Mace Blue: Arena

Mace Blue: Arena is made as an entry for the Fundamental RPGology contest, a competition created to challenge people to make an RPG system that is boiled down to its simplest elements. It uses all-original graphics, soundtrack, and a barebones stripped-down battle system. Your objective is to become the mightiest warrior of Zenland.

The game's graphics are super pixelated, and custom-made. The music is a pulsating rhythmic beat that recalls older games, but deconstructs them even more into fewer amounts of pixels, more bitcrushed sounds, and more relentless gameplay. The graphics are as charmingly simplistic as the gameplay.

Firstly, you fight a Saracen. You have 1 HP and 1 charge. You are asked to charge or guard. If you charge first round, if you guard when the saracen attacks, you will not die. This is the kind of determinism that fuels Mace Blue: Arena. You have three options: Attack, Charge and Defend. You can only attack if you have previously charged. Defending will reduce attack, but it will not charge you nor attack the enemy.

However, gameplay in this way tends to be very chance-based. I have played a multiplayer version of this in real life, using hands to signify your positions. It's more like a rock-paper-scissors game than anything. But you can defend until his charge turns into an attack, then you charge and attack straight away. This strategy is fool proof, like winning Tic Tac Toe. I like the severely minimalistic style, although it begs for so much more.

The main protagonist charges through various environments, with unenterable houses, killing the people that reside there. Call this the start of something new it feels so right to be here with you. It deserves to be expanded into a full game, but perhaps giving the players more HP and more abilities and attaching a storyline. The graphics are cute, and the concept has a lot of potential.

Thank you.