Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood

Something is rotten in the quiet medieval town of Senora. A mysterious Dark Brotherhood seems to have taken control over the town, and it’s the player character’s job to discover the identity of the villains and liberate the inhabitants.

Arcatera is a role-playing game. Much of the gameplay is dedicated to exploring the town and its surroundings, talking to people and gathering information that will advance the story. The player can choose to start the game as any of the four available characters: a fighter, a thief, a magician, and a monk. Besides influencing combat abilities, each of the characters also has his/her own background story. Combat is of the “real-time-with-pause” variety; the player must select commands from a menu to act in combat. The game has a developed conversation system, with NPCs having their own “moods”, which make them react differently to the player’s dialogue choices, and even losing patience and abandoning conversation altogether. It features 3D characters and pre-rendered backgrounds. There is a time limit of three weeks.