Rage of Mages

Centuries ago the world was a safe and quiet place.
Then a disaster happened: a comet fell to the earth and threatened to destroy it.
The earth core split apart and the world was about to be destroyed.
The Great Mages worked hard for a solution and finally found they could bind the lands around their towers and thus create islands.
Now it is six centuries later and the Emperor himself orders 4 adventurers to his palace for a mission on the island of Uimoir. The goal of this mission is to find an item that might bring an end to the ungoing wars that have plagued the "Kania Empire".....

Rage of Mages is a top-down RPG created by "Monolith productions".
At the start of your game the court's magician transports you and your party to Uimoir.
When the game starts your main character will be alone somewhere on the island of Uimoir.
Your partymembers have somehow been transported to different parts of the isle and will join you later on in the game.
The island has as main centre a capitol called Plagat.
After each finished mission you will return to Plagat.

Plagat has three major buildings you can enter:
The shop where you can sell the items/equipment you'll find during your missions and where you can buy new armor, weapons, spells, potions, etc. At times you will also get a new mission from the shopkeeper.

Next you'll find an Inn in Plagat. Here you get most your information and missions.
Here you can also hire a new group of mercenaries before you start a new mission.

Finally you'll find a building with trainers for mages and fighters.
Here you can train your skills against payment.

The missions:

The game is made up of a series of missions you have to do.
Each mission takes place in a new arrea.

(Click on the picture to see a screenshot of the entire "screen" you will see during each mission)

On the right upper corner of your screen you will find a mini map of the arrea of your mission.
You can't walk around freely in this game on the island or the lands.
Instead you will start each new mission in a fixed arrea where you can walk around, fight enemies and solve puzzles.
After completing a mission you will be returned to Plagat.

Most of the times you will get multiple missions in Plagat.
Some missions are necessary to solve in order to be able to finish the game, others are secundary missions where you can get items, money or experience.
You don't need to finish these last missions, in order to finish the game.

Most missions mainly consists of fighting enemies, finding items etc.

Items:

In the shop in Plagat you can buy a large variety of armor, weapons, magic items and spells etc.
After each mission you are returned to Plagat and you can sell all items you found in the finished mission which you don't need, here first.
In the beginning of the game you wont have enough money to buy the more expensive armor, weapons etc, but later on your money will be sufficient to buy the more valuable armor etc.
Spells come in two kinds: as scroll, which can only be used once, and also as spellbook.
When you put the spellbook in the inventory of a mage and double click on the book, it will write the new spell in your mage's spellbook.
From that moment on your mage can use the spell whenever he wants.

Mercenaries:

Before you start a new mission you can hire a group of mercenaries in the Inn.
You can pick between archers or warriors and later on you can pick a mage, a manned canon and a group of lancers on horses.
When you hire such a group of mercenaries they become part of your party during a new mission and do a lot of your fighting for you.:)
The deeper you get into the game the more difficult each mission becomes and you will end up hiring more then one group of mercenaries.

(See complete screenshot by clicking on the picture)

Real Time Strategy RPG:

Rage of Mages is called a RPG/ Real Time Strategy game.
Which means that unlike the traditional RPGs, most of the game is made up of maps/missions to finish, where fighting and figuring out the best Strategy to beat your enemy make up most of the game.
There arent many (if any at all) puzzles in this game and you are unable to walk around freely/ adventure which made the game a bit of a disapointment for me.
The deeper you get into the game the harder the missions/ enemies and you will spend most your time figuring out the best tactic how to beat that next Dragon, group of orcs etc.

Multiplayer:

Rage of Mages can also be played as multiplayer game over the Internet.
You can play the game with up to 16 people.
Look for info/servers at Monolith's Rage of Mages site.

I wasn't able to find a walkthrough or solution for Rage of Mages on the Internet.
I wrote down some hints while playing the game, that may be helpful: Rage of Mages Hints

Links:

Rage of Mages The official Rage of Mages site.
Here you can find info, download a demo of the game, download a RoM level editor and new maps/missions.
You can also find a page here with servers where you can play RoM online.

GamesDomain This link takes you directly to a lenghty review of Rage of Mages by the Games Domain.

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