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Set in an unnamed fantasy world, you control the brothers Janos and Horace Blackthorne, along with their lieutenants, Clydas Flowers, Grenn Hightower, and Taena Botley. Together, you are captains and lieutenants of Blackthorne company, a kick-ass, take no-prisoners band of unscrupulous and amoral mercenaries. Blackthorne Company conducts its business with only one rule: get the job done!

The Prototype
In this short adventure, Blackthorne Company is hired to rescue the helpless people of the town of Widow's Watch from an undead necromancer that has returned from beyond the grave to plague them with its army of walking corpses. This is a complete game, not a demo, but it can be completed in less than an hour and contains only one (very involved) battle. While just about everything in the final version is more advanced and more sophisticated, this is very much a "demo" providing a full-scale fifteen character battle.

To Arms! Episode One: Deceive, Despise, and Murder Men

The prologue and the origin episode for the Blackthorne brothers, journey back to a time before the formation of Blackthorne Company, when Janos and Horace were bonded men who had sworn fealty to the kingdom of Rydony and its ruling family, the House Lychester. Janos is the captain of the guards at the Castle Ryn, while Horace is the court wizard. But the series of deception, betrayals, and murders that follow will shatter their quiet lives of loyal service forever.

To generate the names for minor characters in To Arms!, I basically scrambled the first and last names from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire as a kind of random name generator, since I quite like his naming conventions. The game also contains some intentional homages to Game of Thrones. To Arms! also shares some standard western fantasy tropes with ASoIaF, in the same way that 90% of other games on this site share standard jRPG tropes with each other and with most jRPGs. In general much too much has been made of this whole thing, but that's another story for another day.

For more information on To Arms! (the main series, not the prototype), please see the attached pages.

Latest Blog

Music. Music? Music!

New composer acquired...may have us an OST after all.

More details to come.

Posts

sorry 15 guys on one team is waaaay too much, and makes it far too complicated.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Well I guess any publicity is good publicity?

Wait....I just remembered that I NEVER really understood how that adage ever came into existence, as it makes no sense.

Still, congrats. To you?

I will respond to other things other people said (S.F. LaValle) later, like tomorrow or something.
LouisCyphre
can't make a bad game if you don't finish any games
4523
This game has given me a new respect for fangames everywhere.

DE
*click to edit*
1313
How's the game coming along? When can we expect the full release?
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
probably never haha but i guess you knew that when you posted this comment last november.

anyway, minor gamepage update -- pruned images from prototype out of the images as they reflect game inaccurately. not really blogworthy so yea.
Oblic
Once a member of RMN, always a member of RMN!
1937
Maybe a comment every six months will help with development...? I hope you haven't given up all hope on this game!
is there going to be full release or given up the game is great
I just played through the first mission. Great fun so far. I'm impressed by this game.
In the second can survive suicide mission. The god's are not in my favor. So Janos and Horace is almost impossible to win without healing items.
Any chance you'll pick this back up again, Max? I consider you in my top five RMN game designers list, and I'll say this is in my top five RMN games list.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Thank you Grimdark. It's very nice to hear. : )

Honestly, I'd like to, there's just a lot of factors holding me back. In no particular order:

a) Very bad memories regarding where development on this ended.
b) Lack of contact with the team I'm developing this with (I didn't do this alone).
c) Lack of free time/good health/energy overall in my life.
d) Difficulty re-familiarizing myself with the technical intricacies of an old project with specific database and scripting quirks.
e) Overall lack of broad/mainstream/public interest in this project.
f) Overabundance of other RM projects.
g) General lack of inspiration/motivation/ideas.

Understand the position I'm in? : (
hey max
just thought i'd say that loved the game, as well as everything turns gray

i gotta agree with grimdark
i'd love to see this game finished too
and for all its worth i hope the flame of inspiration reignites and makes you want to finish this game,,, and possible everything turns gray ?
(i kinda have 2 questions about that game)
1st- yes i know im gonna sound like a noob but i've always wondered what Hiatus means?
and
2nd- are you/would you still consider building that game or is to arms higher on the list of to dos when ya get round to it?
Hiatus is basically suspended production. With internet projects, going on hiatus usually means that the thing is dead and will never be revived. I would love to see more Max games in the future, but if he ever comes back to these shores, chances are it won't be to continue this.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
For what it's worth, I'm currently (as in 'as we speak') working as the battles/gameplay guy on blueperiod's Linus, which is honestly going to be a bit like To Arms!, only better.

You won't be able to control fifteen dudes at once, but c'est l'vie.
I will take my McGee influenced games where I can get them. I've been meaning to check out Linus for a while now, anyway.
@ kumada - thanks for that :) had a feeling it ment on hold just wanted to be sure :), and same here i enjoy his games to... just sucks how ive hardly able to try em...
(on deployment roughly every month or so =/)

@ max - ah i see, just subscribed to Linus, going to try it out soon as i can
and thats good to the under 15 characters lol was kinda confusing at times reminded me of the last remnant for 360
That's rough, Rhino. If you're looking for a shorter McGee game, you could always give Vermicide a try. It's beatable in an hour.