King of Dragon Pass has reached its 15th birthday now, and A Sharp has put it on sale for the 5 days to celebrate that event. King of Dragon Pass was revived in 2011 by A Sharp when it was given an update and released on iOS, Android and GOG.
King of Dragon Pass has the player take control of a Barbarian Clan and help it grow in the new area it has settled in. You have to assign people to crops, search the region, trade and of course raid your traditional enemies when it is safe to do so. Special events and quests take place throughout the game in a choose your own adventure style with text adventure and ‘painted backgrounds’ behind it. The games breadth of options while being easy to get into, and excellent writing made it a classic. Like far too many classics, it failed to sell well on release but over time, and especially with the rerelease and updates it has sold quite well.
The bigger news out of A Sharp is that they are working on a new game – a spiritual successor to King of Dragon Pass. Right now it is tentatively called Six Ages and is set in the world of Glorantha much like King of Dragon Pass is. The game is currently in early development and will feature many things similar to King of Dragon Pass such as resource management, small community challenges, and meaningful story choices that the original was so well known for.
It is currently planned for 2016 but given the state of development and the fact that A Sharp says that it will be a very ambitious project it may be longer before we see that happen. Also of interest is the fact that they have brought back some of the team that worked together back in 1999 to create King of Dragon Pass with David Dunham leading development, writer and game designer Robin D. Laws, artists Jan Pospíšil, and Pat Ward (Who is the only one who didn’t work on it mentioned but has numerous other credits.) They plan on bringing back Liana Kerr for QA.
There is a website available but it currently is blank with nothing but a link to the blog post with the announcement about the game.