KickStarter SKALD: Against the Black Priory - retro RPG inspired by Ultima

[Tacgnol]

I don't remember that either though. I found for most of those checks you can click a different character portrait during the check and it switches to use their skill roll.

I don't mean making them leader either, you can do this in the middle of the dialogue in most cases. I actually did this to save that guy's wife during the dialogue skill check in Horryn in Chapter 2.

 

[TheDarkUrge]

This game is going to be great—they copied Divinity 2: OS's intro and I've already found a Skyrim reference. The devs are smart to copy greatness!

.
Can't wait to play this more

 

[Alienman]

I don't remember that either though. I found for most of those checks you can click a different character portrait during the check and it switches to use their skill roll.

I don't mean making them leader either, you can do this in the middle of the dialogue in most cases. I actually did this to save that guy's wife during the dialogue skill check in Horryn in Chapter 2.

Yeah, you can cycle with the key Q too, from what I remember. But I guess I might have missed a few ones that force the main character.

 

[Falksi]

I'm too early into the game to judge all the combat stuff, but I really can't agree with the complaints about the fonts. They're adjustable and here's how I set mine up...

I've no issue reading that at all. I think it's pretty cool tbh.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I don't remember that either though. I found for most of those checks you can click a different character portrait during the check and it switches to use their skill roll.

I don't mean making them leader either, you can do this in the middle of the dialogue in most cases. I actually did this to save that guy's wife during the dialogue skill check in Horryn in Chapter 2.

I was not aware of this. If this is true then that changes things in my 'review', and (exposes) another, lesser fault with the game: Lack of proper documentation. The tutorial is doing the best it can, but if that is the sole source of information for how the UI works (if the tutorial even mentions this) then we should have easy access to it.

I'll also admit that there were parts of the UI I simply did not bother with. Like the combat log, especially once I saw that I couldn't have it open and present on-screen during combat. As the saying goes: If you need to explain how the UI works, then it's not a good UI.

On that note, you guys are reminding me about a few extra things I wanted to point out.

# The fonts. Some of them are undeniably horrible to look at. But IMO enough options are available to make them work for almost everyone. I went with the dark brown background and a legible font that is not the one in the above screenshot.

# Pop culture references. The Skyrim-reference has been mentioned, but who spotted the Aliens-reference? Newt from Aliens is literally in the game as 'Cory', the little girl you meet in Horryn. She speaks Newt's lines perfectly, and is in the same situation as her. This is hammered home by the fact that the actress's name who played Newt is 'Carrie'.

# One of the lingering threads of the game I spotted: Did anyone have an encounter with the old witch's 'child'? I got a couple of messages that it was stalking me, but nothing more came of it.

 

[Tacgnol]

I was not aware of this. If this is true then that changes things in my 'review', and (exposes) another, lesser fault with the game: Lack of proper documentation. The tutorial is doing the best it can, but if that is the sole source of information for how the UI works (if the tutorial even mentions this) then we should have easy access to it.

Definitely agreed here. Nothing is very obvious when it comes to the UX/UI Design.

 

[baba is you]

# One of the lingering threads of the game I spotted: Did anyone have an encounter with the old witch's 'child'? I got a couple of messages that it was stalking me, but nothing more came of it.

It shows up as a text event, but it only happened once and I haven't seen it since, so maybe... The developer forgot about it or wasn't paying attention.

 

[Alienman]

Like the combat log

At least you found it. Did an entire playthrough and missed it

 

[Removal]

who spotted the Aliens-reference? Newt from Aliens is literally in the game as 'Cory', the little girl you meet in Horryn. She speaks Newt's lines perfectly, and is in the same situation as her. This is hammered home by the fact that the actress's name who played Newt is 'Carrie'.

There's an even worse one in the mines near the end of the game with the fish queen

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Because they're Ultima clones, and combat was never the focus

That's not a good argument. Ultima 3-4-5 were pushing the boundaries of tactical combat in their day, and then Magic Candle, Wizard's Crown, Bard's Tale, etc. came along and pushed it even further.

Now with all the benefit of those games behind you, there's no excuse to make a junky combat game. To be fair, I don't think the combat is bad or anything, it's perfectly functional. Mostly it gets by by being fast and the pace of leveling is quick. My complaints stem more from a lack of options besides spells*, and scaling and reward at the high levels. Balancing is hard though.

*though to be fair I avoided all the special moves for most characters in favor of extra damage/accuracy boosts or passives, since stuff like "normal attack but you also defend" or "heal 1d6 vitality" seemed useless.

The idea is that you can use any character for any roll... except that is not the case. Some skillchecks can only be done by the Main Character (for no reason) and when it comes to the intelligence-based skills this becomes a nightmare. As some of these checks come very early in the game, you'd have to make an arbitrary character-build just to be able to pass these few skill checks.

I don't remember this at all, being forced to use your main, I mean. Do you mean in the prologue, or very early game without a party?

A couple of reviews agree with UC here

They're wrong. Every skill check, once the skill check window pops up, you can click on your team members on the right and select who will make the check, AFTER the dialogue window closes. To be fair, this is non-obvious. I never found one single instance where I was forced into a skill check with my main dude.

 

[AdolfSatan]

How come all the Ultima clones insist on keeping the barebones/shit combat? That's the area you'd expect to see some improvements on after all these decades.

Because they're Ultima clones, and combat was never the focus. To be fair, Nox Archaist, Realms of Antiquity, and this all improve upon combat significantly. It's just ultimately not what these games are about. Meaningful progression and a sense of power are the most important aspects when it comes to combat.

My point is, if combat isn’t going to be the focus, then don’t feature it so much (as all reviews and complains in this thread are pointing out). The devs aren’t playing with the hardware limitations of the era and they have the benefit of having a ground to build upon, there’s no excuse for braindead AI nor lack of QoL improvements. Moonring is a good example of a modern Ultima clone done right, and I don’t think any of its modern peers should be subject to lighter expectations.

 

[Terenty]

CRT filter improves the picture quite a lot imho, so if anybody finds graphics too difficult to parse I suggest trying it out

 

[Falksi]

CRT filter improves the picture quite a lot imho, so if anybody finds graphics too difficult to parse I suggest trying it out

I love how the filter looks in general, but the curved edges put me off using it.

If it wasn't for them I'd be using it for sure.

 

[Nikanuur]

What's the deal with Mother Katak and her baby?
I mean, is that "solvable"?

 

[Lyre Mors]

That's not a good argument. Ultima 3-4-5 were pushing the boundaries of tactical combat in their day, and then Magic Candle, Wizard's Crown, Bard's Tale, etc. came along and pushed it even further.

My point is, if combat isn’t going to be the focus, then don’t feature it so much (as all reviews and complains in this thread are pointing out). The devs aren’t playing with the hardware limitations of the era and they have the benefit of having a ground to build upon, there’s no excuse for braindead AI nor lack of QoL improvements. Moonring is a good example of a modern Ultima clone done right, and I don’t think any of its modern peers should be subject to lighter expectations.

Listen, guys. I get it. I want more robust combat too. The point I'm trying to make is that if you're going into something "Ultima inspired," you're probably going to find that part of the "charm" aiming to be emulated is going to be a somewhat simple combat system as well. I'm not arguing that combat shouldn't always be pushed forward no matter the game in question. Of course that's what I want. I'm just saying that if I'm going into a game like this that's wearing its inspiration on its sleeve so evidently, I'm kind of going to be tempering my expectations thusly. Frankly, it seems we got an even more "tactical" and robust combat system than was even initially planned for this in the first place.

So in summation: yes, I always want my RPGs pushing the boundaries in terms of tactical combat. Do I always have that expectation, especially when its clearly not the focus? No. Like I said before, this game fails more in the fact that it dropped the ball in terms of satisfying equipment and character progression in regards to combat, which is the greater sin here. If you have a limited combat system you're working with, at least develop the systems surrounding it in more satisfying ways.

 

[Mortmal]

CRT filter improves the picture quite a lot imho, so if anybody finds graphics too difficult to parse I suggest trying it out

I love how the filter looks in general, but the curved edges put me off using it.

If it wasn't for them I'd be using it for sure.

Use reshade instead, use the settings posted in the thread earlier, unclick curving in the bottom options.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

What's the deal with Mother Katak and her baby?
I mean, is that "solvable"?

I'm realizing now that at no point is Katak's baby shown, we only read text descriptions of it.

Literal 'Unseen Horror'.

Maybe the combat can be resolved that way: Instead of a regular battle we just get a 'blow-by-blow' text description of it, a lá Bard's Tale.

Would make for a nice in-joke, but Skald isn't exactly a game about comedy.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Grampy_Bone There is at least one set of rolls that I recall only the MC being able to challenge.

Spoiler

in the sea cave under the lighthouse where you retrieve the dagger, there is a Lore 5 and Healing 5 skill check. Only my MC was permitted to make these.

 

[Tyranicon]

If you haven't already, consider turning off the trashmobs in the overworld. I didn't realize there was a setting for it until late in the game.

IMO, the combat doesn't get unenjoyable until the last half of the game, where you run into stack after stack of high HP enemies. Also there's low enemy variety and little variation needed in your tactics. Endgame battles are basically the same as early game ones, just higher numbers. This is unfortunate, as you spend a lot of your time in combat.

Since the most useful companion is semi-arbitrarily removed, I was stuck with a very unoptimized party. Battlemagos and Champion are basically trap choices. They're practically useless in combat outside of very niche situations (such as inferno spamming fire vulnerable enemies). Hospitaller is a goodafter combat healer but not very useful in dealing damage, and this is a damage race game. Armsmaster is amazing, Officer is even better, Ranger is top tier, and thief can be very good with backstabs.

Mages require this really finicky abuse of the crafting system to make a ton of potions, so they can spam a lot of cascade attacks per turn, but all those attacks are low damage. I feel like something is bugged.

I agree that the strongest custom party would probably be three officers and three rangers, provided you somehow get enough arrows because they churn through them. The easier tactic is probably to get six battlemagos and just spam inferno through the entire game, as I don't think I've come across fire-resistant enemies.

But I wouldn't fucking know, because the battle text is blink and you miss it, and I'm not checking the battle log every single turn.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Battlemagos and Champion are basically trap choices.

Agreed. The hybrids aren't well thought out. I went with Officer and it was fine, though the extra attack party buff comes so late in the game I forgot to use it most times.

I found Embla works great when you can target enemy weaknesses; I built her with fire and lightning + stacking every piece of Intellect gear I could find. If an enemy is weak to either damage type she hits pretty hard with lightning/fireball and almost always cascades once. But most times, again, not worth bothering with, I mostly used her turns to make Kat invisible to keep the backstabs running. Endgame enemies are all weak to holy ("sublime") damage which Driina sucks at.

I turned off trash mobs and encumbrance as soon as I started the game. Never going to convince me that dicking around with items in an inventory screen is fun or important gameplay.

 

[Decado]

If you haven't already, consider turning off the trashmobs in the overworld. I didn't realize there was a setting for it until late in the game.

IMO, the combat doesn't get unenjoyable until the last half of the game, where you run into stack after stack of high HP enemies. Also there's low enemy variety and little variation needed in your tactics. Endgame battles are basically the same as early game ones, just higher numbers. This is unfortunate, as you spend a lot of your time in combat.

Since the most useful companion is semi-arbitrarily removed, I was stuck with a very unoptimized party. Battlemagos and Champion are basically trap choices. They're practically useless in combat outside of very niche situations (such as inferno spamming fire vulnerable enemies). Hospitaller is a goodafter combat healer but not very useful in dealing damage, and this is a damage race game. Armsmaster is amazing, Officer is even better, Ranger is top tier, and thief can be very good with backstabs.

Mages require this really finicky abuse of the crafting system to make a ton of potions, so they can spam a lot of cascade attacks per turn, but all those attacks are low damage. I feel like something is bugged.

I agree that the strongest custom party would probably be three officers and three rangers, provided you somehow get enough arrows because they churn through them. The easier tactic is probably to get six battlemagos and just spam inferno through the entire game, as I don't think I've come across fire-resistant enemies.

But I wouldn't fucking know, because the battle text is blink and you miss it, and I'm not checking the battle log every single turn.

+1 to Armsmaster being a great choice. I have two dudes wielding two-handed weapons right now (Main character and the story guy that you get) and they are my reliable face-smashers. I have a thief who can do insane damage if I can set up a backstab, a ranger who indeed does burn through arrows, and the story-provided Hospitaller who is useful for healing and not much else.

I filled my empty slot with a mercenary that I specced into Guild Mage. I sent her down the fire path but I have to say, magic in general feels underwhelming because you burn through attunement so fast for what you end up getting in damage. I think if I had rolled another Armsmaster or an Officer, I wouldn't miss the magic at all.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.skaldrpg.com/2024/06/week-1-update-and-patches/

Week 1 Update and Patches​

What a week! Skald went live to sterling reviews from both audience and press! I’ve been working around the clock since then trying to onboard new community members, staying on top of social media and preparing todays Update (Version 1.0.4c). More info below!

Yesterday, we broke 500 reviews on Steam and we’re now “Overwhelmingly Positive”! As the name implies, I’m overwhelmed! Thank you to everyone who’s left a review – It means the world to me.



Due to the amazing momentum we’ve been building since launch, we’ve agreed to extend the launch discount until June 13th. So if you have this game wishlisted, consider picking it up before the summer starts (to help you keep out of the sun)!

Ask Me Anything​

Got questions? Today (June 5th) at 5PM CEST I’m answering an AMA on the CRPG subreddit! Feel free to check in!

Got Bugs?​

Do you have bugs?

Discord is by far my favorite community and it’s thriving and very helpful. We have FAQs there as well as a helpdesk and channels dedicated to feedback. If you have very serious bugs that stop you from playing the game, reach out to me personally in a DM in the Discord @SkaldRPG.

We also patrol Steam and GOG forums constantly so feel free to leave questions there.

Finally, please consider reporting to the Raw Fury customer support desk. All tickets there also get consolidated and sent to me.

Version 1.0.4c Drops Today!​

EDIT: June 5th at 4PM CEST we were made aware the the build broke saves. As a result we rolled it back immediately. We’ll sort the issue as fast as possible and make a new shot at updating tomorrow (I hope). I guess you can’t win em all

As I said, I’m working double time to patch bugs and act on feedback. I’ve also fixed more typos than I thought humanly possible. V. 1.0.4c drops today around 3 PM CEST and is the first in a series of updates intended to consolidate the game after launch. We’ll keep a rapid cadence for now with no more than 2d7 days between updates.

We will also be adding an experimental branch to Steam to have the community help us with a bit of QA if they want to. Keep an eye out – I will send out a formal invitation.

Version notes at the end of this post to avoid spoilers!

---

Thank you all so far! Want a sequel? Spread the word about this awesome little cult-game and consider leaving a review!

Have a great day!



Anders

—

VERSION NOTES (SPOILERS)​

=== Version 1.0.4a-c ===

FEATURES: The life-length of combat pop-ups can be adjusted under Settings -> Gameplay -> Combat Pop-Up Length [Needs Testing]

FEATURES: Whether to give XP to downed characters after combat is now a setting in Settings -> Difficulty -> “XP For Downed Characters”. It is now set to “Enabled” for all difficulties except High.

FEATURES: The recipes listed under and ingredients “Use in” entry are now hyperlinked.

FEATURES: When selecting new spells, you can see all the spells in the relevant school. The spells that are currently locked are marked with a gray padlock.

FEATURES: Feats that increases the tier of a spell school now lists all spell available to that school



MISC: Added some error checking to achievement setting

MISC: Fixed about 150 typos

MISC: Slightly improved mouse interactions with multi-tile prop hitboxes.

MISC: Made it so that spell aptitude increases both the min and max value of the damage / healing output.

MISC: Further worked on improving performance and limiting FPS-drops

MISC: Versioning no longer says pre-launch

MISC: Made the breath-holding puzzle under the lighthouse easier by adding 1 turn to the breath holding duration

MISC: Increased the Vitality provided by heal effects.

MISC: I made the ground tiled darker to improve readability and reduce bleeding.

MISC: Removed a few unnecessary uses of the “C-word”



BUG: Pressing the button ‘2’ while naming saves caused the dialogue window to close.

BUG: The Steam Cloud file was visible in the save folder

BUG: Dropping items on tiles like open doors or on tiles with hidden script triggers did not cause the “bag” icon to show.

BUG: Hospitallers could not use heavy armor

BUG: Some players had the game start fine and then made a save and quit. Upon starting again the game would hang after the logo reveal – before the menus loaded in.

BUG: Ilya in Firgol had “Hound” set as her race.

BUG: The issue with the two guards in the cellar under Oleg’s house should not be less pronounced

BUG: Some props (like trapdoors) were missing labels (names)

BUG: Tried again to fix item weight bug

BUG: Circle of mental restoration stunned targets

BUG: There was a formatting issue in the credits menu with the Raw Fury names (the tabulation was too big)

BUG: Selecting a new character with a potential level up while in the Feat screen did not trigger the level up pop-up

BUG: Certain equipable items (jewelry) would be tagged as stackable and equipping them would cause the entire stack to be equipped. These stacks should now be split up upon loading as non-equippable item can be tagged as stackable.

BUG: In some very narrow cases, if Iago was somehow knocked out in the Father fight, he would occasionally NOT spawn in the sea-cave after leaving the party.

BUG: Fixed a bug where the crafting station in the brewery in Firgol was boxed in.

 

[Mortmal]

https://www.skaldrpg.com/2024/06/week-1-update-and-patches/

Week 1 Update and Patches​

What a week! Skald went live to sterling reviews from both audience and press! I’ve been working around the clock since then trying to onboard new community members, staying on top of social media and preparing todays Update (Version 1.0.4c). More info below!

Yesterday, we broke 500 reviews on Steam and we’re now “Overwhelmingly Positive”! As the name implies, I’m overwhelmed! Thank you to everyone who’s left a review – It means the world to me.



Due to the amazing momentum we’ve been building since launch, we’ve agreed to extend the launch discount until June 13th. So if you have this game wishlisted, consider picking it up before the summer starts (to help you keep out of the sun)!

Ask Me Anything​

Got questions? Today (June 5th) at 5PM CEST I’m answering an AMA on the CRPG subreddit! Feel free to check in!

Got Bugs?​

Do you have bugs?

Discord is by far my favorite community and it’s thriving and very helpful. We have FAQs there as well as a helpdesk and channels dedicated to feedback. If you have very serious bugs that stop you from playing the game, reach out to me personally in a DM in the Discord @SkaldRPG.

We also patrol Steam and GOG forums constantly so feel free to leave questions there.

Finally, please consider reporting to the Raw Fury customer support desk. All tickets there also get consolidated and sent to me.

Version 1.0.4c Drops Today!​

EDIT: June 5th at 4PM CEST we were made aware the the build broke saves. As a result we rolled it back immediately. We’ll sort the issue as fast as possible and make a new shot at updating tomorrow (I hope). I guess you can’t win em all

As I said, I’m working double time to patch bugs and act on feedback. I’ve also fixed more typos than I thought humanly possible. V. 1.0.4c drops today around 3 PM CEST and is the first in a series of updates intended to consolidate the game after launch. We’ll keep a rapid cadence for now with no more than 2d7 days between updates.

We will also be adding an experimental branch to Steam to have the community help us with a bit of QA if they want to. Keep an eye out – I will send out a formal invitation.

Version notes at the end of this post to avoid spoilers!

---

Thank you all so far! Want a sequel? Spread the word about this awesome little cult-game and consider leaving a review!

Have a great day!



Anders

—

VERSION NOTES (SPOILERS)​

=== Version 1.0.4a-c ===

FEATURES: The life-length of combat pop-ups can be adjusted under Settings -> Gameplay -> Combat Pop-Up Length [Needs Testing]

FEATURES: Whether to give XP to downed characters after combat is now a setting in Settings -> Difficulty -> “XP For Downed Characters”. It is now set to “Enabled” for all difficulties except High.

FEATURES: The recipes listed under and ingredients “Use in” entry are now hyperlinked.

FEATURES: When selecting new spells, you can see all the spells in the relevant school. The spells that are currently locked are marked with a gray padlock.

FEATURES: Feats that increases the tier of a spell school now lists all spell available to that school



MISC: Added some error checking to achievement setting

MISC: Fixed about 150 typos

MISC: Slightly improved mouse interactions with multi-tile prop hitboxes.

MISC: Made it so that spell aptitude increases both the min and max value of the damage / healing output.

MISC: Further worked on improving performance and limiting FPS-drops

MISC: Versioning no longer says pre-launch

MISC: Made the breath-holding puzzle under the lighthouse easier by adding 1 turn to the breath holding duration

MISC: Increased the Vitality provided by heal effects.

MISC: I made the ground tiled darker to improve readability and reduce bleeding.

MISC: Removed a few unnecessary uses of the “C-word”



BUG: Pressing the button ‘2’ while naming saves caused the dialogue window to close.

BUG: The Steam Cloud file was visible in the save folder

BUG: Dropping items on tiles like open doors or on tiles with hidden script triggers did not cause the “bag” icon to show.

BUG: Hospitallers could not use heavy armor

BUG: Some players had the game start fine and then made a save and quit. Upon starting again the game would hang after the logo reveal – before the menus loaded in.

BUG: Ilya in Firgol had “Hound” set as her race.

BUG: The issue with the two guards in the cellar under Oleg’s house should not be less pronounced

BUG: Some props (like trapdoors) were missing labels (names)

BUG: Tried again to fix item weight bug

BUG: Circle of mental restoration stunned targets

BUG: There was a formatting issue in the credits menu with the Raw Fury names (the tabulation was too big)

BUG: Selecting a new character with a potential level up while in the Feat screen did not trigger the level up pop-up

BUG: Certain equipable items (jewelry) would be tagged as stackable and equipping them would cause the entire stack to be equipped. These stacks should now be split up upon loading as non-equippable item can be tagged as stackable.

BUG: In some very narrow cases, if Iago was somehow knocked out in the Father fight, he would occasionally NOT spawn in the sea-cave after leaving the party.

BUG: Fixed a bug where the crafting station in the brewery in Firgol was boxed in.

That style in that picture, that's what he should do in his next game, there's absolutely no reason to make it pixelated.

 

[Tyranicon]

Really good new features added, especially a setting for combat text speed and seeing spells on your skill tree ahead of time.

MISC: Removed a few unnecessary uses of the “C-word”

Not sure what this is though.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Really good new features added, especially a setting for combat text speed and seeing spells on your skill tree ahead of time.

MISC: Removed a few unnecessary uses of the “C-word”

Not sure what this is though.

No one knows, you cunt.