Pharos is a 2D adventure RPG featuring turn-based battles with real-time elements and dynamic open-world exploration. The player assumes the role of one of the many captains exploring a chain of mysterious islands filled with relics, monsters, and locales that defy science and reason. It is the player’s job to assemble a crew, survive the islands' dangers, explore their hidden wonders, and sell their secrets to the highest bidder.
Players will begin their adventures in a small town at the edge of the world. The town will act as your home while you assemble a crew, equip them, manage contracts, and otherwise prepare to depart. Once the player reaches an island, they will need to utilize their crew’s professions, combat skills, and wits in order to survive long enough to find something worth bringing home. Once safely returned, the player will need to find a buyer offering a decent price for their stolen relics, trade goods, and other treasures. Every adventure incurs costs and turning a profit is just as important and slaying monsters. Completing objectives on each island and, most importantly, lighting every Pharos, will open up more island and content for exploration.
The islands are a bizarre mixture of incongruous biospheres divided by large stretches of open ocean. Some of the islands are naturally tropical while others are inexplicably frozen, suspended high in the air, sunless, arid, or marshy. The one consistent feature they share are the massive lighthouses, the legendary Pharos, that rise miles into the air and dominate the surrounding land. Few ever reach a Pharos in their lifetime but many speculate that an explanation for each island’s weirdness lies within. While the Pharos are rarely plundered, various ruins and tombs can frequently be found scattered across the islands. Each of these ruins is equally populated by monsters and relics, which are coveted by many. These relics are known to have mystical qualities and many have found their fortunes selling these artifacts to various archaeological societies, military research divisions, and criminal syndicates. Others have forcefully acquired their fortunes by exploiting their relic’s reality-bending powers.
