Book of Mages: The Dark Times

This game is fantastic. the most original game I have played in a long time(which is a little odd since its a sequel). It's way to easy though, and a bit unbalanced at times.

This seems like it would be fun once you get into it, but I got to a point where I needed to travel to another clan, and it wouldn't let me train. But when I tried to travel, it said I was too weak to visit other clans. I noticed a couple other odd bugs, so I think this may need some more polishing.

I agree, it can be unbalanced at times. The first time around, I chose the chaos desert origin and ended up failing every battle; the second play-through was much easier for some reason. Basically, if you mess up training levels, you can end up losing to just about everyone.

This game is a real RPG, so it could be unbalanced, like the life, it's what I think.

And it really depends on the way you train, Chaos Desert is the best clan, according to most of the players of this game (including me), so, I don't know how you managed, but if you train your guy correctly, every clan could be good I think.

And I didn't see any bugs.

diegocavalier, did you get past this point? because I was getting VERY into the game, and now I am stuck...... I want to keep playing!!

I have no idea what you guys are talking about because even when playing as chaos desert i still lost every single battle. At first I was using my ability to cast a high bolt and a low bolt to beat them but as soon as they did the same, i got screwed. How are you suppose to beat someone who can cast 14 bolts when you can only cast 2?

At the end, with whatever side you win on, how do you beat the Burning Hill warrior to be the Great Mage? I have a maxed Dark Wood mage, but I can;t manage it.

chaos desert was awful!

specialization is key here, as is damage. cause having each bolt do 10 damage is sweet

I am having this problem where I am told to meet up with a npc at the arena or the great hall, but when I try to select the location it tells me who i need to visit and where to go, but doesn't allow me to go to the place.

Darkwood is by FAR the most powerful clan in the game, because once you get Curse, everything pretty much becomes easy. Then once you get counter attack bolts, everything becomes REALLY easy. And then once you get the combine bolts, nothing can stop you. Ever. Every single fight becomes attack, defend, increase special, curse, and just curse/attack long enough to start combining bolts and they have a level 9 curse.

I have the same issue of not being able to go to the great mage battle- when I try to leave by the gate, I get the message that I'm too weak to visit other clans... any help here, or is this truly a bug?

Decided Great Sea was appealing for a first clan based on the descriptions. I must say,

Played through as Burning Hill, very much enjoyed it, though I did need a few tips to get through to the end. I liked that there was enough balance of strategy and leveling that by the end the battles were still interesting even though I was much more powerful than my enemies.

Hints:

My foremost complaint with the game was the insufficient descriptors on certain spells. For example, I had to take and then try out the "Burn" spell in order to figure out what it did, and in a game where build is everything and one wrong choice can invalidate a whole run, that's very annoying.

Second was that when one entered the screen to learn Higher or Clan magics, there was no way to exit without learning a magic. Since I haven't committed the points, I'd like to be able to look at my options and maybe change my mind?

Also I personally didn't like the month lost traveling, because I felt at the end that I'd missed a bunch of fun events and battles, but I guess that's part of the appeal.

I am the great lord Dipsy of Iceland! All bow down to the great white robe ruler! Fear my mighty instant-death freezing powers/half-to-death freezing powers!

Ice Land seemed strong at the end. I can come very close to alternating with Freeze Attack, which stops my opponent's attack; and Regenerate, which restores health and mana, and receive no net damage. Four counterattacks and I have enough freezing effect on them that I can use my instant-kill, if I haven't already defeated them using Freeze Defend.

Very addicting. I feel compelled to play again in another clan...

Also, to address other comments:

vcordie - there are some battles you honestly can't win. Don't worry about it. The game doesn't end if you loose (most of the) battles.

greyhaeme and everyone else unable to travel - At the beginning of the game, no, you should not be able to leave through the main gate. This is to force players to spend their first months training in the mana cave and simply leveling up. I had no problems leaving when I had to. Usually there is a point where someone will say something like, "Now you can travel" and it's not the Town Crier.

Have you followed the "gentle nudges" in training one higher and one clan magic, and spent all your unspent skill points? I haven't tried this, but if you don't follow those hints maybe the game bugs and thinks you're not "high enough level."

Also if you were NOT chosen to represent your clan, you WON'T be able to travel in order to make the contest (cause you can't go). Traveling unlocks a bit after that.

Throwing my two cents in, I think Burning Hill is the best. By the end each of my bolts was doing 13 damage unmodified, and I could send a combined bolt that did about 650.

For the last Great Mage:

Playing as Chaos Desert was extremely easy. I just lost two battles.

It was surprisingly fun, but I find myself wishing that it didn't follow the storyline so strictly. It would have been nice to be able to freely wander around and look for events and encounters instead of only having a certain amount of undefined time allotted for exploration. It also would be nice if the game would let you continue to play after the end of the story.

As for clan powers, Chaos Desert seemed pretty powerful to me. At the higher levels I could throw out 10 more bolts than anyone else, which are guaranteed to hit since they have no counters. Then I combined them with my ability that reduces the enemy's Special when my attacks land, which in turn reduces the number of bolts they can throw as secondary attacks, and even more of my bolts are landing. And then once I got enough Special to use Burn the fight was over, since I'd have 15-20 bolts landing for increasing damage adding up to 1000-2000 damage in total. I didn't have any trouble at all defeating the last four mages.

I did, however, find (and exploit) a flaw in the enemies' AI. For some reason, they favor high attacks and will always use them if they're available. This means that if I used a low attack to start and they countered with a low defense, they'd still use a high attack instead of a low attack which I wouldn't be able to effectively counter with my minimal defense skills. This occasionally even meant the difference between victory and defeat.

I have the same problem (bug?) where I am too weak to travel but they won't let me train to improve because I need to travel???

Night Stryke, You can counter with an attack as well. So there is IMHO no reason to advance all 4 basic feats. I maxed High Attack, Low Attack, High Defense. And always started with a High Attack (low works as well). And used Low Attack only as defensive meassure. Never had to use Low Defense, You only need High Defense if the enemy uses it again right after you attacked him with it. Same works around in favoring low attack. I played Great Sea, dunno if it is the "most overpowered" one, but I had no problems with any fight you are ment to be able to win. Just get your extra defenses and mana high, since they dodge conterbolts, your attacking bolts will thus always hit.

Same problem as everyone else: I need to travel but it won't let me because I'm too weak. Obviously this is a major bug that needs to be fixed, if most people are experiencing it!

Whoa, yeah, this version is buggy. The mages didn't come to try and rig the contest, I kept on training, and suddenly the Town Crier said I had won the Young Mage contest. I didn't even go the contest!

I know other versions are fine, but something in this one is broken.

I am stuck near the final battle. I am currently in Great Sea, where the game says I need to travel to, but I can not battle anyone at the arena (too high a ranking), cant go anywhere and return.

I assume this is a bug.

I can confirm the bug reported by the player above. I can't do anything anymore because I need to travel somewhere else, but I cannot travel somewhere else. Either I am missing a button or this is a game breaking bug.

I have the same problem as the above comment. When I try to visit the mana cave or arena, it says I need to visit the great sea. When I try to travel, it says I'm too weak. Frustrating!

same bug for me, needed to travel to poison water and explore the city, so went there and explored the city. saw who i was supposed to meet, but instead of pressing continue, i pressed training, and now there is nothing to see in the city even though my quest says i need to explore it.

a bit of a shame as i was doing so well and enjoying the game very much.

to eliminate bugs, (or at least lessen) NEVER choose "training ground" over "continue" it messes with all sorts of sequential things and you can't progress

Finished that Great Sea game. Great Sea vs. Great Sea Absorb Defense hot potato is hilarious.

Then played through as an evil Chaos Desert. CD is quite straightforward to play, and is probably a good choice for beginners.

@fuzzyface:

I know you can use attacks to defend, but if I used a low attack and they used a low defend the intelligent thing for them to do would be to use a low attack, since I couldn't use my low attack again and would have to use my low defend, which was only level 2. But they would always use high attack, without fail, regardless of my vulnerabilities. The whole purpose of having the defense abilities, as clan leaders explain, is to open those vulnerabilities, but the AI doesn't appear to know to take advantage of them. It really just completely removes the need to put any points into defensive abilities at all, since you can take advantage of their predictability and always have an attack to counter their attack.

Night Stryke, ah ok i understand, further optimization :)

Pretty fun game, moreso than I thought it'd be. Manages to still be fun once you become really powerful towards the end.

Like people have said, chaos desert is quite powerful and easy to play. Darkwood is powerful too, with some curses up and a combined bolt you become pretty unstoppable.

Has anyone been able to defeat the clan leader of burning hill as poison water? His combined bolt is crazy powerful, and he just uses remove effect or whatever it's called to remove all my poison. Once he can combine bolts his AI could let me alternate between poison wave and paralyze, but that leaves me doing pitiful damage and I soon run out of mana.

Hmm...the tutorial here is a little strange. It sounds as though the head dude is going to send you on a quest, but that never happens. The two mages you get invited to fight are way too powerful and you get beat. Is that it? You die a hermit. WHAT THE HECK? At what point does the game actually begin? I wasted 30 minutes trying to get enough training to fight someone and the game ended.

I received a new update from Nob Studio and uploaded it just now. ShuWan says "all bugs should be fixed now." :)

Just started playing this about an hour ago and unless the linked version here is bug free, I'm a level 149 Burning Hill that has to travel to Great Sea and I'm too weak too, but I've no other option.

I'll also second the suggestion that you don't skip any story elements (Continue) over not doing them (Training) but if it screws up the story line, why have the option?

Probably the two easiest clans to play as, imo, are Burning Hill and Poison Water.

With Burning Hill, it's all about four spells:

With Poison Water, it's really just about three spells:

Those two are probably my favorites for a full clear, because they are so difficult for the AI to counter.

There are advantages to each of the others, though:

As for strategy...

I did encounter the "you are too weak to travel/you must go to Chaos Desert" glitch a few times, but it seemed fairly random. By the time the Young Mage contest rolls around, it seems to work fine if you're at least level 50.

I mostly got the glitch when I was trying to be a neutral mage and keep my fame low, but the best way to do that, I found, is just losing battles whenever you are forced to fight instead of skipping them, which seems to, as people have said, confuse the game somewhat.

I've spent the last couple of nights playing through, the glitch never gave me much trouble, and as Brad said up there, it has a way of eating up your time like no one's business.

Hi guys, the game has been updated. Thanks jay :) Previously there was a bug where conversation is skipped when you choose 'go to training ground'.

Now you are 'safe' to choose 'go training ground', and after you click 'done' it will jump back to conversation.

@nobstudio: Thanks! That'll make me a little less jumpy about what I click when I get a notice, lol

I tried to save my game, and it was there in the save slot, but when I returned to the site to continue, all the save slots were empty.

Well, you also have to keep in mind that there are various objects you can collect throughout the game that increase your stats. For instance, a power orb can increase your basic power by 1 (so that you can go over the maximum amount of power) or the chaos desert orb (you don't have to be from this clan to get it) can increase your attacking bolts by one as well.

This can even things out a bit regardless of your clan. Plus you have to use the clan's magics strategically. When I was playing with poison water for instance what I did was maxed out the poisonous wave magic (and had high mana as well) then when I met a character that is much more powerful than me, I use poisonous wave, then paralyze, and that way they can never attack me and neither can I, but because of the poison they still loose health. It's a dirty trick, but it's things like that which will help you win:)

Every single clan is balanced imo...
Try creating every single clan and find out the clan that seem hard to fight with it, and the clan that seem very easy to beat with...

Chaos Desert is obviously a powerful clan because of it's ability to land so many bolts, deal great damage the more bolts land on the opponent and decrease the special, and repeat the same spell twice, and how could you land a bolt? If the enemy's bolt is so many... But notice the Great Sea clan who can cast nearly equal defending bolts to defend from the Chaos attacks and the Burning Hill clan who can cast a combined attack with a very high power, that can only be blocked by power but not by the number of bolts. Also, who may want the Ice clan's power to freeze the enemy so it can't defend itself... And the power of the Ice clan and Poison clan to kill and opponent instanly at will?(Requires number of set freeze/poison) The power of the Poison clan to set poison to the enemy and decreases life each round... Great Sea clan's ability to set mana leak to the enemy and decreases mana each round... The power of the Burning clan to sheild itself by means of mana, Great Sea clan to absorb the damage and heal itself... Darkwood clan to trade life with the enemy... Also some clans have the power to remove effects (By means of mana or life depending on the chosen clan)

Some clan may be defensive of very offensive in a way, but the true power of a clan depends on what you have done, and what you have trained...

Not that I only mention single ability about the Darkwood it's the weakest clan for me... Trade life can be devastating and annoying ability though...

STRONGLY NO CLAN IS OVERPOWERED OF UNDERPOWERED... Play every single clan and you will experience an easy game or a hard game depending on your specialty as a gamer... (Poison clan is my specialty though I'm not saying it's the powerful clan)

Zeppe,

I have also discovered the poison wave-paralyze trick and it can be a cool trickbut it's not that over powered though: 1. You do not have infinite mana. 2. They can still cast clan spell which cannot be blocked by paralyze 3. Ice can attack you by means of using freeze defend 4. "TRADE LIFE"

I agree with Chaos Desert being the strongest clan along with Great Sea. The advantage of Chaos desert are their ability to multiply their damage and decrease special. The Chaos Desert's clan has the highest number of attack bolts, meaning it can get off an attack and decrease special every round against any clan other than the Great Sea. The Chaos Desert Clan breaks down defense by decreasing Special and Damages with extra attack bolts and damage. The Great Sea clan has the advantage of defense turned into offense. Though in the beginning the Great Sea clan is worse than Chaos Desert, near the end if trained right the Great Sea Clan has a move that can absorb damage, utilizing that damage it to attack next turn with a additional 100+high high/low bolts damage. My favorite and first Clan I played with is Great Sea. Using the Great Sea clan damage range is around 500-1000 damage against the Chaos Desert Clan or Burning Hill Clan. Personal strategy: (Train Mana and Health tremendously so that defense lasts long enough for Great Sea's (Absorb Damage) to go into play.)

heres a skill points cheat:

optional side boss:

you think the chaos desert is overpowered! You should have seen the burning desert before the game came out ( if you look i was a tester.) They could just keep using abilities over and over again

lol played through all clans and here is my ranking of them:
1.Great Sea (absorb damage owns all)

2.Chaos Desert(if they had a way to counter ad then they would be god)

3.Burning Hill(combined damege loses to shear bolts and power and also absord damage
)
4.Poison Water(paralyze, poison, insta kill, but not an invincible combo)

5.Ice Land(Decrease D bolts isn't as powerful as the others, insta kill also)

6.Dark Wood(Curse is useless if you cant get a hit in, only trade life is noteworthy)

I chose darkwood in my first run, thought the idea of blood magic was extremely cool, too bad it sucks in this game, blood bath was pitiful near the end and only combined with trade life would it be useful but in the end the enemy would kill you before you had the chance to use it. Great sea was my next pick and i only lost to corruptor(later found out you have to lose even if you win the story makes you lose)

This game makes sure that each clan has a way to break the game in the right hands. Even the AI can break the game as Dark Wood or Ice Water, which is absolutely infuriating.

With Darkwood, they can just use Trade life, leaving you with 30-ish health, so you have to very precisely whittle down their health, then finish with a powerful attack. I had to retry the battle with the top Darkwood mage a few times because I kept misjudging the damage I'd deal.

With Ice Water, Freeze Defend gives them a free hit on you, and Freeze Attack prevents you from hitting back. And while these spells seem to cost a lot of mana, that's no issue for high-level mages. The top-ranked Ice Mage was the only mage who gave me trouble in the final battle, because he used these two spells once for significant damage.

I have won with evry single clan and i just cant stop playing it! :)

I played Chaos Desert my first time through, and played it straight; Evil choices, Black Robes, etc.

One thing that made this game so much easier:

What i liked the most about this game was just the sheer variety of choices. ive played through about 10 times, and i just discovered an entirely new path to take.

As to those who cannot get anywhere in this game, I believe I can help. First, do not invest in defence magics ever. waste of 18 skills. Also, do not try to max out on mana and health. Your mainstays should be attacking bolts, power, and in some cases clan specials. Just get enough helath and mana to support that, you should get it after 2-3 attempts. Also, if you are new to the game, chaos desert is unquestionably the easiest. just make sure to max on attacking bolts, additional attacking bolts, clan special attacking bolts, and use them every chance you get.

Once, I used a Great Sea against a Chaos Desert, I used Absorb Damage when he was using a Charge. I managed to deal 3k damage against Burnstorm.. so I think Great Sea's the best, just try to survive for as long as possible until your special is up and you can use your absorb damage skills.

Who else named themselfs depending on the way theyd act? eg: Sauron-Bad
Gandalf-good