elcome to the new home of Haven's Saga. I felt that a simple page attached to my own site didn't do the game any credit, so I have designed this new and wonderful site to offer information, and eventually downloads, during the development of Haven's Saga.

In all likelihood, you came here via the link on my profile, or perhaps you followed my e-mail signature, however, given the remote possibility that you have stumbled upon this page completely unaware of what you were getting into, let me just explain that this is the home page of Haven's Saga, a careful blend of old school console and modern cinimatic RPGs with a dash of PC style being produced with vecna's extraordinary roleplaying game engine, VERGE 2. Well, more specifically, Speed Bump's ever niftier port/rewrite, VERGE2.7. The game will be freeware, though donations to starving artists are always appreciated. Some day there will be a commercial version of this, and the other seven games, but for now, enjoy.

One thing you'll probably notice right off the bat is that there's no "plot", or "story" section. Yep, I refuse to give away any information regarding the game's gripping, epic drama.*
I will post character information, however, as you may already have guessed, I will not spoil any plot elements therein. (On that subject, did anyone else notice that the Xenogears manual actually gives away things that the game reveals only after 20+ hours of play?) Screen shots (of the non-spoiling kind) and music samples will also be posted as they are produced.

"But wait!" you cry. "How can you expect us to download your demo if you won't tell us anything?!"
Aww, ya' got me there... Well, okay. I will say this: the overriding concept of the game is realism. No, it's not a sci-fi RPG, and we don't try to explain magic as a scientific force, it's just a game that takes things seriously. Don't expect any legendary heroes or magic princesses on a quest to reclaim Excalibur/Masamune/Ye Olde Legendary Sword** and slay the generic evil dude. You still have your dragons and elves, kings and sorcerers, knights and knaves, and all the fun fantasy stuff, it's just taken seriously. Characters have strong motive behind their acts; Things exist for a reason, not just because they're there; The world has an actual political system, rather than a collection of scattered, independent towns and an Empire. In planning this game we drew from a great resource, a compiled list of all the cliches found in commercial RPGs, and we made a strong effort to eliminate as many as possible from the game, resulting, hopefully, in a better final product. We are quite aware that all the plots that exist have already been used, (things have been like this for quite a long time if you think about it) which is why our game focuses on the people, the way their lives are affected by what comes to pass, and the way they shape the future, and on the events themselves, rather than trying to stick to any plot formula.

Actually, I think Garth Algar said it best.
"I just hope you don't think it sucked."

-Charles Faraone (aka Devon), co-writer/composer/tile artist/VC coder/webmaster, Binary Symphony.


Game Features
  • Interesting cast of fairly non-stereotypical characters

  • Groundbreaking Well-Designed Game System™ which ensures that the game will actually be worth playing.

  • An epic plot that is not only well written, but is actually epic***, unlike, say, Final Fantasy VIII's.

  • Multiple gameplay modes, including psuedo-action sequences and large scale strategic battles.

  • Craft your own arms and armor. Combine elemental components to create spells.

  • Multiple difficulty settings, from Squaresoft to Nightmare

  • Grow your characters your way. Choose from character-specific skills and attributes that fit your play style.

  • Numerous Way Cool™ graphic effects in and out of combat. (Why? Because we can.)

  • Partially animated cinematic sequences with specific musical accompanyment.

System Requirements
Platform:Windows 9x. (Possibly NT, but not 2000 at the moment)
Processor:Minimum requirement: 233mhz Pentium. PII 400 or better strongly recomended.
Memory:The current build runs on 8megs.
Graphics:Requires 320x240 & 640x480 16-bit modes.
Sound:DirectX compatible soundcard.
Space:It's tough to estimate this early in the development cycle, but 50-100MB is a fairly safe range..

Supporting 320x240x65535 mode on your video card might be a problem, as it is an uncommon mode. Most older cards are capable of it, but may require SciTech's Display Doctor to access it. Newer cards that fully support VESA 2.0 should not have any problems however.

* Binary Symphony cannot be held responsible for any damages incurred by unhappy gamers flying into a blind rage after playing Haven's Saga(tm) and failing to find it gripping, epic, or dramatic.
** Ye Olde Legendary Sword, despite the misspelling, is a trademark of Carpcum. This is a very obscure joke, so if you got it, good for you. (Unless your name is Fritz, in which case you're probably cheating)
*** We define "epic" as meaning "of grand scope", whereas Square seems to define it as "handfull of characters save small world".
Haven's Saga, the Haven's Saga logo, and all character names and likenesses are trademarks of Binary Symphony. Any unauthorized usage will result in horrible, horrible mutant lemmings being sent to devour all that you hold dear.