Welcome to Godsrule: War of Mortals! Once you’ve been introduced to the Midrealms and mastered the basics, it’s time to turn your thoughts towards crushing your opponents and winning the favor of the gods themselves.

Godsrule is divided cleanly between village-building and the PvP battle map. They both feed into each other, and you start out with village building (for more on basic village planning, check out this guide on our forums!). Eventually though, you’ll need to get your feet wet, and your sword red.

Sail Forth

As soon as you get a few buildings out – say a lumber mill, a mine, a house or two, and your first ruins cleared – it’s a good time to head to the battle map.  This is the source of the game’s action, and it’s also your best source of gathering Splinters: this resource is what you will use to upgrade your buildings and grow your village into a mighty war machine.

Of course you have to start small: PvP combat can have a steep learning curve, and a bad experience or two can make a game seem unfair or broken. We’re here to help! Here’s some basic steps and early strategy:

1. Ship Capacity

Every player in Godsrule has the same amount of ship capacity. Each unit takes up a certain amount of “population” space. As you play and unlock more units and spells, this will become one of your key pieces of strategy. Units have different strengths and weaknesses, and learning how to adapt will be a huge part of how you play the game.

For starters of course – and to keep things simple – you only have access to a few basic units. For both factions, this constitutes one melee unit and one ranged unit. The benefit of this is they are both low-cost units who you can load up your boat with, meaning your early strategy will be to swarm the islands you are fighting over.

Here’s a few early examples of how you can load up your boat:

For  both Keepers and Souls, the early game is similar: send in your melee units to swarm enemies, and keep enough ranged units to back them up and draw enemies away – either NPC or other players.

It doesn’t get simpler than this: 7 brutes and 7 drudges. Brutes have terrific capturing ability and can take some punishment. Drudges can’t take much of a punch but have splash damage and great range. For Keepers of the Ancient, it’s basically the same idea (7 Spear Guards — who excel at taking down creeps — and 7 Rangers). Experiment — early on and later on — to find what works for you, because figuring out an adaptable loadout can keep opponents guessing. This is just for starters.

2. Battle at Midgrove!

Head to the battle map, and head right to Midgrove. You can join any battles in progress if you feel like jumping right in to PvP — there are advantages to this as well, which we’ll cover later on. For now let’s just learn the basics.

If you’re starting a new battle, in a nutshell, you are trying to clear out creeps and grab the Relic as quickly as possible. Remember: Once you’re in a battle, up to two enemies – or up to one other ally – can join at any time. Early fights are gated against high level players attacking you, but help — or opposition — can show up at any point.

Inside a battle you have a “summoning limit”. Your summoning stone is part of this and controlling the additional summoning points – the yellow circles on the map – will add to this limit. To control a summoning point either your summoning stone or a unit need to stand on it.

A good strategy for your early PvP battles is a bit of lightning warfare: head in and grab that relic before anyone knows you’re there! Here’s a progression:

Basically you are working to isolate and clear creeps as quickly as possible. You will initially get about 2 units to summon. See what works for you, but one melee and one ranged works well. You can easily use strategies such as pulling and kiting enemies across the field.

Work on getting your units to engage creeps and then moving your Summoning Stone up to one of the additional summoning points — as soon as it occupies an additional summoning point, you can start sending in additional troops.

3. PvP And You

Of course, if another player shows up, you need to be ready to react. Your basic strategy can start out the same – go quickly for a summoning point and don’t get mobbed by creeps. Remember that other players start out with a summoning limit, too: if you have enough units out, you can quickly swarm them and attack their summoning stone directly. Once that’s gone, they can’t summon anyone else. And to start off, they can only summon one or two units, just like you.

Of course, eventually even the best laid plans will be attacked by a horde of well-armed Keepers or Souls. You may get drummed off the field a few times, but here’s a few things to keep in mind as you learn and adapt.

Intro to PvP:

• Disengage from creeps: they will attack whoever is close or attacks them, so let your opponent worry about them if at all possible.
• An opposing player entering a battle is going to quickly need to capture a summoning point or else have very little to work with. Try not charging them — rather, move to protect any free/vulnerable summoning points.
• If you already have troops ready to capture the relic, don’t be afraid to keep doing that. Force your opponent to have to think quickly as you capture more and more of your  goal!
• Don’t panic just because another player shows up. Especially if you have units already on the Relic, wait and read what they’re doing — if they try to swarm you at the Relic, you can charge right past them and take out their summoning stone, swarm their weakest units, or give up ground if you need to regroup your army.
• Those boxes that drop are often the keys to the match: they can increase your damage, heal you, or even instantly kill a random enemy. If you get into a match early, have troops positioned to grab boxes if an enemy shows up, and be the first to grab anything that drops!

This should hopefully give new players an idea of how to approach combat — from here, get into a comfortable pattern of upgrading your buildings, training your troops, and stalking the Battle Map.

Godsrule: War of Mortals – Follow Updates and Play Now

Godsrule will feature regular updates to content and gameplay, and there’s lots more on the way. Here’s where to follow us to find out more and stay up-to-date:

• Add us on Facebook: Updates, events, game art and screens, and more! Or if you prefer, Twitter.
• Join in the discussion: Godsrule forums on the SEGA forums
• Sign up and play right now: http://playgodsrule.com for the main site…
• …Or go right to the game at http://game.playgodsrule.com

Attention, Mortals!

We’re happy to announce that today our joint venture with developer Gogogic has entered full launch for PC Browser — Godsrule: War of Mortals has departed the shores of Beta to seek battle, glory, and riches!

Godsrule is a free-to-play browser-based game for your PC, featuring real-time combat and advanced village-and-army building.

To see more about the game you can head to the main site now: http://playgodsrule.com/

…Or jump right into the game at: http://game.playgodsrule.com/

To those of you who have been playing along in the Open Beta version of the game — or before — welcome to the release of our game, and thank you for helping us shape Godsrule with your mighty feedback and powerful support: the gods themselves would be proud!

To all our new Mortals: Welcome! Here’s a quick guide to the world of Midrealms…

Choose your faction

Build your village

Harvest resources, raise crops, and gather mana to raise up your own Sacred Tree — then train powerful warriors, and customize your spells and armies! Your village is of course your home base, and as you clear out the surrounding forrest you will encounter plenty of ruins where you can hone your skills in PvE battles. From there, establsh Clan Halls and Trading Posts to rach out to members of your faction: join forces and prepare for war!

Raise an army…

• Godsrule units are balanced in a strategic, non-linear fashion: each time you leave your village you will have a set amount of space on your boat.
• More powerful units take up more room (and of course take longer to train).
• Cheaper units take up less room, but tend to be more vulnerable. They also cost less to train — and can be trained much more quickly.
• All units have unique abilities (which can be further customized), and even the cheap units have unique strategic value: the lumbering Drudge causes splash damage with its attacks, for example, while the berserker Spear Guard can swiftly take down the many creep enemies you will find throughout the game.
• Likewise, any spell can swiftly alter the course of battle — fire, ice, and the ability to help your allies or even stop your opponents from summoning their reserves all come into play.

Destroy your enemies!

Godsrule features real-time PvP combat, along with the ability to fight challenging PvE battles to hone your skills. Customize and upgrade variable armies and build your village to best suit your needs: become a warlord through sheer combat prowess or a shrewd master trader! Unite your armies, bring glory to your factions — and rule like the gods themselves!
 

A Missive from the Gods…

We do have additional good news: with Godsrule moving from open beta to a full release, we have a few updates for all of you who have playing along so far — or who have been interested in joining:

• We’re happy to announce the game is now available in French, Spanish, and German– the language will auto-detect based on your browser settings. Enjoy — and welcome to our Mortals from around the globe!
• There’s now a ‘sale’ tab featured on the shop screen: check it out for regular news on deals!
• One gameplay note for our veteran mortals — the spell Radiance is now available at level 2, and Quicken is now available at level 6.
• For players who purchased any Orbs during the Beta period, your bonus orbs are on the way to you soon — we’ll keep you updated!

Godsrule: War of Mortals – Follow Updates and Play Now

 
Godsrule will feature regular updates to content and gameplay, and there’s lots more on the way. Here’s where to follow us to find out more and stay up-to-date:

• Add us on Facebook: Updates, events, game art and screens, and more! Or if you prefer, Twitter.
• Join in the discussion: Godsrule forums on the SEGA forums
• Sign up and play right now: http://playgodsrule.com for the main site…
• …Or go right to the game at http://game.playgodsrule.com

Meet your armies — or if you happen to be allied against the Souls of Ascension, meet the big blue brutal who will be slinging boulders your direction: here’s original concept art for the Gargan:

Commentary as always from Director of Game Design Egill Arnarsson:

The Gargan was actually supposed to be a fire giant and be on the Keepers of the Ancient’s team. Back then, it was called “Scorcher”. When we decided on faction colors and had fleshed out the game’s backstory a bit more, the Gargan switched sides. We couldn’t keep the unit red, so we changed it into an ice giant and adjusted its special ability accordingly.

The unit’s name comes from the word “Gargantuan” and back when it was a fire giant, the references we used was the chained giant from 300 and the fire giant form Age of Mythology.

 

Strategy: Ranged Glass Cannons

The bad news is … there actually isn’t a lot of bad news: the Gargan can take a beating (more HP than the standard blue unit, the Brute) and deals more damage than the first blue ranged unit, the Drudge. They even have a decent capture strength (the ability of a unit to capture the relic stone which is the objective of every battle). They do naturally cost more, and take a bit longer to produce, than other units. Some tips:

• Although they have a decent amount of health, don’t waste them at melee range. Use them like snipers to take out an enemy summoning stone or to support your ranged units. With a relatively low population of 12 (the amount of space they take up in your boat), you can easily pack a few onto any ship.
• They excel at sniping enemy summoning stones: they have incredibly long attack range and can easily pick off stones even as they flee.
• They also are one of the best ways for Souls of Ascension to deal with creeps: their range allows them to pick-off and pull enemies one by one, without engaging your main army.

 
Lastly, here’s the final artwork for the Gargan in-game: as you can see it isn’t a huge departure from the initial concept — fire golems would have been great, but for destruction ice is equally as great, and will suffice:
 

 

Godsrule: War of Mortals – Follow Updates and Play Now

Would you like to know more?

• Add us on Facebook: Updates, events, game art and screens, and more! Or if you prefer, Twitter.
• Join in the discussion: Godsrule forums on the SEGA forums
• Sign up and play right now: http://playgodsrule.com for the main site…
• …Or go right to the game at http://game.playgodsrule.com

Meet your armies — and your opponents: this week, we feature concept art and information on the Keeper of the Ancient who makes the bars go up, the healing-spec Chantress.

From Director of Game Design Egill Arnarsson:

The Chantress is the first Temple Keepers of the Ancient unit players unlock. She was always supposed to be a majestic healer, wrapped in fluttering garments and clutching a staff. Interestingly enough, the most puzzling bit was deciding if the unit should be a male or female – a Chanter or Chantress. In the end, ‘Chantress’ just felt right.

Strategy: More Healers, More Godsruling

While the Chantress’ heal ability is not especially powerful on its own, it can turn battles, particularly prolonged ones.

• They are an incredibly cheap unit: with a population of only 8 you can easily cluster a large number onto your boat, and their healing is more effective in groups.
• Likewise they present a targeting problem for your opponents: the Chantresses will go down easily, but opponents who target the Chantresses leave your other units free to react.
• In stand-off battles, you can force your opponent’s hand — cluster the Chantresses to heal up your units and Souls of Ascension, who have much fewer options for healing, may be forced to act.

Godsrule: War of Mortals – Follow Updates and Play Now

Would you like to know more?

• Add us on Facebook: Updates, events, game art and screens, and more! Or if you prefer, Twitter.
• Join in the discussion: Godsrule forums on the SEGA forums
• Sign up and play right now: http://playgodsrule.com for the main site…
• …Or go right to the game at http://game.playgodsrule.com

Today, a look at the Marauder unit from Godsrule: War of Mortals — including concept art and some background info, as well as a look at the unit in-game. The Marauder is a Souls of Ascension faction unit — if you happen to be loyal to the Keepers of the Ancient, don’t fret, we will return with concept art and tactics for your units as well!

Here’s what Director of Game Design Egill Arnarsson had to say about the unit’s look & feel:

The Marauder is the first swift Souls of Ascension unit players unlock. Originally, the Marauder was supposed to be a bat-wielding unit on a horse and called ‘Rider’. A while later, when we were happy with the distinction between the two factions, we wanted to make the unit a bit more chaotic, switching the bat out for a pair of daggers, removing the beard, and covering his face with a mask. The name ‘Marauder’ seemed to fit the description.

You can see the eventual look of the unit in action here:

Strategy: Speed and Swarm

The Marauder has two main benefits:

•  Speed: As mentioned above, this is the first swift unit Souls of Ascension. They are relatively cheap to produce and take up only 10 boat space — same as the basic melee unit, the Brute. Experts at controlling the battlefield with skilled maneuvering, the Marauder can race from one control point to another or help fight viciously in groups.
• Swarm: The special ability of the Marauder is to gain extra damage when next to allies, so there is a cumulative benefit to having multiple Marauders aiding the rest of your army — or each other.

Godsrule: War of Mortals – Follow Updates and Play Now

Would you like to know more?

• Add us on Facebook: Updates, events, game art and screens, and more! Or if you prefer, Twitter.
• Join in the discussion: Godsrule forums on the SEGA forums
• Sign up and play right now: http://playgodsrule.com for the main site…
• …Or go right to the game at http://game.playgodsrule.com

Greetings, Mortals!

We have a new update today for the Open Beta of Godsrule: War of Mortals. Below are the individual change notes.

Some highlights:

• First up: The introduction of a Leaderboards system! You can now track both your own bloody ascent up the Godsrule ladder in the individual player tracker, as well as your clan‘s power & influence with the Top Clans feature.
• The Tournament feature tracks the top clans over a shorter period of time, and resets every seven days – you can see who the best are at a given moment, whereas the Top 50 feature tracks All-Time ranking, showing you who the truly Legendary clans are. At this time the Tournament feature is only for bragging rights: if you want to know who‘s-who in the land of Godsrule, this is the place to check!
• Other news of interest: Previous units (Helwolf, Volatila, Spite, Growler) availble only for Orbs are now available for production with standard resources – it‘s time to wreak havoc!

Full change notes after the Helwolf.

Change notes:

• Added Clan Leaderboards to Battle Map
• Added Player Leaderboards to Battle Map
• Increased XP received from Territory battles and Ruin battles
• Added Special effects for Units & Spells (Bling!)
• Added Missing Improvements to Craft Tower
• Improved Balance of various Units and Spells
• Changed Growler, Helwolf, Spite and Volatilia to regular units, now costs resources instead of Orbs
• Fixed Error when following player in end combat popup
• Fixed Some descriptions for Units and Improvements
• Fixed Trade icon cutoff in feed
• Fixed Maurauder missing weapon
• Removed inactive Improvements from Craft Tower

Also: We would have a nice screenshot of the new Spell Animations, which look pretty cool and help you keep tabs on what you’re casting. But every time I tried to set this up Kicker and Richardbagg showed up and kicked the living tar out of me. So instead, that’s what you have a screenshot of.

Thank you, Kicker and Richardbagg!

Godsrule: War of Mortals – Follow Updates and Play Now

Would you like to know more?

• Add us on Facebook: Updates, events, game art and screens, and more! Or if you prefer, Twitter.
• Join in the discussion: Godsrule forums on the SEGA forums
• Sign up and play right now: http://playgodsrule.com for the main site…
• …Or go right to the game at http://game.playgodsrule.com

Every game has a story — it doesn’t matter if it’s an involved plot within the game, or just the ideas and forces that shape it. The narrative of games is both the background “story” and the everyday experience of playing the games. Seeing a game — in this case, Godsrule: War of Mortals — go from concept to creation is one of the great things about actually working in the video game industry. This is its own type of story, and to share that with you, we bring you this Developer Diary.

This blog arrives courtesy of Egill Arnarsson, the Director of Game Design at Gogogic. Here, Egill tells us a bit about the origins and story behind a game like Godsrule. Read on to find out more!

Dev Diary: Egill Arnarsson on Godsrule Story and Influences

Did you know that the 1980 top-down shooter Centipede had a backstory? The spaceship players are using to blast those rhythmic pixel aliens is actually an elf armed with a magic wand. He’s even supposed to have a cape on!

Although many might think – especially for a simple 8-bit game like Centipede – a backstory would be irrelevant, unnecessary, and simply overdoing it. No… not necessarily. A backstory is necessary for developers and players alike to experience a game on a deeper level, to make all the elements come together and form a world worth exploring – a world worth spending your time in. During the conception of a game, whether it starts off with just a rough concept for a game’s core mechanic or merely as an awesome title, a designer’s mind quickly begins thinking about the backstory. That’s where the magic comes from. That’s where everything comes from. That’s what explains why a feral grizzly bear is devouring a life-sucking demon. It’s the “excuse”.

Being an Icelandic game developer, Vikings and Norse mythology came naturally to Gogogic. It is in our blood (literally). The company’s first MMO, Vikings of Thule, bore evidence of that. So naturally, that also became the starting point for Godsrule: War of Mortals.

Originally dubbed Legends of the Old North, the story’s first version revolved heavily around Norse Mythology, Yggdrasill, Ragnarok, and even Loki. It was supposed to be set in a post-apocalyptic world, devastated by the events of Ragnarok. The setting for Vikings of Thule – which did a fine job of blurring the lines between realism and mythological fantasy – felt right at the time. During the early production stages of Godsrule however, it became apparent that people didn’t have much understanding of or feelings towards Norse mythology – not like we did.

After a few iterations, it became clear. The direct references to the mythic tales we love started to fade. We started fabricating our own world, weaving together strings of fantasy, the mechanics we had established so far, the artwork, and still, just a few from Norse mythology. We felt like we’d gotten Vikings and Norse mythology out of our system. In a sense, we were free again.

While referencing any mythology helps place a story and scope it up, the original rewrite was supposed to be a spin-off from the first war between the Asir and Vanir. But we wanted even more freedom, more fantasy, a lighter overall mood and fewer constraints. It wasn’t until right before the game’s closed beta that the backstory – with a magic touch from SEGA – finally clicked. It became the heart of the game, pumping out curious creatures and spells, oxygenating all the game’s different mechanics, and made the whole world come to life.

Godsrule: War of Mortals – Follow Updates and Play Now

Would you like to know more?

• Sign up and play right now: http://playgodsrule.com for the main site or go right to the game at http://game.playgodsrule.com
• Add us on Facebook: Updates, events, game art and screens, and more! Or if you prefer, Twitter.
• Join in the discussion: Godsrule forums on the SEGA forums

As we have mentioned, we have a game in Open Beta that we are quite proud of — Godsrule: War of Mortals. As we have also mentioned, this game is being developed by the fine folks at Gogogic — based in Iceland, this small development team has been working hard to craft a game where you battle over the fate of the Midrealms — a world torn asunder by New and Old gods.

Also did we mention Gogogic were based in Iceland? We  did, right? This becomes important because as it turns out the country was not named haphazardly. We received this message this morning from the Gogogic team:

“So we have a small snowstorm going on today, some people have not made it to the office, the police are asking everyone to remain indoors, every rescue crew has been called out to aid people stuck in traffic and such, we had a 20 car pile up and multiple other crashes, buses have stopped running, children that made it to school have to stay there as parents have been asked not to pick them up, so a lot of fun here in the land of ice and snow…”

I can’t personally relate to this ordeal — SEGA of America is based here in San Francisco, where the weather varies between a mildly balmy 68º F. and a slightly less balmy 59º F. However, many of us have seen snow on TV, where it is impressive, and I know several people personally who have touched it, and assure me it is quite cold. The photographic evidence we were sent (linked from this local news site) seems to suggest the toughness of Iceland’s Viking ancestry is not exaggerated in the slightest.

Iceland via Satellite:

Some slight traffic issues:

A minor reduction in visibility:

And oh yes — most everyone at Gogogic still made it to work, frosted beards and all. Just another day driving their ships to new lands, to fight the horde, and sing and cry.

(ps. Yes, we know we used the same image twice — once on the blog front, once in the article. We don’t care. That icebeard is terrific).

Part I: Saga of the Open Beta

We’ve introduced you to SEGA and Gogogic’s browser-based (and coming soon: tablet) free-to-play game, Godsrule: War of Mortals. We’ve posted a strategy guide and some general info to introduce you to the game, but let’s get into it: seeing this world come alive with players busy strategizing and building their armies and waging war – it makes a game into a living place, and it’s fun to see.

We Go To Gain a Little Patch of Ground

In Godsrule: War of Mortals, you build your village up, raise an army, and wage war over a chain of islands – all of which produce & provide additional resources to help your goal.

Your village exists in its own instance, where you build up different resource buildings and train your armies. This area is protected & you are free to develop it at your own pace – where the action happens is the battle map. Here, lands can be contested or dominated by either of the two factions – control of the land shifts to whoever has the most victories following a round, and currently, rounds last for 30 minutes each.

Fight like a Viking

While Godsrule has its own distinct mythology and backstory, it also has clear influences – developer Gogogic, after all, is from the land of the epic saga – and the game’s combat is woven through with traditions of Viking and Norse mythology, along with a wide variety of other fantasy genres.

Yes, this means you will be training great wolves, and mighty warriors, and cunning archers; the core of the game even involves the World Tree (which you are reclaiming shards of for your chosen faction of gods).

It also means you get to approach the game like a Viking. That doesn’t mean all fury and swirling battle axes, although yes, there is that too (although charging right into battle will get you killed, and swiftly). What it means is getting into the rhythm of the game — building your village, allocating resources for new projects, training an army, and venturing forth.

Your village is your home, and your sanctuary — think of what your’e doing in terms of lightning raids, taking your boat full of hardy warriors out into the unknown to join battles and make quick strikes against lands. Bring them under the sway of your faction, even for just a bit — either the Souls of Ascension or the Keepers of the Ancient — and collect the rewards. I’ve found the game to be a study in contrasts this way: the well-ordered planning of an efficient village rewards you with the right resources and armies at the right times, while on the battle map, the lightning-like guerrilla warfare, or the methodical brutality of a clan-run campaign, bring about lasting tactical advantages.

Over the next few weeks as the Open Beta progresses we’ll bring you core game concepts to help introduce the lore and strategy of Godsrule. Stay tuned for info on the game as well as the inside line on in-game events and updates!

We are happy to announce that Godsrule: War of Mortals has now moved into Open Beta testing!

SEGA’s joint project with Gogogic, Godsrule is a tactical real-time strategy/combat game where you will build up your village and raise an army, join a faction, and wage war against other players. Free to play and browser-based on the PC – as well as being in Closed Beta on tablets — Godsrule: War of Mortals has opened its gates to all for Open Beta on the PC – you can sign up right now at:

http://game.playgodsrule.com/

If you want to quickly get acquainted with some broad strategies – as well as more advanced tactics – you can also head over and check out the strategy guide:

http://playgodsrule.com/combat-guide/

This is your chance to take part in the active community and discussion which will help shape the game. You can follow our updates and help provide feedback in-game, on the official SEGA forums, or on our Facebook page:

http://forums.sega.com/forumdisplay.php?324-Godsrule-War-of-Mortals

https://www.facebook.com/playgodsrule