I watched some gameplay video on youtube and it seems that it's a roguelike where you jump from one point to another point on a map and something is following you from the left side to the right side of the map. When you enter a point you only have to battle and loot stuff. Sometimes text windows pop up with some story. So I'd say it's like Faster Than Light with mages or Everspace with mages.

Unreal.

I bought this and played it for an hour or so, then requested a refund via Steam.

The game has little in terms of story. You move from place to place on a map with random events occurring on each area you go to. In some, you'll just have some dialogue with minimal choices (help, don't help) and the dialogue is all you get in terms of interaction, then you may get an item or some of the game's currency, but that dialogue is the end of that node on the map.

In other cases, you are dropped into combat or given a goal (e.g. destroy building x). These drop you into a random selection of zones into the 3rd person perspective you see in the screenshots.

Whatever, it's a "mage simulator", so I don't really care about story. I just wanted magicy noises and making things go boom. IMO, it's underwhelming in this regard too, unfortunately.

The rune system is kindof cool, but they don't offer a ton of variety in terms of what the spells do. You can select things that enhance damage, range, send multiple projectiles, etc. You can do so dynamically. This part is pretty neat, I will say. Unfortunately, I felt like it was burdened by a lack of powerful base spells to be modified from the start.

The problem for me was that the rest of the game was just a dull experience. The environments were cookie cutter, I think in a 20 minute "run" (before I died), I saw the same map 3 times. The enemies are all the same, either they are mages like yourself hurling projectiles or they are melee that make a b-line towards your character and swing at you until you are dead. The latter of which are REALLY annoying and way OP. These enemies offer little in variety from what I can tell, but given that I only played an hour, it's possible they vary more later on, although judging by the screenshots, that's not the case.

Yea, it's pretty cool you can blow up buildings and the debris damages enemies. That was cool during the tutorial, maybe a little after, then it got kindof old and more difficult than useful.

The combat is alright, you spend a lot of time running around and blinking to different spots because getting hit knocks off so much of your health (you are a mage, though...). The splash damage is a bit annoying with some spells, but you can deal with it. It just felt kindof tedious to deal with, I started feeling annoyed when I had to fight, not something you want to experience in 1 hour of gameplay.

I think the game needs to remember what it is. It's not going to be a super in depth gameplay experience with a great story and a lot of enemy variety. It's a "mage simulator", but the problem is that it didn't seem to offer a lot in terms of variety in that regard. A game of this nature (e.g. Lichdom) should empower the player with awesome skills and cool things to blow up. The problem was I found both repetitive and underwhelming.

Maybe someone can offer a more in depth review after playing for a few more hours. My gaming time is limited these days and I could tell right off the bat that I wasn't going to put much more time into it. I rarely request refunds, but it felt wasteful having this in my inventory.

I'd love to hear feedback from someone that put more time into it and hear that it expands more as you go on. I just felt like I should have been further along after an hour and progressed more with less repetition given the genre of the game.

Thanks .

How does this compare to Lichdom: Battlemage? It seems to be kind of the same concept, but with destructible environments. I love playing mages in games (with D&D-based spellcasters being my favourite), but Lichdom was a real disappointment to me with its extreme linearity and weak action-based gameplay.

The whole "ultimate mage power" blurb was also bullshit. Sure, there weren't any mana or cooldowns, but on the other hand there was very little variety in the spells. Spamming a few different kinds of fireballs over and over is not what I consider powerful magic.

A story-driven ARPG that's procedurally generated? Why do developers continue to think that not designing levels is a desirable feature?

My usual response to 'ultimate magic' is go play Magic Carpet and then come and tell me about your 'ultimate magic'. Destructible environments is great but I want to be able to deform the very earth and raise volcanos to rend the skies!

A lot of people like procedurally generated content. As with anything, there are people who don't like it, but for many it is a desirable feature.

That being said, are the actual levels in this game procedurally generated? The store page specifically says it has a "procedurally generated world map" in the context of choosing your own adventure, which sounds like it would affect when you go to different levels (and maybe what your objectives in them are) rather than changing what the areas themselves consist of.

Decided to try my luck with buying it. I can't stand it. The basic gameplay feels like it doesn't control very well. The controls for getting a spell ready are weird and slow, you have to move the mouse in the direction of the three buffs you want and then wait for it to actually activate each one. Movement isn't great, and the camera has issues too. The game switches between first-person and third-person views very suddenly, and because they share the same FOV I end up having to play most of the game very zoomed-out in third-person to have a reasonable chance of not getting sick when I enter a house and it switches to first-person.

Speaking of houses, this game is constantly trying to stop you from playing it. I don't want to stop to search houses for loot, I don't want to then spend more time comparing a bunch of stats on the randomized gear, and I absolutely do not want to read whatever procedurally generated "story" the game offers between missions. If you avoid all of that, the game boils down to this: Progress through the map until an event allows you to actually play the game, run away from enemies while shooting your spells at them, go to the exit, and repeat. There's just nothing interesting or fun going on here for me.

For anyone thinking of getting this, my advice is to just forget about it. Even if it had been 75% off, it would feel like a waste of $5.

I totally forgot about that game. Now I have to play it again. :o

oh god, i have PTSD from indefinitely holding mouse down until spell is charged and then release from Lichdom Battlemage. Thanks for the warning.

Thanks for these useful informations.
This is kinda sad. I hoped the game offered a bit more. I have yet to find a game which makes you feel both a powerful wizard and enjoy being one, but sadly there aren't many at all. I purchased in past Lichdom battlemage, but to me it was boring (the too much random loot system and the spell making wasn't satisfying, imho).

Trailer doesnt seem to show anything except magic, blowing buildings up, and blowing baddies up. Nothing on story or any other stuff like ui etc..?

This was pretty much my impression from watching the trailers and seeing the screenshots on the GOG game page. I'm glad you took the time to write this post and actually warn possible customers (instead of the usual run-of-the-mill GOG Forum "advisory" post consisting of "this is an indie game and I hate indie games so don't buy it"). Like I said, I was never on the fence regarding Fictorum, because I found the trailers and the screenshots alone to be very self-explanatory of what I'd be getting by purchasing a game, but I'm happy that you took some time off to type this and *really* warn people about what they're getting if they buy the game.

Also, sorry that you had to go through a less than good experience in order to inform us of what we could expect from it.

I guess that if people want a game where they can mess around with -- and "craft" their own -- spells, they're better off sticking to Mages of Mystralia (which also features a somewhat decent story by Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood; and at least it seems to actually *deliver* said story, unlike Fictorum). Mystralia is a bit more expensive, sure, but I think I got my money's worth from it, whereas €20 (or whatever GOG is selling it for on your end) for Fictorum seems to be... a bit too much.

[EDIT] Word of advice: Mages of Mystralia does seem to have a somewhat more limited spell crafting system than Fictorum. That being said, it also seems way more fun and engaging to play. And, again, at least it has a story. A non "procedurally-generated" one at that.