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Sacred Fire

How Sacred Fire lets players control the narrative

We had a long chat with creative director Andrej Vojtas about the many interesting design choices that have gone into the upcoming RPG.

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Sacred Fire is an upcoming story-centric turn-based RPG in the midst of a campaign on Kickstarter, and we thought we'd probe the mind of creative director and founder of Poetic Studio, Andrej Vojtas, about what's gone into the concept and the innovations it proposes.

GR: How would you describe Sacred Fire to someone who is not familiar with the game?

AV: Sacred Fire is a psychological role-playing game that is choice-driven. What we mean by psychological is that, in most role-playing games, the key to success is in skills and weapons, and our design focus is inward. Your self control and ability to overcome fear and control anger, that helps you succeed both in combat and in the story situations where you need to, again, control your two basic emotions, fear and anger, to be able to find the best solution in the conflict. It opens up the gameplay as you can also try to evoke these emotions in your opponent.

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One of our design principles is we want the player to be in control. It's a turn-based game, it's not twitch-based. You have the time to explore the situation and we expose the whole numeric role-playing game ruleset and model, so you know exactly why you're having a low chance of success in a situation and how to improve it next time around. Our writing principle is to never mislead the player into a messy choice or to no good outcomes, as we believe it breaks the immersion in storytelling in games, so the player goes "oh, okay this is a set up and they put a trap there for me, and now I don't really believe them anymore, I can't immerse myself in the story and engage with the character, I have to distance myself." At least this is what we get from designers like Sid Meier. There was a talk that inspired me at GDC, I think it was 2010, the psychology of game design (you can check it out here), where he describes the principle of an unholy alliance between the designer and the player. He says it like this: "I will pretend you are a good player and you will pretend my game is real."

So we think what many narrative games get wrong, like Telltale, is that they break this unholy alliance. They do it on purpose, and you kind of get used to it as a player, but we think it breaks the immersion you have and how much you identify yourself with the protagonist. It leads to a different experience, not necessarily a bad experience, but we want to provide a different one. That's why we always foreshadow what's coming. So we think the problem in the design of narrative games [is] you basically don't have to challenge the player. What is the challenge when I'm just choosing how the story should progress? And there are various solutions designers have come up with, one of them is quick time events, so the challenge is in pushing buttons. Another solution is the challenge in guessing what the writing has mislead the player into and what will happen, and other solution is to provide morally grey situations, etc. And it's all good, and our solution is we don't do quick time events, you have all the time you need, we don't mislead you, you always know what's coming and you have a chance how to avoid it. What we do is we introduce gambling, the probability of success for each choice, but it's not all random. You have willpower points so the player can boost the chance of success for a certain situation if you really want to, your character can put the extra effort to getting it right.

Sacred Fire

GR: So it sort of works like in Torment: Tides of Numenera where you have effort?

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AV: Yeah, exactly, and you can use it also in combat to increase your chances, but the willpower is a limited resource so you have to strategise. My goal was to make the player feel like [they've] earned the right to make the choice, but it costs [them] something. And this also goes further, there is story branching in the story, but you don't have the influence inside the group of people who decide where the story goes. So the other NPC companions can overrule you and you have to compete for the social standing and the respect and renown in this honour-based culture, to have the voice, to be able to avert the tragic ending, and branch the story in a different way.

GR: We were wondering about that, because that's also something that perhaps sets it apart a little bit, the setting, you've chosen not a very traditional setting. What made you come to that decision?

AV: First of all it's a setting that inspired me and I found was culturally and visually inspiring, but I also identify with the small nation resisting a larger empire and I found that fascinating. But what truly matters to me is [to] explore how conflict treats solution. Simply, I try to make the game relatable to our current moral issues and lives, to give meaning to the story, and we do this by using psychology so we can explore conflict and resolution on an interpersonal level, and even on an internal level on how we resolve conflict within you. And then we use artistic writing, and we don't claim historical accuracy, and the story is very much dreamed up by the characters - they're pretty much like the movie The Last of the Mohicans - so the resistance war is this backdrop but an interpersonal conflict between the characters is what really matters. You'll spend most of the time exploring, so yeah, the inspiration was artistic and cultural, and then it was a good backdrop for a conflict resolution theme that is simply meaningful to me.

GR: When it comes to emotions, you talk about fear and anger, these are emotions that can be both of a resource and a hindrance if you will. How do you treat that? Can it go both ways?

AV: Exactly. So on the mechanic level, anger makes your attacks stronger, so it's like you said, it helps with something, but the attacks are less precise and from a certain level of intensity you start to neglect your defence, so that's anger. Fear is more of a hindrance. At low intensity, it can help you defend better, [however,] it weakens your attacks and then it starts to be a penalty on all aspects in combat, but mechanically you can overrule the fear with anger. It's kind of what the berserkers do in combat. So basically it depends on what kind of enemy you are facing, and it applies to them as well, so if you have an enemy, you're having a hard time hitting this enemy, but you don't have a hard time blocking him, so you want to enrage him, and he will drop his guard and his attacks will be stronger but you can handle that, or in reverse you try to intimidate him; so you'll have to read the situation.

So one key feature of the combat, [which] is also demonstrated in the developer's commentary [trailer], is that we wanted to do the flow of the battle to not be laborious and monotone. We built that opportunity to switch turns, but once the opportunity is charged, it should give you a chance to decide the outcome of the battle in a special event. So [...] the idea behind this is it makes for more dramatic combat, it's something you see in the movies, and not a lot in games, especially in turn-based combat. You just switch turns and it's all about positioning your party on a chess board, and it can drag on for a while, so we wanted to do something different. There's no chess board, you're always right there, the perspective doesn't change, it's this cinematic takes on your attacks and defence. It all builds up to one culminating moment or a moment where something interesting happens, like in the movies [they'd] use the environment to gain an edge or [use] the moment to assess the opponent's strength and from now on [they've] found a weakness in [their] technique, now you have this bonus to attacks. You use the opportunity to refocus and calm down and now you're like ice and effective and at the top of your performance. This is the kind of experience we want to bring to the combat. In the end we are switching turns, but the interesting stuff is going to happen soon.

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GR: We've been talking a lot about the combat here but, as I understand it, you can also avoid combat and be diplomatic, so how does that work? Is it possible to go through the game without combat, or is it a necessity sometimes?

AV: You can go through the game without killing, but not without fighting. The setting is really not a peaceful one, but definitely there are many ways the game allows you to completely avoid a lot of battles by having the influence to stop, for example, your allies from doing this stupid choice they have been provoked or lured into. Then there is this concept of smart options. What ruins the experience for me in things like Game of Thrones from Telltale is that I know from the beginning how the story will go, and [if] my protagonist is going to do something very stupid, there is no option to avoid it. So we always, for example... in Season One of Game of Thrones from Telltale, one of the protagonists, he returns home and there is smoke, black smoke, coming from the house, and there are these enemies [that] have attacked your family, and he just walks right into the scene - it's such a bad idea. We acknowledge that this is an extreme situation and he's experiencing emotions that cloud his judgement, but it just bothers his chance to do the smart thing, to go around the back and shoot the bad guys with an arrow and save your family in there. He just needs to build the self control for a situation like this and save up the willpower to use it to take it. But you asked about avoiding combat - you can gain influence, through renown or through relationships.

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We have five, we call them elite traits, when you create your character, [which] basically define how you will win the game. Will you use strength to resolve conflict and to rise in the society, or will you use skills or values? You can be a healer, or a storyteller. You can use your intellect to have insight and use diplomacy to rise. You can have empathy and be likeable, so you attune to the others. You build strong relationships and have the support of the characters and that's why you have influence. And lastly, you can have a striking presence and menacing appearance so you just scare certain enemies off. They won't attack you because you've built up this scary look, but it's not only by wearing a black outfit, it's something that emanates from you from the trauma you've been through. You can choose traits that make you more menacing like a deep voice or a scarred face.

I said you have to fight sometimes, but [...] one thing that sets us apart from other games is that your enemies, as the AI has a deep psychology, they're not just mindlessly going to die. If they see that you have defeated two guys single-handedly, the others won't jump in and face the same fate. They learn, they know the odds are against them. They will flee, they want to survive. A lot of the time the way to avoid killing is by showing your skill [as] it stops the opponent from attacking. You can even help you gain [them] as an ally if you gain [their] respect and it fits well with the honour culture. It's the inspiration from where ancient Caledonia comes from. So the combat encounters, they have various codes, and various winning conditions. It's not like getting your enemy's hit points to zero - there are many options open for how to end the combat.

GR: We were wondering about the companions you have, all of these traits that influence your enemies. Do they also influence the relationship with your companions?

AV: Yes, this is what a lot of work went into. These companions or potential allies, they really pick up the nuances. The AI, they have their preferences and world views and things they will admire you for and respect you [for], and things that they will [like and dislike]. Like, [if you lose] it creates aversion or scorn. There are many states that can block a relationship or build it.

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GR: Is it so much that you can lose a companion, or that you can block them off so that you can't use them?

AV: It goes further. They will actively try to kill you if you don't mend certain blocks. There is a game mechanic, you will see it when you have the insight, when a block that has been non-aggressive like say, aversion or scorn or even guilt can turn into anger and can build up into hate and in certain story situations, the game rolls the dice for the NPC. What is he going to do? You can get lucky and hate won't trigger the attack, and you can get unlucky, so it really provides replayability. But definitely these relationships can go violent. But it's also on your part [...] Each character presents a challenge, for example there is Wid, the big guy with the bird, he is your older brother in the story and he saves you a lot of times, but there is this single ending that it's hard to step out of his shadow. And the game and the story foreshadows that this ultimate check [is] coming, a scene where this ending will drive you to do something fatal or not, if you spend your willpower resources to keep it in check. This is how deeply the gameplay and story is connected.

GR: You mentioned the Kickstarter, why do you want to go on Kickstarter apart from the funding and how has the experience been so far?

AV: The experience has been great. In the first couple of days a lot of people came on board. As we are doing the game in English and not our native language, it's not our family and friends, it's all gamers who are intrigued by the concept, they love the visuals. We have spent years preparing it so it's such a satisfying feeling to see the community react positively to it, and to go "wow". So the reason we did the Kickstarter is because we really didn't know if gamers would go for this. We do a lot of new stuff. We're trying to innovate the genre and take the next step in a very specific direction and weren't sure if we'd be able to communicate it to people and we wanted to hear their thoughts on it. We've been through Greenlight and we've seen how it helps us make the game better, to be able to explain it better because people gave us feedback - it was really great. We learn[ed] how to talk about the game, how to present it, and it even gives us focus. What is the area that people are most excited about? From Steam Greenlight it's the character creation, that's how you can define the traits and attributes of your character. People got really intrigued by that.

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