Archive for April, 2015

Enchant Objects to Wander and Dance

Posted on: April 17th, 2015 by Orrick the Mighty

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to cast a spell on a statue and have it jump, twirl, and playfully dance around, moving as you have commanded? How would it feel to have the power to make inanimate objects come to life and move around? Perhaps you would use this magical power to guide the movements of a steampunk robot or a carriage made out of a pumpkin. You might direct a fountain of water spouts to spin and slide in a fanciful magical performance. Or you might create a fantastic swarm of lamps leaping and revolving around one another. With our latest client release, you now have that power over anything that you conjure or assemble in Mage Faire.

Dynamica Spells

Objects are activated with Dynamica spells that you create. Making your own Dynamica spells is easy. Using the Dynamica creation ritual, you simply move your avatar and act out how and when the object will move and where the object will go. At the end, you give your new Dynamica spell its incantation name. Your Dynamica spell can then be cast on an object that you have conjured or created, and off it goes, retracing your movements! After your magically activated object finishes re-enacting all of your movements, it starts over and repeats the actions, again and again. Once brought to life, these objects never get tired, and they never stop (much like the brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice story).

You can reuse the same Dynamica spell as often as you like, creating a group of objects that play “follow the leader.” Or you can combine different Dynamica spells to fill an area with complicated activity of all kinds. If you get tired of any object you have activated, you can simply Destructo it. A fun thing to try when activating objects is to choose a slower re-enactment speed for them. This is especially appealing when moving very large “heavy” objects or objects in water. For now, you can try out these spells anywhere in the public areas of the Faire. When personal estates become available in a future release, you will also be able to fill your own estates with lively objects that will persist and stay active there for as long as you like.

Using this new magic is easy and fun. Watching your own playful creations come to life is a special thrill that you must experience first-hand to fully appreciate.

Help Icons

This client release also adds three new in-game help icons at the upper-left part of the screen. If you are having trouble figuring out how to use some of the magic spells, or don’t recall how to bow to another mage, these new icons are here to help. Clicking on the keyboard icon pops up a crib sheet that indicates the functions of various keys for navigating and puppeteering your avatar. Note that the puppeteering keys are arranged to mimic the navigation WASD-QE keys, except they “navigate” your avatar’s head and torso instead of the entire avatar. The mouse icon pops up a crib sheet on the uses of the mouse buttons and scroll wheel. The lightning icon offers spell help. It pops up a spell Grimoire that contains detailed descriptions of the spells in Mage Faire and how to use them (including how to make Dynamicas!), along with links to tutorial videos in some cases.

It’s time to try out the new magic. If you purchased a World-Building Magic Pack, you should receive an email from T’nara with a link to the download. To play for free, go to the Market and “buy” (for $0.00) the free alpha client. Let us know what you think. See you at the Faire!