Mystic Land debuted with a playable demo, and yes, call me super interested.
Anyone who knows me knows that first-person dungeon crawlers are right up there as one of my absolute favorite RPG sub-genres. Throw in some old-school pixel art, and you’ve pretty much got the ideal combination to get me interested. Just a few days ago Underkeep made its debut as another very nice example of the genre that I still haven’t got around to playing. Yes, it’s there; it’s sitting there waiting for me.
But today I’ve got another one for you and me. Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo from MegaVision Software has just released a beta demo. If you’re like me at all and you’re a sucker for all the things that make the classic RPGs so good, then you might want to have a go at this one.
Anyone who ever spent ages wandering around dungeons, fighting rather recalcitrant monsters and attempting to work out how to get through a puzzle without having a walkthrough to hand might be interested in Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo, which has just released a free public beta demo of a forthcoming old-school RPG, a project which actually dates back to the early 90s.
The demo covers the opening playable area of the game (the Dungeon of Pity) and provides around one to two hours of gameplay. The devs estimate that this is around 1% of the total adventure. It was originally available via the studio’s own website whilst they were waiting for Steam approval and is now also available via Steam.
A Dungeon Crawler More Than 30 Years in the Making
I already talked about the development story of this project in a previous article but it’s good to keep it highlighted. Mystic Land has a very odd development history. It started back in 1993 with two mates who were teenagers at the time and decided to make their own fantasy RPG in the style of Wizardry, Might and Magic, Eye of the Beholder and Lands of Lore. It was quite ambitious and actually attracted the attention of Sir-Tech (the people who made Wizardry), but the project was ultimately shelved as the original creators went on to do other things.
Decades later, the original developers came across their old MS-DOS builds, their old sketches, their old maps, and their old design docs and decided to go back and remake the game. The end result is an RPG that’s attempting to capture the complexity and the exploration of the original inspirations, with a few modern conveniences thrown in.
Players assemble a party of six adventurers (choosing from various races and classes) and then go out into a fantasy world full of nasty creatures, hidden places and puzzles. Combat is turn-based, with character stats and skills intended to be very important in terms of progression.
One of the more interesting features of the game is its approach to exploration. You can switch between the traditional pixel-perfect 2D grid movement and a fully 3D environment with the press of a button. The demo also has a much smoother 2D presentation so you can experience the same adventure in a number of different ways without in any way losing the game’s very distinct retro feel.
As for the story, everything revolves around the disappearance of Maphaldo, a very respected member of the Noblai Nerkai royal family. Very shortly after he disappears, all manner of weird things start to happen all over the country. Skeletons and zombies start to come out of their graves, the usual supernatural creatures are out and about, the animals are going absolutely berserk and the forests are starting to rot. Of course, the question of whether Maphaldo has anything to do with all of this is one that the player’s party are going to have to find out.
While the developers have adjusted their launch plans several times, Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo is currently scheduled for June 30, 2027, with PC releases planned through Steam and GOG. The free demo is available via the Steam page and from the MegaVision Software site.
