Let me start of by apologizing for breaking rule one of the forum, I sincerely hope you will excuse my break of conduct and read on.

The reason for me writing this thread is to make people try my game and maybe drop a word or two on how they feel about it, ideas for improvement or new content.

I am very sorry if this is not the right forum to post this!

Pilgrims of Parnassus is a small persistent world game that lets you take control of a House with the ability to hire peasants, miners, woodsmen, soldiers and champions.

Hiring one of the latter puts you in direct control of the champion, this is how most of the game plays out.

Your champion starts in the town in which your house is located, by leaving the town he enters a global map that can be used to travel to other instances where you can use your champion to defeat monsters and acquire loot. Loot must be hauled back to your home town and the champion must be released from service before the loot your champion has acquired becomes available to your house.

When in an instance, combat is strongly inspired by games like Golden axe and Moonstone.

Champions are hired from the champion tab in the house screen, the amount of options (gear and abilities) available to your champion is dependent on your upgrades. You can purchase upgrades from the upgrade tab in the house screen.

Starting out you do not have a lot of resources and no upgrades all you can buy is a thug with rags and a wooden club, but as you acquire loot and experience points, you will be able to purchase upgrades enabling you to purchase champions of various classes.

Instances are have a number after their name on the world map, this number identifies to the players how difficult they can expect an instance to be. Starting champions should be quite challenged by level 1 instances.

Abilities of champions have an energy cost or gain, all champions regenerate energy up to 20% but some abilities require more than 20% energy. To gain more energy, champions need to use energy building abilities, these abilities add energy to the champions energy reserve when they hit.

Early alpha, there is a playable version of the game available for download at http://www.parnassus.erethic.eu/page/Download.aspx
the game is written in .Net using the XNA framework (Shaun has always been a personal hero of mine). I have been working on this project in my spare time for a year or so.

Download Link http://www.parnassus.erethic.eu/page/Download.aspx

Useful hot keys
l - leave instance
e - enter instance
f1 - releases your champion from service (only while in home town or dead)
i - inventory
f10 - menu
1-6 - ability hot keys
a,s,d,w - movement keys
mouse button 1, mouse button 2 - ability keys (mouse must be in play field)

Ideas, suggestions and criticism is highly appreciated.

Seems pretty interesting. However, I played for 5 minutes, came back on the next day, and found everything messed up. At minimum, there should be a reset button.

Seems pretty interesting. However, I played for 5 minutes, came back on the next day, and found everything messed up. At minimum, there should be a reset button.

I am unsure what you mean, everything was messed up how?
I am not sure what you mean by reset button. - You want to reset your house?

I think I have to make the 'Hire' button bigger and the 'leave' and 'enter' instance buttons different. People seem to have a hard time navigating between the three different modes of the game (House screen, Instance, worldmap)

[quote name='aattss' timestamp='1342616749' post='4960462']
Seems pretty interesting. However, I played for 5 minutes, came back on the next day, and found everything messed up. At minimum, there should be a reset button.

I am unsure what you mean, everything was messed up how?
I am not sure what you mean by reset button. - You want to reset your house?

I think I have to make the 'Hire' button bigger and the 'leave' and 'enter' instance buttons different. People seem to have a hard time navigating between the three different modes of the game (House screen, Instance, worldmap)
[/quote]

When I hired the guy and he spawned in the city, he got killed by enemies, and I couldn't leave.

When I hired the guy and he spawned in the city, he got killed by enemies, and I couldn't leave.

When a player is within a certain range of a hostile creature the 'leave' action takes 20 seconds instead of 3 seconds. The leave action is interrupted by damage.
Was it Parnassus (the starter city) that got overrun by creatures? or did you build your own town?

Player cities does have a tendency to get overrun, I am currently working on ways to prevent this. I agree that there should be an option allowing you to revert to Parnassus in case your own town got overrun, since it is almost impossible to do anything about it once it has happened.

Thank you very much for your observations.

The name really, really puts me off before I even read details.

Firstly the word "pilgrim", conjures up images of religion and generally nothing exciting.

Secondly, "Parnassus".

http://www.wowwiki.com/Darnassus

Darnassus is a WoW term that is used extensively.

Parnassus is eerily close. I'm sure it wasn't a conscious decision, but it simply sounds like a mispronunciation of the above.

A pilgrim (from the Latin peregrinus) is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place.

Mount Parnassus, also Parnassos (Greek: ?????????), is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs, and the home of the Muses.

The Pilgrimage to Parnassus is an allegory about student life by Shakespeare. The other two plays, The Return from Parnassus and The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus, describe the two graduates' unsuccessful attempts to make a living.

While admittedly a little highbrow, I found it fitting since I am a student struggling to make a living through my muse (Parnassus).

Most of my inspiration comes from D&D, Lord of the rings, Magic the Gathering and an assortment of other fantasy worlds.

It has been to some discussion whether the name should be changed. Suggestions are more than welcome.