David-RogersOculus premiered about a dozen games ahead of GDC this year, and one that stood out to me was Mage’s Tale  for its distinct art style and passion in using VR to fulfill childhood fantasies of becoming a spell-casting magician. Mage’s Tale is an action RPG dungeon crawler where you search for dozens of different potion ingredients to create over 100 different spells, and then battle enemies with variations of your fire, ice, wind, and lightning spells.

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I talked with the lead designer David Rogers about some of the core gameplay mechanics driving Mage’s Tale, how they inspire exploration by hiding secrets off of the critical path, as well as the tradeoffs between the choices you have to make while progressing your character.

Mage’s Tale was released on June 20th, 2017 as an Oculus exclusive, but will be eventually released on other platforms as well.

Road to VR’s Mage’s Tale review concludes:

‘The Mage’s Tale’ delivers exactly what you’d expect from a classic dungeon crawler, promising real moments of magic and exploration while not challenging the formula too much. Creating and casting magical spells in VR is an awesome experience that I didn’t ever get tired of, but if a sequel is in the works, finer character animation and more locomotion options should be on the docket to turn up the immersion factor. As it stands, NPCs look ripped from the PS2-era, and anyone looking for smooth-turning or smooth forward movement will be sorely disappointed.

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Kent Bye
  • Master Pok

    Could you please ask him why in god’s name they have a reticle appear very early in the game that you can’t get rid of, which is always dead center, and which totally destroys the immersion, thereby rendering all the beautiful graphics of the dungeon somewhat meaningless.

    Yes I know the reticle is for aiming, but sweet jesus let it go away when not needed.

    • Jon Palmer

      The reticle is actually for motion sickness reasons.

      Back in the Oculus DK1 days a prototype I had was causing motion sickness problems, but after adding a reticle it reduced the discomfort.

      However, headlocked UI usually causes discomfort in other forms. This is something that likely should be adjustable in the options menu.