Today I’m releasing the first draft of Anima Prime: Resurgence, my follow-up edition to 2011’s award-winning action RPG inspired by JRPGs (like the Final Fantasy series) and anime shows.

The original Anima Prime game is kind of a toolbox: it has all sorts of powers from which you can freely assemble your character’s abilities. It doesn’t have advancement or non-conflict resolution, instead just focusing on the kind of action often seen in anime or JRPG cutscenes: characters building up their advantage with maneuvers, back and forth, until someone sees an opening and unleashes a powerful strike. That said, it can be overwhelming trying to get started with the game, as all of the options are available right from the start.

The Resurgence edition approaches this differently: characters have backgrounds, which tie them into the setting of the game, and professions. The latter provide some basic abilities, enough to get the character started. They also each have an advancement grid, so that as their game goes on, players get to make choices about how their character grows and which specializations and eventually mastery paths they follow. For example, one character might start as a martialist, then become a knight for their specialization, and then a dragoon for their mastery. Another martialist might choose to specialize as a Tactician instead, giving them quite a different approach, and then become a champion as their mastery.

The first alpha version only has the basic professions, and not much in the way of substance, but it comes with a 4,000-word demo scenario that walks players through the quick character creation, scene tests, conflicts, and advancement. I’m looking forward to getting feedback on the core mechanics and developing the game from there.

You can find the draft version on the Drafts page.