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About the game

In Heroes of Dire, a new massively-multiplayer tactical role-playing game by Spellbook, players command squads of fighters through strategic turn-based battles to win treasure, honor, and glory for their guilds!

Join with friends to defeat challenging boss raids, take up quests for epic treasure, invade enemy guild strongholds, or make wagers on brutal gladiator arenas as crowd favorites live and die for your amusement!

Cross-platform servers bring together thousands of players from both desktop and mobile devices, with launch-day support for Android, iPhone, Windows, Mac, and Linux!



Heroes of Dire is all about assembling squads of fighters to make war with other guilds, monsters, and players!

Fighters come in many fantasy archetype flavors such as Mages, Paladins, and Healers. No two are ever the same, with unique names, races, stories, stats, titles, and equipment constructed by complex procedural generation algorithms with impressive and/or hilarious results that will always keep the game freshly entertaining.



The One-Eyed Knight, Two-Fingered Pete, The Laughing Horror, Georgia the Peach, or Screaming Ethel are just a few examples of the trillions of possibilities. For a few Silvers (the in-game currency) players can randomly roll for new fighter names to discover the perfect moniker, or work with a live Dungeon Master to create the perfect name!



Fighters have four gear slots: Weapon, Offhand, Armor, and Trinket.

Different items help determine what role a fighter plays, such as holy wands and bandages for Healers, or poisoned dual-wielded daggers for Rogues to maximize backstabs.



Almost all items in Heroes of Dire are procedurally generated with no two ever the same. Dungeon Masters will regularly appear in the world as traveling magicians or blacksmiths who can enhance your gear, or as merchants offering unique treasures.



When in combat, fighters take turns moving and attacking; each action has a time cost that determines when they get to go again.

More expensive actions, such as splitting an enemy archer in half with a greatsword, might push your fighter to the bottom of the action list for 14 rounds, while simply moving would only cost 3 or 4. This turn-based combat system creates an incredibly rich strategy simulation where each decision has a direct and immediate impact on who wins or loses.

Skilled players won't waste a single turn -- One move in the wrong direction or an attack at the wrong time can immediately swing your massive lead into a crippling loss.



Battles can involve anywhere from 2 to 32 fighters, however our playtesting hints that it's most fun with 12 or less. This is due to the turn-based nature of combat, as you would not want to wait more than a few seconds between actions.

Eventually we will include different battle modes that operate in real-time instead of turn-based, which would open up massive wars that could involve hundreds of fighters in one battlefield.

Each battle is part of a greater narrative, such as a guild war or a quest chain, and players can have multiple squads involved in many fights at the same time.

When a player exits battle the AI takes over and the fight continues uninterrupted. They can return at any time, thus allowing multiple battles to be managed concurrently without breaking the real-time and multiplayer nature of the game. This creates a truly "massive" multiplayer experience as guild wars rage across the world map involving hundreds or thousands of players!



One of the coolest features in Heroes of Dire allows players to borrow fighters from their guilds and friends!

When building a squad to send into combat, you can pick fighters from friends and guild mates who have flagged them as "shared". Shared fighters are controlled by the AI unless their owner is online, and decides to jump in the battle too.

This system allows for multiplayer cooperative battles, so you and your friends could play through hours of quests, guild wars, and special Dungeon Master events together! Also, because battles can involve up to 32 fighters, you could have as many as 15 friends playing together in a single fight!



Guilds play an integral role driving the story and action in Heroes of Dire! Besides social and organizational hubs, they will wage war for dominance of the world map, with members winning prizes and benefits for capturing new cities, temples, roads, and relics.



Quests are a series of battles that take place in various maps against different NPC factions. Each step in a quest is increasingly more difficult, with an opportunity for random loot after every fight. Once completed, players earn Silvers and a powerful item as a reward. Quests may be bought and sold on the open market.



Each player will have a custom player title. In addition to looking cool, these titles help inform us of who is who in the community. Players sporting powerful or unique titles will stand apart from the crowd, lending weight to their obviously superior opinions and impressive physiques. Everyone will have the chance to earn new titles when taking part in special Dungeon Master events.

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