Cryptic Conjure is an open-world RPG from the same team that brought us MLB Champions and Crypto Emoji.
There is no current timeline for a public launch, but the game is playable in a demo form. Cryptic Conjure uses Ethereum as its in-game currency, and most items in the game are either ERC-721 or ERC-20 tokens.
This article will explain all of the most essential features of Cryptic Conjure; its storyline, progression, spellcrafting mechanics, dungeon features, combat mechanics, and more.
We’ll tell you everything you need to know to decide whether to try out the game as a beta tester or player.
Cryptic Conjure storyline
Cryptic Conjure takes place in the land of Kyra.
Hundreds of years ago, a powerful sorcerer named Cross tried to conquer Kyra. Cross was only stopped when his opponents created a magical law known as The Edict.
This law caused each spell to become weaker the greater the number of people who knew how to cast it.
Because Cross’ spells were gathered from many different groups of people, his spells became weakened, and he was eventually defeated.
However, the Edict remained in place long after Cross was defeated. And soon, some of the wealthiest inhabitants of Kyra learned to use it to their advantage.
These merchants bought up all of the Essences used to cast spells, restricting their supply and driving up their prices. Eventually, they formed the Iridium corporation.
This corporation is now the most powerful organization on the planet.
Meanwhile, a resistance has formed to fight against the control of Iridium corp. These rebels, led by a man named Killroy, try to gain as many Essences as they can. By doing this, they hope to weaken the power of Iridium.
The player character begins the game faced with a choice of which side to join. Should he fight for the Iridium corp. and help to maintain order or join the rebels and fight for freedom?
Or, should he help to free Cross, who even now whispers to the player character from an icy prison – promising great wealth and power?
Cryptic Conjure gameplay
Progression
In Cryptic Conjure, Game progression does not revolve around experience levels or gear. Instead, the goal of the game is to acquire Essences so that more powerful spells can be cast. This is done both by farming resources and by killing mobs in dungeons.
After a sufficient period of time has passed, a player can create a new spell that has never been seen before.
Along with the ability to use the spell, the player also gets 20 Essences. If the player sells one of these Essences to another player, the spell will get slightly weaker. If the player sells two, it will get even weaker.
Players will have to weigh the monetary benefit of selling knowledge of the spell against the force of the Edict shrinking its power.
Crafting spells
In order to craft a new spell, the player needs the spell recipe, spell components, and a Runic Altar.
Common recipes can be found on mobs or earned as rewards from quests. Recipes for more rare spells can be found by solving extremely difficult puzzles or even by following an alternate reality game (ARG) on the Internet.
Components are found through gathering or are dropped by mobs. These too, have different levels of rarity. Red Crysta is a common reagent used in many basic spells. It has a 10% chance of dropping from any mob.
Orange Crysta is used in less common spells, and is found on only 1% of mobs. Yellow Crysta drops on 0.1% of mobs, while Violet Crysta (the rarest component) drops on only 0.0001% of mobs.
Runic Altars are activated using an artifact that is a rare drop in the world. When a Runic Altar is activated, it only lasts for two weeks.
During these two weeks, a player can charge other players to use the altar or even sell the altar to another player. Each altar gives a different bonus to spells. Some are good for frost spells, others for increasing stamina, etc.
Dungeons
In Cryptic Conjure, dungeons are a common activity for players. A dungeon requires three players, but there are no traditional “roles” such as DPS, healer, or tank.
Most player characters are hybrids of these three types, so a team can be formed from any group of characters.
Each player has to select which spells to memorize from a limited number of spell slots before going into the dungeon.
So some players may specialize in a particular type of magic for a particular dungeon, but this specialization may change in the next dungeon.
Player characters also have a “stamina gauge” that regenerates over time. This gauge can be used to perform sparksteps (forward jumps), raise shields, or make melee attacks.
Players will have to decide on tradeoffs between attack, defense, and speed on a regular basis to escape the dungeons alive.
Controls
The player character can be moved left, right, forward, or backward using the keyboard A, D, S, and W keys. The character can be turned and camera angle changed by using the arrow keys.
You can also hold down both mouse buttons and use the mouse to turn the camera or make the character face a different direction. This is an alternative to using the arrow keys.
A spell can be activated by pressing the corresponding number key on the keyboard. This puts the character into “aiming mode.” While in aiming mode, you do not have to hold down both mouse buttons to turn the character.
Instead, moving the mouse automatically turns the character and aims the spell’s target. Pressing the left mouse button fires the spell.
In addition to these basic controls, you can also “sparkstep” (jump forward) using the spacebar, shield yourself with a magical field by pressing shift, and melee attack using the R key.
Cryptic Conjure demo
The team has released a playable demo of the game.
To play it, navigate to the official Cryptic Conjure demo page, then click the link that says click here to download. This will cause a zipped folder to start downloading.
When the folder finishes downloading, extract it. Inside is a subfolder called WindowsNoEditor.
And inside this subfolder is the Cryptic Conjure application file. Double-click CrypticConjure to load the application and start playing.
The developer has told us that the demo contains “several playable areas, the hub town of Rathe, and most of the backend economics” that will be in the final game.
In our testing, we found the melee combat tutorial (the room with the three scorpions) to be excessively difficult.
As a result, we were unable to get past it to enter the town or dungeon. But if you’re interested in playing Cryptic Conjure, you should try it for yourself and see if you can get past this part.
You can also watch this video to see the beginning of the game. The developer who is playing the game makes it look easy.
Cryptic Conjure team
Cryptic Conjure is produced by Lucid Sight, a veteran blockchain-game development team. Lucid Sight previously produced MLB Champions and Crypto Emoji.
It is also developing a blockchain-backed space MMO called Crypto Space Commander.
Prior to producing these blockchain games, Lucid Sight made a name for itself in the VR gaming world.
It published numerous titles for Playstation VR and Oculus, including Justice League VR, Run Gear VR, 405 Roadrage, Star Drive VR Coaster, and others.
Conclusion
It’s too soon to say whether Cryptic Conjure will be a fun game. Many features are not yet fully developed, and there will probably be significant changes to the demo over time.
But if you’d like to keep up with news about Cryptic Conjure, sign up for its Discord or Telegram groups. And keep an eye on this page. When major changes occur to the game, we’ll let you know about them here.
