Hi Toucharcade! We're excited to announce our upcoming iOS/Android game Road of Kings from Dancing Sorcerer Games. "Road of Kings" is an open-ended single player RPG with a huge dynamic world and choose-your-own-adventure style story telling. Rather than focus on combat and level grinding like so many casual RPGs on the mobile market today, "Road of Kings" emphasizes what we think makes tabletop RPGs great -- a sense of exploration and adventure where anything can and will happen to your character. You play a barbarian warrior out to proclaim himself king by gathering enough treasure to buy his throne. You can band together a huge party or go it alone; you are limited only by what the resources you can gather allow. There are also several other hidden win conditions throughout the game, so while open banditry may be the fastest way to get rich, a compassionate hero of the people may still find himself elevated to kingship. Gameplay is turn-based on a large hex based map. The player has a limited number of days by which to gather enough gold, and must manage resources such as food, money, and followers to reach that goal. As the player explores, he is presented with text-based story elements where he must choose from a variety of options. Frequently the player will find himself in a fast and furious combat, where he must choose how to match enemies against allies and when to use precious special abilities granted by followers or rare special items. Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel We're aiming to launch later this month (January) on iOS and Android! Initial price will be $2.99 (no IAP). In the meantime you can find more information or follow us: Website: www.dancingsorcerer.com Twitter: @dancingsorcerer Facebook: www.facebook.com/dancingsorcerergames Thanks for taking a look!
I watched the trailer on your site anyhoo, good to see it's fixed. This looks EPIC. The major draw being the choose your own adventure aspects. This could be a hit... Also, the sound effect when you do a melee attack sounds a little awkward FYI
Looks interesting I'll keep an eye on it for now. I agree about the melee attack sounds though but I never play with sound on in 99% of my games so I'm not bothered.
Really looking forward to this. A refinement to the old "Barbarian Prince" board game on the mobile platform sounds great!
Looks a lot like Runebound (an FFG boardgame) which is a good thing as I have been wanting it or a game of its style on iOS! Consider me very interested in this!
When I asked Dancing Sorcerer Games (via Facebook) if Road of Kings was influenced by the old solitaire board game "Barbarian Prince", they said it was heavily influenced by it. Barbarian Prince is a great game (if not very difficult to win) and for those of you who are interested you can check it out at http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1631/barbarian-prince. Barbarian Prince was designed by Arnold Hendrick who also designed the old computer rpg "Darklands" (also a great game in my opinion). Personally, I am very interested and excited to see how Road of Kings turns out and is an "instabuy" for me.
Been playing the beta of this, and I have started a preview/walkthrough topic at BGG here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1101448/road-of-kings-previewwalkthrough This game is really great. They've managed to fit the "epicness" of games like Barbarian Prince and Runebound into a game that takes a fraction of the time of those games to play a complete session, but with enough variety and challenge that you want to keep playing again to try out different strategies and just for the fun of seeing what comes up in each game.
You can probably get through an average session in an hour or so, if it lasts all 100 days. Games can be A LOT shorter, though. Maybe over an hour to a few hours if you are doing better in a given session or reading a lot of encounters for the first time, but I've only gotten even close to 500 gold once so far. But the heavy board game elements, including the randomness of events and simple but unpredictable combat mechanics, mean that each game is a new challenge to achieve the goal with an entirely new set of circumstances.
I enjoyed reading your bgg post and am wondering if you could answer a few questions for me. What kind of attributes/skills do characters have? How are cities/towns handled? While traveling, can you get "lost" as in Barbarian Prince" (if you are familiar with that game)? Thanks for any info you can provide.
Thre's not a WHOLE lot in the game that differentiates characters. They each start with a certain number of HP, a Combat Skill number, and a few have skills you use in combat that have to "recharge" after use, like shooting a crossbow, or casting a fireball. There might be other "hidden" attributes (such as one character hints that they are better at finding food in the desert), but those mentioned are all that is shared with the player. The number of characters you have is a lot more important in this game than the type of characters you have, but there are some exceptions, like certain characters that you pick up as part of a plot event, which will either stay with you until you bring them to a certain place to carry out their plot, or until you run out of food. Cities are places where you can pay to rest and eat, as well as search for rumors in the tavern, which can also lead to other events such as bar brawls and such, or reveal places of interest for you to explore. Also, many of the cities have their own plot points that trigger when you first arrive at them. Completing these can yield great rewards in gold or men, but they can also cost you a lot as well. Cities are also where you go to sell any trophy items that you earn while exploring ruins or by other means. I haven't actually played BP to know what getting lost in that game means, but in RoK, every time you go to move from one space to another, you have a chance of "getting lost" and not being able to move that turn, effectively wasting that turn. I'm pretty sure the chance of getting lost is greater in areas like the desert or swamp.
Thanks for responding. Everything still sounds very much like Barbarian Prince, but with more depth (which is a good thing). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is released on the 18th. Dancing Sorcerer said it's up to Apple, so we'll see what happens. Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions.
First thought upon seeing the title: Nice, Conan. ("Road of Kings" is a Conan novel by Karl Edward Wagner, of Kane fame) While my favorite barbarian does not star here, the music very much reminds me of the original movies' scores. Well done! Rest looks interesting enough as well, will keep an eye out for it.