Ethan Kaminski

“All art is derivative” – but the best of it is still creative

Lately, it seems like there’s an idea floating around that the video game industry has lost its creative spark. In some ways, it’s an understandable conclusion: E3 has gotten less exciting, the biggest games these days tend to be iterations on a tried-and-tested formula, and sequels abound. However, I don’t think that these are signs that game creators have stopped being creative; instead, I see these as signs that the video game industry has matured, and just like other high-tech media industries, the big players have budgets too large to gamble on something new.

Rather than a death of creativity, then, I see it as merely a coming of age. The big players, driven purely by economic motives, are largely going to stick to that which is safe. On the other hand, much like the music industry, many of the smaller content producers experiment with new ways of expressing themselves. In some cases, they can even be wildly successful, as is the case with Notch and Minecraft.

And this, my friends, marks the first installment of an occasional series of blog posts devoted to bringing you some of these well-executed, creative gems of gaming. I will be focusing in part on what I think makes these games unique and creative, and partly on the fun, solid foundation that enables this creativity. Enjoy :)!

ToME 4: Solid roguelike adventuring, with an abnormally rich class system

First up is ToME 4. ToME 4 is a roguelike, which is a subgenre of dungeon crawling RPG characterized by randomly generated dungeons, no differentiation between the exploration game-state and the battle game-state, a traditionally sparse interface, and a limited number of lives (usually one), among other traits. In many ways, one could say that roguelikes are a turn-based, limited-revive version of Diablo, although it might be more historically accurate to say that Diablo is a real-time, unlimited-revive instance of the roguelike genre.

To some extent, ToME 4 is “just another roguelike”, albeit a well-designed and actively-developed one. However, as the opening line of this post implies, it’s entirely possible to exercise a lot of creativity, even when your game is an iteration on an old formula – indeed, roguelikes are a breeding ground for new ideas, almost certainly due to the fact that the majority of roguelikes are coded by hobbyists and available under an open source license of some sort. In the case of ToME 4, one feature in particular strikes me as being creative and highly unusual: the depth and variety of its class system.

Specifically, ToME 4 has a wide variety of classes, and a variety of different forms of “mana” (or, more accurately, energy used to power special abilities). This is something that’s often done these days, such as in MMORPGs like WoW; however, unlike any other games I’ve seen, ToME 4 doesn’t have just two or three forms of energy – it has at least 8 or 9, depending on how you count. In addition, many of the similar implementations I’ve seen divide up the different forms of energy strictly along archetypal lines. Mages and clerics get Mana, rogues might get Stamina or Energy, and warriors might share Stamina, or might have something slightly different, such as WoW’s Rage. There might even be some mixed classes, perhaps a paladin or mageknight that uses spells powered by Mana alongside melee abilities powered by Rage. However, the abilities are still strictly delineated based on what is powering them, with relatively little overlap.

Not so in ToME 4. It’s true that Stamina in ToME 4 is a purely martial energy source, whereas Mana is purely for magic. However, some of the other energy sources can be more mixed, such as Equilibrium powering the signature moves of both the Summoner and the warrior-like Wyrmic. In addition, within each broad archetype, you can often find a variety of energy sources.

For instance, there are four separate pure-mage classes at present, which differ both in their spell selection as well as their source of energy. These are the Archmage, powered by the traditional Mana; the Corruptor, powered by Vim, or the life force of their enemies; the Anorithil, powered by the power of the sun and moon, Positive Energy and Negative Energy; and the Paradox Mage, “powered” in a way by Paradox. As I mainly play mages, I will be focusing on these four classes. I also feel that the similarities in their underlying concepts will help to demonstrate just how refreshing ToME 4′s variety of classes can be. All of these mages have some ability to deal damage, heal and defend themselves, restore their energy, and control the battlefield, but their spell selections and energy sources mean that all four of these mages play quite differently.

The Four Magi and Their Magical Energies

The Archmage

Let’s start off with the Archmage. Users of Mana, the Archmage is probably the most canonical of the mage classes, as well as the one that you’re likely to unlock first. Archmages are a fairly standard mage, with an ability to apply a huge amount of AoE damage in a short amount of time. They also have pretty good teleportation, a decent ability to incapacitate their opponents, some basic but quite effective healing, good defensive spells (especially after the recently-released beta version 27) and a variety of utility spells. Overall, they play much as you might expect of a standard mage.

The Archmage’s Mana is a very standard source of energy for spells. Archmages have a pretty large reserve of Mana, which is spent when spells are cast, and which slowly regenerates over time. In addition, there are Manasurge runes (similar to multi-use, cooldown-based mana potions) which restore Mana and boost the Mana regen rate, as well as a no-cost spell called Manaflow, which restores Mana steadily over time.

Overall, this allows the Archmage to play much like you would expect in a roguelike, or any other dungeon crawling RPG which is balanced for single-player play. You can burst (or teleport) into a room, incapacitate a few monsters, nuke everything in sight, throw up a shield, and teleport away if your health runs too low. You then wait for your Mana to recharge, and repeat the process.

The Anorithil

The Anorithil is classified as a Divine class, and accordingly it has a large focus on healing and defensive buffs. Its energy sources are Positive Energy and Negative Energy, which are rather unique in how they are acquired. These two sources of divine energy actually deplete over time, unusual for a mage-type. In order to build up your Positive Energy, you cast certain spells, typically based on light and/or fire. Relatively few Anorithil spells reduce Positive Energy when cast, although a few do exist. In order to build up Negative Energy, you again have to cast specific spells; the difference this time is that the primary source of Negative Energy is a spell called Twilight, which converts Positive Energy into Negative Energy. Thus, the Anorithil may often find itself casting spells based on Positive Energy while waiting for Twilight to come off cooldown, in an attempt to keep Negative Energy usage properly balanced.

In terms of spells, the Anorithil has a large complement of healing and defensive abilities, and a decent amount of low-intensity damage spells. In other words, a fairly typical magically-focused battle cleric, as one might expect in a single-player game like ToME 4. Anorithils have only one teleportation spell, and relatively few spells to control or incapacitate the enemy, which means that Anorithils have to exercise caution, lest they become trapped between a rock golem and a hard dragon. One thing that is quite unique about the Anorithil’s spells is that all of the healing spells, and one shielding spell, actually restore Positive Energy. This means that the Anorithil can always use those spells, as long as they’re not on cooldown, which grants a nice amount of safety.

This combination of energy and spells means that Anorithils have very high stamina in a long fight, but have to be careful not to get trapped. They have plenty of healing, and never run out of energy to power their healing spells, so in some ways they’re fairly safe. They can also keep up a fairly constant rate of damage once they get beyond the beginning levels. However, they have few reliable means of escape and field control. Thus, Anorithils can wade into any battle and expect to keep up a moderate rate of spellcasting for an indefinite amount of time, but they have to be careful not to get themselves in over their head – if they do, it will be hard to extract themselves from the situation.

The Corruptor

The Corruptor has a variety of spells focused on debuffing and debilitating the enemy, powered by Vim, or the life force of their enemies (and sometimes their own life force). Corruptors have a variety of spells to inflict damage-over-time (DoT); reduce their enemies’ stats; and stun, incapacitate, debilitate or otherwise inconvenience their enemies. They also have some spells to drain the opponent’s HP and add it to their own, and a small amount of field control.

In order to provide the Vim needed to power their spells, Corruptors typically drain it directly from their enemies, or sacrifice their own HP in order to restore their Vim while within view of an enemy. On the one hand, Vim doesn’t deplete over time, unlike the Anorithil’s divine energy sources; on the other hand, the only ways to restore Vim require being within view of an enemy. This means that managing Vim can be a dangerous balancing act: if you spend too much Vim on one battle, then you may be stuck with too little Vim to safely handle the next encounter; but if you spend too little Vim instead, conserving it for future battles, you might not live to see those future battles. And, unlike all other magical energy sources, there’s no easy way to reset your energy reserve from a safe location.

The Paradox Mage

The Paradox Mage is an interesting character, with an arsenal of spells focused on teleportation, field control, and time manipulation. Their spells are “powered”, in a way, by Paradox, which is unique in that a specific level of Paradox is not strictly necessary to cast any spell. Instead, Paradox affects both the power and risk of the spells you cast. The higher your Paradox, the more powerful your spells are; but at the same time, the higher your Paradox, the higher your chance of failing to cast the spell, or worse, of causing the spell to backfire, or create an anomaly. Most spells increase Paradox by a small amount, although the game provides you with a few ways to reduce Paradox, potentially by a rather large amount.

The Paradox Mage’s spells are also rather distinctive. They do have fairly standard damage, healing and defense spells, which do the job pretty well. Beyond that, they have a wide variety of field control spells, including a fairly unique teleportation ability which allows you to choose your precise target square, useful for getting into just the right position. Their other field control spells are also quite useful, allowing you to move large groups of enemies away from you or towards the center of a spell, fix them in place, and so on. On top of that, they can even control the flow of time itself. The most basic of these abilities are your typical slow/haste abilities, but Paradox Mages also have access to spells which allow them to return to an earlier point in time using a temporal checkpoint, or to peer a few turns into the future. Neither of these abilities will save you from death, but other than that, they show promise as potent time manipulation abilities.

The Paradox Mage, then, must play tactically, and carefully. This is true of any character in a roguelike, but the Paradox Mage is presented with several decisions not always present when playing other classes. Do you keep Paradox high, for potent but risky spells? Or low, to maximize safety and reliability? Do you slow your enemies, stun them, pin them to the ground, or damage them? And in what order? And once you’ve decided on a course of action, you’re still much freer than many of the other mages to choose exactly where you position yourself, as well as where your enemies are positioned. Additionally, depending on your build and your tactics, you can give your Paradox Mage stamina comparable to (but likely still lower than) an Anorithil, or you can send out sudden bursts of powerful spells more like an Archmage.

And Beyond…

And there you have it! ToME 4 has a rich class system, inside a well-designed roguelike framework. On top of that, I’ve only referenced the other energy types in passing, if at all: the martial Stamina, the nature-focused Equilibrium, Hate derived from battles, and the psionic Psi. Likewise, I’ve only focused on the purest mage classes in the game; ToME 4 has a variety of melee, ranged, and hybrid classes as well. I highly recommend that you check out the game if it sounds interesting, or if you’d like to get some ideas on designing a rich class system for a game. In part, it’s because ToME 4 is free; but on top of that, I think that ToME 4 is a genuinely fun game, with some nice creative mechanics if you know what to look for.