Lightspire: Fortunes Web

Story

The biggest and most important aspect of the story and plot is that no one in the current world knows anything about the past. They are unaware to what caused the previous cataclysm, and despite knowing that it happened, never believe it will happen again. This leads to complacency, naivety, and a total lack of awareness that the cataclysm will come again for the fourth time.

In the game, there are four different heroes, who each have their own background and involvement in the world of Lightspire. The most dominant force in the game world is the dragon elves. They are a dictatorship due to their immense army, and control of vast amounts of land and resources. The first hero - the Dragon Lancer - his story stems from them. As described in the Game World Synopsis, the elves and dragons were involved in a great war. The elves only chance of surviving and avoiding extinction would be to use magic against magic. The elves created a weapon to absorb any magical powers dragons might have had, which resulted in the rapid "de-evolution" of the dragons, and a ‘revolution' of the elves physical traits, including increased strength, vision, and the ability to live even longer than before. The remaining dragons were enslaved, to the point where dragon's mental acuity was vastly inferior to any of the elves.

Despite this, the last of the remaining dragons managed to escape, but the dragon race was on the verge of extinction. Aware of this, she summoned up all the magical powers she could muster, in order to shape shift into a human to mate with one of the mountain tribe warriors to pass along the ‘true' dragon bloodline. The Dragon Lancer is a descendant of this hybrid bloodline. A mountain tribe warrior, but with features of a dragon being. The dragon elves on the other hand, were determined to hunt down all who came from this bloodline. Their goal is to end the bloodline once and for all. The opening cinematic of the game will show the Dragon Lancer rushing into a town tavern, where he meets the three other heroes for the first time. The first of which is the Shield Warrior.

The Shield Warrior comes from an isolated city. It's the only city with any form of religion. Because of the darkness in the world, having a God or a religion is considered to be false. The Shield Warrior is on a quest to find ‘faith', if it at all exists. He wants to find the truth about God (if he exists) and why the world appears to have been abandoned by all greater powers'. He is at the beginning of a search for his faith, and his being at the tavern is coincidence.... Or is it?

The Caster, who is one of the evolved dwarves as explained in the Game World Synopsis. The dwarves, smartest of all races, know the truth about the occurrences of the cataclysm. The dwarves, who lived underground due to being exiled, have never left their city until now. Six of the wisest and most courageous of the dwarves were sent out to seek answers to prevent the coming of the fourth cataclysm. The Caster finds himself at this tavern, on the beginning of his quest to learn more about this dark and terrible world. The fourth hero is a character that few people if anyone, know anything about, but is drawn into this mix of different races by pure chance.

Fortune's Web represents the web of these characters. Despite being completely unrelated, they are bought together by faith and fortune for a much larger purpose than their own. Early on the game, the ‘Simurgh' encounters them. The Simurgh encounters our heroes who were brought together after they aid the Dragon Lancer in escaping a group of assassins. The Simurgh sees in this eclectic group something they do not, but manages to coerce them into working together to prevent the coming of the next cataclysm.

During the game, you will learn more about the characters as you progress, while following the unpredictable plot line. Despite the characters own personal goals, they gradually build trust, unite, and work together to fight against a common cause that will ultimately have far-reaching consequences, whether they succeed, or whether they fail.

Gameplay

Each character class has its own special gameplay abilities. The Dragon Lancer is essentially a "button masher" combo based character. The Lancer is highly agile and provides fast paced action gameplay. When fighting stronger enemies, the Lancer can quickly dodge out of the way to avoid attacks. The Caster on the other hand is not very agile, and cannot dodge attacks as easily as the Lancer. Instead of relying on quick evasive maneuvers to avoid attacks, the player controlling the Caster has to think of what spells or what combination of spells he should use to stop/evade an enemy of overwhelming power. For example, if there was a Rynox charging after the Lancer, he could barrel roll out of the way to avoid taking damage. The Caster would have to rely on magic to avoid this situation by using magic to throw the Rynox backwards or slowing/freezing him.

The combat system has a variety of abilities that the player can use to string together stronger and more impressive attacks. There are a few generic abilities that are shared between the four character classes. These are mainly the generic melee and generic ranged attacks. You also have your primary abilities which are unique to each class. These range from damaging spells, to healing spells, to additional shape shifting forms. Players string together powerful combos by combining unique abilities with generic abilities. The most powerful combos however are "Coop Combos" where two or more players string together their unique abilities for catastrophic damage.

"Coop Combos" are extremely deadly if used correctly. For example, the Caster is in an epic battle but has run out of energy to cast spells. He can choose to sacrifice his own health in place of energy, but he won't survive long enough to make his sacrifice useful to the other players. This is where the Shield warrior comes in. The Shield warrior can heal his colleagues while he is engaged in combat. He can operate as a "battery" for the Caster by providing him with health while he knocks back enemies keeping the Caster safe from harm. There are many other combinations between the different heroes and their abilities.

The upgrade system in Light spire is a cross between God of War and Diablo. Each character will have three different skill trees they can choose to upgrade certain skills from. For example, the Shield warrior could upgrade his shield so that he could throw it. The next upgrade would allow a thrown shield to bounce off of multiple enemies. A third upgrade would add a temporary stun to the targets affected by the shield and so on. Once the Shield warrior's shield throwing ability is fully upgraded there would be a visual difference between the normal shield and his "upgraded" shield, rewarding the player for fully upgrading a skill. Players will be able to upgrade skills after accomplishing challenging goals within the game in combination with gaining experience from killing generic enemies.

Other upgrades would consist of new abilities not available to the player at the start. Such as new spells for the caster, combat techniques for the Lancer, shape shifting forms for the Shape shifter, and auras for the Shield warrior. Players should have a uniquely customized character once the end of the game nears. Environments within Light spire will have a high level of dynamic interactivity. As the Lancer you can cut down trees and block the enemy's path. While the enemies try to climb over the trees the Caster can set fire to the trees and the enemies unfortunate enough to be climbing over. In another scenario, the Caster is outnumbered with the Shield warrior at his side. The Caster could freeze his enemies alive, and the Shield warrior could use his shield to knock the frozen enemies into live targets as frozen projectiles.

Puzzle solving in Light spire will primarily be cooperative puzzles that players must solve together. For example there could be a dungeon where the obstacles are actually controlled by the other players, giving them the opportunity to lead their team mate to his goal, or his untimely death. Boss fights are more than just linear battles where all you do is damage the boss until he is defeated. Each boss fight is a mini-game in itself, you must use all your knowledge that you have picked up from playing the game up until the boss fight itself to defeat it. The boss fights will be challenging enough for four players to feel as if they have accomplished something by working together to triumph over impossible odds.

Linear AND Open World game play will be featured in Light spire. There will be linear levels that continue the story/plot in conjunction with open world levels where the players are free to roam in whatever direction they like continuing the story at their own pace. There will be an overall goal to achieve in the open world levels, but the player can fulfill that goal in any order they feel, spending as much time as they like in the level before proceeding. Linear levels of course have the player follow a general path to his objective without the freedom to go anywhere. Inside the Open World levels there are various towns you can visit. The towns have pubs, taverns, and inns where you can talk to the locals and pick up side quests that will yield rewards that may be useful to the player in his campaign. In addition to the side quests you can pick up, the player can visit libraries where he/she can read up on ancient history, recent history, famous figures, and other miscellaneous literature. The player may even find secrets on how to defeat powerful monsters by reading about various species.