant updates besides potential fixes to high-priority issues. To fix all the problems with the game, we would need to completely remake the game - which is precisely what we are doing.
All Realms of Magic owners will receive the remastered game for free.
Final words
We hope you are as excited about the future of the Realms as we are!
In the upcoming months, we’ll be focused on recruiting and expanding our team size. We plan to provide more regular development updates once new team members are up to speed and the dust settles.
In the meantime, join our official Discord, where we created a channel on which you can discuss your ideas and suggestions for Realms of Magic 2 with us!
Thank you for your support,
Polished Games Team
