Novus Inceptio

Novus Inceptio is a survival RPG set in the distant future of our planet. But the Earth is no longer the one we know today. The game blends sci-fi and fantasy with a touch of post-apocalypse, and one of its main themes is uncovering the truth about those who have stood behind everything since ancient times...

Even though it is a survival game, it is not a typical survival challenge. Survival stays more in the background, and the focus is on crafting, building and slowly making your own place in the world. It is a calm way of playing, closer to strategy and relaxing than to a fight for your life.

MAIN FEATURES

THE WORLD IS A WILDERNESS

The main world is a vast wilderness. The only fixed places in it are the Towers of the Creators, which you use to travel, and the place where you start. Everything else you build yourself, or find in anomalies. You can build anywhere. The world players know from earlier versions stays in the game as the Old World, and one character can play in both.

THE WORLD IS NOT JUST A DEAD BACKGROUND

You can interact with almost everything, from the ground itself to bushes, trees and your own buildings. No plant is just decoration. Want to pick a mushroom and eat it? Nothing stops you. Even an ordinary tree is not only a source of wood, it also gives you bark, leaves, branches or resin.

A LIVING ENVIRONMENT

Time flows naturally, day turns into night and the weather follows the biome. A sandstorm comes in the desert, a snowstorm in the mountains, and the forecast shows what is coming. If you stop for a moment and listen to the sounds of nature, you can tell which way a wolf is hunting, feel the wind picking up, or just let yourself drift with the music and the rustling of leaves.

CRAFTING AND MATERIAL BONUSES

Crafting is built on a complex inner logic, almost every part of the final item has to be made separately. The reward is unique items with material bonuses, because it really matters whether you craft from oak or from pine. Materials pass their properties on. If you don't want to dive into tables, a simpler mode fills in the materials for you. If you do, switch to the advanced mode and choose materials by their bonuses.

YOUR CHARACTER LEARNS BY DOING

The attributes and skills you actually use are the ones that improve. You don't pick a race or a class, you shape your own specialization by doing what you enjoy. Your character can be a man or a woman, with new controls and a third person camera.

AGEING AND GENERATIONS

Yes, your character gets older while you play and can die of old age. Then it moves one generation further. Ageing is our way of levelling up: age is experience and a generation is a level. There's no need to fear it, it's a natural progression that brings bonuses and better attributes.

COMBAT

Damage depends on your skill with the weapon in your hand, so specializing pays off. Creatures have a fixed strength by level, the same as equipment, and the stronger ones wait further out in the world and in anomalies. You can fight up close, with a bow, or without a weapon. A dodge gets you out of reach, and crouching lets you sneak past until they spot you.

BUILDING

Thanks to the modular system, the only limit when building your home is your creativity. If you're not sure, you can use ready-made houses. First you plan everything calmly, and only then the hunt for materials and the building itself begins.

FARMING

Around your house you can start a farm and grow crops for good meals, plant your own forest or bring a bit of exotic nature from other biomes.

ANOMALIES

The world is full of portals to other dimensions and times. In the chests inside you find rare rewards and above all recipes, without which you won't get further in crafting. But watch out for the dangers hidden there.

EVENTS

The game includes seasonal events, such as Halloween or Christmas.

SURVIVE!

At the start you find yourself in the middle of wild nature. Your equipment? A knife and basic tools. Luckily, you're not alone. You have a small personal robot, A2-A, which helps you and carries your things, but it won't do the work for you. Nature gives nothing for free, so you need to find food and warmth and prepare for the dangers hiding in the deep forests. Disease, injury or death are part of everyday life. Over time you learn the laws of this world and get ready for the next journey.

BUILD!

Home is the foundation of survival and of everything you build up. You build a house, a farm, and focus on one of many crafts. The building system uses modular parts: you plan everything first and only then gather materials for the build, which won't be easy. The only limits are the recipes for building parts, your creativity, materials and skills. Recipes for more parts are found in chests around the world and in anomalies.

CRAFT!

Do you like making things? Then you'll like Novus Inceptio. Crafting anything is a complex process where both your skill and the material you use matter. The system doesn't tell you exactly what to make something from, only what type of material is needed. Stone makes a stone axe, iron makes an iron one, and each part can be made from a different material. Even the type and hardness of the wood counts. The quality of your items grows together with your character.

EXPLORE!

It's not only about settling the world and surviving. A world full of life, danger and mystery is waiting for you. Dense forests, grasslands, dry deserts, tropical jungles, snow, swamps and the underwater world. You can set out on a long journey for rare materials, or for the truth about the real purpose of the restored planet.

BACKGROUND STORY

The dawn of gods

The Galaxy is a cold and hostile place, and the Creators know it. They have spent eons searching for intelligent life. They have not been unsuccessful. They protect several planets with advanced organisms by all means available. Life must not die out, they say. At the same time they understand the risks awaiting every civilization. Through discreet manipulation of foreign DNA and by adding information, they try to make sure no destructive genocide happens.

Rebellious believers

The Creators stood beside the human race from the dawn of its civilization. As gods, they quietly influenced its physical and technological evolution and the maturing of its mind. But nobody is perfect, not even gods. Instead of worshipping peace, humans turned to war and forgot about their gods. And the Creators? They realized their experiment had failed. They could not stop the fratricidal madness of humans. When their last messenger fell, they returned through a portal to where they came from. To another planet? Or to another reality? Nobody knows. What we do know is that they never stopped collecting information through the portal.

The end of the world

The human civilization went on for almost 2,000 more years. During this era nuclear fission was discovered and the whole planet was covered with the mushrooms of atomic blasts. The war was frightfully quick and effective. Those who did not hide in underground bunkers were hit by radiation and died. Of tens of billions, barely a few hundred thousand people remained. Without people knowing, the Creators received the news of the end of their world too. Outraged that anyone could be so irresponsible, they returned and wiped out the human race for good.

Human 2.0

The dead planet kept turning in space. Over millennia it slowly got rid of the deadly radiation. The Creators decided to start a new experiment. With samples of human DNA and the help of an endless database of information, they gave life back to nature. They also created new humans, Homo Novus. They released them onto the restored planet, but they no longer wanted to repeat their old mistakes. That is why every clone is accompanied by its own personal robot, A2-A.

Discover worlds!

A2-A is a guardian angel. It helps people, protects them and gradually passes on more complex knowledge. At the same time it watches the behaviour of its charge, so that the aggression that destroyed the previous civilization does not rise again. Even so, the system is not perfect. The Creators counted on that. They seeded the new planet with anomalies that let the clones travel back in time and learn from the mistakes of their ancient ancestors. And who knows, maybe the anomalies will take them to other dimensions too. Maybe then the new humans will spend their time discovering and learning instead of killing and destroying.

And the Creators? They are not leaving. They are analyzing data from tens of thousands of A2-As and waiting for the right moment to introduce themselves to their children in person.

ABOUT DEVELOPMENT

Novus Inceptio is developed by one person, McMagic Productions.