Realm of the Mad God

Realm of the Mad God
File:Realm of the Mad God title screen New.jpeg The title screen
Developer(s)	Wild Shadow Studios/Spry Fox
Publisher(s)	Kabam
Producer(s)	Kabam
Platform(s)	Adobe Flash, Steam
Release	January 2010
Genre(s)	MMORPG co-op shooting game
Mode(s)	Multiplayer co-operative Shooter

Realm of the Mad God is a massively multiplayer browser game originally created by Wildshadow Studios (acquired by Kabam in June 2012) and Spry Fox. It has been in public beta since January 2010 and officially launched on June 20, 2011.

The game has been described as a "massively-multiplayer cooperative bullet hell shooter" and done in a pixelated style. Players control characters who have been transported to the realm of Oryx (the titular Mad God) to become food for his many minions and abominations, which the players must dispatch. When all of the high-level quest bosses are dispatched along with more than 95% of monsters in a "Realm", Oryx will summon all player characters within the realm to his castle, where players must work together to defeat high-level enemies before finally facing Oryx in his Chamber and Wine Cellar. Central to the design of the game is the fact that character death is permanent. Upon death, the player's character is lost along with all carried equipment, although the player may store a number of items for safekeeping in an easily-accessible vault away from danger and possibility of death.

The game is free to play, and both paying and non-paying players have access to the entire game. Weapons, armor, additional vault chests, character slots, temporary stat boosts, and various decorative items can be purchased with real world money.

This game client is written in Flash and can be played in browser, or downloaded from the Google Chrome Web Store, on Steam, and on Kongregate.

Development

The game was originally created by Wild Shadow Studios for TIGSource's "Assemblee Competition"[1] in October 2009, which limited the competitors to a very small sample of art resources. It was noticed and garnered a small but loyal fanbase. The founders of Wild Shadows Studios met the people from Spry Fox a few months later at the GDC, and they worked together as the game went from Alpha to Beta testing in January 2010. It left Open Beta and was "Officially Released" in September 2012 [2].

Gameplay

The game consists bad players shooting projectiles from their weapons and destroying enemies to earn experience and equipment. A character moves around using the WASD Keys and using the mouse to shoot. After a certain amount of experience has been earned, the player levels up and his attributes are raised, allowing him or her to fight more powerful enemies. The maximum level a player can be is level 20. The player can then gain "fame", which eventually grants him permanent stars that show his accomplishment at the game to other players.

Contrary to usual practice in MMOs, the experience for killing monsters is awarded in full to each player present, rather than split. This, along with the possibility of teleporting to any player on the map instantly and at no cost, makes it very easy and attractive to team up.

Players begin their game sessions in the Nexus, a safe haven which can be teleported to at any time. In the Nexus, players may buy consumables using coins (purchased with real-life money) or fame and enter realms (i.e. game map instances present on the server). Each of these realms are named after mythical creatures. The capacity of each realm is 85 people at once, and nobody can enter a full realm until someone in it dies or leaves it.

As he plays, the player is directed to "quest" monsters indicated by a red marker at the edge of the game window. He is thus guided from the easiest "Lowlands" areas at the edges of the map, through the "Midlands" and "Highlands" until the most difficult area in the center: the God Lands, which host the Gods of the Realm (very powerful monsters). Dungeon bosses and special event bosses such as the Grand Sphinx, the Hermit God and the Pentaract, have a small chance of dropping permanent stat-boosting potions upon death. Accumulation of these potions allows the player to raise his character's stats to a class's maximum. "Maxing" characters is one of the main end-game goals.

Upon death, each character is rewarded with fame based on how well they performed, and how many bonuses they collected such as their accuracy over the character's life, how valuable the equipment they are wearing, and more. Fame acts as a scoring mechanism, but has no real function in the game. When a character dies, they leave behind a grave. The more maxed stats the character had, the larger the gravestone. If your character accumulates enough fame upon death, you may be placed on a spot on the weekly, monthly, or all time leader boards. Graves used to be lootable, but this functionality was removed.

There are 14 classes available: Wizard, Priest, Archer, Rogue, Warrior, Knight, Paladin, Assassin, Necromancer, Huntress, Mystic, Trickster, Ninja and Sorcerer. Players are only able to use the "Wizard" class when they first start playing the game. Additional classes are made available after reaching level 20 with other classes. Each class has its own weapon, armor and ability specifications, base statistic averages and statistic caps. For example, the Knight currently has the highest potential defense stat out of all of the classes and can only use shields, swords and heavy plate armors, while the Assassin, Rogue and Trickster have the highest potential speed(movement) and dexterity(rate of fire) statistics and only use daggers and hide armor.

Items are classified into tiers. Unlike levels of players, these can only be upgraded by finding an item of a higher tier. Different types of items (i.e. weapons, abilities or rings) have different ranges of tiers. When an item has a higher tier, it has higher stats. Tiers rank from T0 to T13 for items, T1-T5 for rings, and T1-T6 for abilities. Some items are un-tiered, giving them a unique classification. These items are typically one-of a kind, with examples including limited use items, very powerful weapons, and April Fools Day accoutrements. The best items appear in special bags that can only be seen and picked up by the player who dropped them. To qualify for these items, the player needs to deliver a minimum amount of damage himself to the monster.

The game features guilds, each allowing for a maximum of 50 players. A guild costs the founding player 1000 fame to name and create, and has a guild hall which can be accessed via portals in the Nexus or via the player's vault. Upon a member's death, guild fame is earned proportionally to the amount of fame that the player earned. Guilds can buy larger guild halls with the guild fame, with other options possibly appearing in the future.

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	85.6%
Metacritic	82/100

Review score

Publication	Score
PC Gamer (US)	89%

Realm of the Mad God received generally positive reception from critics, with a Metacritic rating of 82/100 and GameRanking rating of 85.6%.

External links

• Official website
• Official Forums & Wiki
• Edge magazine review