/pic7803824.png)
Spirit Fire is a non-linear, open-world board game system in which you explore compelling fantasy realms on an introspective journey of discovery, wonder, and mystery. Your choices matter, because instead of following a story, you ARE the story.
This is a substantive, emotionally-driven experience with aspirations beyond the expected iterations on tactical combat and standard gameplay. To emphasize this vision, there is no combat. Instead, this experience finds conflict, pressure, and suspense in the countless other types of difficult challenges life asks us to overcome, including the tensions we face deep within ourselves. In the world of Spirit Fire, wisdom is your only weapon.
The game’s system has two principal pieces: your character box, and realm boxes. With the first, you create your character, with whom you explore the open-world realm boxes. Across the realms, you tell your story in a campaign of your own creation, exploring where you want, pursuing the quests and ideals of your choosing, in an experience some have compared to an MMORPG (like World of Warcraft), but most agree defies easy classification.
Spirit Fire seeks to provide the greatest single player experience available, inspired by a love of TCGs, MMOs, rogue-lite-like loops, metroidvania map development and discovery, fantasy fiction, and—more than anything—a desire for something truly new and fresh.
You’ll explore a series of open-world maps, uncovering new locations and quests in worlds that evolve based on your discoveries and actions. As your character grows, you will craft your deck and bring it to bear against countless unique challenges in the game’s spiral bound book. Each quest or encounter card introduces variables that create a unique variation of one of the book’s dozens (and dozens) of challenge spreads, which vary wildly in style and function depending on the type of activity you are engaged in. Each challenge or activity you’re attempting (evading a threat, deciphering a lost language, negotiating with telepathic wolves, and so forth) recontextualizes your card play, giving you a constant stream of fresh opportunities for creative response without requiring you to learn a bunch of new mechanics all the time.
With drop-in / drop-out multiplayer (meaning seamless transitions between solo and cooperative play, if you’re a “never solo alone”-er), multiple open-world realms coming at launch (with many more in development), and a plan for a continuous stream of quest packs that can by played in any realm, Spirit Fire is a deeply customizable, on-going experience from the award-winning creators of Vindication and Unsettled.
What will you do, in this dark world, with the flame you carry?
—description from the publisher
- Highly ambitious and potentially innovative gameplay
- Deep character customization and progression
- Unique blend of mechanics (TCG, MMO, Metroidvania)
- Planned continuous content updates
- Confusing Kickstarter campaign
- Concerns about the solo-first design being diluted
- Low initial rating on BGG without being released
- Terrible preview pictures
- Hybrid open-world RPG with character development and exploration
- Open world, multiple realms
- Mythwind
- Threshold
- Unsettled
- Vindication
- Aon Trespass Odyssey
- Kingdoms Forlorn
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Character development — Extensive character development with introspective choices and progression.
- Combat — Includes challenging combat elements.
- Cooperative — Features a tacked-on two-player co-op mode.
- exploration — Emphasizes exploration of open-world maps and uncovering locations and quests.
- Open world — Features a hybrid open-world design with multiple realms to explore.
- solo — Primarily designed as a one-player game.
- Storytelling — Focuses on storytelling with a complex narrative structure.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- On Trust Odyssey is a 10 out of 10 game for me. there was no reality where any of these other games were gonna surpass this.
- It'll I probably won't even [ __ ] get to it next year when it comes out because I still haven't finished my atto stuff
- This game is is the replacement. Like it's so it's it it is Netrunner. They just changed the terms.
- So in the uh in this game, you're both doing the same thing. They they found a way to merge the corp and the runner for each person to control at the same time.
- Michael Bogs is the creator of this and he was the one doing the last like third of Netrunner.
References (from this video)
- Ambitious open-world scope
- Established track record from Orange Nebula
- Array
- Open-world fantasy exploration
- Open-world progression with consequences
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Open-world exploration — Open-world exploration with character progression and consequences
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Mitchell's lighting corner, our new weekly segment. That's lit.
- "Wingspan is by far our best-selling game."
- "it's an engine builder, okay? It's an engine building game and it's a tableau engine builder"
- "there's a cozy comforting element to Wingspan"
- "it's a dice-based baseball game that is visually stunning"
- "the quick ship option"
References (from this video)
- Seems like it could be really awesome if it comes out.
- Doesn't even have a release date.
- The company has no clue.
- The pledge system was wild.
- Might actually just be a scam.
- Don't have much faith it will come out.
- Don't know if it's going to be as good as they say.
- Not anywhere close to finishing it.
- The longer it takes to come out, the less money they have to finish it.
- Usually falls by the wayside.
- Introspective journey of discovery, wonder, and mystery
- Fantasy realms
- Choices matter, you are the story
- Vindication
- Unsettled
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Open world — Non-linear open world game system.
- solo — Great solo, but playable along.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Some viewers may find the following video disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.
- So, this is not the most positive list in the world.
- I personally believe, might be a hot take, and we'll see, but I personally believe the industry wouldn't be where it is now without crowdfunding.
- I think the longer it takes to come out, the less money they have to finish it.
- It's not a pre-order system.
- The problem with crowdfunding is this goal is not true.
- I see no way in the hell that the original backer still gets something out of this deal.
- Don't take people's money if you have personal issues going on. I have zero sympathy for any of that.
- These 10 games are in my experience the outlier and not the rule.
- The last their last Their last update was 2 years ago.
- This is their latest update in 2 years.
- This was a Kickstarter scam.
- They just took the money of the backers and never delivered, just ghosted everyone.
- their latest update was five years ago.
- Don't take people's money if you have personal [ __ ] going on. I have zero sympathy for any of that.
- Cool, $1,500 is how much I would have I will be losing from these games.
References (from this video)
- Innovative non-combat, narrative-driven design that emphasizes character personalization and story over loot-and-dice combat.
- Strong community integration and open development approach.
- Rich character creation with meaningful choices that influence later gameplay.
- Open-world Realm structure provides high replayability and long-tail engagement.
- Flexible quest system with multiple possible paths and outcomes.
- High learning curve and potential confusion for new players due to non-traditional mechanics.
- Production and logistics complexity for realms content and expansions.
- Marketing challenges around communicating a non-traditional game to a broader audience.
- Identity formation through self-authored journeys, with a community-driven expansion model.
- Open-world fantasy realm with modular Realms and a strong emphasis on personal quests and discovery over combat.
- Non-linear, choice-driven; emphasis on character personality, motivation, fears, and relationships.
- Skyrim
- Baldur's Gate
- Dark Souls
- Flesh and Blood
- Magic: The Gathering
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Character creation as a game within a game — Extensive pre-game character drafting that personalizes your box and early play experience.
- Character packs and evolution — Opening character packs provides new abilities/traits and drives future decisions.
- Four Spirit Fire resources (deck building) — Dynamic suit-based decks that players assemble and adapt to different challenges.
- Milestones and quest icons — A milestone track and quest icons influence relationships and in-world effects as you progress.
- Myth journaling and world-building — Journal entries and myths inform flavor and future decisions.
- Non-combat emphasis — Mechanics focus on negotiation, deciphering, and social/problem-solving rather than dice-driven combat.
- Open-world Realms and personal quests — Realms function as persistent environments; personal quests span realms and may unlock new paths.
- Persistent world evolution — World state evolves with each character and choice; long-lived campaign feel.
- Personal quests and packs — Personal quest chains unlock new content; packs can be opened in response to choices.
- Track Advancement — A milestone track and quest icons influence relationships and in-world effects as you progress.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we literally had a white sample where we just wrote the word you on this box for a while
- no combat
- open world... not a roguelike; campaigns that carry forward
- play whatever you want all the time
- we want it to be substantive and potent in hours, not just quantity