Wellspring: Altar of Roots

Wellspring: Altar of Roots is an upcoming tactical turn-based RPG that layers innovative mechanics atop classic role-playing elements, presenting a compelling, deep and mature storyline detailing the tumultuous history of a world and its continent. The idea of Wellspring has existed in a very basic, conceptual form for roughly 20 years, its primary emphases being on plot, lore and character development, as well as combat, customization and progression systems.

While it would be difficult to pigeonhole Wellspring into a single category of RPG, we wanted to extract from each genre its most compelling features. We've always been intensely interested in the mammoth plots and characterization of JRPGs, the spirit, freedom and exploration of WRPGs, as well as the challenging, yet rewarding combat systems traditionally found in tactical RPGs. Wellspring , in many ways, is a union of these fundamental, and yet sometimes disparate gameplay mechanics, the end result being what we believe is a very cohesive and novel experience relative to many existing RPGs. At Multithreaded Games, we aren't looking to churn out the same type of turn-based RPG we've all seen before, nor are we looking to ride on the coattails or imitate any specific game: we have a very unique take on nearly all of our envisioned systems, from combat foremost, to skills, crafting, bestiary systems and much, much more.

Featuring a deep, challenging and innovative turn-based tactical combat system, much of the tension revolves around the many ways in which characters can master the nuances of their available skills and equipment setups to best dispatch the highly intelligent enemies they will encounter. We do away with grid-based movement and allow the party unbridled range of motion upon the battlefield. Using its dynamic targeting and movement systems, the player can check the outcome of any action from any position. If an action appears, it can be taken and there is no randomness to suddenly snuff out what would be an otherwise strategically-sound decision. Whereas movement is a thin veil of complexity in many RPGs, positioning in Wellspring is of the utmost importance and can easily be the downfall of an ill-prepared party.

In addition to keenly positioning your characters, special care must be paid to the types of skills and number of turns spent charging required by each one. While a skill may be powerful, it might not be worth the time to charge it, but in other cases, quick jabs might give enemies time to build up their own devastating skills. To add another layer of strategy, skills can be executed in rapid succession against a single target to deal even more damage. Enemies, however, are perfectly capable and willing to exploit this to their advantage as well.

Plot progression is driven by a tightly-written and mythology-deep storyline that has been decades in the making and is codified in many short stories, maps, sketches and even its own wiki. Not only is the main story-line arc of the game solidified, but so too is the extensive history and setting in which the game occurs. Featuring a welcome return to navigation upon a true world map and a questing system urging quality over quantity, you'll join a maturely-written cast of characters and the stranger among them looking to maybe stave off the looming calamity… or unwittingly hasten its arrival.

We've played our fair share of role-playing games and grew up during what we would argue were the golden years of RPGs, churning out such behemoths as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy Tactics and many, many more. While it could be argued endlessly as to which one truly wore the crown, each one presented some embedded piece of wisdom. We hope Wellspring will go down as a worthy successor to the ideas presented in the many masterpieces that came before us. Having the resolve, knowledge, experience and passion to see the game through to its completion, we are more than equipped to make this desire a reality.